Ecclesia de Eucaristia – Prof. Rino Fisichella – 25 febbraio 2005 - Roma

Preamble

On Maundy Thursday 2003, John Paul II signed his latest Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia. A gift offered to the Church to assist her in discovering to a greater extent the roots of her existence and the reality thanks to which she exists as Spouse of the Lord. According to H. de Lubac’s significant remark, cited in the Encyclical, “the Eucharist makes the Church and the Church makes the Eucharist”. It is indeed so. The most original comment on this subject was made by Maestro Simone in the Middle Ages (1160) and is still today just as powerful: “There are two things in the sacrament on the altar: the true body of Christ and what is signified by him, his mystical body which is the Church”. In those times, as is well known, the Eucharist was called the “corpus verum”, real body of Christ. The Church herself was, in any case, considered the real body of Christ! It was therefore necessary to make a distinction so as to make it possible to understand both things separately and this was where the Church began to be described as the “mystical body of Christ”, to distinguish her from the “real body” of the Eucharist.

This Encyclical contains six chapters: the first one starts with the great mystery of the faith represented by the Eucharist and ends by considering Mary, the Eucharistic woman. Within this scenario there are four specific themes ranging from the ecclesiological horizon (chapter II) to that of the apostolic character of the Eucharist (chapter III), leading up to a presentation of koinonia as the culminating visible form of the mystery.

There is also a fundamental part in John Paul II’s teachings which refers to the regulatory value of the liturgical celebration in terms of being the form and expression of the praying of the entire Church, which cannot be submitted to the judgement of the individual officiant.

Awe and wonder

In going into the merits of the Encyclical, one key to interpretation can be identified in the desire, to which John Paul II refers, to produce “Eucharistic awe” (EdE 6). This means provoking wonder as an ever new form of knowledge in the face of the mystery. In other words, it is the aspiration to allow the contemplation of Christ’s face - a topic which the Holy Father dwelt upon at length in the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte in terms of it representing the programme for after the Jubilee year – to be based on the Eucharistic mystery as the most suitable and consistent place for the faith: “Contemplating the face of Christ, and contemplating it with Mary, is the ‘programme’ I have indicated to the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, urging her to set sail in the sea of history with the enthusiasm of a new evangelisation. Contemplating Christ implies being able to recognise him wherever be may manifest himself, in his many presences, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and blood. The Church lives of the Eucharistic Christ, she is nourished by him, enlightened by him”. (EdE 6).

It is evident that the topic of Christ’s face remains on the horizon as a central and fundamental issue, but it is pursued and, in a way, analysed in depth through the indication of the appropriate place where it can be found. Indeed, John Paul II includes also a valuable series of biographical memories which create a striking framework in terms of interpretation. The philosophical inclinations of the former Professor of Ethics at the University of Lublin cannot be forgotten; in fact he considered phenomenology a gnoseological condition which is in no way secondary. In this case, it indicates how personal experience can be a genuine form of knowledge and a possible pathway for communication.

This background helps to go deeper into the contents of Ecclesia de Eucharistia. We know that, in addition to the evangelisation work, the celebration of the Eucharist has been from the Church’s beginnings the culminating event and central rite in its existence. The community, indeed, performed a commemoration of the Lord, thus fulfilling the command Jesus had given before offering himself to the cross and also stating the desire for his return. It is at this particular time that the Church truly understood what her name really meant: Church, ekklesia, i.e. a summoning of the people gathered by God to give praise and thanks to him. Celebrating the Eucharist meant acknowledging the living and real presence of the Lord resurrected in the midst of the community itself.

“Breaking the bread” became not only a sign of recognition of the Lord, but also the announcement of the whole mystery of salvation. Christ’s passion, death and resurrection were not simply announced, but were also made visible as a concrete sign of salvation attained. Eating the body of Christ means taking part in his mystery and experiencing as of now the riches of his Kingdom. It is from Christ’s command to commemorate his Easter, drawing nourishment from his body, that the Church has understood that she herself is the body of Christ. The Apostle’s words become all the more significant: “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because the load of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor 10,16-17).

The Encyclical points out that, in giving thanks to Father for the gift of Christ, the Church understands her own nature: a sign of the resurrected Lord’s presence and an instrument of communion among brothers. This provides the meaning of being a “holy assembly”, of “priestly descent” (cf. 1 Pt 2,9), called to worship the Lord. Therefore, by celebrating the Eucharist, which is the “source and apex” of her life and evangelising work, the Church celebrates the mystery of her existence which is both a visible and invisible reality, divine and human, holy though sinners are within, one and indivisible in spite of the wounds of division, universal and present in every local community. As stated by the Council, the Church is “one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word” (Lumen gentium 8).

The Eucharist as sacrifice

One of the particular characteristics to which the Encyclical refers is the sacrificial value of the Eucharist. Through the act of sacrifice as a total gift of himself, Christ expresses his supreme freedom. The faith teaches that the Eucharist is the sacrifice by which Jesus’ single and original sacrifice on the Calvary is repeated. The Apostle Paul helps us focus better on this dimension on the basis of an uninterrupted living communication faithful to the mystery: “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And giving thanks, broke, and said: ‘Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me’. In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: ‘This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come’. (1 Cor 11,23-26).

Holy Mass is not only an evocation of the death and resurrection of the Lord; it is in all ways and fully Christ’s sacrifice. What is different is only the way of offering not the reality of the sacrifice. Every time the Eucharist is celebrated, therefore, Christ offers himself to the Father and asks that his Church too to become an offering welcome to God. It is a sacrifice which reveals both her love and her freedom. This single act expresses the Son’s obedience to the Father; it confirms his nature as Son sent to make visible the love of the Father and his freedom is expressed in his wish to give himself completely, without gaining anything in return, as an instrument of mankind’s reconciliation with God. In the Eucharist, Jesus’ love is in the sign that he himself institutes: at the last Supper, he outlines an unrepeatable synthesis of what will happen a few hours later, his death and resurrection as the ultimate expression of the love with which God loves. (cfr. John 3,16).

A characteristic trait of the Encyclical is, in any case, established by the fact that it is not limited to the theological, but underlines and suggests forms that inspire and support behaviour of great existential significance. One such trait is certainly the reference to the value and culture of sacrifice. No one can consider performing acts of true freedom if they are unwilling to accept renunciation.

“Renunciation” alone can give rise to a personality that becomes stronger and sounder precisely because it is capable of it. Life involves choosing; one cannot have everything. But every choice means obtaining something while having to relinquish something else. A dramatic but necessary event. The sacrifice which is expressed through renunciation is a proviso for freedom and a basis for growth. Love itself, indeed, involves a sacrificial dimension. This becomes evident when out of love one shares the suffering of others or when out of love one takes upon oneself the limitations of others. To believe that in life sacrifice does not exist and that someone may be immune from it is pure delusion; what we need to consider is how to prepare for this event and how to learn to transform it and sublimate it into an act of love. The Eucharist provides this horizon and makes it possible to support choices and renunciations which enable the forming of an increasingly mature identity in faith.

Mary, Eucharistic woman

It would be impossible to end these short considerations without referring to what John Paul II points out as regards the presence of Mary in the mystery of the Eucharist. We do not know whether or not Mary took part in a Eucharist or whether she ever took communion: and yet, no one better than she knows what it means to carry within the body of the Son and to allow it to become our food for eternal life. John Paul II’s Encyclical in a sense poses the same question and suggests an answer: “How can we imagine Mary’s feelings, as she heard from Peter, John, James and the other Apostles the words of the Last Supper: “This is my body, given for you”? That body offered in sacrifice and represented in the sacramental signs was the same body conceived in her womb! Receiving the Eucharist must have meant for Mary almost a gathering into her womb the heart that had beat as one with hers and to feel once again what she had experienced directly under the Cross” (EdE 56). Mary is a daughter of Israel and of the Church. In her, the ancient and the new Pact can find a consistent synthesis because the promise that was made achieves, in her daughterly obedience, its final fulfilment. The theme of exemplariness stemming from Mary for all believers in Christ remains, as is seen, as a particular characteristic of the mystery.

Until the Lord’s expected coming we are called to involve everyone in the mystery we celebrate. This requires the ability to transform the world, making it increasingly humane; at the service of human beings, therefore, that they may express themselves in the best possible way. This requires the possibility of being available to each other, sharing the pathway in the search for truth. The Eucharist turns each and every one of us into disciples of Emmaus who investigate the meaning of events and feel a deep yearning for the Lord. Travelling along the pathways of this world implies being familiar with the anguish and expectations of our contemporaries but, at the same time, it commits us to promoting a meaningful answer which everyone expects. The world was redeemed by the mystery of the cross; the presence of sin, which marked creation itself, discovers once again in the Eucharistic mystery the origin of its transformation and the calling to become a “new sky and a new earth” where justice will live forever. It is a commitment from which no one can be exempt and which is expressed in the pages of Ecclesia de Eucharistia in a point of especial theological and existential significance.