VIDEO CONFERENCE 31^st. OCTOBER 2005

“The Holy Eucharist, source and summit of the life and mission of the Church”.

EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

The Instrumentum Laboris, “ The Eucharist: Source and Sacrament of the Life and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church” for the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops relates eucharistic adoration to contemplation. It states:

The Eucharist is a complete act of worship, at one and the same time

a sacrifice, memorial and banquet, which is to be contemplated. Such

an understanding surmounts a psychological difficulty which erroneously

holds that adoration and reverence is an anomalous form of the liturgy

and which questions acts of worship of the Eucharist such as Exposition

of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Benediction. ( para. 65 )

Here we get to the crux of the rationale for Eucharistic adoration. The sacramental action of the Eucharist points beyond itself to an essentially contemplative element. I need to ponder like Mary “what great things the Lord has done to me” ( Luke 1: 48 ).

The theologian von Balthazar expresses the contemplative dimension in these words:” I must and will open up the dimensions of my spirit and of my existence to the importance of the material eating and drinking, for it is precisely these dimensions which are addressed by the Lord who gives himself to me”( H.U. von Balthazar. “The Veneration of the Holy of Holies” in Eludications ) Adoration attempts to realise the spiritual implications of what has been given sacramentally. “ To absorb and to digest spiritually what he has swallowed materially” ( ibid.) Pope John Paul 11 sees also a social and apostolic dimension to eucharistic contemplation:

Closeness to Christ in silence and contemplation does not distance

us from our contemporaries but, on the contrary, makes us attentive

and open to human joy and distress and broadens our heart on a

global scale….Through adoration, the Christian mysteriously

contributes to the radical transformation of the world and to the

sowing of the Gospel. ( Letter of Pope John Paul11 on occasion of the

750^th. Anniversary of the first celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi

printed in L’Osservatore Romano 26^th. June 1999, page 6 )

Eucharistic adoration demonstrates, too, the development of doctrine: the divinely revealed truth becomes more deeply understood and more clearly perceived than it had been before. The real ,presence of Christ in the Eucharist perceived from the beginning has undergone a marvellous development over the centuries. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch[ ca. A.D. 110 ] writes in such realistic terms of the real presence of the eucharistic Christ in these words: “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again” ( Letter to the Smyrnaens, 6,2.). Later, there is a growing realisation of Christ’s sacrificial offering in the Mass and later still of his grace-filled presence outside of Mass. Thus this valid progress in doctrine , led the Church to develop a variety of eucharistic devotions: visits to the Blessed Sacrament, benediction of the Blessed sacrament, processions of the Blessed Sacrament, Forty Hours eucharistic devotions. All these extra-liturgical devotions testify to the corporeal presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and the communication of grace through his eucharistic presence on earth.

Finally eucharistic adoration adds flavour, depth and celebration to our Christian lives for as Cardinal Tauran notes in an address to the Synod of Bishops: “A world without adoration [would be ] a world that would be no more than the world of production, which would soon become unbreathable. A world without adoration is not only irreligious – it is inhuman!” ( Zenit 2005-10-07 )