June 9, 2006

A Short Message on the Eucharist

By Archbishop Daniel N. DiNardo

The Easter Season reached its conclusion this past Sunday, Pentecost, the 50th day of Easer.  Almost 2,000 catechumens and candidates entered the Catholic Church during this Eastertime in our local Church.  Last Sunday over 860 adults, who had never been confirmed, received that Sacrament of strengthening and mission.  Many thousands of our children received the Sacrament of the Eucharist for the first time in the past 50 days.  The four bishops have been to close to 90 parishes in the same time period, celebrating the Sacrament of Confirmation for our youth.   It has been a sacramental fest for us all.

The sacramental outpouring of grace has its source in the very person of Jesus Christ, Beloved Son of the Father; by His death and by His risen life, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us by the Father and through the risen life of the same Jesus Christ we are made new.  Sacramental graces are not past events, but present realities.  Two thirsts meet in the sacraments, the thirsting love of God for human beings and our thirst for holiness and unity with God.  It is as if two unequal energies meet:  the energy of the Lord is primary and goes forth to meet us all; ours is the energy of response and acceptance.  Sacraments are the very “space” in which we encounter the Lord and receive power for our daily lives of discipleship.  They are not just ceremonies and rites, though they involve both.   They are disclosures of the very life in which we live and move and have our being.  They are moments that always point to the absolute infinite transcendence of God.

Of all the great Sacraments of the Church, the Holy Eucharist is source and summit, the delight of all members of the Body of Christ.  Within 10 days we will be celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi, the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ; a feast that looks back to Holy Thursday and the institution of the Eucharist, but also looks to the ongoing Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.  Our most intense union with Christ is in receiving His precious Body and Blood in Holy Communion.  In eating His flesh and drinking His blood in sacramental sign, we are one with Jesus Christ in a way unparalleled in our lives.  We also look to Christ’s abiding presence in the Eucharist as a source of contemplation, adoration, prayer and praise.  Eucharistic adoration helps us to understand the abiding presence of Christ with us, with the Church and in the world.  I hope that you will celebrate June 18 in thanksgiving for such a great gift.  Let us receive the Eucharist worthily and adore Christ’s presence often in the Blessed Sacrament until that day of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb when our union and unity will be complete.


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