Eucharistic Adoration – Meditation

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and in Priesthood! Dear all!

In joyfully adoring Jesus present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, it is my pleasure to present this meditation based on the awareness that the Church, which we belong to and serve with our priesthood, "lives in the Eucharist". As recently repeated by the Holy Father in the Encyclical Letter signed on Holy Thursday this year: "This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church " .

1. The Apostle Paul – whose memory is so closely linked to this wonderful island (At 27 and 28) – passed down to us the first story about the Eucharistic institution: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." (1Cor 11, 23-25).

This transmission of the truth about the Eucharist reminds us and allows us to experience in communion with all priests, who, in the course of the centuries, have celebrated this Sacrament and stood in front of the Lord in adoring prayer. With their words and their example, they in turn passed down to us the truth about the Eucharistic sacrifice. The centrality of the Eucharist must be clear therefore in all our priestly service and also throughout our lives.

With great humility and a profound sense of responsibility, we acknowledge that the Christian community gathered for Holy Mass, absolutely requires an ordained priest to really become a Eucharistic assembly. We know however, that the ministerial priesthood is a gift the Christian community receives through Episcopal succession, dating back to the Apostles.

Our ministry as priests therefore, in the real economy of redemption chosen by Christ Our Saviour, shows with great clarity that the Eucharist is a gift radically exceeding the power of the assembly. The priestly minister is irreplaceable for validly linking the Eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the Cross and the Last Supper.

This is why the Eucharistic sacrifice is fulfilled in persona Christi, hence in the priest’s specific and sacramental identification with the Supreme and Eternal Priest. He, and He alone continues to be the "author and principal subject of this sacrifice of His, a sacrifice in which, in truth, nobody can take His place"

In view of this dogmatic truth, the words spoken by one of the great thinkers of our times, Simone Weil, are filled with meaning: "the Catholic priest is understandable only if there is something incomprehensible in him".

2. Aware of the profoundness of the Catholic doctrine, let us today once again consider, in adoration in front of Jesus, that the Eucharist "the principal and central raison d'etre of the sacrament of the priesthood, which effectively came into being at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist, and together with it".

Today, a priest’s activities are many, especially faced with the current world’s religious, social and cultural conditions, but the Eucharistic sacrifice is the real centre from which one must draw "the spiritual energy needed for facing the different pastoral duties".

As stated by the Council, the energy of pastoral charity that fulfils the bond of priestly perfection arises from the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood.

Our lives and ministerial activities, corroborated and unified by this bond, will be capable of facing the challenges of dispersion, of discouragement and disappointment, all today imminent for all priests seeing current circumstances.

In celebrating the Eucharist each priest must therefore attempt to bear in mind the love of the Good Shepherd who "lays down his life for the sheep" (John 10,11). Finding in Him the strength to not abandon the flock, running away when problems arise; being capable , together with Him, of making a gift of his own life, with his values and weaknesses, so that the faithful "they might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10,10).

On this subject, the words of the Holy Father in the Encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia" are of great importance: "When I think of the Eucharist, and look at my life as a priest, as a Bishop and as the Successor of Peter, I naturally recall the many times and places in which I was able to celebrate it".

We too understand how important it is for our spiritual and priestly lives, as well as for the good of the Church and the world, to celebrate it daily. We also understand our great responsibility involved in the Eucharistic celebration: we must ensure – celebrating it in persona Christi! – constant testimony and a service of communion not only for the community directly participating, but also to the universal Church always involved when the Eucharistic sacrifice is celebrated.

3. We all remember the anecdote about the life of the Saint Curate of Ars: a peasant was standing in front of the Most Holy One and someone asked him: "what do you do here every morning?". The man answered very simply: "I look at God and God looks at me". The Curate Saint like to often remember this event and in tears he used to repeat: "He looked at God and God looked at him: this says everything, my children!".

The centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the Church, and in our priestly ministry, must not only appear in the worthy and heartfelt celebration of the Sacrifice in persona Christi, but also in the frequent adoration of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist; so that we who are priests appear as models for the flock also in our adoring faith and love for Christ.

We need to become more than adoring priests! Defining a priest as an adorer, means that he is a person for whom adoration becomes an almost natural constituent of the heart, and also of the mind: out of humility of faith, obedience to the Church, joyful submission to the Lord, whose law is redemption and whose precepts are the truth.

In contemplation in front of Jesus, His eyes look at each of us. He calls each individual priest by his name "with the same look of loving encouragement with which he looked at Simon and Andrew, at James and John, at Nathanael beneath the fig tree, and at Matthew sitting at the tax office". Through the Eucharist, Christ does not tire of searching and calling. The priest who often stands in adoration, perceives this voice of the master of the harvests and must responsible that this voice should echo and reach many generous people: our testimony as "apostles" is more important than any other means!

"Faith and love for the Eucharist will not allow Christ to remain alone in his presence in the tabernacle", as the Directory for the ministry and lives of priests reminds us. And this same document invites is to celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours – if this is possible – as a privileged moment of adoration, since it consists in an extension throughout the day of the sacrifice of praise and thanks that in the Holy Mass has its centre and sacramental source.

"A priest in front of the tabernacle – wrote the Blessed Pope John XXIII, repeating his predecessor’s words – in an attitude of profound meditation, is a model of edification, a warning and an invitation to prayer for the people"

The Eucharist celebrated and adored with dignity and profound spirituality therefore become a source of sanctity that moulds our person and our ministry making us the "shapers of saints".

In the Eucharist and through it Christ invites each of us to achieve personal sanctification with new priestly impetus: "Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the Church's mission, every work of pastoral planning, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and in turn be directed to that mystery as its culmination".

This does not mean inventing a new way of being priests, since tomorrow’s priest, no less than today’s must resemble Christ, the Only and Supreme Priest. Jesus fulfilled in Himself the definitive features of the priest, creating the priestly ministry that the Apostles were the first to hold. It is destined to last, to incessantly be repeated throughout history. Even in the year two thousand the priestly vocation continues to be called upon to experience the only and permanent priesthood of Christ.

Nor does this mean inventing a "new program": because this "the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition; it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem". This means in truth knowing how courageously merge, in line with the mystery of the Incarnation, the identity coming from the Only and Supreme Priest, with our humanity, living in different cultural and social contexts, and containing many gifts and capabilities offered to Christ, that He may speak, act and love through us. This is our real priestly identity allowing us to be authentic priests, the alter Christus for today, not ignoring our characteristics as men of this generation. May the Lord, especially in this Eucharistic Year, transform our priestly hearts that this identity may forever and joyously posses them and bear witness glorifying God and helping the faithful achieve redemption.

"Oh Good shepherd, the real bread

here in the land of the living". Amen