Two weeks ago, I finished my six-year term as the episcopal advisor for the national board of the St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVdP).
I will miss it greatly, as Vincentians are joyous, generous, faithful, and deeply committed to holiness and the service of the poor and suffering.
The best part of my responsibility has been attending the national assembly of SVdP, held in St. Louis this year, and presenting a morning of spiritual reflection and offering Mass for the participants.
In light of the Eucharistic Revival, this year I spoke on the Eucharist as the source and center of all Vincentian activity.
What we can say of Vincentians and the Eucharist truly applies to all Catholics, so I offer a summary of my reflection to them, as we are on the cusp of our own Diocesan Eucharistic Congress.
Christ is present
The Eucharist is Christ’s chosen sacramental way to remain present and active in the Church and the world until the end of time.
God visited our planet 2,000 years ago and loves us so, that He chose to stay until the end of time.
We can never forget that, hours before His betrayal, arrest, imprisonment, torture, and crucifixion, the Lord was thinking of us, offering Himself at the Last Supper in the elements of bread and wine, as assuredly as He would offer His Body and Blood on the Cross the next morning.
The Eucharist is the most efficacious, intimate, and saving gift the Lord could ever have given us!
Four components
Since the Eucharist is the Lord’s way of being in the world, it follows that this saving mystery has much to teach us about how we should be in the world as members of Christ’s body.
Four fundamental components of Jesus’ presence and action in the Eucharist come to mind here.
Self-emptying humility: I reflect often on the radical humility of Christ, the One who emptied Himself out in order to save us, embracing the lowliness of our humanity in the Incarnation; serving the suffering, poor, and sick with mercy; and accepting the ignominious death of a common criminal, all in order to save and forgive us.
This astonishing pouring out of self on the Cross embraces a thief, a coward, and a traitor in a sacrificial love beyond our comprehension.
Do we not see the same humility in the Eucharist, by which the Lord makes Himself so simple, humble, and small that He can literally enter into our bodies and souls?
In love with the Lord, we cast aside our self-importance and self-preoccupation, and empty ourselves out in love, service, and gratitude, in imitation of Jesus.
Mystical Communion: In the Eucharist, the Lord binds Himself so intimately with us, that He has become inseparable from our very flesh.
We become one with the One which we consume in Holy Communion.
God’s greatest and most passionate desire is union with us. This truth overwhelms us, as we seek to absorb the infinite love which the Lord has for each of us.
When a person, who has been faithful to the Eucharist throughout life, dies and stands before Christ, what will He see? Will He not see Himself in such a soul, as if He were looking into a mirror?
This communion between God and us which is effected in the Eucharist becomes the source of our communion with others, in marriage and family, in friendship, in our parishes and workplaces, and in our wider society. Imagine how different our world would be if we all lived in this mystical communion with God and each other!
Generous abundance: In the Scriptures and in our lives, God loves to take something small and insignificant, and transform it into a life-giving abundance.
Think of the vastness of creation, the mysterious manna that fed the Israelites in the desert for 40 years, the overflowing choicest of wines the Lord miraculously created at Cana, and the multiplication of loaves and fishes that fed thousands.
This abundance of God’s love becomes concrete and specific in the Bread of Life who feeds us on our pilgrim way to Heaven.
The Eucharist is inexhaustible, for God will always raise up priests to celebrate Mass and feed His people with this heavenly nourishment.
If the Lord is so generously abundant with us, we too are invited to love, forgive, and serve with the same joyful abandon, not counting the cost, but giving our all to the Lord who constantly feeds and sustains us in His love and mercy.
In the Eucharist, the Lord invites us to leave our narrow stinginess behind and to embrace the vast abundance of the beautiful world of the resurrection which He provides and bids us to share.
Sanctifying mission: The last words of the Mass send us forth to live the mission of Christ in the world.
“Ite, missa est” is the Latin form of “Go, you are sent!”
The role of the laity is to sanctify the world, to make it holy, to live as an extension of Christ in His mercy, power, and love to everyone around us.
The Lord bids us to go forth and narrow the gap between the justice, peace, and order of the Kingdom of God, which we experience in the Eucharist, on the one hand, and the poverty, violence, despair, and atheism which we encounter in the world.
The Eucharist is the holy means by which our Lord Jesus Christ lives and acts in the world, abiding within each of us.
When we embrace a Eucharistic life, grounded in Christ, acting as He does in this sacrament, we become extensions of Him to others.
This truth is the fundamental meaning of every vocation and apostolate in the Church.