Source and Summit of the Christian Life
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February 12, 2021Brothers and sisters,
Today I want to continue the series on the Sacrament of the Eucharist with two more paragraphs from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and my commentary on it. Read and pray with this and allow the words to take root and grow in greater love of Jesus!
Here are the paragraphs from the Catechism:
#1324 – The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Vatican II: Constitution on the Church, 11). "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch” (Vatican II: Decree on the Ministry of Priests, 5).
#1325 – "The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit” (Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship: The Mystery of the Eucharist, 6).
These paragraphs begin by stating the Eucharist is ‘source and summit of the Christian life.’ Like a lake from which rivers flow, the Eucharist is the wellspring from which divine life flows into us and through us. And like the peak of a Colorado mountain, the Eucharist is the high-point of our week, the goal of all our daily prayers, labors, sacrifices, and actions.
In the Eucharist, says the Catechism, is contained our whole spiritual good – Jesus himself. The Eucharist is the source of divine life that flows into our souls and bodies. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, is the one who knit our bodies together in our mother’s womb, and he sustains us in life. He himself receives life eternally from the Father, and has the power to give life to us. When we receive the Eucharist, we receive the resurrected body and blood of Jesus, who overcame death and has power to raise our bodies up after death.
Not only is the Eucharist the source of eternal bodily life, but also the source of our spiritual life. And the heart of spiritual life is charity. Jesus poured out his life for us on the cross, and revealed in his resurrection that love is stronger than death. Jesus’ self-giving, sacrificial love is the way to pass from death to life (thus he is ‘our Pasch’ [Passover]). The more receptive we are to Jesus’ love for us in the Eucharist, the more we’ll be empowered to follow Jesus’ way of self-giving, sacrificial love for God and neighbor. The Eucharist truly is the source of our Christian life, a life of charity.
The Eucharist is also the ‘summit’ of our Christian life, the ‘peak’ we climb up to every week. The Catechism says every other Sacrament, every work and labor and ministry, is ‘oriented’ toward the Eucharist. This means our internal compass should always point us toward the Eucharist. The Eucharist is where we gather together all the prayers, labors, sacrifices, and work of the week, and unite it all with Jesus’ perfect offering of himself to the Father. We offer our whole selves to God through Jesus’ self-offering, for the salvation of the whole world. This is what Jesus did on the cross. And this is what we do at Mass, through the ministry of the ordained priest.
Paragraph 1325 notes how the Church is ‘kept in being’ through the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is the ‘sign and cause of our communion with God and unity with each other.’ By our own power, we can’t attain union with God, nor unity with each other. Just look at our world. By ourselves, we splinter into factions and special-interest groups. The Eucharist unites us together as one body in Christ, to fill us with his one Spirit. We have to recognize one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, with God as our Father. Only by remaining in contact with the Eucharist will we overcome our self-focused lives and learn to live as part of God’s family. The Eucharist teaches us to ‘put on the mind of Christ,’ and empowers us to count others as more important than ourselves, to bear one another’s burdens, and to live not for ourselves but for Christ and one another’s welfare.
This is why the Eucharist is the ‘summit’ of God’s work to make us holy. The Eucharist calls us to turn away from our selfish desires and prideful ways. The Eucharist calls us to live in union with Jesus and follow him in a ‘cruciform’ way of life: in humility, patience, kindness, service, faithfulness, chastity, poverty, obedience, and self-control. Then we’ll give more perfect worship to God – not just lip-service, but with hearts truly conformed to the heart of Jesus.
Let's put this into practice each day!
Father Ryan
