Our Strength And Our Food

In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope. If, in the presence of this mystery, reason experiences its limits, the heart, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, clearly sees the response that is demanded, and bows low in adoration and unbounded love.

Let us make our own the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an eminent theologian and an impassioned poet of Christ in the Eucharist, and turn in hope to the contemplation of that goal to which our hearts aspire in their thirst for joy and peace:

Bone pastor, panis vere,


Iesu, nostri miserere...

Come then, good Shepherd, bread divine,


Still show to us thy mercy sign;


Oh, feed us, still keep us thine;


So we may see thy glories shine


in fields of immortality.

O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,


                              Our present food, our future rest,


                              Come, make us each thy chosen guest,


                              Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest


                              With saints whose dwelling is with thee.

               -St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia

A Great Gift

The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work.

Saint John Paul II wrote these words in Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which was issued on Holy Thursday of 2003. In this, his final encyclical, he reflected upon the greatness of the gift of the Eucharist.

Nourished by the Father’s daily bread, St. John Paul II made immense sacrifices until his death in 2005. Through the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease, old wounds from the assassination attempt, multiple surgeries, and the loss of his voice, he continued to make a gift of himself to his flock, for “he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

The Church draws her life from the Eucharist

"As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (I Cor 11: 26).

With these words St Paul reminds the Christians of Corinth that the "Lord's Supper" is not only a convivial meeting but also, and above all, the memorial of the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. Those who take part in it, the Apostle explains, are united with the mystery of the death of the Lord, and indeed, "proclaim" him.

Thus, there is a very close relationship between "building the Eucharist" and proclaiming Christ. At the same time, entering into communion with him in the memorial of Easter also means becoming missionaries of the event which that rite actualizes; in a certain sense, it means making it contemporary with every epoch, until the Lord comes again.

Dear brothers and sisters, we are reliving this wonderful reality in today's Solemnity of Corpus Christi, during which the Church does not only celebrate the Eucharist but solemnly bears it in procession, publicly proclaiming that the Sacrifice of Christ is for the salvation of the whole world.

Grateful for this immense gift, her members gather round the Blessed Sacrament, for that is the source and summit of her being and action. Ecclesia de Eucharistia vivit! The Church draws her life from the Eucharist and knows that this truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery in which she consists (cf. Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucaristia, n. 1).

-Homily of Blessed John Paul II, Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ 2004

On this solemnity of Corpus Christi, let us join Pope Benedict XVI in praying for his general intention, “that believers may recognize in the Eucharist the living presence of the Risen One who accompanies them in daily life.”

The Triduum Begins

Today we celebrate Holy Thursday, and we remember the beautiful moment when Jesus gave us the sustaining gift of Himself. We were given the Eucharist, the life of the Church. We were given a taste of Christ, a way to unite with Him in his suffering and death. Blessed John Paul II wrote of the Last Supper in his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

The Upper Room was where this most holy Sacrament was instituted. It is there that Christ took bread, broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying: “Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you” (cf. Mk 26:26; Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). Then he took the cup of wine and said to them: “Take this, all of you and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven” (cf. Mt 14:24; Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25). I am grateful to the Lord Jesus for allowing me to repeat in that same place, in obedience to his command: “Do this in memory of me” (Lk 22:19), the words which he spoke two thousand years ago.

Did the Apostles who took part in the Last Supper understand the meaning of the words spoken by Christ? Perhaps not. Those words would only be fully clear at the end of the Triduum sacrum, the time from Thursday evening to Sunday morning. Those days embrace the myste- rium paschale; they also embrace the mysterium eucharisticum.

The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church's life. This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread” refers to the Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it.

Let us draw life from the Eucharist this Holy Thursday, and remember Christ as he prepares for his passion and death.