Eucharistic Congress (Part III)

We can admire the ingenuity of many human inventions. When I visit the classrooms today and see our little children in front of a computer keyboard and remember that when I was that age we were learning the “Palmer Method,” carefully dipping our pens into an inkpot, I am amazed. So many marvels of science and technology!

The Eucharist is God's invention. It manifests the ingenuity of a wisdom that at the same time is the foolishness of love.

The entire revelation of the work of salvation is astonishing, and the Eucharist constitutes a pinnacle of that mystery where in the simplest possible way the fulfillment of the divine design has far surpassed all expectations.

Where we can see only bread and wine, we stand before the assertion of the presence of God. How can we fail to be astonished at the fact that the One who is God offers Himself as food and drink to his very creatures.

The One who is Lord places Himself entirely at our disposition, at our service. He has died for us on the cross and risen. Why does He will that this offering be repeated through all time in the Eucharist?

Why must God invent a new presence in the Christian assembly? To all our astonishment and questions, there is but one response: Everything in the Eucharist derives from love carried to extremes. All emerges from a limitless will to give. God's love is so inventive that He has devised a way to be close to us and to allow us to be united with Him and with our fellow disciples who share the same loaf and the same cup.

[Part 3 of 7]

Subscribe to CE
(It's free)

Go to Catholic Exchange homepage

MENU