The reflection on the Eucharist, which we started in October, keeps on intensifying this year, 2005, which foresees the celebration of the Eucharistic National Congress in Bari, during the month of May, and the Synod of Bishops in the month of October.

During this time, all the baptised, nourishing themselves with the Body and Blood of the Son of God, are called to renew and to re-found themselves on the Gospel with an increased commitment.

For us consecrated, too, this is an important occasion to centre ourselves in Christ again,  to verify whether "the participation in the many Masses" changes our life, if our presence provokes a confrontation with the emblem of the Gospel, in the area where we live, or if we are dragging our existence at the emblem of routine.

Let us reflect together on the gift of the Eucharist

At the basis of the Eucharist there is God, visibly present through Jesus Christ under the species of bread and wine, who calls us to be with him. "It is Christ himself who convokes his brothers and sisters to speak with them and to unite them to himself and among them in the Eucharist, to turn them more and more into his living and visible body, animated by the Spirit,  on the journey towards the Father, through a living contact with the Word of God and the prayer of the Church" (VFC Nos 12-13).

The attitude of faith asks us to stay before the Eucharist with the same awareness with which we are before Christ himself, conditio sine qua non, to learn how to be one beside the other with fraternal affection.

By recognising the Risen Lord in The Eucharist, by recognising Jesus who manifests his boundless love for his own, we consecrated follow him with the unique desire of doing God's will through the humble, simple, familiar and ordinary gesture of the washing of feet (cfr Jo 13, 1.15).

The Eucharistic experience leads us to the threshold of the mystery where we can catch God and the beauty of Life. The presence of God among men and women of our time, through the Eucharist, is the proof of his everlasting love. By experiencing his being in constant relation with humanity, we learn to remain in relation with our brothers and sisters beyond reciprocity.

In a time when the major part of contacts takes place on the virtual wave of connection, we consecrated beings go on believing in the beauty of direct relations, thus we remain in relation, build up and re-build  bridges  of peace even when the other is missed or betrays us, because the Eucharist teaches us a boundless forgiveness;  it teaches us to give up our life only because of love, just as Jesus did.

With our participation in the Eucharistic banquet, we commit ourselves to feel that we are parts of a body, to live at the emblem of gift, to safeguard unity. We learn to be broken bread for those who have no food to eat, to be neighbours to the other, to fulfil gestures of charity which go back to the gratuitous love of God. We engage ourselves to serve any bread, to break it among those who do not live, who have given up, or who keep on seeking.

He who approaches the Eucharistic Banquet in the awareness of welcoming the person of Jesus Christ into his life, experiences the satisfaction that comes from God, who goes on distributing the bread of life and to satisfy the hunger of every living being.

When a man lives of Christ, he becomes one who welcomes his Word, meditates it, incarnates it, nourishes himself with the Eucharist, with his body and blood, to be transformed in him.

The awareness of being inhabited by the Son of God, makes a person full of life. The constant reference to the inhabitation of Christ, feeling to be in his company, makes one's own sentiment of solitude to be felt as a space privileged by the presence of God. By receiving daily the Body and blood of Christ, we learn to be in constant relation with the Lord, to remain in his love" (cfr Jo 15,9). He who lives in relation With Christ Jesus becomes a presence of peace wherever he finds himself. In fact, the peace donated by the Eucharist, and welcomed in the heart, cannot be kept for oneself alone. The presence of God, through the Body and the blood of his Son, in the life of the consecrated man who offers himself, like Jesus, because of love, is a proof of her constant concern for humanity.

To offer oneself with Christ to the Father means to make oneself available to be a child of God today, in the place where one lives and allowing oneself to be eaten by those who are met, so that they too may be saturated (cfr Mt 14,20). To give our life for others, so that others may be happy, requires to walk along the way of the cross.

Testimonies

The fullness of life, witnessed in our daily life, through simple, familiar, spontaneous gestures, such as eating bread or drinking wine, sends up back to the essence of our existence indwelled by God. In our time, when it seems that the person suffocates the desire, we consecrated persons can help our brothers and sisters in setting free their desire of sense, of research, by staying near them with love, animated by the presence of Christ in us.

When a brotherhood or a sisterhood is nourished by the same Body and Blood of Jesus, it gathers around the Son of God and becomes one with him;  it is a fraternity or sorority in a festive communion, in a free, joyful, courageous communion, where each one experiences a gratuitous love.

An evangelical brotherhood or sisterhood that revolves around Jesus Christ, fortified by his Word and by The Eucharist, is a brotherhood or sisterhood which assumes the features and behaviour of the Son of God and which makes of itself a proposal everywhere, through the incarnation of the evangelical values.

The world that lives in fragmentation, needs to meet unified  and united persons, to interrogate itself on the alternative of the on going living.

If the consecrated lets himself/herself be determined daily by the Word of God and by the Eucharist,  he/she welcomes from Jesus, the Lord and Master, the invitation "to wash each other's feet, as he did"(cfr Jo 13,15), to render a loving service, even the material one, to the brothers and sisters who live with us or whom we meet on our journey (cfr Mt 25, 35-36).

The presence of Jesus in our life makes us tender hearted, it leads us to take historically the initiative of the service like that of the good Samaritan.

The encounter with Jesus through the Word and the Eucharist, helps us to realise love "This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends" (Jo 15,12-13).This is a clear pedagogic route which leads us to make our life essential through gestures of coherent love, to avoid the risk of shutting up ourselves in a life of sterile excess of intimacy, which cause the death of consecrated life.  What do you think about giving a new face to our poverty by selling the major part of our possessions in order to realise projects in favour of our needy brothers?

"We cannot delude ourselves: we shall be recognised as true disciples of Christ by our reciprocal love, particularly by our solicitude for the needy" (MND 28).

Diana Papa