Eucharist source and summit of Evangelization

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CARDINAL NORBERT RIVERA

Ave verum Corpus natum de Maria Virgine. Today being Saturday, a day dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, we have just solemnly concluded the perpetual eucharistic adoration that was begun last Monday in some churches of this diocese of Rome, Caput Ecclesiae. This afternoon we shall celebrate Mass together and tonight the youth will prepare through eucharistic adoration to live more fully the eucharistic celebration with which the Holy Father will bring to a close this 47th International Eucharistic Congress.

On this day dedicated to Mary, our Mother in heaven, let us prepare to live the Lord's Day. With her let us greet the Body of her Son who died on the cross for our sins and who rose for our salvation: Ave verum Corpus natum de Maria Virgine.

In 1531 the Blessed Virgin appeared on the Hill of Tepeyac in the City of Mexico. She appeared to a native Indian who was worried about the future of his ailing uncle. A sec-ond appearance was made on a Saturday. Mary asked this native Indian something hu-manly impossible: to build a shrine in which her Son would be worshipped and through it to show and give all his love and compassion of the Mother. Despite the difficulties that lay ahead for him, Juan Diego lovingly obeyed and went to tell the bishop of the Holy Virgin's request. He was listened to, and Mary in a third apparition on Sunday promised finally to give Juan Diego the sign that the bishop had asked for in order to believe him.

This story contains a theological truth concerning the interplay of human weakness and divine greatness. Mary shows herself always as the loving Mother who leads her children to praise and love God. The weak and poor human being approaches fearfully in his awareness of the Lord, but divine love goes to meet him and generously helps him. Mary is the maternal expression of divine love, the way and bridge across which God's love is accessible to people, whose weakness is no barrier to God. Mary is, moreover, our best guide in bringing us to God's love revealed in the Eucharist.

2. EUCHARIST, MYSTERY OF ENCOUNTER

In the Eucharist we experience the mystery of the encounter between weakness and hu-man limitation and God's love and omnipotence. We experience this especially on Sun-day, that day on which another great encounter is renewed and realised, namely, that en-counter of the Risen Jesus with weak, diffident and sinful persons, represented by the Apostles who had wept at their Master's death, lamenting that he seemed to be de-stroyed.

3. SUNDAY, THE DAY OF ENCOUNTERING THE LORD

Sunday is the day when Christ changed the fear of the disciples in encountering the real-ity of his resurrection into a uniquely firm certitude. It is also the day of encountering the Holy Spirit who communicated to them the vitality of missionary zeal. They became aware of this in an atmosphere of prayer together with the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we do likewise. These occasions of encounter are relived every Sunday at the celebration of the Eucharist.

Sunday Mass responds to a desire of Christ who told us: "Do this in memory of me." The eucharistic memorial offers the opportunity to encounter and relive that moment when God shows himself most near to humanity. The incarnate Christ becomes bread, gives himself as food, transforming himself into the real nourishment of mankind, that enduring nourishment for eternal life. In feeding on the Lord there comes about the most profound encounter between God and the creature he loves. God who gives himself as food feeds human beings.

3.1 GOD SEEKS TO BE CLOSE TO HUMANITY

The Sunday Eucharist is above all a special moment of God coming close to humanity:
So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?"
The details described in this passage of the Gospel happened on a Sunday. Christ - God who became man for love by taking flesh of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who died and rose again - here presents himself to human beings in the breaking of bread, which is a sign that bestows his grace and the memorial of his passion and resurrection. Christ gives himself as food. Two disciples come into contact with Christ and celebrate the Eucharist with him. They rose up from this meeting strengthened, filled with enthusiasm and de-termined to proclaim to others that Christ has risen; they longed to share their experi-ence; for this experience filled them with hope that overcame the sadness they were en-during. These men who felt cheated now become transformed into being witnesses. That Sunday, the day of the resurrection, became thus transformed through encountering Christ and impelled the disciples towards putting into effect their apostolic mission.

In the Sunday Eucharist Christ's promises are fulfilled: whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. The disciples of Emmaus remain in him; they take his love and his memory to the other apostles.

The Mass relives the Paschal Mystery, which is that privileged moment of God's revela-tion to humanity. It accomplishes the same transformation as the encounter of Emmaus. It is a real and transforming encounter that strengthens Christians with a newfound en-thusiasm to proclaim and bear witness to the resurrection. The Sunday Eucharist offers a profound opportunity to encounter the Lord in whom God comes close to human beings in his Word and in the flesh of his Son.

In that encounter Christ is really present. The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ in his Church, in the world. From Pentecost, Christ's presence in the Church, and in a par-ticular way in the Eucharist, is more effective than his existence in Palestine, because, being glorified, he pours out the gift of the Holy Spirit through his continual intercession before the Father. The Holy Spirit brings us now to Christ at the heart of the Church; and by his intercession before the Father Christ continually obtains for us the gift of his Spirit. We can see this reciprocal action of Christ and the Spirit above all in the Eucharist. Here (in the prayer called epiclesis) we ask that the Spirit may transform the gifts of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; but this Christ, already present among us, will be the one who will abundantly bestow the Spirit as a Gift.

This encounter enables us to meet the Son of God in his sacrifice. In the Eucharist we do not find only the person of Christ, but rather we meet him in his same redeeming sacrifice in order to make it our own and to offer it to the Father in his name, gaining thereby for the world all the grace it needs.
At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, Our Saviour instituted the eu-charistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Bride, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacra-ment of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.

The Eucharist is a sacrifice because it re-presents - makes present - the sacrifice of the cross in such a way that Christ's sacrifice and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one and the same unique sacrifice.

Christ's sacrifice is above all a gift of the Father who sent his Son to reconcile us with him. But at the same time it is an offering of the Son of God made man who freely out of love expresses his obedience to the Father to make up for our disobedience. His love unto the end invests the sacrifice of Christ with its value of redemption, reparation, sat-isfaction and expiation.
The Sunday Eucharist is also a memorial. Christ instituted the Eucharist as a memorial of his sacrifice of the cross. The institution was set in the context of the Paschal meal shortly before he died on the cross. Participation in the Paschal meal was realised by eating a lamb that had been immolated in the temple. At the Last Supper, taking the bread and wine of the ancient feast Christ relates these elements directly to his body and blood, which were immolated for us on the cross. He gives these elements to his disci-ples, saying: This is my body, this is my blood. If he had given them a mere symbol, he would not have really made them participants of the new feast sealed with his blood. The Hebrews never participated in the Passover through a mere symbol, but rather through consuming the victim (the lamb) that had been immolated in the temple. Christ is the vic-tim who gives himself as food.

The Eucharist is food for our journey of life; it is the fountain of grace that makes the di-vine life present in the soul; it proclaims that through it eternal life is discernible as real and attractive. Jesus shows himself in this encounter with us as the bread of life that sat-isfies forever and gives eternal life. God comes to meet us as the food of eternity.

3.2 HUMAN BEINGS COME CLOSE TO GOD

The whole spiritual treasure of the Church is contained in the Holy Eucharist, that is, the person of Christ, our feast and living bread, which in his living and life-giving flesh through the work of the Holy Spirit gives life to human beings, who in this way are invited and encouraged to offer, together with him, them-selves, their work and all created things.

The Sunday Eucharist provides a privileged opportunity for human beings also to come close to God. To the invitation of Christ, who becomes present in his word and in the bread and wine, human beings respond with an attitude of faith, hope and love.

By faith Christians offer their assent to God who reveals himself in the greatest act of love, the giving of himself. By faith they grasp the true meaning of that which they are living: the unbloody immolation of Christ for our salvation. Only faith enables us to par-ticipate in this mystery that surpasses our capacity to penetrate. Faith orientates the en-tire approach of being human to Christ who comes to meet us as the food of eternal life. The Eucharist presupposes faith and strengthens it, and, at the same time, it is - as the artist Raphael intuited so well in his fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura - the centre of the Church's life. In faith we discover the new manna and the new covenant in the flesh and blood of the Lord, from which the New People of God, the Mystical Body, comes to birth. So faith reveals the mystery of encountering God in the Eucharist and our close bond with the children of the same Father. This engenders Christian love and the Church's moral teaching, which is based on the love of a God who became man and gave himself for our salvation.

Hope is another fundamental aspect of this encounter between human beings and God in the Eucharist. The Eucharist opens up to us an appreciation of the universal destiny of being human. The bread and wine changed into the body and blood of Christ are a pledge of eternal life and proclamation of the final resurrection to come, to which we look forward. At the Sunday Eucharist Christians find the greatest guarantee that Jesus Christ left them about the fulfilment of his promises. His body and his blood nourish our hope. This is no empty hope; it is not some myth of eternal youth, but rather a transcen-dent openness to a blessed eternity in God. The Eucharist gives to hope the strength of realising our potential even in our weakness; it strengthens us to undertake our journey of responding to God's promise-invitation.

The deepest encounter however takes place in love. The Eucharist makes Christ present in the community. It gives vitality to those who bring the Good News and who bear wit-ness to Christ in the world. It sustains the love with which they struggle to establish his Kingdom. Love is the most sublime reality of our encounter with Christ. The love of God supports our hope and gives us courage to bear the burden of human suffering. Eu-charistic love is the same as that love of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit - the love that awaits a response. Christians find themselves with God in the Eucharist through love. From eucharistic love they draw the energy to love God and give them-selves over to fulfilling his will, which is a sign of genuine love. From the Eucharist our response of love comes to birth. The Eucharist nourishes our response of love. It accom-panies and motivates this response of love. Christians find God in love through the Eucharist in which the Lord makes himself the food for our life.

4. SUNDAY, THE DAY OF MEETING OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE CHURCH

The Eucharist gives life to human beings - the life of the spirit. In the same way as the fact that biological life received from the same parents transforms human beings into brothers, the Eucharist, which enlivens Christians, unites them in an invisible bond that originates from the body of Christ that they receive.

From the Eucharist the Church is born. The institution of the Eucharist is the key mo-ment in a series of acts by which Christ was laying the foundations of his Church, which would continue his work among people. If Christ came to establish the new People of God who would continue the history of God's Chosen People, Israel, he did this above all at the moment of instituting the Eucharist as the sacrament of the new and definitive covenant. The ancient people of Israel were established through the covenant that God made with them; this was symbolised in the rite that Moses carried out in sprinkling the blood of animals over the twelve stones that represented the twelve tribes of Israel and over another central stone representing God. While doing this, he said: This is the blood of the covenant. Now Christ established the new People of God on the basis of the new and definitive covenant that he sealed with his blood, saying: This is my blood of the covenant which will be poured out for all so that sins may be forgiven. Luke and Paul speak of the new covenant in connection with the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the new covenant that God sought to establish with his people.

The Eucharist, as the Church's centre and heart, symbolises the ordering of its different gifts and functions shared in her. All do not have the same role or function in the Eucha-rist, because all do not have the same function in the Church. Some are members of the body of Christ and as such bring their gifts to the Eucharist and offer them together to Christ the Priest and Victim. Others, on the other hand, re-present the person of Christ as Head of the Mystical Body to make his sacrifice present on the altar. These are the apos-tles and their successors, as well as the priests whom they have chosen as co-workers. The community united under the holy ministry of the bishop manifests the symbol of that charity and unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, without which there cannot be any sal-vation. Christ is present in every Christian community celebrating the Eucharist; through his power he brings about the unity of the Church.

The fact that Christ is the Head of the body means two things: that from Christ the entire vitality of his body flows down to his members, and also, that he is the centre of the Church's decisions and united purpose. All members of the Church are united in the same body and in one and the same blood. The Eucharist builds up the Church and the Church continues to celebrate the Eucharist, making it available here and now for the life of humanity.

5. CONCLUSION

The great Jubilee of the year 2000 is an intensely eucharistic year. In the environment of the Eucharist there comes about a strengthening and renewal of persons, families, par-ishes, associations. The Jubilee Year is a very opportune occasion to draw close to this inexhaustible fountain of interior life with constancy and to draw from it all its riches.

The Jubilee is above all a time of conversion, that is, of returning to Christ. The turning away from sin and penitence should enable us to focus our hearts on Christ present among us in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the goal of the Jubilee, the place of encoun-tering God and our brothers and sisters.

May Mary, the Mother of the Lord, lead us by the hand to her Son and guide us during this Jubilee pilgrimage!

Cardinal Norbert Rivera
Archbishop of Mexico City

* This talk was given in the Basilica of St John Lateran on the afternoon of 24 June 2000. English translation by the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Con-gresses..