VATICAN - The Pope’s Angelus reflection: “The priest must be first of all a man who adores and contemplates the Eucharist, starting from the very moment in which he celebrates it. The validity of the Sacrament does not depend on the holiness of the celebrant but its effect for himself and for others will be all the greater the more he lives it with profound and ardent love and a spirit of fervid prayer”

Castel Gandolfo (Fides Service) - “As the Year of the Eucharist draws to a close I would like to return to a particularly important subject, which was very dear to the heart of my venerated predecessor John Paul II: the relation between holiness, life and destiny of the journeying of the Church and every individual Christian is the Eucharist. In particular, my thoughts today go to priests to underline that the secret of their sanctification lies precisely in the Eucharist.” Pope Benedict XVI said this in his Angelus reflection on midday Sunday 18 September at his Summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
The Pope continued: “Thanks to his Ordination the priest receives the gift and the duty to repeat sacramentally the actions and words with which Jesus in the Upper Room instituted the memorial of his Passover. In his hands this great miracle of love is renewed, a miracle of which he is called to be an ever more faithful witness and herald. This is why the priest must be first of all a man who adores and contemplates the Eucharist starting from the very moment in which he celebrates it. We all know that the validity of the Sacrament does not depend on the holiness of the celebrant but its effect for himself and for others will be all the greater the more he lives it with profound and ardent love and a spirit of fervid prayer”.
The Pope then mentioned some of the Saints “who drew strength to imitate Christ from daily intimate communion with him in Eucharistic celebration and in adoration”: Saint John Chrysostom, also known as “doctor of the Eucharist” because of his extensive and profound treaching on the most Holy Sacrament; St Pio da Pietrelcina “who re-lived the mystery of Calvary with such fervour as the edify the devotion of those present” when he celebrated Mass; St Jean Marie Vianney, cure d’Ars, “rendered that little town a model of the Christian community animated by the Word of God and the Sacraments”. Pope Benedict XVI ended his address invoking the material intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary for priests everywhere in the world: “that from this Year of the Eucharist they may reap the fruit of deeper love for the Sacrament they celebrate...and that they may always live and bear witness to the mystery entrusted to their hands for the salvation of the world”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 19/9/2005; righe 27, parole 379)