Let’s be Eucharistic souls

THAT’S right. For us to be truly human, to be a real person who
is both grounded and oriented properly, we need to be Eucharistic in
mind and heart, because the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is where
we have our most precious treasure, our everything, our light, our
purification, our salvation.

      That’s where we have Christ not only in real presence, as in the
Blessed Sacrament, nor as spiritual food, as in the Holy Communion,
but primarily as our savior who continues to offer his life on the
cross for us, as in the Holy Mass.

      We need to be theological in our thinking to capture this
reality and live in accordance to it not only from time to time, but
rather all the time and everywhere, whatever our situation is.

      We have to overcome the very common phenomenon of treating the
Holy Eucharist as just a special part of our life that we may attend
to in some special moments of the day or on Sundays and holy days of
obligation only.

      If we believe that God is everything to us, then we have to
believe also that Christ, the son of God who became man, is also
everything to us. That’s why he said he is “the way, the truth and the
life, no one goes to the Father except through me.”

      Now, if we believe in Christ as everything to us, then it
follows that we have to believe in the Holy Eucharist also as
everything to us, since it is the Holy Eucharist where the whole
redemptive life of Christ is summarized and sacramentalized, that is
to say, made present to us through time.

      With the Holy Eucharist, we become contemporaries of Christ in
his most supreme act of salvific love for us. But, alas, how many of
us realize this, and among those of us who do, how many have the skill
to turn this realization into a living reality?

      We need to do a lot of catechizing and discussion if only to air
out the many possibilities and practical considerations we can have to
make the Holy Eucharist everything to us not only in theory and
aspiration, but also in practice in our daily grind.

      At the moment, many of the believers still consider the
Eucharist as too special as to leave it only in some secluded if very
holy, solemn places, where it is, of course, adored and exalted. But
it largely remains there. Its spirit, its effects hardly are brought
out to the world.

      We need to correct this predicament. That’s why we have to
deepen our knowledge of this sacrament, and more than that, to
cultivate a greater love, a sharper hunger and thirst for it. And that
is not enough. We need to bring the Eucharist everywhere, we need to
bear witness to it consistently.

      This is a big challenge that all of us face and, therefore, also
have the responsibility to do something about it. It’s good that Cebu,
the cradle of Christianity in the country and in Asia, is the venue of
the 51st International Eucharistic Congress. Let’s hope that the
privilege improves our knowledge of the relevant doctrine and our
Eucharistic life in general.

      One main obstacle in this regard is the common thought that the
Eucharist is hardly relevant to our daily practical affairs of the
real world. This is like saying that Christ has a limited relevance in
our life or that he has nothing or nothing much to say about most of
our mundane affairs.

      The main thing to correct here is the way we think. We have to
be more theological in our thinking, inputting the truths of our faith
and giving them a priority over all the other inputs that come from
our common sense, and our knowledge derived from the sciences and
arts, from economics, politics, business, etc.

      We need to refer everything to God, and to do this, we need to
refer everything through the Holy Eucharist which is precisely the
living Christ made present in the Blessed Sacrament, made our food in
the Holy Communion, and made our true and ultimate Savior in the Holy
Mass.

      In other words, we need to do a better, deeper and wider
inculturation of the Holy Eucharist in our system, both individually
and collectively, both personally and socially. Let’s hope that we can
be more conscious of this need, and start to develop the necessary
attitudes and the appropriate skills and virtues.

      The net effect should be that we become more and more
Eucharistic in all aspects of our life!