The Eucharist and what it means for daily life

    During the past year, we have reflected on the meaning and celebration of the Eucharist. It might be well to pause and center on the relationship between the Eucharist and daily life, for this is where the Eucharist leads us.
    Vatican Council II proclaimed in the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” that the liturgy is the source and summit of Christian life. This means that all of life is meant to flow into the celebration of the mystery of our redemption and that the celebration of the Eucharist should lead back into the middle of daily life with all of its cares and concerns, its joys and sorrows.
    In his apostolic exhortation “Sacramentum Caritatis” (Sacrament of Charity), given as his final word on the 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, Pope Benedict XVI points to the relationship between the Eucharist and daily life when he says of the presentation of the gifts:
    “This humble and simple gesture is actually very significant: in the bread and wine that we bring to the altar, all creation is taken up by Christ the Redeemer to be transformed and presented to the Father. In this way we also bring to the altar all the pain and suffering of the world, in the certainty that everything has value in God’s eyes” (no. 47).
    And so we are caught up in God’s gift of the world, the gift of himself to the world, and our offer of the world to the Father that the world may be transformed in Christ.
    Then we can go back out into the world made more sensitive to the realities that surround us, with a commitment to bring to our world the redeeming love of Jesus, offered to the world through his death and resurrection.
    The Eucharist, as the memorial of the Father’s saving action, transforms the world through us as we bring the world to the altar in our gifts of bread and wine, and return to the world with the those gifts transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, animating our every action.
    We bring to the altar praise and thanksgiving for all of creation; we bring the pain and suffering of the world, believing that as the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, we become what we receive – in the words of St. Augustine.
    So, we take with us into the turbulent mixture of daily life the world transformed through the transformation of our gifts of bread and wine. To celebrate the Eucharist and mean it – to celebrate the Eucharist worthily – is to be sent on mission.
    To do this, though, we cannot act as loners. That is why, at the heart of the eucharistic prayer, after the words of institution, we offer this sacrificial victim, Jesus Christ, to the Father. And then we pray that “we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.”
    We go into the world to transform the world knowing that we are not alone: we, the living body of Christ, are united to our Head, the Risen Lord, and this empowers us to be Eucharist, to be Body of Christ, in daily life.
    The Eucharist points us outward, as the Body of Christ. Pope Benedict says in “Sacrament of Charity” (no. 84): “What the world needs is God’s love; it needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him. The Eucharist is thus the source and summit not only of the Church’s life, but also of her mission: an authentically eucharistic Church is a missionary Church.”
    We gather at the eucharistic sacrifice for communion in the Risen Lord, becoming what we receive, so that we may be sent back into the world to be witnesses by our praise and thanksgiving throughout life.
    We may not go to foreign lands as missionaries. But, as Benedict XVI says we are still sent on mission: “We cannot approach the eucharistic table without being drawn into the mission which, beginning in the very heart of God, is meant to reach all people. Missionary outreach is thus an essential part of the eucharistic form of the Christian life” (no. 84).
    The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” states in No. 1397: “The Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren…” To receive the Eucharist worthily would thus imply that we each become more caring, more giving, more concerned for our brothers and sisters, living lives of gratitude and thanksgiving, which is Eucharistic.
    Pope Benedict sums up this dimension of the Eucharistic celebration when he writes in Sacrament of Charity: “After the blessing, the deacon or the priest dismisses the people with the words: “Ite, missa est” (Go, the Mass is ended).
    These words help us to grasp the relationship between the Mass just celebrated and the mission of Christians in the world. In antiquity, missa simply meant “dismissal.” However in Christian usage it gradually took on a deeper meaning. The word “dismissal” has come to imply a “mission.”
    Thus, we are sent out to be Christ, to be his transforming presence within our world.
    Benedictine Father Peter Hammett is pastor of Holy Family Church in Franklinton.