Ex 24:3-8; Ps 116; Heb 9:11-15; Mk 14:12-16,22-26
COMMENTARY
Eucharist – “Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission”
“The feast of Corpus Christi invites us to renew each year the wonder and joy of this wondrous gift of the Lord which is the Eucharist,” so Pope Francis reminded us during the Angelus, in Saint Peter’s Square, Saturday, 23 June 2019. Therefore, we celebrate with joy this Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, which is fixed after the Sunday of the Holy Trinity (Thursday according to ancient tradition, in some countries such as the Vatican, Sunday in other countries such as Italy or Vietnam). From this succession of feasts the Eucharist emerges as “a free gift of the Blessed Trinity,” just as Pope Benedict XVI called it in his Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis precisely “on the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission,” as stated in the title. I would like to invite all to reread this beautiful document for a proper review and deepening of the Eucharistic mystery (perhaps also consulting the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the subject). Here, we focus on three interesting aspects from a missionary perspective.
1. The missionary zeal of Jesus in the mystery of the Eucharist.
Today’s Gospel of St. Mark reminds us of the context of the institution of the Eucharist. It is the last Passover Supper that Jesus wanted to celebrate with His perhaps in a very special way, pointing out to them the various details for a place already planned and called by Him as “my guest room” (cf. Mark 14:12-16). With this in mind, St. Luke made explicit Jesus’ particular feeling on that occasion. He said to his disciples: “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it [again] until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God” (Lk 22:15-16).
This phrase of Jesus, in its style, echoes the statement He made during His public ministry: “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!” (Lk 12:50). Here, too, we see Jesus’ mind and heart all geared toward His passion and death as the culmination of His mission, that “hour” when He will be baptized/immersed in blood, and drink the cup of the Father. This ardent desire of Jesus to “eat” the Passover with his disciples comes from his great zeal to faithfully fulfill the mission entrusted to Him by the Father. On the other hand, contained in this desire is all the importance of the Last Supper event, which is intrinsically linked with the moment of the Cross, because at this meal Jesus will establish once and for all the Eucharist, the rite of the New Covenant in His blood (cf. 1 Cor 11:25). It is, therefore, His great desire that His “apostles” participate in His mission and Passion.
Everything is immersed in the perspective of the realization of the Kingdom of God. In fact, Jesus solemnly declares: “[Because] I shall not eat it [again] until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God” (Lk 22:16) and, then, “from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (Lk 22:18), a phrase that echoes the one in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus uttered immediately after the formula [of consecration] of the blood: “Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
These statements are mysterious in some ways, but they sound actually like a solemn oath of a consecrated person of God in making a vow to perform some sacred action (cf. Nm 6:2-4). Jesus, the anointed and consecrated one of God, will do everything, or rather, he will do the supreme act of all things, sacrificing Himself, for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Will the disciples of that time have understood or sensed such a strong feeling of their Master and His zeal? And do we, His modern disciples, today as every time we are at the Eucharist (at Mass), feel such a burning desire of Jesus to eat this Passover with us? He still wants, mystically but always ardently, to have this Passover supper with His disciples in order to share again with each of them all of Himself, body, blood, life, passion, mission. To feel this desire of Jesus will surely be fundamental for each of His disciples to continue Jesus’ own mission with the same zeal to accomplish the will of the Father despite everything. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1Cor 11: 26).
2. The Bread of Jesus and the Mission of the Community of the Faithful
As in the multiplication of bread, Jesus also involved His disciples in the Eucharistic Mystery.
This is seen not only in the disciples’ cooperation in preparing “His guest room” for the Lord’s Supper, but also in the explicit command to them: “Do this in memory of me.” Indeed, this recommendation is repeated twice in Saint Paul’s account of the institution of the Eucharist, both after the words on bread and after those on wine. With this in mind, St. Paul concluded his concise account with a precious observation on the action of proclaiming Christ that goes together with participation in the Eucharist: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1Cor 11:26).
And here is a beautiful reflection by Benedict XVI regarding the Eucharist and the mission of the community of the faithful:
The love that we celebrate in the sacrament [of Eucharist] is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with all. 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 too must be able to tell our brothers and sisters with conviction: “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us” (1 Jn 1:3). Truly, nothing is more beautiful than to know Christ and to make him known to others. The institution of the Eucharist, for that matter, anticipates the very heart of Jesus’ mission: he is the one sent by the Father for the redemption of the world (cf. Jn 3:16-17; Rom 8:32). At the Last Supper, Jesus entrusts to his disciples the sacrament which makes present his self-sacrifice for the salvation of us all, in obedience to the Father’s will. 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. (Sacramentum Caritatis 84).
3. «Ite, missa est». Go and bring Christ to all!
In view of the aforementioned phrase of St. Paul to the Corinthians, we recall the important clarification of the Pope on the nature of the Christian proclamation that starts from participation in the Eucharistic mystery:
Emphasis on the intrinsic relationship between the Eucharist and mission also leads to a rediscovery of the ultimate content of our proclamation. The more ardent the love for the Eucharist in the hearts of the Christian people, the more clearly will they recognize the goal of all mission: to bring Christ to others. Not just a theory or a way of life inspired by Christ, but the gift of his very person. Anyone who has not shared the truth of love with his brothers and sisters has not yet given enough. The Eucharist, as the sacrament of our salvation, inevitably reminds us of the unicity of Christ and the salvation that he won for us by his blood. The mystery of the Eucharist, believed in and celebrated, demands a constant catechesis on the need for all to engage in a missionary effort centred on the proclamation of Jesus as the one Saviour. This will help to avoid a reductive and purely sociological understanding of the vital work of human promotion present in every authentic process of evangelization. (Sacramentum Caritatis 86).
Finally, another reflection of the Pontiff in the same document on the farewell greeting at the end of the Eucharistic celebration will also be useful for us:
After the blessing, the deacon or the priest dismisses the people with the words: Ite, missa est. 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.” These few words succinctly express the missionary nature of the Church. (Sacramentum Caritatis 51)
Let us then pray in conclusion that, as Pope Benedict XVI expressed, “through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, may the Holy Spirit kindle within us the same ardor experienced by the disciples on the way to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35) and renew our ‘eucharistic wonder’ through the splendor and beauty radiating from the liturgical rite, the efficacious sign of the infinite beauty of the holy mystery of God”(Sacramentum Caritatis 97). We pray that all of us may always welcome with joy and gratitude the gift of the “complete” Bread that Jesus offers us in every Eucharistic celebration, the Bread of his Word and of his Body and Blood, to share it with others in our life, announcing the death and resurrection of the Lord, “until he comes.”
Useful points to consider:
Pope Francis, Message for World Mission (Sun)Day 2024, 20 October 2024
Go and invite everyone to the banquet (cf. Mt 22:9)
2.To the marriage feast”. The eschatological and Eucharistic dimension of the mission of Christ and the Church.
[…]
We know that among the first Christians missionary zeal had a powerful eschatological dimension. They sensed the urgency of the preaching of the Gospel. Today too it is important to maintain this perspective, since it helps us to evangelize with the joy of those who know that “the Lord is near” and with the hope of those who are pressing forward towards the goal, when all of us will be with Christ at his wedding feast in the kingdom of God. While the world sets before us the various “banquets” of consumerism, selfish comfort, the accumulation of wealth and individualism, the Gospel calls everyone to the divine banquet, marked by joy, sharing, justice and fraternity in communion with God and with others.
This fullness of life, which is Christ’s gift, is anticipated even now in the banquet of the Eucharist, which the Church celebrates at the Lord’s command in memory of him. The invitation to the eschatological banquet that we bring to everyone in our mission of evangelization is intrinsically linked to the invitation to the Eucharistic table, where the Lord feeds us with his word and with his Body and Blood. As Benedict XVI taught: “Every Eucharistic celebration sacramentally accomplishes the eschatological gathering of the People of God. For us, the Eucharistic banquet is a real foretaste of the final banquet foretold by the prophets (cf. Is 25:6-9) and described by the New Testament as ‘the marriage-feast of the Lamb’ (Rev 19:9), to be celebrated in the joy of the communion of the saints” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 31).
Consequently, all of us are called to experience more intensely every Eucharist, in all its dimensions, and particularly its eschatological and missionary dimensions. In this regard, I would reiterate that “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” (ibid., 84). The Eucharistic renewal that many local Churches are laudably promoting in the post-Covid era will also be essential for reviving the missionary spirit in each member of the faithful. With how much greater faith and heartfelt enthusiasm should we recite at every Mass: “We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again”!
In this year devoted to prayer in preparation for the Jubilee of 2025, I wish to encourage all to deepen their commitment above all to take part in the celebration of Mass and to pray for the Church’s mission of evangelization. In obedience to the Saviour’s command, she does not cease to pray, at every Eucharistic and liturgical celebration, the “Our Father”, with its petition, “Thy kingdom come”. In this way, daily prayer and the Eucharist in particular make us pilgrims and missionaries of hope, journeying towards everlasting life in God, towards the nuptial banquet that God has prepared for all his children.
Pope Francis, Message for World Mission (Sun)Day 2023, 22 October 2023
Hearts on fire, feet on the move (cf. Lk 24:13-35)
2. Our eyes were “opened and recognized him” in the breaking of the bread. Jesus in the Eucharist is the source and summit of the mission.
The fact that their hearts burned for the word of God prompted the disciples of Emmaus to ask the mysterious Wayfarer to stay with them as evening drew near. When they gathered around the table, their eyes were opened and they recognized him when he broke the bread. The decisive element that opened the eyes of the disciples was the sequence of actions performed by Jesus: he took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. Those were the usual gestures of the head of a Jewish household, but, performed by Jesus Christ with the grace of the Holy Spirit, they renewed for his two table companions the sign of the multiplication of the loaves and above all that of the Eucharist, the sacrament of the sacrifice of the cross. Yet at the very moment when they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, “he vanished from their sight” (Lk 24:31). Here we can recognize an essential reality of our faith: Christ, who breaks the bread, now becomes the bread broken, shared with the disciples and consumed by them. He is seen no longer, for now he has entered the hearts of the disciples, to make them burn all the more, and this prompts them to set out immediately to share with everyone their unique experience of meeting the Risen Lord. The risen Christ, then, is both the one who breaks the bread and, at the same time, the bread itself, broken for us. It follows that every missionary disciple is called to become, like Jesus and in him, through the working of the Holy Spirit, one who breaks the bread and one who is broken bread for the world.
Here it should be remembered that breaking our material bread with the hungry in the name of Christ is already a work of Christian mission. How much more so is the breaking of the Eucharistic bread, which is Christ himself, a work of mission par excellence, since the Eucharist is the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church.
[…]
In order to bear fruit we must remain united to Jesus (cf. Jn 15:4-9). This union is achieved through daily prayer, particularly in Eucharistic adoration, as we remain in silence in the presence of the Lord, who remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament. By lovingly cultivating this communion with Christ, the missionary disciple can become a mystic in action. May our hearts always yearn for the company of Jesus, echoing the ardent plea of the two disciples of Emmaus, especially in the evening hours: “Stay with us, Lord!” (cf. Lk 24:29).