, discover once again the centrality of the Eucharist in our lives. Without neglecting or minimising in any way the relevance of eucharistic devotions, it is high time to delve deeper into the signifance of the eucharistic mystery.
The letter to the Ephesians proclaims: “For he (Christ) is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.” (Eph 2, 14-16). Christ’s death on the cross earned for us his everlasting peace which the law of the old covenant was incapable of obtaining.
In his notable encyclical on the Eucharist, Pope John Paul II said: “The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord's passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 11). The same Christ who on Good Friday died on the cross for us and our salvation is the same Christ who gave himself once and for all from the Last Supper, on Maundy Thursday, till the end of time, whenever a Eucharist is celebrated by a validly ordained minister in persona Christi: ““This is my body”, “this is my blood”, “which is given for you”, “which is poured out for you” (Lk 22, 19-20).
If Christ’s salvific and violent death brought us peace, the Eucharist in itself is the sacrament of peace. The consecrated bread and wine gather around them a celebrant community headed by a priest, the president of the liturgical assembly. Before the Eucharist is received the communicants are exhorted to be at peace with one another. This is crucial since without such a peace the eucharistic Christ cannot penetrate a soul which aspires to be in communion with Him. Love of God and neighbour are inseparable.
Peace is the fruit of love in action. In his First Letter to the Corinthians Saint Paul explains what eucharistic love is all about. “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13, 4-8). The price for such a love is echoed in the passage which speaks about the suffering servant of Jahweh: “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isa 53, 3-4). Thus, the Eucharist becomes a love that is rejected, wounded, and killed. Yet through its killing life springs forth in abundance. Eucharistic love can easily be detected if it brings to fruition this prophetic word of Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12,24). The dying for oneself so that the other might live is the distinctive mark of eucharistic love.
In one of her well-known sayings, which turned out to be her “business card”, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta wrote: “The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace”. If our “spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 25), instills in us the capacity to work for peace through acts of love then we have every reason to promote the relevant practice of eucharistic adoration. Let us not forget that God is worshipped when he is lovingly and disinterestedly served in his little ones.
San Gwann