| Breaking bread in the communion that can change the
world In the afternoon on Holy Thursday, 9 April [2009],
the Holy Father presided at the Mass of the Lord's Supper in the
Basilica of St John Lateran, thereby opening the Easter Triduum. During
the celebration, at which 14 Cardinals and about 30 Prelates
concelebrated with the Pope, the Holy Father washed the feet of 12
Canons of the "Cathedral of Rome". The collection, in 20 baskets, went
to the Catholic community in the Gaza Strip. The following is the
translation of the Pope's Homily, which was given in Italian.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Qui, pridie quam pro nostra omniumque salute pateretur, hoc est hodie,
accepit panem: these words we shall pray today in the Canon of the
Mass. “Hoc est hodie”
— the Liturgy of Holy Thursday places the
word “today” into the text of the prayer, thereby emphasizing the
particular dignity of this day. It was “today” that He did this: he gave
himself to us for ever in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. This
“today” is first and foremost the memorial of that first Paschal event.
Yet it is something more. With the Canon, we enter into this “today”.
Our today comes into contact with his today. He does this now. With the
word “today”, the Church’s Liturgy wants us to give great inner
attention to the mystery of this day, to the words in which it is
expressed. We therefore seek to listen in a new way to the institution
narrative, in the form in which the Church has formulated it, on the
basis of Scripture and in contemplation of the Lord himself.
The first thing to strike us is that the institution narrative is not an
independent phrase, but it starts with a relative pronoun: qui pridie.
This “qui” connects the entire narrative to the preceding section
of the prayer, “let it become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ,
your only Son, our Lord.” In this way, the institution narrative is
linked to the preceding prayer, to the entire Canon, and it too becomes
a prayer. By no means is it merely an interpolated narrative, nor is it
a case of an authoritative self-standing text that actually interrupts
the prayer. It is a prayer. And only in the course of the prayer is the
priestly act of consecration accomplished, which becomes transformation,
transubstantiation of our gifts of bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ. As she prays at this central moment, the Church is
fully in tune with the event that took place in the Upper Room, when
Jesus’ action is described in the words: “gratias agens benedixit
— he gave you thanks and praise”. In this expression, the Roman liturgy
has made two words out of the one Hebrew word berakha, which is
rendered in Greek with the two terms eucharistía and eulogía.
The Lord gives thanks. When we thank, we acknowledge that a certain
thing is a gift that has come from another. The Lord gives thanks, and
in so doing gives back to God the bread, “fruit of the earth and work of
human hands”, so as to receive it anew from him. Thanksgiving becomes
blessing. The offering that we have placed in God’s hands returns from
him blessed and transformed. The Roman liturgy rightly interprets,
therefore, our praying at this sacred moment by means of the words:
“through him, we ask you to accept and bless these gifts we offer you in
sacrifice”. All this lies hidden within the word “eucharistia”.
There is another aspect of the institution narrative cited in the Roman
Canon on which we should reflect this evening. The praying Church gazes
upon the hands and eyes of the Lord. It is as if she wants to observe
him, to perceive the form of his praying and acting in that remarkable
hour, she wants to encounter the figure of Jesus even, as it were,
through the senses. “He took bread in his sacred hands …” Let us look at
those hands with which he healed men and women; the hands with which he
blessed babies; the hands that he laid upon men; the hands that were
nailed to the Cross and that forever bear the stigmata as signs of his
readiness to die for love. Now we are commissioned to do what he did: to
take bread in our hands so that through the Eucharistic Prayer it will
be transformed. At our priestly ordination, our hands were anointed, so
that they could become hands of blessing. Let us pray to the Lord at
this hour that our hands will serve more and more to bring salvation, to
bring blessing, to make his goodness present!
From the introduction to the Priestly Prayer of Jesus (cf. Jn 17:1), the
Canon takes these words: “Looking up to heaven, to you his almighty
Father …” The Lord teaches us to raise our eyes, and especially our
hearts. He teaches us to fix our gaze upwards, detaching it from the
things of this world, to direct ourselves in prayer towards God and thus
to raise ourselves. In a hymn from the Liturgy of the Hours, we ask the
Lord to guard our eyes, so that they do not take in or cause to enter
within us “vanitates”
— vanities, nothings, that which is merely
appearance. Let us pray that no evil will enter through our eyes,
falsifying and tainting our very being. But we want to pray above all
for eyes that see whatever is true, radiant and good; so that they
become capable of seeing God’s presence in the world. Let us pray that
we will look upon the world with eyes of love, with the eyes of Jesus,
recognizing our brothers and sisters who need our help, who are awaiting
our word and our action.
Having given thanks and praise, the Lord then breaks the bread and gives
it to the disciples. Breaking the bread is the act of the father of the
family who looks after his children and gives them what they need for
life. But it is also the act of hospitality with which the stranger, the
guest, is received within the family and is given a share in its life.
Dividing (dividere), sharing (condividere) brings about
unity. Through sharing, communion is created. In the broken bread, the
Lord distributes himself. The gesture of breaking also alludes
mysteriously to his death, to the love that extends even to death. He
distributes himself, the true “bread for the life of the world” (cf. Jn
6:51). The nourishment that man needs in his deepest self is communion
with God himself. Giving thanks and praise, Jesus transforms the bread,
he no longer gives earthly bread, but communion with himself. This
transformation, though, seeks to be the start of the transformation of
the world
— into a world of resurrection, a world of God. Yes, it is
about transformation
— of the new man and the new world that find their
origin in the bread that is consecrated, transformed, transubstantiated.
We said that breaking the bread is an act of communion, an act of
uniting through sharing. Thus, in the act itself, the intimate nature of
the Eucharist is already indicated: it is agape, it is love made
corporeal. In the word “agape”, the meanings of Eucharist and love
intertwine. In Jesus’ act of breaking the bread, the love that is shared
has attained its most radical form: Jesus allows himself to be broken as
living bread. In the bread that is distributed, we recognize the mystery
of the grain of wheat that dies, and so bears fruit. We recognize the
new multiplication of the loaves, which derives from the dying of the
grain of wheat and will continue until the end of the world. At the same
time, we see that the Eucharist can never be just a liturgical action.
It is complete only if the liturgical agape then becomes love in daily
life. In Christian worship, the two things become one
— experiencing the
Lord’s love in the act of worship and fostering love for one’s neighbour.
At this hour, we ask the Lord for the grace to learn to live the mystery
of the Eucharist ever more deeply, in such a way that the transformation
of the world can begin to take place.
After the bread, Jesus takes the chalice of wine. The Roman Canon
describes the chalice which the Lord gives to his disciples as “praeclarus
calix” (the glorious cup), thereby alluding to Psalm 23 [22], the
Psalm which speaks of God as the Good Shepherd, the strong Shepherd.
There we read these words: “You have prepared a banquet for me in the
sight of my foes … My cup is overflowing”
— calix praeclarus. The
Roman Canon interprets this passage from the Psalm as a prophecy that is
fulfilled in the Eucharist: yes, the Lord does indeed prepare a banquet
for us in the midst of the threats of this world, and he gives us the
glorious chalice
— the chalice of great joy, of the true feast, for
which we all long
— the chalice filled with the wine of his love. The
chalice signifies the wedding-feast: now the “hour” has come to which
the wedding-feast of Cana had mysteriously alluded. Yes indeed, the
Eucharist is more than a meal, it is a wedding-feast. And this wedding
is rooted in God’s gift of himself even to death. In the words of Jesus
at the Last Supper and in the Church’s Canon, the solemn mystery of the
wedding is concealed under the expression “novum Testamentum”.
This chalice is the new Testament
— “the new Covenant in my blood”, as
Saint Paul presents the words of Jesus over the chalice in today’s
second reading (1 Cor 11:25). The Roman Canon adds: “of the new and
everlasting covenant”, in order to express the indissolubility of God’s
nuptial bond with humanity. The reason why older translations of the
Bible do not say Covenant, but Testament, lies in the fact that this is
no mere contract between two parties on the same level, but it brings
into play the infinite distance between God and man. What we call the
new and the ancient Covenant is not an agreement between two equal
parties, but simply the gift of God who bequeaths to us his love
—
himself. Certainly, through this gift of his love, he transcends all
distance and makes us truly his “partners”
— the nuptial mystery of love
is accomplished.
In order to understand profoundly what is taking place here, we must pay
even greater attention to the words of the Bible and their original
meaning. Scholars tell us that in those ancient times of which the
histories of Israel’s forefathers speak, to “ratify a Covenant” means
“to enter with others into a bond based on blood or to welcome the other
into one’s own covenant fellowship and thus to enter into a communion of
mutual rights and obligations”. In this way, a real, if non-material
form of consanguinity is established. The partners become in some way
“brothers of the same flesh and the same bones”. The covenant brings
about a fellowship that means peace (cf. ThWNT II, 105-137). Can we now
form at least an idea of what happened at the hour of the Last Supper,
and what has been renewed ever since, whenever we celebrate the
Eucharist? God, the living God, establishes a communion of peace with
us, or to put it more strongly, he creates “consanguinity” between
himself and us. Through the incarnation of Jesus, through the outpouring
of his blood, we have been drawn into an utterly real consanguinity with
Jesus and thus with God himself. The blood of Jesus is his love, in
which divine life and human life have become one. Let us pray to the
Lord, that we may come to understand ever more deeply the greatness of
this mystery. Let us pray that in our innermost selves its transforming
power will increase, so that we truly acquire consanguinity with Jesus,
so that we are filled with his peace and grow in communion with one
another.
Now, however, a further question arises. In the Upper Room, Christ gives
his Body and Blood to the disciples, that is, he gives himself in the
totality of his person. But can he do so? He is still physically present
in their midst, he is standing in front of them! The answer is: at that
hour, Jesus fulfils what he had previously proclaimed in the Good
Shepherd discourse: “No one takes my life from me: I lay it down of my
own accord. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it
again …” (Jn 10:18). No one can take his life from him: he lays it down
by his own free decision. At that hour, he anticipates the crucifixion
and resurrection. What is later to be fulfilled, as it were, physically
in him, he already accomplishes in anticipation, in the freedom of his
love. He gives his life and he takes it again in the resurrection, so as
to be able to share it for ever.
Lord, today you give us your life, you give us yourself. Enter deeply
within us with your love. Make us live in your “today”. Make us
instruments of your peace! Amen.
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