The Eucharist

THE MYSTERY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

THE HOLY EUCHARIST

THE TWENTIETH PASTORAL LETTER OF HIS BEATITUDE AND EMINENCE CARDINAL

MAR NASRALLAH PETER SFEIR

BY THE GRACE OF GOD

PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH AND ALL THE EAST

TO ALL OUR MARONITE SONS AND DAUGHTERS

CLERGY, RELIGIOUS AND LAITY

ON THE OCCASION OF GREAT LENT 2005

Dear Brethren, Sons and Daughters,

Peace and Apostolic blessing.

With the approach of the blessed Lenten season, it pleases us to address you this year, as we do every year, imparting a greeting of love and appreciation, wherever you may be, in Lebanon or in the countries of the Middle East and those of the expansion. We ask God to bless your efforts and your toil toward providing a dignified living, and the building of a better future, to crown your selfless endeavors with success, and to keep your faith in God, a basis of hope and a plank of salvation, wherever you lay anchor or roam. We also ask God to increase your confidence in yourselves and in your motherland Lebanon, from which you and your parents and grandparents brought forth from its dwellings, this faith in God and those luminous Christian virtues along with a firm determination to struggle through the days and the hardships in order to achieve legitimate dreams on this earth; and to reach what God has apportioned as a final destiny prepared for His holy ones and His saints who have preceded us into His eternal joyful rest.

We have decided this year to talk to you about a subject that is very important to the Church as a whole, and to all its children scattered everywhere under the sun. The subject is the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament or the Mystery of the Eucharist, a Greek expression meaning “thanksgiving”. The early Christians utilized it to express their own thanks to God for ‘giving us His body as food and His blood as drink, life for our souls, and a first pledge toward eternal life’. As you know His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, has declared this year as the Year of the Eucharist, having commenced last October, and to end October 2005. For that occasion he issued on the seventh of October 2004, an apostolic letter entitled: “Mane Nobiscum Domine”. He had earlier issued an encyclical on the very same subject, actually more than a year before, that is, on the seventeenth of April 2003, entitled “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”. His Holiness indicated in his encyclical that several Supreme Pontiffs had previously dealt with this subject in special encyclicals, such as Pope Leo XIII, who on 28 May 1902, issued an encyclical under the title “Mirae Caritatis”, and Pope Pius XII issued his encyclical, “Mediator Dei” on 20 November 1947, and Pope Paul VI, his encyclical, “Mysterium Fidei”, on 3 September 1965.

In our pastoral letter we will discuss the institution by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, of the Mystery of the Eucharist and its theological and spiritual content, as well as its status in the Catholic Church and the duty of worshiping Him in conformity with Church Tradition well known in the East and in the West. We will also discuss the Eucharist as a bond of charity, citing some examples of this left to us by our devout fathers who were nourished by the mystery of the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, a presence that is sacramental, real and effective.

THE INSTITUTION OF THE MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST

According to the Catechism Of The Catholic Church, “The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words ‘until he comes’ does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did, it is also directed at the liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his resurrection and of his intercession in the presence of the Father. From the beginning the Church has been faithful to the Lord’s command, as stated in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘They (the believers) devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers... Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts’ (Acts 2:42 + 46). It was above all on ‘the first day of the week,’ Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, that Christians met ‘to break bread’ (Acts 7:20). From that time until our own day the celebration of the Eucharist has continued so that today we encounter everywhere in the Church the same fundamental structure. The Eucharist remains the center of the Church’s life. Thus from celebration to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal Mystery of Jesus “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26) the pilgrim People of God advances ‘following the narrow way of the cross’, toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the kingdom.”

And this mystery continues in the Church from the era of the apostles without modification or change in essence, because Christ is the One who commanded it of the apostles, who handed it down to their successors until the present. Throughout the ages, the Church has been celebrating the Mystery of the Eucharist, thus continuing the work of the apostles, as expressed by Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”. The Church teaches that the ordained priest is the one to celebrate the Mystery of the Eucharist representing the person of Christ, and he offers the sacrifice to God in the name of all the people, as Vatican II specifies. So it is the priest alone who celebrates the sacrifice, and narrates the consecration prayer, while the people participate in this prayer with faith and silence. It is the priest alone who represents Christ in the celebration of the Eucharist, because he has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders. In the above referenced encyclical, the Pope defines the meaning of this expression and says: “The expression repeatedly employed by the Second Vatican Council, according to which ‘the ministerial priest, acting in the person of Christ, brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice,’ was already firmly rooted in papal teaching”. As the opportunity permits us, His Holiness defines the phrase in persona Christi “means more than offering ‘in the name of’ or ‘in the place of’ Christ. The ministry of priests who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders, in the economy of salvation chosen by Christ, makes clear that the Eucharist which they celebrate is a gift which radically transcends the power of the assembly and is in any event essential for validly linking the Eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the Cross and to the Last Supper”.

The Pope stresses this point by saying that no one can celebrate the Holy Sacrifice except the priest, as if he wants to dispel any notion that may find its way into minds of people that someone other than the priest is capable of celebrating this Mystery of the Eucharist. He clarifies matters by saying: “The assembly gathered together for the celebration of the Eucharist, if it is to be a truly Eucharistic assembly, absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its president. On the other hand, the community is by itself incapable of providing an ordained minister. This minister is a gift, which the assembly receives through episcopal succession going back to the Apostles. It is the Bishop who, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, makes a new presbyter by conferring upon him the power to consecrate the Eucharist. Consequently, “the Eucharistic mystery cannot be celebrated in any community except by an ordained priest, as the Fourth Lateran Council expressly taught”.

The three evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, and additionally, Saint Paul, recounted the narrative of the institution of the Eucharist. Whereas, the evangelist John stated that Christ’s narration in the gathering at the Synagogue in Capernaum were the words that laid the foundation for the institution of the Eucharist: Christ declared himself as the bread of life that comes down from heaven, as was depicted in chapter six of his Gospel. Jesus chose the season of Passover to effect what he declared in Capernaum, thus giving his disciples his body and his blood. (Luke 22:7-20).

By celebrating the Last Supper with his disciples during the Passover meal, he gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus’ passing over to his Father by his death and resurrection, the new Passover, is thus anticipated in the Last Supper by the celebration of the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover, and anticipates the final Passover of the Church into the glory of the Kingdom.