Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
August 3, 2014
Spiritual Ponderings
The Many Dimensions of the Eucharist

When I think of the Eucharist as being the source of our Catholic Faith, I cannot help but think of Mother Teresa and all her charitable works because she commanded all her sisters to follow her example and begin their day with Mass and Eucharistic Adoration. "If I can give you any advice, I beg you to get closer to the Eucharist and to Jesus... We must pray to Jesus to give us that tenderness of the Eucharist." - Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

When I think of the Eucharist is the summit of our Catholic faith I think of the priestly martyrs throughout the centuries like Edmund Campion and Miguel Pro who died celebrating Mass and bringing the Eucharist to Catholics in areas of the world where it was illegal to celebrate Mass or be a priest. ?I am a Catholic man and a priest. In that faith have I lived and in that faith do I intend to die, and if you esteem my religion treason, then I am guilty. As for any other treason, I never committed. I stand condemned for nothing but the saying of Mass, hearing confessions, preaching and such like duties and functions of priesthood.? (St. Edmund Campion, Martyr; Response, delivered at his execution, to charges of treason; 1581)

I would therefore like to dedicate this month?s Spiritual Ponderings to the source and summit of our faith ? the Eucharist. As we dive into this great mystery, I would like to invite you to join me in using Fr. Ronald Rolheiser?s book:
Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist. In the second part of his book, Fr. Rolheiser looks at the Eucharist from 12 different perspectives. The quotes from his book will be in bold and my personal commentary will be in the regular font.

1. The Eucharist As God?s Physical Embrace
To my mind, that is the best understanding there is of Eucharist. Within both my undergraduate and graduate theological training, I took long courses on the Eucharist. In the end, these didn?t explain the Eucharist to me, not because they weren?t good, but because the Eucharist, like a kiss, needs no explanation and has no explanation.

In the Eucharist, I see a marvelous and genius way in which God can be close to us and at the same time respect our freewill. If we would see God without the veil of the Eucharist we would have to believe. We would have no choice and thus no freedom. Yet at the same time it is important for those who believe to touch their love one. The Eucharist allows us to be close to God through our senses without taking our freewill.

2: The Eucharist As An Intensification of Our Unity Within the Body of Christ: Totus Christus
How separate and divided is our world! We look around us, watch the world news, watch the local news, look at our places of work, our social circles, and even our churches, and we tension and division everywhere. We are far from being one body and one sprit. So many things, it seems, work to divide us: history, circumstance, background, temperament, ideology, geography, creed, color, and gender. And then there are our personal wounds, jealousies, self-interest, and sin. The world, like a lonely adolescent, aches, too, in its separateness. We live in a world deeply deeply divided.

One truly has to be amazed when attending Mass to see how many of things that divide us; just do not matter. What a small taste of heaven where there is no judgment but only love.

The Eucharist is such a prayer of helplessness, a prayer for God to give us a unity we cannot give to ourselves. It is not incidental that Jesus instituted it in the hour of his most intense loneliness, when he realized that all the words he had spoken hadn?t been enough and that he had no more words to give. When he felt most helpless, he gave us the prayer of helplessness, the Eucharist.

What do you do when don?t have the words to say? I, silently stand by someone and let my presence speak volumes. I am sure God is much the same way.