The role of the Pontifical Committee and of the National Delegates or Committees

Fr Jesús Castellano Cervera O.C.D.

Introduction

The Eucharist is at the centre of the Church’s faith, celebration and life.
Inasmuch as it is a mystery of faith, it refers to Christ in the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection, which is at the centre of the Church’s faith. The Eucharist is even at the centre of the Church’s sacramental celebrations, “source and summit of its sacramental life” (cf. SC 10). It communicates the divine life, while shaping the attitudes of the lives of both priests and the faithful, and it invites them to live in conformity with the mystery they celebrate.
This centrality of the Eucharist derives from the very fact that Christ, who died and is risen, in his paschal mystery is at the centre of the faith and life of the Church. It is in the dimension of sacramentality that the Church is Christ’s body; in virtue of baptism all the baptised are united with Christ, the Head; but he himself nourishes, gives increase and makes the Church his Bride grow in his communion and mission by means of the sacrifice and sacrament of his Body..
For this, in the ecclesial tradition the indissoluble link between the Eucharist and the Church is expressed in different ways. The well-known expression of H. De Lubac: “the Eucharist makes the Church, the Church makes the Eucharist,” points to this indissoluble relationship. The Eucharist indeed makes the Church the Body and the Bride of Christ. And it is the Church, through the ministry of Bishops and priests, that brings about, realises the Eucharist… But in both cases it is Christ who makes the Church by giving himself in the Eucharist and it is Christ in his ministers who celebrates and brings about the reality of the Eucharist.
Every day the Church comes to birth and is reborn in the eucharistic celebration throughout the world, and it is Christ himself who offers himself to the Father and to us in the eucharistic sacrifice in the unique sacrifice, by bringing about the reality of this wonderful unity in the Church, which is not yet fully perfect, but journeying towards it full realisation on earth until it reaches its fullness in the Fatherland.

The one unique Eucharist, celebrated by believers in Christ, at one with the fullness of faith and hierarchical structure of the Church, in accord with what the Lord himself wanted, realises that wonderful unity which is itself symbolically represented in communion in the unique Body and in the unique Spirit.
It is at the centre of the particular churches, either in the Eucharist presided by the bishop, as a sacramental icon of the particular church (SC 41, LG 26, CD 11) or in the legitimate celebrations of different gatherings, especially in parishes when priests gather the faithful together as a family of God (SC 42; LG 28).
The importance of this view of the Eucharist at the centre of the universal Church and of particular churches, throws light on the specific role that the Pontifical Committee for Eucharistic Congresses has in the context of the Church’s life. This role consists in making “ever better known, loved and served our Lord Jesus Christ in his eucharistic mystery, as centre of life of the Church and of its mission for the salvation of the world” (Statutes art. 2).
In the light of these initial reflections, we would like to propose in this talk some guidelines of the recent Magisterium about the Eucharist in the universal Church and in the particular churches, and to point out as a consequence some tasks that should be carried out in accordance with the Statutes of the Pontifical Committee, tasks that lead to the fostering of eucharistic worship.

I. THE EUCHARIST IN THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH AND IN THE PARTICULAR CHURCHES

1. Some guidelines from the Magisterium of Vatican II

The mystery of the Eucharist is at the centre of the teaching of Vatican II on the Church. Even though this theme had not been dealt with in a specific document, as had been done at the Council of Trent, the Eucharist is like the leaven of the ecclesiology of Vatican II, from SC to GS, being treated obviously in those central documents such as LG, DV, and in the Decrees CD, PO, PC, AG, UR... This is not the place to draw up a list of Vatican II’s eucharistic texts. Paul VI, who during the same Council felt the need to publish on 3 September 1965 an Encyclical on the eucharistic dogma, Mysterium Fidei, desired that the Council’s eucharistic teaching would be given integral expression, such as we find presented in the Instruction Eucharisticum mysterium of 25 May 1967.
We shall limit ourselves here to gather together some of the essential teachings of Vatican II on the Eucharist and the Church.

The centrality of the eucharistic mystery in the Constitution LG appears clearly already from paragraph n. 3. Speaking of the Son’s work and recalling the mystery of Redemption the Council affirms both the representation of the eucharistic sacrifice and also the reality of the Church’s unity: “As often as the sacrifice of the cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch is sacrificed’ (1 Cor 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out. Likewise, in the sacrament of the eucharistic bread, the unity of believers, who form one body in Christ (1 Cor 10:17), is both expressed and brought about.” [Eng. Trans. in Flannery, Vatican Council II. The Conciliar ad Post-Conciliar Documents, p.351]
The same document refers again to the Eucharist when it speaks of it as the ecclesial symbol of the Mystical Body: “Really sharing in the body of the Lord in the breaking of the eucharistic bread, we are taken up into communion with him and with one another. ‘Because the bread is one, we, though many, are one body, all of us who partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor 10:17). In this way all of us are made members of his body (cf. 1 Cor 12:27), ‘but severally members one of another’ (Rm 12:5).” (LG 7) [Flannery, p.355] The Eucharist is a sign and cause of the Church’s unity. The same notion is taken up again in n. 11, in speaking of the organic structure of the priestly people of God: “Taking part in the eucharistic sacrifice, the source and summit of the Christian life, they (the faithful) offer the divine victim to God and themselves along with it. And so it is that, both in the offering and in Holy Communion, each in his own way, though not of course indiscriminately, has his own part to play in the liturgical action.” [Flannery, p.362] This notion was already expressed in a previous paragraph (LG 10) regarding the exercise of the priesthood of the faithful. Paragraph 11 goes on to state: “Then, strengthened by the body of Christ in the eucharistic communion, they manifest in a concrete way that unity of the People of God which this holy sacrament aptly signified and admirably realises.” [ibid.]
In regard to the eschatological dimension, the Eucharist appears again in two other important paragraphs of LG, in which it is related to the universal Church. In LG 48 it is stated that the Christ of glory with the nourishment of his own body and blood gives the faithful a share in his glorious life. In LG 50 mention is made of sharing in the communion of saints by means of the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice.
These references to LG sufficiently show the centrality of the eucharistic mystery in the universal Church.
There are other texts that more explicitly refer to the particular churches, which celebrate the Eucharist and realise themselves as legitimate churches in communion with the one unique Eucharist. Thus for example we find the principle expressed in LG 26 and 28 regarding the eucharistic calling to become Church, that is, an ecclesiology having in the Eucharist its sacramental principle.
In paragraph n. 26, referring to the particular churches and the office of sanctifying pertaining to the bishop, it is stated in fact that the Church is present. It seems to me that this text – one of the most beautiful of the document Lumen Gentium regarding the description of the mystery of the particular church and the eucharistic parameters of this ecclesiology – highlights some fundamental ideas:
- The profound bond between the Church, the ministry of bishops and the Eucharist, the fullness and bond of communion between all the churches.
- The affirmation of the qualitative identity between the different churches in which the “Church is present”, according to the ecclesiological terminology of the New Testament.
- The connection between the sense of the particular church and that of the concrete liturgical gathering, by means of that “legitimacy” coming from communion in the same faith and same sacraments. Here there is the concrete realisation of the particular churches insofar as they are communities participating at the altar, under the sacred ministry of the bishop, in their fundamental richness which makes them churches, namely Christ’s presence, even if they are poor, small, or existing in scattered areas of the world. All this is thanks to marvellous point of reference, the Eucharist, which makes the Church, in which the particular churches form one, holy, catholic and apostolic “Church”. The one Church that becomes Eucharist in the fullest sense of the word, that is, Body and Blood of Christ, through the transformation of the assembly in that which receives from Christ that very reality which he gives to gain possession of the Church his Bride and Body. Indeed, according to St Leo the Great’s richly evocative text, that is cited here: “the sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ has no other effect than to accomplish our transformation into that which we receive."
Even here there is explicitly stated a principle of eucharistic ecclesiology, which opens, according to Catholic doctrine, the way to the communion of all the Churches in the same Eucharist and in the unity of faith presupposing a communion of the unity of the ecclesial-eucharistic ministry of the Successor of Peter.

2. The beauty of the particular Church around the Eucharist

This manner of approaching ecclesiology has a fundamental importance for all the faithful, who are called to experience the Church as the milieu in which they live out the history of salvation in circumstances of their daily lives. Here they discover that fullness of divine reality and the significance of communion, which is the presence of the Lord and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, a moment when the people of God is sacramentally constituted.
The strong meaning of the expression; “the Church is present”, indicates a newness in the manner of presenting its mystery. A particular church is not only a portion of the Church that lacks something to be fully Church; it is Church because the Church is present in it. That is: it is totally Church, even if it is not obviously the whole Church.
The elements constituting what make it a Church around the sacramentality of the ministry of the bishop can be summed up in the following fundamental points expressed in the ecclesiology of the New Testament:
The preaching of the Gospel as a presence of Christ and his word; a word that is also that which makes the Church. The Church is born above all from the Word; it is “a creation of the Word” by the life-giving breath of the Spirit. The Church, in fact, begins to be church, a community of those called together through the Word of the Gospel; it is formed by the proclaimed word, which is welcomed in faith, a word that is continually preached, as the Acts of the Apostles teach us ( Cf. Acts 2: 42 ff.). Through this there is also an initial presence of Christ the Word in the life-giving power of the Spirit.
The mystery of the Lord’s Supper or Eucharist that makes the Church. It is Christ who is indeed the Head and the Spouse of the Church, and the Eucharist is the sacramental memorial of his death and resurrection, and the liturgical memorial, in which the glorious Christ is rendered present in his Church, gives concrete expression to the act recapitulating his whole existence, which remains always in heaven in order to be rendered present here on earth. It is the Lord who makes the Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
This synaxis, concretely present even in small, poor, dispersed communities, presupposes and engenders life according to the theological virtues: faith, hope and charity, that is, Christian existence which nourishes communion among the faithful and impels them towards realising their mission; it is a eucharistic communion that engenders a eucharistic mission.
In these three signs mysteries, Word, Eucharist, community, the three original characteristics of being Christians-Church must not be forgotten. They are visibly connected to the invisible presence of the Master and his Spirit: the word and the life of the Gospel, the mystery of the Lord’s Supper, the charity and unity of hearts by means of the same faith and same hope. Everything is entrusted to the work of the Spirit’s power.
Vatican II depicts this, in a beautiful synthesis, regarding the manner of being Church and of acting as Church at a level of the experience of communion and of the requirement of bearing witness wherever possible.
Such a vision presents a message, that looks towards, justifies and is the basis, but also expresses the fundamental requirement of every community and of every group which wishes to live the dimension of communion in the Universal Church and local church. This is an ecclesiology that highlights communion in its essential aspect, namely, the Christological and sacramental authenticity of being a church in the Church.
To this dimension of the particular church understood as a diocese, one cannot fail to add the perspective set out n. 28 of Lumen Gentium. Here the image of the priesthood is outlined in its liturgical and pastoral features as expressing communion with the bishop and it is described with these moving words that are a source of commitment and priestly spirituality, which is marked with the seal of the Trinity, and which contains eucharistic-ecclesial and also anthropological and social features: “Exercising, within the limits of the authority which is theirs, the office of Christ, the Shepherd and Head, they [priests] assemble the family of God as a brotherhood fired with a single ideal, and through Christ in the Spirit they lead it to God the Father.” [Flannery, p.385]

We should add, finally, to give a complete account of references to the eucharistic ecclesiology of the local church expressed by Vatican II, that it states that the Oriental Churches have as a hinge “the eucharistic mystery, source of the Church’s life and pledge of future glory. In this mystery the faithful, united with their bishops, have access to God the Father through the Son, the Word made flesh who suffered and was glorified, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And so, made ‘sharers of the divine nature’ (2 Pt 1:4), they enter into communion with the most Holy Trinity. Hence through the celebration of the Eucharist of the Lord in each of these Churches, the Church of God is built up and grows in stature, and through concelebration, their communion with one another is made manifest.”
This is a fine paragraph that adds, as already stated, the eucharistic-trinitarian dimension of the particular church and an evocative affirmation regarding a continual building up and growth of the Church by means of the celebration of the Eucharist.
As has been pointed out, the doctrine of Lumen Gentium has been the basis of the definition of the particular church expressed in Christus Dominus n. 11, which became also the text of the Code of Canon Law in the concise statement contained in can. 368. This number reads as follows: “Particular churches in which the one and only catholic Church exists, are principally dioceses…” And the next canon, c. 369, makes explicit reference to the words of the Council: “A diocese is a portion of the people of God, which is entrusted to a Bishop to be nurtured by him, with the cooperation of the presbyterium, in such a way that, remaining close to its pastor and gathered by him through the Gospel and the Eucharist in the Holy Spirit, it constitutes a particular Church. In this Church, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ truly exists and functions.” [Eng. Transl. The Code of Canon Law, Collins, London, 1983]
In this description of the particular church what is noteworthy is the place given to the Eucharist in the ministerial function of the bishop and his presbyterate, in the missionary communion of Christ’s faithful, who constitute a part of the people of God, with the vitality of the Gospel preached and lived, and with the power of the Holy Spirit. This is as it were an application of the conciliar words of LG 26.
I am underlining at present only the centrality of the Eucharist.
The centre of the particular church’s ideal communion is the celebration of the Eucharist, presided by the bishop, or by priests who are in communion with him. The centre of the Church thus is Christ and his paschal mystery, from which is born and from which we can say the Church is reborn each day, because it is Christ who makes the Church – the eucharistic presence of Christ in his paschal mystery, in recapitulating everything in his being and action.

In a concentrated manner the Eucharist is the presence of Christ and of his paschal mystery, and of all that flows from this mystery: the new covenant, the remission of sins, the gift of the Spirit. But it is also the form of the Church’s life; the Eucharist moulds a Church that must live like Christ as an oblation to the Father and in giving itself for the service of all its brethren. It is for this that Christ gives to the Church his Body, so that the Church may become sacramentally and existentially his Body. And in the wonderful wedding feast of the Eucharist, the Church offers to Christ his Body in order that he may take possession of it and make it fruitful, and be able to be present and working in his Church.
Here is how the local or particular church becomes through the Eucharist the Body of Christ present in the reality of our bodies, of our tasks, of our life. This implies there is a pressing need to live together, to act together in the diversity and richness of the Body, but ever together in the unity of inspirations, programmes, according to the will of Christ, which cannot be other than the salvation of all and of each one.
As J. Ratzinger has put it, the centrality of the Eucharist consists in the fact that being the Lord’s Supper a founding act of the Church, ever referring to the glorious cross a memorial of the redeeming death and life-giving resurrection, it is situated at the very heart of the life of the Church, which thereby lives in eucharistic communities. They above all realise the mystery of the Body of Christ.
Of this eucharistic Church in its dynamic force, the eucharistic celebration offers the image of the being and the duty to be. Being and having to be – as it is in the dynamism of the celebration – means that the church is a gathering called together, a holy though sinful people; it is a church that listens to the Word, that preaches in the light of the signs of the times, that professes an orthodoxy of faith, that makes universal intercession, that expresses praise, offerings, reconciliation and mutual peace. It is a church that becomes one body and one Spirit in the eucharistic communion and is scattered – without being disintegrated – throughout the world to which it brings the Eucharist, as it eucharistises society. This is a Church that fosters the meaning of being a society in the style of the Gospel, offering its presence as a gift, because insofar as Christ is Eucharist for the Church, the Church is in its turn Eucharist for the world: presence, offering and gift, communion, transformation, seed of eschatological hope.
It is all this in the splendid affirmation of the celebration carried out in mystery through the variety of ministries, which point to the variety of tasks in the community living in the manner it celebrates, living what it celebrates. This then is the Church made by the Word and the Spirit from Christ in the gift of the Eucharist, and obviously, even though we have not emphasised this point here, of the other sacraments that make the Church.
The presence of the Gospel, the centrality of the Eucharist, the action of the Holy Spirit, the ministerial function of the bishop and presbyterate together with deacons, the vast body of the presence of consecrated religious and laity, all these features clearly show how Christ himself is the Head and Spouse of this his Church, which is his Body and Bride, and how he is at the centre of the life of every particular church; these aspects also show how he calls his Church to be in a certain sense his mystical Body, and also in a tangible way his real and historical body.
From this understanding there thus arises the need for a spirituality of communion that has in the Eucharist its source and summit.
In recalling the essential things making the Church: the Holy Spirit, Gospel, Eucharist, we have an awareness of this vast coming together of mystical aspects in a particular church. But also, in virtue of the Eucharist itself that turns it towards the universal Church, even its limited aspects make it open to communion and mission.
The Church of Christ is present and operative. It has his identity and his mission.
It is fully a church, because it lacks nothing essential to be the people of God. It has Christ, the Spirit, the love of the Father and hence the fullness of the Trinity. It possesses the Gospel and the sacraments. It is the communion of those who believe in Christ united and gathered in faith, hope and love.
But it is not the whole Church. First of all this is because no church, though being one, is not unique. It remains in communion and in unity with all the holy churches of God, in the “communion of saints”, that is, a communion in the holy things and persons of heaven and earth. But it is not yet the whole Church that it should be if one realistically looks around and sees that there are in it so many empty places at the eucharistic table, to which all are invited by the Father.
Here is why in the experience of the fullness and limits of the particular church and in every legitimate eucharistic gathering, ministers and faithful pray in communion with all the holy churches scattered through the world, sister churches making up a unique body, a unique people. They pray for all those who are not yet in the Church, that universal sacrament of salvation, to which they are destined and entrusted.
A particular church starts from its experience of the Eucharist to bring, by means of the word and life, the Gospel that it has heard and the Eucharist that it has received. It must become missionary with evangelisation and catechesis, bearing witness and exercising that charity, rich in creativity and inventiveness, which works in order to make Christ present.

3. Some needed comments of clarification about the Letter «Communionis notio»

At the end of its clarification of questions relating to some values and limitations of the ecclesiology of communion and eucharistic ecclesiology, the Document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Communionis notio, rightly wished to specify some aspects of the fullness and limitations of the particular church in reflecting on how these questions correspond to an authentic Catholic perspective.

According to the document there is a positive way of speaking about the relationship between the universal Church and particular churches in the Eucharist: “Ecclesial communion, into which each individual is introduced by faith and by Baptism, has its root and centre in the Blessed Eucharist. Indeed, Baptism is an incorporation into a body that the risen Lord builds up and keeps alive through the Eucharist, so that this body can truly be called the Body of Christ. The Eucharist is the creative force and source of communion among the members of the Church, precisely because it unites each one of them with Christ himself.. (Cf. LG n. 7).
Hence, the Pauline expression the Church is the body of Christ means that the Eucharist, in which the Lord gives us his Body and transforms us into one Body, is where the Church expresses herself permanently in most essential form. While present everywhere, she is yet only one, just as Christ is one.”
In the concept of a Catholic ecclesiology it is the unique Eucharist that calls us to the unity of the one Church and not to a fragmentation of so many churches. And it is the reference to the one Church desired by Christ that always turns us towards the one Eucharist, which is fully realised in communion with Peter and the apostolic College, as finds expression in the Eucharistic Prayers of the Catholic Church.
It would not be in accord with the eucharistic unity desired by Christ to establish only a transversal communion between sister churches without reference to the Successor of Peter; for he is a sign of unity between all the churches, which celebrate the Eucharist according to the truth willed by the Lord, as presence, communion, sacrifice in communion with the same Spirit and in the same body, but united to the sign of the eucharistic unity that the Successor of Peter also is in the Church.
There is need to point out, thus, the ambiguity of notions regarding a certain eucharistic ecclesiology of communion that do not underline this requisite reference to the sign, basis and principle of the visible unity of the Church.
So, for example, the Document “Communionis notio” puts us on guard against the concept of a particular church that presents the communion of local churches in such a way as to weaken at the visible and institutional level the concept of the unity of the Church. In the words of the Document: “Thus it is asserted that every particular Church is a subject complete in itself, and that the universal Church is the result of a reciprocal recognition on the part of the particular Churches. This ecclesiological unilateralism, which impoverishes not only the concept of the universal Church but also that of the particular Church, betrays an insufficient understanding of the concept of communion.”
Indeed, to correct a narrow ecclesiology that is not open to communion and universality, there is also a very important and illuminating statement. No-one in the Church is a stranger, especially where the Eucharist is celebrated in the Church. Each member of the faithful, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist, must feel at home in his or her Church, regardless of whether or not he or she belongs to a diocese, parish or particular community where the celebration takes place. Every person in fact, although belonging to a particular church in which he or she was baptised or lives, belongs, in virtue of being related to Christ and to the one Church, in some way to all the particular churches, where he or she shares in the life of Christ, especially in the Eucharist, which cannot ever be a celebration closed in on itself, but open to the universality of the children of God.
In a recent study on eucharistic ecclesiology, inspired by the orthodox theologian N. Afanassiev, that passed then into the theology of I. Zizioulas and J.M. R. Tillard, it has been rightly noted how such a theology must cross three thresholds in order to be authentically eucharistic and thus Catholic. These three are, among others, the three limitations that are crossed in a vision of the Eucharist that does not restrict its fullness to the particular church, but opens it up to universal communion.
Thus the risk of what we may call eucharisticomonism, that is, a radicalising of everything in a unique Eucharist and in a unique eucharistic celebration, is overcome by an openness to the word, ecclesial evangelising, reference to baptism and the other sacraments, as well as to the source of grace and commitment. The Eucharist is the starting point and term of the whole rich diocesan and parochial vitality.
The danger of what we may call episcomonism, must be avoided: this approach, typical of a certain description of the pre-Nicean Church, tends to centralise everything in unus Episcopus with his presbyterate and deacons, before the faithful in a particular place. This danger is averted either by the vision of episcopal collegiality, communion with the other churches, unity in Petrine eucharistic ministry, or by welcoming the diversity of ecclesial, historical charisms, which the Spirit bestows on the Church..
Finally, what we may call a certain topomonism, radicalises the fact of the concrete and cultural situation of the particular church and parish. It is overcome through a vision of the “eumene” of the universal Church in the relationship between the individual and the multitude of believers.
But it is clear that these misleading notions of eucharistic celebration, the concept of the episcopate, and the emphasis on the local church in communion, are overcome in an openly Catholic vision of the ecclesiology of communion and of the eucharistic ecclesiology.

4. From the particular Church to the parish

The theological dimension of the particular church throws light on the truest reality of the parish, which is the place of becoming neighbours, close to home, according to the etymology of the word (“para-oikos”). In realty, in it are concentrated some of the characteristic aspects of the eucharistic ecclesiology that are at the basis of the description of the particular church.
The Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles laici gives a privileged place to the parish as the main environment of the presence and communion of the laity. It exists before other concrete forms of personal and collective sharing in the Church, before whatever priority that can be boasted of by other groups or lay associations. The reason is evident. No other reality can boast of the “ecclesial theology” pertaining properly to the parish, and hence of the objective theological and spiritual richness that the parish enjoys. In fact, this document offers, perhaps for the first time, a theology of the parish that applies the ecclesiology of Vatican II, where reference is made to the particular church and to its falling visibly within the local community about the altar. Here are some features of this concrete ecclesiology, the essential lines of which we have already outlined.
The parish is the most immediate and visible expression of the reality of the Church; it is the ultimate expression of the Church, thus it is in a certain way the Church itself living in the midst of the homes of its sons and daughters.
Without quoting its source, paragraph n. 26 of Christifideles laici clearly makes its own the theology and language of paragraph n. 26 of Lumen Gentium, which traced out a magnificent theology of the local church, that is, of every legitimate assembly forming a church in which the Church is made present. In fact, this number uses the same concepts employed in LG which speaks of poor, small or scattered communities, in all of which, however, Christ is present making the Church one, holy, and catholic. It is a community that finds its greatest expression in the Eucharist, which embraces the Word that gathers together, the communion of the faithful, Christ’s presence and his paschal mystery.
One can speak thus of the ecclesial “mystery” of the parish in which the Church is present and working; even if it is impoverished in terms of persons, means, scattered amid the confusion of densely populated modern districts.
The Church has many faces, as a communion of persons; its sign is the edifice, the parish church, as a house of God and of brothers in the midst of the homes of people. A parish becomes thus seen as the family of God, a brotherhood enlivened by the Spirit, as a home of a fraternal and welcoming family; this is the community of the faithful.
But it is especially fitting to define the parish as a eucharistic community. This is the most beautiful and recent expression of the theology of the parish: a community of faith, where “Christ’s faithful” are; an organic community of charisms and ministerial services; together with the presence of the parish priest and his assistants, in communion with the bishop, it expresses the organic and hierarchical communion with the entire particular church.
Eucharistic Community. This evocative and dense phrase implies the celebration of the Eucharist as the starting point and term, the source and summit of the community’s life. This community has a eucharistic style of life, welcome and service; it manifests the relationship between what is celebrated and lived, both at a level of continuity and that of exemplarity.
The Church does not have any other pastoral ministry than that of Christ himself, who is the Shepherd and Bridegroom of his Church in the parish. The celebration welcomes and celebrates this pastoral ministry of Christ, the Head of the community, in word, prayer, sacramental gestures, works of the Kingdom that he brings about in the Eucharist, as its synthesis and high point.
The other pastoral activities (evangelisation, catechesis, welcome…) are as an expression and manifestation, prolongation and concretising of the Eucharist, from which they spring.
No pastoral ministry exists apart from the liturgy! But, no liturgy exists without its symbolic meaning referring to reality, for this meaning points to the concrete aspects of living, to pastoral ministry which spreads the original values contained in the liturgy.
The Exhortation, Christifideles laici, underlines the vast range of present-day tasks of the parish and the need to coordinate and fully collaborate in their realisation, in order to bring above all, by the help of different kinds of presence and actions, the Word of life and the grace of the Gospel to a great many concrete social situations in the area, in the cultural, social, educational, professional spheres… The Exhortation cites a beautiful text of Paul VI, which sings the praises of this venerable and irreplaceable sacramental reality of the Church that is the parish.
It is here that the parish is illumined and clothed in the very light of a eucharistic ecclesiology as an environment of communion and mission.
In a parish, the laity represent the human sacramentalizing of the evangelised and evangelising community. In its congregating and dispersing, in its coming together as an assembly and spreading out as a mission, in the systole and diastole of the parish’s heartbeat, which is the Word and the Eucharist, this community becomes in the fabric of society the place, sign, instrument of communion with God for all.
Thus the parish can become, to cite John XXIII, the “village fountain”, a limpid spring to quench the thirst for God and offer the living water of Christ’s Gospel.

5. Eucharistic environment of communion and mission

In the mirror of the particular church we have seen the awareness and sense of commitment that is required of all, starting with those who, being the centres of communion – the bishop, priests, the presbyterate, deacons, consecrated religious because of their specific dedication to God and the Church – are especially those who assure and are responsible for pastoral and spiritual animation. Communion has a centripetal dynamism to bring about the coming together of everyone; but it also has on the other hand a centrifugal dynamism to bear witness as the Eucharist makes the Church a calling together and mission, a gathering together as a congregation and an epiphany. As already recalled, in the “systole and diastole” of communion and service, we have an image of the Trinitarian life that lives within itself in communion and exists for others, for the world, in mission. Thus the Church must always, and above all, be in an ever increasing manner a living icon of the Trinity, sharing as a sacrament the heartbeat of the Trinitarian love of the for the salvation of the world. The model of this is the marvellous “exodus” of Christ from the Father towards humanity for the salvation of the world, in the generous outpouring of the Spirit, in order that the Church may be Church. As a consequence, the Church has the very strength of the Spirit, who in the Trinity is the principle of communion and of overflowing mission.
Communion and mission require each other. The strength of communion makes the Church grow in extension and depth. But mission also makes communion grow, that communion which is extended by bringing together, like concentric circles, all people. In fact, to the extent to which it is radiated throughout the different cultures, it introduces them into the Kingdom in a way that everything coming from God is enabled to return to him.
In this regard it has been stated: “communion leads to mission, and mission itself to communion”.
The participation of everyone in communion and mission recalls that the Church is made of persons who must respond personally, responsibly: all, each one in his or her own situation, with his or her own richness, with his or her own charism.
Communion recalls that it is the secret of being Church, the end of all the charisms leading to agape, to communion in unity, in the same design of salvation, in the same ecclesial project.
All the charisms are bestowed for mission. Already in the Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium paragraph n. 10 implies the eucharistic dimension of mission. On the one hand, there is a wealth of meaning in the expression: “hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith”. But it is also true, even in the simplicity of the statement, that the celebration of the mysteries lead to mission “so that all who have become children of God through faith and baptism, gather in an assembly in order to praise God in the Church, to participate in the sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s Supper”.
From the Eucharist the Church is born in mission to gather together all the scattered children into the one Body of the Lord. This is a mission that tends towards eucharistising the life of persons, to reconcile each and all in Christ.
For this in the perspective of paragraph 6 of PO there is the statement that the Eucharist in the particular churches and in all its communities, no less than in together with the universal Church there exists the pedagogical principle of an integral pastoral ministry: “No Christian community, however, is built up unless it has its basis and centre in the celebration of the most Holy Eucharist; from this, therefore, all education to the spirit of community must take its origin. This celebration, if it is to be genuine and complete, should lead to various works of charity and mutual help, as well as to missionary activity and to different forms of Christian witness.”[Eng. Trans. Internet www.Vatican.com]
Conscientious attention to all the aspects of the local church brings about a sense of identity and mission and produces an attitude of generous dedication of the most vital forces on the part of the People of God.
It is in view of a renewed stimulus to live this ecclesiology that the following three approaches to action can be suggested; these are three instances of living in the fruitful dynamic of the Holy Spirit.
It is time to draw together the bonds of communion, to show the maturity of the gift for others, of reciprocal listening to one another, of availability and concrete collaboration. Without denying the richness of charisms, they must not be allowed to remain sterile, as they would be outside of communion; rather, their mutual acceptance should be encouraged, while offering them in communion to the creativity of the Spirit.
It is time to build up the church, in the beauty and responsibility of its reality as this part of God’s people, an ecclesial family: the one and the other, the one for the other in earnestly desiring the higher charisms.
The awareness that arises from being together a Church acquires a sense and responsibility of mission. And it is that enables a serious sense of discernment – a spiritual discerning, with and in the Spirit, and not only an analysis of the situation – in prayer and listening in order to gather with clarity the concrete choices required to fulfil the inspirations coming from the Lord’s Spirit.
One must never forget these aspects of a eucharistic ecclesiology that are at the basis of this vision of the particular church.
Christ is Eucharist for the Church so that the Church may be Eucharist for the world. Thus Christ is the salvation for the Church. But the Church will be Eucharist, Body of the Lord, animated by his Spirit; it will be Eucharist for the world by means of the gift of communion and generous service.

II. THE ROLE OF THE PONTIFICAL COMMITTEE AND OF NATIONAL DELEGATES OR COMMITTEES.

1. A renewed vision

In this eucharistic-ecclesiological perspective we can gather together the importance and role of the Pontifical Committee and of National Delegates or Committees for the International Eucharistic Congresses. In its proper competence within the Holy See, in virtue of its mandate and under the surveillance of the Roman Pontiff, the Pontifical Committee and respectively the National Committees and their delegates, have a permanent role, which focuses on the preparation, celebration and continuity of International Eucharistic Congresses. I will try to indicate some functions in commenting on what the Statues of this body state (articles. 2 and 3).

a) At a theological level, and in collaboration with all those who have at heart the centrality of the eucharistic mystery in the Church, this body has the task of animating the initiatives that can bring about a better understanding of the eucharistic mystery. This concerns the fullness of its aspects: presence, banquet, sacrifice, relationship with the Church, missionary thrust, social-charitable implications of the eucharistic mystery; these may be seen in the richness of approaches to this mystery: biblical, patristic, liturgical, ecumenical, spiritual, mystical… A better understanding leads to a greater love and to a spiritual worship, a more genuine service.
Today in the Church it is a matter of the greatest importance to highlight the central role of the Eucharist as “the centre of the life of the Church and of its mission for the salvation of the world”.

b) At a practical level, there is required a series of endeavours directed to bring to light these doctrinal principles so that they become part of life experience through preaching, catechesis, the liturgy, pastoral ministry. These endeavours also concern that relationship of Catholic communion, which pertain to the International Congresses in their universal outlook. Each time they are celebrated in a particular nation, which has its own characteristics and cultural features, while remaining in the Catholic communion, these Congresses become the “Statio orbis” of the eucharistic mystery for the life of the world, that mystery towards which all the particular churches are pointed.

c) The inter-relationship between the Central Committee and National Committees also respects the eucharistic ecclesiology of communion and mission proper to the Catholic Church, the role of the Petrine ministry and of the collaboration of the particular churches, in such a way as to safeguard in the unity of faith, worship, ecclesial discipline and also of generous eucharistic “orthopraxis” the whole great tradition of the Catholic Church: the liturgical celebration, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, while having an openness also to the different legitimate traditions of the Churches of the West and the East, and likewise being attentive to the integral mission of the Church in the world – a mission that finds in the Eucharist its source, summit and its model or interior pattern.

d) There pertains to this inter-reaction and reciprocal interest the collaboration required by the Statutes in order that the Central Committee receive the documentation and information regarding eucharistic worship in the various countries. This information, which concerns accurate and concrete data about the positive and negative aspects, is of great help in carrying out the service of fitting animation and necessary watchfulness, which has the function of assisting the pastors and faithful to keep alive a sense of the Eucharist that is “pro mundi vita”, for the salvation of the world.

2. Continual animation

Analogous to what is said about the Eucharist in the Church, it can also be said that an International Eucharistic Congress provides a kind of “summit and source” (cf. SC 10). At the level of the Catholic Church in its universality, this event is a culminating moment, the whole preparation of which is directed to fostering the emergence of a sense of the centrality of the Eucharist in the Church. This comes about through involving the particular churches in the preparation of the Congress by the contribution of the National Committees and their Delegates. The Statio orbis sees thus united around Christ the Lord in the Eucharist the objective of linking this most holy mystery of the contemporary Church in its journey through time to the centre of the faith, celebration and life. It is the summit. But it is on the other hand the source. From a Congress that is lived as a “catholic” experience there spring various insights, fruits, impressions. These should be communicated and kept alive in a way that they flow into the particular churches from the Statio orbis, in order to animate the eucharistic life of the faithful. It is not enough to put together the Acts, but it is necessary to gather and re-launch also the fruits of life, in a way that from the Congress, as from the river of the life of the Lamb, the whole of Catholic world would be irrigated. This also brings about a renewed vision of the role of National Committees and their Delegates under the directives of the Central Committee.
There should always be persons appointed as responsible for eucharistic worship in the respective national and local churches. They will have the task of keeping alive the approach and flame from one Congress to the next, like a living bridge from one event to another. In this way the Congresses will not just be high episodic and passing occasions, but they will have a continuity and on-going influence. The Eucharist is a mystery concerning daily living; it provides a light for the Church’s journey through history; it is the Viaticum of God’s people. The Eucharist will always be a centre of the Church’s life, until the day of the Lord’s coming. In their specific mission and at a universal level, these animators will always keep alive the flame of the presence of the Lord and an attitude of awaiting him. They must therefore be able to release in a continuous stream all their theological, pastoral and spiritual resources.

CONCLUSION

In one of the finest texts of Vatican II it is stated that:“The Most Blessed Eucharist contains the entire spiritual boon of the Church, that is, Christ himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, by the action of the Holy Spirit through his very flesh vital and vitalizing, giving life to all people”(PO 5).
The Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses with the National Committees and their Delegates is at the service of this ineffable mystery in the Church at both a universal and local level.
This service is one of faith and love, of intelligence and culture, pastoral ministry and spirituality; it is focused on celebrating the Lord’s presence, to offer to the Father in the Spirit the eucharistic sacrifice, to receive and accept this immense gift, to guard lovingly, to adore it with a living faith in the variety of the expressions of faith and popular piety, to spread throughout the world this presence of truth and grace: “sacramentum pietatis, signum unitatis,vinculum caritatis.”