2010
I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE
Homily
at Solemn Mass at the opening of the
Eucharistic Convention, Auckland,
9 April 2010
+ Francis Cardinal Arinze
Jesus our Lord and Saviour reassures us: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (Jn 6:35).
With faith and gratitude we gather at this Solemn Eucharistic Celebration on this Friday in Easter Week to inaugurate our Diocesan Eucharistic Convention. The paschal mystery is the mystery of the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Dying, he destroyed our death and, rising, he restored our life” (Roman Missal: Easter Preface; cf also Lumen Gentium, 5).
In this Easter celebration, therefore, we profess our hope in the Risen Christ. We rejoice that the Holy Eucharistic brings us salvation. We are led to show deep reverence to the Eucharistic Jesus. And we pray the Lord that the Holy Eucharist may renew our lives.
These will now be the four points for our meditation and prayer.
1. Our Hope in the Risen Christ.
Christ is risen. Suffering and death have no more power over him. Those who opposed him, or who plotted against him, are thrown into confusion, as we heard in the First Reading of this Mass. Peter and John courageously testified before the Supreme Council of the Jews that Jesus is the Saviour, the only Saviour, “for of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12).
This is the stone which was rejected by the builders but which has become the corner stone (cf Ps 117). This is the Risen Jesus who appeared to the Apostles at the Sea of Galilee, as just read in the Gospel of today. At his word, they threw their net in the sea after a whole night of having caught no fish, and now they netted in fish in abundance: 153 big fish.
This is the Jesus in whom we believe and hope. It is he who gives us the ineffable gift of the Holy Eucharist, sacrifice and sacrament. He said to the doubting Apostle Thomas: “Do not be faithless, but believing: (Jn 20:27). Jesus could say the same to us today with reference to the Eucharistic mystery. Jesus is with us, not on in the liturgical celebrations, in the Sacraments, in the Word of God proclaimed in Church, in the priest minister and in the congregation of the baptized. He is especially present in the Holy Eucharist. In the most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Council of Trent teaches us, “the Body and Blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained” (Council of Trent, (1551): DS 1651; cf also CCC, 1374). This is our faith. We gratefully and firmly profess it. This Eucharist Convention loudly proclaims it and invites us to live it.
2. The Eucharistic Jesus brings Salvation
Jesus redeemed us by his passion, death, resurrection and ascension. He instituted the Church, his Church, to be the ordinary way of salvation for all. In this church he gave us his Word, his Sacraments and the service of the Magisterium or the Teaching Authority of the Church.
The greatest of the Sacraments is the Holy Eucharist where Christ is not just acting but where he is truly, really and substantially present. Jesus invites us to receive him in the Holy Eucharist so that we may have life, so that the graces of Easter may fully work in each of us: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:54). St Ignatius of Antioch calls the Holy Eucharist “medicine of immorality” (Ad Eph. 20,2: Sch 10,76).
We come to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist so that we may have life and have it abundantly (cf Jn 10:10). Those who prepare themselves well, by repentance and the reception of the Sacrament of Penance when necessary, and who receive Jesus in the state of grace, will grow in the life that Jesus brings us. Over the offerings in the Mass of today the Church begs God to bring to perfection the spirit of life we receive from these Easter gifts, to free us from seeking after the passing things in life, and to help us set our hearts on the kingdom of heaven (Roman Missal: Prayer over the Gifts).
In the Holy Eucharist “a pledge of the life to come is given to us” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47), an anticipation of heavenly glory. Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist she turns her gaze to him who is to come. She celebrates the Eucharist “awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ: (Roman Missal, 126: Embolism after the Our Father). When a Catholic is sick unto death, we call the priest to anoint him, to dispense to him God’s pardon and especially to bring him the Eucharistic Jesus, the Viaticum for the final journey.
Let us, therefore, approach Jesus in the Holy Eucharist so that we may have life, initially in this world, and permanently in the next.
3. Deep Reverence for our Eucharistic Jesus
God is holy, thrice holy, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Is 6:3). God is transcendent. He is our Creator. We are his creatures.
Because of this we owe to God adoration, praise, thanksgiving, reparation and supplication. Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the most Blessed Trinity. “The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the Sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside it, reserving the consecrated hosts with utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession: (Paul VI: Mysterium Fidei, 56; cf also CCC, 1378).
We show this deep veneration to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist by genuflection,
prostration, deep bow, kneeling in silence and recollection, and a respectful
way of dressing when we come before the Lord. In a world often dominated by
noise, including organized noise, it is not superfluous to stress the importance
of reverential silence in church. It is sad to see some Catholics chatting
in church as if they were in a football stadium or a theatre.
We also show reverence and faith towards Christ in this Sacrament by visits to the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Hour of Adoration, Perpetual Adoration where possible, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharist Processions, Congress and Conventions.
4. Christ in the Holy Eucharist Renews our Lives
The Second Vatican Council describes the Eucharist Celebration as “the fount and apex of the whole Christian life” (Lumen Gentium, 11). If we accept Christ’s invitation to come to him in this ineffable Sacrament, he will renew our lives. In the Collect of the Mass of today the Church prays the Eternal Father who gave us the Easter mystery as our covenant of reconciliation, that the new birth we celebrate may shows its effects in the way we live (Roman Missal: Collect, Mass of Easter Friday).
The Eucharistic Celebration should
be the centre of our day, our week, our life. It should be allowed to pour
its rays on the details of our daily life. Then our whole day becomes a type
of spiritual offertory procession. We learn, not only to offer Christ to God
the Father, but also to offer ourselves through Christ, with Christ and in
Christ. We learn to live the Eucharist Celebration and its injunction to translate
into our daily life what we have received, heard in the Word of God proclaimed
and preached, meditated, sung, and prayed.
By the intercession of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Saviour
and “Woman of the Eucharist” (Eccl. De Euch. 53,), may this Eucharistic Convention
bring all of us lasting grace in faith and daily engagement in the apostolate.
Signed: + Francis Cardinal Arinze
9
April, 2010
www.eucharistic-convention.com