Eucharistic and priesthood
The ordained priest performs the Eucharistic sacrifice
in persona Christi, not
however in the sense of a simple representation, but in the sense of a
“specific and sacramental identification with the eternal priest” who, in
fulfilling the Eucharistic sacrifice, reconciles humankind with God. The priest
celebrates that sacrifice that represents Jesus Christ’s gift to the Church.
The gift of bread and wine should be welcomed and consumed just as Jesus
abandoned Himself to the Father, because this gift is Christ’s body and blood.
Participating in the body and blood of Christ, we also take part in the gift of
the Son’s communion with the Father. He lives within us and we live in Him,
because He is our viaticum on the path to eternal life. Christ Himself involves
us in His sacrifice of reconciliation and communion with God. It is for this
reason that the holy ministry of the Church avoids all human manipulation: the
gratuitous characteristics of Christ’s gift exist only through the proxy
bestowed upon the bishop. Christ Himself remains the centre of the Eucharist,
and it from His hands that we receive this gift and that He welcomes us to
Himself with the everlasting promise of His presence.
The sacramental proxy the ordained priest is appointed
to withhold is an existential call: it fill he who is ordained with the
certainty that his life, in spite of all the duties his office involves, is in
the end linked to Christ’s generous love for all humankind. The Second Vatican
Council’s decree on the priestly ministry and life, Presbyterorum Ordinis,
emphasises how the Eucharist is the “root and the centre of the whole life of a
priest” (No. 14). Through the daily celebration of the Eucharist renews the
example of Christ’s generous love, encouraging the priest to consider his own
life as service to humankind and to the creation of the Kingdom of God.
The intensity and naturalness with which the priest
accepts his vocation are also an example for many young people to follow God’s
call. A personal encounter with a priest has encouraged many people, who until
then had lived without the mystery of the Eucharist, to follow their own
vocation. The most fascinating aspect of a priest’s life remains the total
fulfilment of his pastoral love, which gives it meaning and direction precisely
thanks to the Eucharistic celebration.
It is all the more lamentable to have to see how in
some parishes, the Eucharist is no longer celebrated regularly; instead of the
Eucharistic Mass, the Word is read by religious or lay people, who, to tell the
truth, to their best to continue the Sunday celebration, and “practice in a
commendable manner the priesthood shared by all the faithful, based on the
grace of baptism” (see No. 32). And yet, losing the Eucharistic ritual that can
only be celebrated by priests cannot provide good foundations for the Church’s
future. In the Eucharist, all God’s people become the body of Christ, led by
Christ Himself. Only the celebration of the Eucharist binds us to Christ so
that all the faithful together a assume the unique identity of the community of
those baptised.
The Church is fulfilled in the Eucharistic community,
that creates her and in her moulds the Body of Christ. Hence it is inescapable
that it should be the priest who celebrates the Eucharist; only the priest
represents Christ Himself in making the Eucharistic sacrifice, the Christ who
makes the community of faithful a Church.
The Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia by His
Holiness John Paul II places unequivocal emphasis on the link between the
Eucharist and the priestly ministry. This bond between the ceremony of the
celebration of the transformation of the bread and the wine into the body and
blood of Christ, as the fulfilment of the Eucharistic mystery, and the ordained
ministry is an indivisible bond. When this awareness of the Eucharistic
sacrifice will return to be the centre of all of the Church’s activities, we
will once again discover young people prepared to devote their lives to the
essence of our faith.
In the Eucharistic process, Christ reconciles us with
God. Christ created the priestly ministry with the administering of the
Eucharist. This concretion of Jesus Christ’s actions does not allow any
distinction between the Eucharist and the ordained ministry.