BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--The Eucharist is a grace for our lives. This is a truth we know, but do we really?

The rich depth of this statement is plumbed in a section of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” that boldly states the power of the Eucharist to change us and our church.

Entitled “The Fruits of Holy Communion,” the section sums up the many facets of Christ and his mercy that the Eucharist brings to our spiritual and temporal lives.

The depth of grace in the Eucharist is explored in a way that stirs up our faith and our hope for the time when we next approach the table of the Lord. Perhaps there is more than we realized available in the sacrament.

Perhaps the Lord has been waiting for us to come to the Eucharist seeking deeper changes in ourselves and in the Christian community and with more expectant faith. Perhaps we have approached the sacrament without proper preparation or without coming to the sacrament of reconciliation first to confess serious sins.

What does the Eucharist offer? According to the catechism, it is the supreme spiritual banquet and a feast for our souls, for our strength, for our joy and for our unity.

Among its beneficial fruits, the Eucharist does the following:

• “Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus ... Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet. ‘As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me’ (Jn 6:57).” (Catechism, 1391)
• Holy Communion is food for our spiritual life. “What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ ... preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage, until the moment of death.” (Catechism, 1392)
• “Holy Communion separates us from sin ... The Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins. ‘If as often as his blood is poured out, it is poured for the forgiveness of sins, I should always receive it, so that it may always forgive my sins ... (St. Ambrose).’” (Catechism, 1393)
• The Eucharist strengthens us to love others and this charity wipes away venial sins. “As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life, and this living charity wipes away venial sins. By giving himself to us Christ revives our love and enables us to break our disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in him.” (Catechism, 1394)
• The Eucharist strengthens us against future mortal sins. “By the same charity that it enkindles in us, the Eucharist preserves us from future mortal sins. The more we share the life of Christ and progress in his friendship, the more difficult it is to break away from him by mortal sin.” At the same time, the forgiveness of mortal sins is proper to the sacrament of reconciliation, while the Eucharist is the sacrament of those in full communion with the Church. (Catechism, 1395)
• “The Eucharist makes the Church.” It is the sacrament of the Mystical Body. In baptism, Catholics are called to become one body. In the Eucharist, this call is fulfilled. “Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism ... ‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor 10:17)’” (Catechism, 1396)
• The Eucharist commits us to the poor. “To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren.” St. John Chrysostom in a homily on First Corinthians said, ‘You dishonor this table when you do not judge worthy of sharing your food someone judged worthy to take part in this meal ... God freed you from all your sins and invited you here, but you have not become more merciful.’” (Catechism, 1397)
• The Eucharist points in mystery toward the full unity of the Christian body and compels us to pray for Christian unity. “The more painful the divisions in the Church which break the common participation in the table of the Lord, the more urgent are our prayers to the Lord that the time of complete unity among all who believe in him may return.” (Catechism, 1398)

A Catholic’s most frequent encounter with the Eucharist is at Sunday Mass, where the humble circumstances of our everyday lives are elevated by the profound gift of himself God gives us.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life, in the words of “Lumen Gentium,” the major document of the Second Vatican Council on the church.

Every good work that is done in the church and its ministries, and every other sacrament that is celebrated, points toward the Eucharist, according to the catechism, because the Eucharist contains the “whole spiritual good of the church,” that is Jesus Christ.

“The reason we have gathered from the earliest days of the church ... the very reason for our celebration is so we might receive the Lord’s body and blood,” said Father James Moroney, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for the Liturgy.

The spiritual gift of God in the Eucharist is given to human beings, who hurry to church with problems and worries, heartaches and headaches, carrying babies and bags of cereal to quiet their toddlers. But to eyes of faith, this convergence of families, seniors, teens, singles, diverse and individual, brings together the one body of Christ to receive the Eucharist.

“The action of the Eucharist is normative for the life of the church,” said Father Paul Berny, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church, Marietta, and a liturgist. “Throughout the many different contexts in which the Eucharist is celebrated--from the parish setting on Sundays and throughout the week, at weddings or funerals, school Masses and so on, this act--the one of making present the Lord’s Body and Blood--brings a profound unity to all these disparate groups ... The celebration of the Eucharist is the binding thread of unity.”

At the offertory, the gifts of bread and wine are brought to the altar and will be changed into the body and blood of Jesus.

The oldest name of the Eucharist is the breaking of the bread, an expression of the early Christians.

The contemporary title, “Holy Mass,” drawn from the Latin word missio, reminds believers that the liturgy has a purpose and that worship leads to a mission. Those who receive the Eucharist are sent forth to fulfill God’s will in their lives and to bring the light of Christ to the world.

People at Mass make their own offering of their intentions, prayers and sacrifices to complement the gifts of bread and wine, Father Moroney said. “We place our whole lives upon the altar ... God transforms, feeds us for the mission ... sends us out.”

The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples. Some believed and some walked away from Jesus. “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (Jn 6:60). The Lord’s question, “Will you also go away?” echoes through the ages to all who question the Eucharist and must accept for themselves this teaching.

It is the faith of the church that Jesus, instituting the Eucharist at the Passover supper and then entering into his own Passion, death and resurrection, fulfilled the Jewish Passover. His command to his disciples was “do this in memory of me.”

An account by St. Justin Martyr, around the year 155, describes what early Christians did in the “breaking of the bread.” The Mass nearly 2,000 years later continues the living faith of the early church.

“On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place,” St. Justin’s account states.

“The memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as time permits. When the reader has finished, he who presides over those gathered admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things. Then we all rise together and offer prayers ... When the prayers are concluded we exchange the kiss. Then someone brings bread and a cup of water and wine mixed together to him who presides over the brethren. He takes them and offers praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and for a considerable time he gives thanks that we have been judged worthy of these gifts.

“When he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all present give voice to an acclamation by saying: ‘Amen.’ When he who presides has given thanks and the people have responded, those whom we call deacons give to those present the ‘eucharisted’ bread, wine and water and take them to those who are absent.” (Catechism, 1345)

The liturgy unfolds according to a fundamental structure which has been preserved throughout the centuries down to our own day.

The celebration of the Eucharist leads naturally to worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass, Father Moroney said.“That marvelous feeling you have when you leave the Eucharist leads naturally to a desire to adore the Lord.” At the same time, “any authentic act of eucharistic worship leads us back to a more effective celebration” of the Mass and “to deeper participation.”

During the Mass there are a series of liturgical events that involve the forgiveness of sin, he pointed out. In addition to the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass and the Lamb of God prayed before Communion, the priest at the proclamation of the Gospel prays that the words of Scripture may take away the sins of the congregation.

“The one thing that helps me turn away from sin and turn toward God is to be in the pure presence of Christ,” Father Moroney said. At Mass, Christ is present in the assembly, in the Liturgy of the Word, in the person of the priest and in his body and blood in the Eucharist. “I stand before Christ. Christ is lifted up before me. I have a choice to say ‘Amen’ or to turn around and walk out the door.”

While every opportunity to receive the Eucharist does not leave us aware of experiencing a dramatic conversion, that may be because we mistakenly seek something human rather than the still, small voice of the Lord, he observed. Like a marriage relationship between husband and wife, every humble encounter between ourselves and the Lord heals us and reaffirms the relationship we have with God, he said. “God oftentimes works in a whisper and a whisper that moves our hearts, in ways we sometimes can’t even perceive.”

SENDING FORTH -- After Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Atlanta, participants go out to their daily lives, strengthened to do God’s will and to a light of Christ in the world.
Photos by Michael Alexander

MANY GRACES -- Father Serge Ward offers Communion to a boy at Christ Our King and Savior Church, Greensboro. One of the fruits of the Eucharist is building the unity of the church.