Eucharistic Identity: The Second Pillar of the Year of Mission

Reflecting on the First Pillar of the Year of Mission, we found that the indispensable foundation for Eucharistic Revival is Eucharistic Encounter. This Encounter means coming to the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass, receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy Communion, and coming to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar or reserved in the tabernacle. We might say, “Of course, we know this is absolutely needed. If Jesus has given Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist so that we can encounter Him and be united with Him (in communion with Him) in the most intimate and most powerful of ways, then, we MUST come to Him.”
           
Now, the Second Pillar of the Year of Mission is Eucharistic Identity. A Gospel passage that illustrates this Eucharistic Identity is found in the 15^th chapter of St. John’s Gospel. 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.… If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.” (John 15:1, 7-17)
            
We are created to be in relationship with God. This loving God has entered the world, becoming one of us, taking on our flesh, offering His very Body and Blood on the Cross, being raised in the flesh on the third day, and then leaving His Body and Blood in a Sacrament to remain with us until He comes at the end of time. The Lord has made us for Himself. He is the only One who will fulfill us. As St. Augustine wrote in his masterpiece, The Confessions, “You move us to delight in praising You, (O Lord); for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in You” (1.1.1).
           
St. John Paul II stated, “God has placed in human hearts a ‘hunger’ for his word (cf. Am 8:11), a hunger which will be satisfied only by full union with him. Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be ‘sated’ with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfilment in heaven.” (Mane nobiscum Domine, 19).
            
Jesus is the true vine and we are the branches. We must be united with Him, in communion with Him, so that we may bear good fruit. Without being in communion with Him, we cannot bear the fruit He desires. This intimate communion with the Lord Jesus is made possible by our coming to His Eucharistic Sacrifice, receiving Him in the Eucharist, and adoring His Body and Blood. This is what gives us our Eucharistic Identity. We are His and we become more and more like Him.
            
Pope Francis teaches us about our Eucharistic Identity.  

“Knowledge of the mystery of Christ, the decisive question for our lives, does not consist in a mental assimilation of some idea but in real existential engagement with his person. In this sense, Liturgy is not about “knowledge,” and its scope is not primarily pedagogical… Liturgy is about praise, about rendering thanks for the Passover of the Son whose power reaches our lives… I repeat: it does not have to do with an abstract mental process, but with becoming Him. This is the purpose for which the Spirit is given, whose action is always and only to confect the Body of Christ. It is that way with the Eucharistic bread, and with every one of the baptized called to become always more and more that which was received as a gift in Baptism; namely, being a member of the Body of Christ. Leo the Great writes, ‘Our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ has no other end than to make us become that which we eat’.” (Desiderio Desideravi, No. 41)
            
We can see, then, in the deepening of our Eucharistic Identity, in our becoming one with and our being in communion with Jesus truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, that we are like the branches grafted onto the vine who is the Lord Jesus. With His life of grace given to us in Baptism and then renewed in us each time we receive  His Eucharistic Body and Blood, we are prepared to go out and proclaim His truth and to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in love.
            
As Jesus says in St. John’s Gospel, “Abide in me, and I in You. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4-5)
            
Let us abide in His Real Presence in the Eucharist. That is our identity.

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh