Dear Friends,
Let us continue to read together the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI entitled: Sacramentum Caritatis. Pope Benedict divides his Exhortation into 3 parts that reflect the harmony among dogma, liturgy, and life. The Eucharist is a mystery to be believed, celebrated, and lived with our whole heart. In the Eucharist we find “reflected a great deal on the intrinsic relation between Eucharistic faith and celebration” (SC 34). The faith that is celebrated is the faith that is believed.
This exercise of reading this beautiful exhortation of Pope Benedict XVI in easy digestible portions is intended to help us to gratefully appreciate anew the gift of the Eucharist!
Have a Blessed Week!
With Love, Fr. John
W e e k 2 — SA C R A M E N T U M C A R I T A T I S ( T H E SA C R A M E N T O F C H A R I T Y : T H E E U C H A R I ST )
CONTINUATION OF THE POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS F THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY, CONSECRATED PERSONS AND THE LAY FAITHFUL ON THE EUCHARIST AS THE SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF THE CHURCH'S LIFE AND MISSION
THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS AND THE YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST
- We should also emphasize the relationship between the recent Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist and the events which have taken place in the Church's life in recent years. First of all, we should recall the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, with which my beloved Predecessor, the Servant of God John Paul II, led the Church into the third Christian The Jubilee Year clearly had a significant eucharistic dimension. Nor can we forget that the Synod of Bishops was preceded, and in some sense prepared for, by the Year of the Eucharist which John Paul II had, with great foresight, wanted the whole Church to celebrate. That year, which began with the International Eucharistic Congress in Guadalajara in October 2004, ended on 23 October 2005, at the conclusion of the XI Synodal Assembly, with the canonization of five saints particularly distinguished for their eucharistic piety: Bishop Józef Bilczewski, Fathers Gaetano Catanoso, Zygmunt Gorazdowski and Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, and the Capuchin Fra Felice da Nicosia. Thanks to the teachings proposed by John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter Mane Nobiscum Domine (7) and to the helpful suggestions of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,(8) many initiatives were undertaken by Dioceses and various ecclesial groups in order to reawaken and increase eucharistic faith, to improve the quality of eucharistic celebration, to promote eucharistic adoration and to encourage a practical solidarity which, starting from the Eucharist, would reach out to those in need. Finally, mention should be made of the significance of my venerable Predecessor's last Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (9), in which he left us a sure magisterial statement of the Church's teaching on the Eucharist and a final testimony of the central place that this divine sacrament had in his own life.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS EXHORTATIO N
- This Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation seeks to take up the richness and variety of the reflections and proposals which emerged from the recent Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops – from the Lineamenta to the Propositiones, along the way of the Instrumentum Laboris, the Relationes ante and post disceptationem, the interventions of the Synod Fathers, the auditores and the fraternal delegates – and to offer some basic directions aimed at a renewed commitment to eucharistic enthusiasm and fervour in the Church. Conscious of the immense patrimony of doctrine and discipline accumulated over the centuries with regard to this sacrament,(10) I wish here to endorse the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers (11) by encouraging the Christian people to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the eucharistic mystery, the liturgical action, and the new spiritual worship which derives from the Eucharist as the sacrament of charity. Consequently, I wish to set the present Exhortation alongside my first Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est, in which I frequently mentioned the sacrament of the Eucharist and stressed its relationship to Christian love, both of God and of neighbour: "God incarnate draws us all to himself. We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us" (12).
(7) Cf. AAS 97 (2005), 337-352.
(8) The Yearof the Eucharist: Suggestionsand Proposals(15 October 2004): L'Osservatore Romano, 15 October 2004,
(9) Cf AAS 95 (2003), 433-475. Also, the Instruction of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Redemptionis Sacramentum (25 March 2004): AAS 96 (2004), 549 -601, expressly desiredby John Paul II.
(10) To name only themoreimportantdocuments: Ecumenical Councilof Trent, Doctrina et canones de Missae sacrificio, DS 1738-1759; Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Mirae Caritatis (28 May 1902): ASS (1903), 115-136; Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (20 November 1947): AAS 39 (1947), 521-595; Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei (3 September 1965): AAS 57 (1965), 753- 774; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia (17 April 2003): AAS 95 (2003), 433-475; Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Eucharisticum Mysterium (25 May 1967): AAS 59 (1967), 539-573; Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam (28 March 2001): AAS 93 (2001), 685-726.
(11) Cf Propositio 1
(12) No. 14: AAS 98 (2006), 229.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- What meetings and events ledup to the synod whichinspired this document?
- What is the purpose of Sacramentum Caritatis?