The Sacrament of Love - The Happy Priest Reflects on the Gift of the Eucharist

By Fr. James Farfaglia
8/1/2011
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

The Eucharist allows us to experience His unconditional love

I have never really understood why people who could attend Mass or make Eucharistic visits during the week simply choose not to do so. It is quite possible that with the availability of so many parishes and adoration chapels, that people simply begin to take the gift of the Eucharist for granted. The Eucharist is the sacrament of love.

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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - This Sunday's gospel passage reminds us once again of God's unconditional love for us. "When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick" (Matthew 14: 14). In essence, Christianity is an on-going love story. It is a love story about God's unconditional love for you and me.

"Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds" (Matthew 14: 19). The feeding of the multitude is a concrete manifestation of God's unconditional love for humanity. Jesus cannot send the crowds away hungry. His unconditional love compels him to provide for their needs.

However, the miracle of the loaves and fishes directs our attention to the miracle of the Eucharist. Jesus' miracle is a foretaste of the greatest of all miracles, the miracle of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the sacrament of love. The Eucharist allows us to experience his unconditional love. He loves us so much, that he cannot leave us.

When people are in love they always have pictures of those whom they love in a very special way. True love is unconditional. True love of spouses for each other and their children knows no boundaries. Parents always have pictures of their children, and children, when they leave home, always have pictures of their parents. Anyone who is truly in love always, in some way or another, always has pictures of those who are unconditionally loved.

When Jesus ascended to the Father, it would have been very simple for him merely to leave us with a record of all that he had said and done; however, he could not contain his love within the confines of time and space. Because of his unconditional love, he had to remain with us. The Eucharist is not a symbol, it is a reality. Jesus is truly with us.

Romano Guardini once wrote: "The Holy Eucharist is the final link in the sacred chain of life-giving nourishment reaching from the remoteness of God into the here and now of human existence" (The Lord 238-239). Do you understand why this is so?

The Eucharist is the most perfect of the seven sacraments. God dispenses sanctifying grace through the sacraments. Moreover, not only is the Eucharist an aqueduct of divine life, the Eucharist is God himself!

"The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend. In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 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. This presence is called real - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as of they could not be real too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1374).

Transubstantiation means "change of substance", or "change of reality." When the priest repeats the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, the bread is no longer bread, and the wine is no longer wine. Instead, the entire substance of the bread and the entire substance of the wine have been changed into the substance of The Body and Blood of Christ.

Transubstantiation occurs only by the power of God, and in a way that we cannot empirically detect. We know that transubstantiation takes place through the certainty of faith. Jesus, the Son of God; Jesus the Messiah; Jesus the Lord and Savior of the universe said: "This is my body"; "This is my blood". Faith is a vision superior to reason, but it does not contradict reason, precisely because faith relies upon the authority of God who neither deceives, nor can be deceived. Jesus is the truth and thus is incapable of lying.

Many Catholics throughout the world no longer believe in the Real Presence. What could be a cause of this alarming loss of faith in something so basic to Catholicism?

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, provides an interesting answer to this question in his book God and the World. He writes, "Johann Baptist Metz once said that the formula today is: No to God, Yes to religion. People want to have some kind of religion, esoteric or whatever it may be. But a personal God, who speaks to me, who knows me personally, who has said something quite specific and who has met me with a specific demand, and who will also judge me - people don't want him."

"What we see is religion being ...

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Lonny D'Agostini
1 year ago
It is very disheartening to see how many people do not understand the importance of Sunday Mass. I hope and pray that the following post will help correct this flawed thinking……………..……....….… The Catechism calls the Sunday Eucharist, “the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice.” Only those Catholic with a serious reason, (illness, for example) are excused from this responsibility. [CCC 2180] This command to observe the third Commandment is not simply a matter of obeying rules it is really a question of love. Out of 168 hours a week, God asks us to set aside one of them for Him. Is that such an unreasonable request considering what He does for us? Those who fail in this obligation commit a serious sin. How so? An analogy which may work is to consider a young groom who is eagerly awaiting the day of his wedding. A lot of time, effort and money has been spent preparing for this great occasion and many family and friends have been invited. But when the day finally arrives his fiancé does not show up at the church. The concerned groom immediately calls her on his cell phone only to hear these dreadful words, “Oh hi…Yea, I…um…well I just didn’t feel like going.” Later she admits, “Actually, an old friend of mine has come into town and we’re heading to a football game right now. Can I call you back?” What an utterly devastating comment! The poor groom’s heart would not only be hurt, it would be completely crushed. In fact, he would probably say to himself, “This is obviously not the kind of woman I want to marry. What she just did to me and my family!” But the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is no mere human celebration. It is infinitely greater than that. It is the greatest nuptial banquet in Heaven and on earth, the greatest sacrifice in the Universe, the greatest expression of love that God could possibly extend to men. For us to pass up Holy Mass for something which is comparatively worthless is not simply to make a poor choice, but to commit a grievous sin and destroy our relationship with God. And in that state, just like the fiancé, a new and radical initiative is required in order to restore it (i.e. sacramental confession). As Luisa Piccarreta writes, “in the Mass there is all the depth of our sacrosanct religion…the Mass tells us everything and speaks to us about everything…[It] reminds us of our redemption; It speaks to us, step by step, about the pains that Jesus suffered for us; It also manifests to us His immense love, for He was not content with dying on the Cross, but He wanted to continue His state of victim in the Most Holy Eucharist. The Mass also tells us that our bodies, decayed, reduced to ashes by death, will rise again on the day of the judgment, together with Christ, to immortal and glorious life…These are profound mysteries, which we will comprehend only beyond the stars…” Blessed Anne Emmerich said that “one member of a family returning from Mass, carries home a blessing to the whole house for the whole day.” St. Anslem believed that a single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death. St. Gertrude taught that each time a person receives Holy Communion worthily something good happens to every being in Heaven, on earth and in Purgatory. Also, for each Mass we hear with devotion, Our Lord will send a saint to comfort us at death. St. John Vianney declared that a Communion well received was worth more than 20,000 Napoleon French francs. (In 1810, the annual wage of a French curé was around 1,500 NFF compared to 10,000 NFF for a bishop.) There are, of course, other benefits: each Mass we attend affords us a higher degree of glory in Heaven, all of our unconfessed venial sins are forgiven, Satan’s power over us is diminished, temporal punishment due to sin is reduced according to our fervor (see indulgences) and we are preserved from dangers and misfortunes which otherwise might have befallen us – to name only a few. The idea that Catholics attend Sunday Mass simply to satiate a divine ego, is a wicked and conceited human projection. God doesn’t need us. He loves us and cares for us but we do not do Him a favor by coming to Mass on Sunday. (He is content in His eternal beatitude.) The favor we do is to ourselves. In closing, we should not look at our weekly attendance at Sunday Mass so much as an “additional commitment”, but as the renewal and deepening of that one original commitment which we made at baptism. O Jesus, you closed your beautiful eyes on the cross so that one day I would be able to open mine. Help us never to take your love for granted.
cynthia
1 year ago
Thank you Father, this is really good article.
what inspiring me most is that we human will appreciate something when we no longer have it because as you said we take too many things for granted. Back in 1997 or 1998, when I was in secondary school I bought a book called The Greatest Treasure, which I still read to this day. I was moved by the contents of the book about how important is Mass is our life. Since that day I feel so sorry that how many Masses I missed in this life due to I stay in a remote area and priest come once or twice a year to our place. Deep down in my heart I feel very sad with this condition. I always pray that one day He will give us a priest who will stay and sherperding His flocks in this very rural area.
Carlos Ogawa
1 year ago
This is the salvation and where is truth, there is justice and love.
Ron
1 year ago
Remember the cigarette ad “I’d walk a mile for a Camel”? What if someone told you that your Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Almighty God, your Creator, was truly present in the adoration chapel at your church a mile away and wanted YOU to visit with Him? How many of us walk or drive by a Catholic Church and don’t even acknowledge His presence with the sign of the cross? How unfortunate that people are still so willing to walk a mile to buy material things that don’t last, but are not willing to visit with the One who created them, loves them and gives them comfort.
The day is coming when people will be knocking down the doors trying to get into a packed adoration chapel. They will try to offer their life savings to buy an hour with the truly present Jesus. This actually happened to a lesser extent around New York City for a day or two after September 11.
Perhaps we need a much greater calamity.
okezie
1 year ago
thankr
mikem
1 year ago
To describe the Transubstantiation as an act of God is to leave out a very important part - in fact an indispensable part. The Transubstantiation is ALSO an act of the priest. Transubstantiation only occurs by an act of the will of the priest. If the priest, while saying the words of the consecration, were to will NOT to consecrate the bread, the consecration would not take place. This is a very important consideration. Because belief in the Transubstantiation is also belief in the priesthood, the laying on of hands by the bishop in direct succession to Christ. The Eucharist is the center of the Faith, it is the Life of the Church called "Catholic", it is the greatest act of the priesthood - it is a human act that is also a divine act. To believe in the Eucharist is to believe in the Mission and History of the Church where sinful people are entrusted by Jesus to carry out and fulfill His teaching and His saving Act by "our" teaching and "our" acts. Praise the Lord.
Elizabeth
1 year ago
Wow!! May our eyes be opened to see "Truth" and our hearts opened to receive Him.who is perfect love.Thank you Father..
jh
1 year ago
Thank you, Father.

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