The Fourth Pillar of the Year of Mission — Eucharistic Mission

The first three pillars of the Year of Mission of the Eucharistic Revival are: first, encountering the Eucharistic Jesus by coming to Mass, receiving Him in Holy Communion, and adoring His Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament; second, identifying ourselves with the Eucharistic Jesus just as the branches become one with the vine (cf. Jn 15:1, 7-17); and third, seeing our entire life as a sacrifice offered in union with the sacrifice of Jesus made present at Mass. Finally, we come to the fourth and final pillar of the Year of Mission; it is Eucharistic Mission.
            
To help us understand what Eucharistic Mission means, let us examine a passage from the 21^st chapter of St. John’s Gospel. 

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” [Jesus] said to him, “Feed my sheep…” And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”
            
In this passage, Jesus, after the Resurrection, has this beautiful dialogue with Peter, asking Him three times, “Do you love me?” Jesus had just provided a meal for His disciples, reminding them of the Supper of His Body and Blood He had given them on the night before He died. As Peter professes his love for Our Lord, Jesus asks him to provide for His sheep, and finally says, “Follow me.” Jesus asks the same of each one of us. He provides for us the great Paschal Feast of the Lamb at Mass—the Supper of His Body and Blood. Then He asks us to go forth on mission and to invite the sheep of His flock to come to the Supper of the Lamb, to Mass.
            
The Sacred Liturgy the Church celebrates on her altars day after day is called “Holy Mass.” It comes from the Latin word Missa, which forms the dismissal at the end of the liturgy, “Ite, Missa est”—“Go, the Mass is ended.” It is a sending forth of the faithful who have united themselves with the Sacrifice of the Lord and been nourished with His Sacred Body and Precious Blood, to go forth on mission and to share Him Whom they have received, telling others about Him and bringing them to His Sacrifice and Paschal Supper. That is Eucharistic Mission. That is what we are called to do.
            
Jesus calls us to love one another as He loves us. This love impels us to share with them the greatest treasure we receive—Jesus Christ, truly present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. Pope Benedict explains this love as follows:

“Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment. But both live from the love of God who has loved us first. No longer is it a question, then, of a ‘commandment’ imposed from without and calling for the impossible, but rather of a freely-bestowed experience of love from within, a love which by its very nature must then be shared with others. Love grows through love. Love is ‘divine’ because it comes from God and unites us to God; through this unifying process it makes us a ‘we’ which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is ‘all in all’ (1 Cor 15:28)” (Deus Caritas Est, no. 18)
           
Coming to the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass, receiving Him in Holy Communion, and adoring His Eucharistic Presence is the best preparation for us to be sent forth to tend His flock, to evangelize them, to take care of the poor, to nurse the sick, to visit the imprisoned, to instruct the ignorant. But the one gift that we should want to give them above all is the gift of Jesus’ Eucharistic Presence. We take the command “Go forth, the Mass is ended” very seriously. We go forth to bring others back to the source of His love and mercy—to His Sacrifice and the Banquet of His Body and Blood!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh