Eucharist as Gift

 

     Compared to some of the other aspects of the sacrament of the Eucharist that I have reflected on in the previous bulletins, this aspect may seem unimportant. While it is less important, than Eucharist as sacrifice, communion or presence, it is not altogether unimportant.

     It is important for all those who participate in the Eucharist, priest included, that we never forget that this great sacrament is a gift of the Lord to us. That means that we can never possibly deserve it, and we depend utterly on God to receive it. Two contemporary developments, however, contain within them the possibility of leading us to lose sight of this fact.

     First, the Church has recently and properly emphasized the canonical requirements for a fruitful reception of Holy Communion: a person must be baptized, be a member of the Catholic Church in good standing, be in the state of grace, believe that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ and have
the proper intention for receiving Communion. What one can easily overlook, however, is that even if and when we satisfy all these requirements, we still are not worthy of this great Gift. We don’t deserve it; we cannot earn it. In other words, the Lord did not give us the Eucharist as a reward for having a strong faith and living a good life, but so that we could be able to believe in Him and live as He did.

     That is why before we enter the procession to come to Communion, we kneel and declare aloud, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, only say the word, and I shall be healed.”

     Another factor contributing in a roundabout way to our forgetting that the Eucharist is a gift is the current crisis in priestly identity. In order to shore up the morale of priests, some in the Church are stressing the powers of the priest, in particular the “power” of the priest to consecrate the bread and wine in the Eucharist. This is all very flattering for us priests to hear, but it overlooks something extremely important: the power to change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is God’s, not the priest’s. The priest is God’s necessary instrument for the Eucharist to take place. Necessary, yes, but
still an instrument.

     In other words, the Lord is the carpenter, the priest is the saw. The carpenter needs the saw, but we don’t praise and give thanks to the saw for the beautiful woodwork. The credit rightfully goes to the carpenter. And so it is with the Eucharist: it is God’s gift to the Church because God makes it happen
through the ministry of the priest.
     (Next week: Eucharist as Mission).

Quote for Thought: “The Second Vatican Council clearly expressed the importance of the proclamation of the Word of God and affirmed emphatically that preaching is the first task of the priest. The council does not see the priest only as the one who administers the sacrament when the Eucharist is celebrated,
still less merely as the one who has the power to speak the words of consecration validly. The council sees him as the one who, before he gives the faithful the eucharistic Bread of Life, addresses God’s Word to them as nourishment, strengthening, encouragement, consolation and orientation for their lives, thereby preparing them for the salvific reception of the sacrament of the altar.”
- Walter Cardinal Kasper, in Sacrament of Unity, Herder and Herder, pp. 28-29.

Quote for Thought Lite: “When somebody says ‘I hope you won’t mind me telling you this,’ you probably will.”