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!

Eucharist requires tremendous faith

NOW that we are holding in Cebu the 51st International
Eucharistic Congress (IEC), it is imperative that we once again give
this most important and sublime sacrament a long, hard look if only to
savor more deeply its many implications, spiritual and moral,
theological and practical, and so we can be more in conformity with
them and most generous in living them out.

            What we can say as the most crucial part in our
understanding of this sacrament is that it requires tremendous faith,
since everything about it depends on whether we believe that the bread
and wine used in making it are truly the body and blood of Christ, or
Christ himself in all his Christological and soteriological nature.

            Obviously, since faith is involved here, what needs to be
done is, first of all and always, to use the spiritual and
supernatural means of prayer and sacrifice, with their accompanying
complement of studying the doctrine, having recourse to the sacrament
itself, waging continuing ascetical struggle, etc. It requires nothing
less than a living piety. Absent these, we would be starting off on
the wrong foot.

            These we ought to do before we dare to embark on any
effort to explain it theologically, and much more so before we try to
decipher their implications personally, socially, culturally,
historically, etc.

            To be sure, faith is not merely an intellectual affair,
though it certainly presumes the full use of our intelligence. It
should involve our whole being, though our intelligence and will, our
spiritual powers, occupy pride of place.

            Faith demands that we give ourselves completely, and not
just our intellectual assent, to what is told to us by Christ. It goes
beyond rationality and comprehensibility, because our belief in it is
not based on whether we understand it, but rather on the fact that it
is told to us by someone who deserves to be believed because he does
not deceive us nor be deceived by us.

            The Catechism describes faith with these words: “What
moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as
true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason. We believe
‘because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can
neither deceive nor be deceived.’” (156)

            We believe that what Christ said in the Last Supper, “This
is my body,” and “This is the cup of my blood,” have to be understood
in the literal, if sacramental sense. This, because Christ, as the Son
of God, said so. And so, even if we continue to see, taste and feel
the bread and wine, we are actually seeing, tasting and feeling the
very body and blood of Christ.

            That may sound hard to accept especially if we still let
our senses and intelligence, without yet being animated by faith, to
lead us. But if we go beyond them to accept the words of Christ, then
we should have no problem. We live out what Christ himself said and
earn the reward he promised:

            “There is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or
parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not
receive more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Lk
18,29-30)

            In other words, there is some kind of holy exchange
involved if we want to live our faith and follow Christ and gain
eternal life, which is what piety is all about. We need to give up not
only certain things, but in fact our whole selves, if we want to enter
the world of faith. Without that, we would just be left in our own
world.

            Faith is like God asking everything from us, our very own
selves, because he is also giving himself to us. With faith, we start
to live a shared life with God.

            If we have faith in the Holy Eucharist, then we are fully
convinced that we have Christ with us, he who is the Son of God who
became man to save us, and continues to be God and man for all
eternity.

            Here, we can see how important it is to understand what
faith is all about, and to live it as fully as possible. We also have
to understand that faith is first of all a gift from God, before it is
something that we have to keep and develop.

            Let’s hope and pray that we do not waste what we have been
given by God. Let’s do all to make our faith vibrant and to be in
touch with indescribable reality of Christ truly present among us in
the Blessed Sacrament.

When ministry is reduced to performance

IN a recent priestly ordination, I heard a comment that
struck me. I have heard more or less the same comment a number of
times already, giving me an idea of a trending attitude of priests
about a certain aspect of the priestly life and ministry. I’m rather
disturbed by it.

            The comment was: with this ordination, we now have a glut
of priests. We lack parishes to put them or assignments to give them.

            Frankly speaking, the comment shocked me. To me, such
comment indicated a poor appreciation of the priestly life and
ministry. How can there be an excess of priests when just by
considering numbers alone, the ratio goes something like one priest
per thousands of faithful to be attended to?

            To be sure, the challenge is not only a matter of handling
the quantitative dimension of the priest’s work, which is already
overwhelming. What is more arduous, requiring a lot of time and
energy, not to mention, a lot of prayers and sacrifices, study and
patience, is the spiritual and moral dimension. Here, the priest is
expected not only to be competent, but also and first of all to be
truly holy!

            What immediately came to mind was the impertinent thought
that maybe many priests consider their ministry as simply saying as
many Masses as possible if only to gain some money. I wanted to
dismiss the thought, but each time I hear the same comment, it comes
back all the stronger.

            With that frame of mind, obviously the more priests there
are, the less the chances are of saying Mass and of gaining some
income. That’s when one can feel that the field is getting
overcrowded. I call it a mercenary frame of mind.

            The ugly thought is somehow reinforced by the fact that
many people also share the same observation. They complain about
Masses hastily said, with hardly any semblance of solemnity in them.
Homilies are poorly prepared and are delivered as if the celebrant is
simply shooting from the hip. There’s so much improvisation and going
in circles, with exhortations that are repetitive, predictable, too
generic and bland.

            What is worse is when the ministry is reduced to mere
performance that relies simply on human means and natural gifts, like
the talents for oratory, acting and singing, etc. Even totally
uncalled for gimmicks are employed. The church becomes a theater, and
the worshiping is reduced to entertainment.

            I now feel that this observation has to be acknowledged as
a real issue, without prejudice to the question about the need for
more parishes and assignments to be given to a growing number of
clerics, which in itself as a good problem to have.

            There is great need to review the formation plans for
priests more deeply and thoroughly. There has to be better way of
helping priests individually and personally, especially in the aspect
that really matters most—their spiritual life, their pursuit for
holiness. They should be less of simply being bureaucrats,
administrators, officials, and more of pastors, priests through and
through who can inspire holiness in others.

            Given the temper and the signs of the times, with many
difficult issues emerging due to the rapid technology-induced
developments around, we need to see to it that priests have the
substance and the grit to tackle the challenges.

            . Priests have to get out of their comfort zones and
complacency. In this regard, it has to be noted that there is great
danger to justify wallowing in comfort and complacency because of the
heavy toxic load that priests can have and also because of the
celibate status, even if poorly lived, that exempts them from problems
usually associated with married people who have families to support.

            That’s the reason why the Church has been preaching about
the centrality of the cross of Christ in everyone’s life, and
especially in that of priests who are expected to lead the way and to
walk their talk. I remember that in one talk given to my batch while
preparing for our ordination, we were told that we should be ready to
be crucified. A priest who is afraid of the cross would not be a good
priest.

            Priests have to shun special privileges and entitlements
as much as possible, something that can be a very formidable
temptation, since many people can be all too willing to spoil them
with these perks. They have to learn to give themselves completely,
while passing unnoticed, and knowing also how to detach themselves
from the people.

            People should see only Christ in every priest. That’s the ideal.