Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk 
12th June 2016

The Eucharist and Its Activity with Us by Dom Anscar Vonier O.S.B.

We may view the Eucharist and make it a most real activity in so many different ways. The Eucharist is the Life of Christ, the Death of Christ, the Resurrection of Christ; it is the Companionship of Christ; it is the Blessing of Christ, it is the Triumph of Christ, as well as His sweet humility. Our minds see all those things in the Eucharist and many more. He is food and drink, He is priest and victim, He is our introduction to God, and our badge of brotherhood with man in this one and indivisible thing, His Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that we have a practical demonstration of the vital possibilities of the things of the Incarnation.

Christ is powerful amongst us according to the degree of our faithfulness to Him. Our zeal and fervour to do the works of Christ, if we have the Christian Mind, is more than an ordinary generosity in the service of God. It is a specific love of the life of Christ in us, and in the Church, with its necessary counterpart of fear lest we should at any time put obstacles to that glorious, but unsparing life. We are in dread of the two-edged sword, lest it cut us off like putrid members. As we love the life, so also we dread the life, which is Christ.

The doctrine of the Church, which Christ builds on Peter, the Rock, is of course a specifically Christian doctrine. It is so intimately connected with the Incarnation that the Church without the Incarnation is not even thinkable. For the Church is essentially and intrinsically the Body of Christ, of God Incarnate. "And He hath subjected all things under His feet and hath made Him head over all the Church. Which is His body and the fullness of Him who is filled all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23). Our obedience to the Church, our love for her, our devotedness to her, our daring, and our enterprise in her cause, as well as our humble service in the lower grades of usefulness, will spring from such a conviction, as from their natural fountain head.

What I said of the Church applies with equal truth to the doctrine of the Eucharist, which is connected inseparably with the doctrine of the Church. It is a dogma that is of course specifically Christian in tenor. It is as original as the Incarnation itself. It is part of the mystery of the Son of God. For all practical purposes the Eucharist is, to the Catholic mind, Christ on Earth, with an infinite adaptability to human needs. We need not wonder then if the Church uses the Eucharist as her daily spiritual currency in the Kingdom of God, to purchase grace and salvation for the living and the dead.