Meditation on the Holy Eucharist

I. The Eucharist as sacrifice

The Eucharistic sacrifice is the renewal of the sacrifice of the cross. Just as in the cross, all are incorporated into Christ, in the same way all are immolated in Christ and with Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

This is actualized in two ways. The first is to offer to the heavenly Father as our own, the immolation of Jesus Christ, for it is ours as well. The second way is more practical, it consists in adding to the Eucharistic sacrifice our own personal immolations, sacrificing our works and difficulties, our evil inclinations, crucifying our old selves with Christ. In this way, in participating personally in the victimhood of Jesus Christ, we are transformed into the divine Victim. As the bread is truly transubstantiated into the body of Christ, in the same way all the faithful are transubstantiated spiritually with Jesus Christ, Victim. In this way, our personal immolations are elevated to become Eucharistic immolations of Jesus Christ, who as head, assumes and makes his own the immolations of his members.

What horizons are thus opened to the Christian life! The Mass would become the center of the day and of life itself. With our gaze on the Eucharistic sacrifice, we would always be hoarding sacrifices to be made and offered in the Mass .

My Mass is my life, and my life is a prolonged Mass!

II. The Eucharist as the center of the Christian life

We have the Church through the Eucharist and through the Church we come to God. Each man is saved not by himself, not by his own merits but through the society in which he lives, through the Church, source of all his benefits. Without the Eucharist, the Church on earth is without Christ. Reason and the senses see nothing in the Eucharist but bread and wine, but faith guarantees us the infallible certitude of the divine revelation. The words of Jesus are clear: “This is my Body, this is my Blood” and the Church understands them literally, not as symbols. Catholics believe with all their mind and with all their strength that “the body, the blood and the divinity of the incarnate Word” are truly and really present on the altar through the omnipotence of God.

The Eucharistic Christ is identified with the historical Christ and the eternal Christ. There are not two Christs, but only one. In the host we possess the Christ of the sermon on the mount, the Christ of Magdalene, the one who rested at the well of Jacob with the Samaritan woman, the Christ of Tabor and Gethsemane, the Christ who rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father. The Christ of the Church on earth and the Christ who contemplates the beatitudes in heaven is the same Christ: there is but one Church, but one Christ !

This marvelous presence of Christ in our midst should revolutionize our life. We have nothing to envy in the apostles and the disciples of Jesus who walked with him in Judea and Galilee. He is still here with us. In every city, in every village, in each of our churches; he visits our homes carried on the heart of the priest, and we receive him each time we draw near to the sacrament of the Altar.

A soul that has not suffered remains superficial. In the mystery of Christ there are divine depths where only crucified souls, identified with Christ, can penetrate. Authentic sanctity is always consummated on the cross. He who wishes to communicate profitably, let him offer each morning a drop of his own blood for the chalice of redemption.

III. The Eucharist and the aspirations of men

The great work of Christ which he came to earth to accomplish was the redemption of mankind. And this redemption, in concrete form, was accomplished through sacrifice. The entire life of the historical Christ is a sacrifice and a preparation for the culmination of this sacrifice in his cruel immolation on Calvary. The entire life of the mystical Christ is none other than that of the historical Christ and must likewise tend toward sacrifice, to the renewal of that great moment in the history of humanity that was the first Mass, celebrated during twenty hours, initiated in the Cenacle and completed on Calvary.

All sanctity flows from the sacrifice of Calvary, it is this that opens the doors for all supernatural benefits. All the most sublime aspirations of man, all of them are realized in the Eucharist.

1. Happiness: Man desires happiness and happiness is the possession of God. In the Eucharist, God gives Himself without reserve, without measure; and on the disappearance of the Eucharistic accidents we are left in the soul of the Blessed Trinity, reward promised to those who eat his Body and drink his Blood.

2. To be like unto God: Man has always aspired to be like to God, to be transformed into God, the sublime aspiration that has dogged his steps since the Garden of Eden. And in the Eucharist, this change is produced: man is transformed into God, is assimilated by divinity which possesses him; he can with all truth say with St. Paul: “I live now not I but Christ lives in me”(Gal 2,20).

3. To do great things: Man desires to do great things for humanity; but how could he do anything greater than to unite himself with Christ in the Eucharist? By offering Mass he saves the world and glorifies God the Father in the most sublime act that a man can perform. The priest and the faithful are one with Christ,”through Christ, with Christ and in Christ” we offer and are offered to the Father.

4. In the union of charity: Our union of charity is realized at the most intimate level in the Mass. The prayer of Christ, “Father, may they be one… may they be made perfect in unity” (Jn 17, 22-23) is realized in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

If only we went to Mass to renew the sacred drama, to offer ourselves at the offertory with the bread and the wine that are to be transformed into Christ and to ask for our transformation! The consecration would then be the central element of our Christian life. We would be conscious that we are no longer ourselves but that behind our human appearance lives Christ and that he desires to act in us…

And as for Communion, this gift of Christ to us which demands our profound gratitude, it would bring with it a total gift of ourselves to Christ as he gives himself; and to our brothers, as Christ gave himself to us.

We do not go to communion as a reward, nor is it a formal ceremony, we go to look for Christ so that “through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ” we may realize the great commands, achieve our fundamental aspirations, accomplish the great works of charity… After communion to remain faithful to the great transformation that has taken us over. To live our day as Christ would, to be Christ for ourselves and for the others. This is the meaning of Communion.