Day 151 - What happens in the Church when she celebrates the Eucharist?
What happens in the Church when she celebrates the Eucharist?
Every time the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she stands before the source from which she herself constantly springs anew. By "eating" the Body of Christ, the Church becomes the Body of Christ, which is just another name for the Church. In the sacrifice of Christ, who gives himself to us, body and soul, there is room for our whole life. We can unite everythingour work and our sufferings, our joys with Christ's sacrifice. If we offer ourselves in this way, we are transformed: We become pleasing to God and like good, nourishing bread for our fellowmen.
Again and again we grumble about the Church, as though she were just an association of more or less good people. In reality the Church is what happens daily in a mysterious way at the altar. God gives himself to each one of us individually, and he wants to transform us through communion with him. Once we are transformed, we are supposed to transform the world. Everything else that the Church is besides that is secondary. (YOUCAT question 217)
Dig Deeper: CCC section (1368-1372) and other references here.
Part 2: The Celebration of the Christian Mystery (1066 - 1690)
Section 2: The Seven Sacraments of the Church (1210 - 1690)
Chapter 1: The Sacraments of Christian Initiation (1212 - 1419)
Article 3: The Sacrament of the Eucharist (1322 - 1419)
V. THE SACRAMENTAL SACRIFICE: THANKSGIVING, MEMORIAL, PRESENCE ⇡
The sacrificial memorial of Christ and of his Body, the Church ⇡
The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering. In the catacombs the Church is often represented as a woman in prayer, arms outstretched in the praying position. Like Christ who stretched out his arms on the cross, through him, with him, and in him, she offers herself and intercedes for all men.
The whole Church is united with the offering and intercession of Christ. Since he has the ministry of Peter in the Church, the Pope is associated with every celebration of the Eucharist, wherein he is named as the sign and servant of the unity of the universal Church. The bishop of the place is always responsible for the Eucharist, even when a priest presides; the bishop's name is mentioned to signify his presidency over the particular Church, in the midst of his presbyterium and with the assistance of deacons. The community intercedes also for all ministers who, for it and with it, offer the Eucharistic sacrifice: Let only that Eucharist be regarded as legitimate, which is celebrated under [the presidency of] the bishop or him to whom he has entrusted it.191
Through the ministry of priests the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is completed in union with the sacrifice of Christ the only Mediator, which in the Eucharist is offered through the priests' hands in the name of the whole Church in an unbloody and sacramental manner until the Lord himself comes.192
191.
St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Smyrn. 8:1;SCh 10,138.
192.
PO 2 § 4.
To the offering of Christ are united not only the members still here on earth, but also those already in the glory of heaven. In communion with and commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the Church offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the Eucharist the Church is as it were at the foot of the cross with Mary, united with the offering and intercession of Christ.
The Eucharistic sacrifice is also offered for the faithful departed who "have died in Christ but are not yet wholly purified,"193 so that they may be able to enter into the light and peace of Christ: Put this body anywhere! Don't trouble yourselves about it! I simply ask you to remember me at the Lord's altar wherever you are.194
Then, we pray [in the anaphora] for the holy fathers and bishops who have fallen asleep, and in general for all who have fallen asleep before us, in the belief that it is a great benefit to the souls on whose behalf the supplication is offered, while the holy and tremendous Victim is present. ... By offering to God our supplications for those who have fallen asleep, if they have sinned, we ... offer Christ sacrificed for the sins of all, and so render favorable, for them and for us, the God who loves man.195
193.
Council of Trent (1562): DS 1743.
194.
St. Monica, before her death, to her sons, St. Augustine and his brother; Conf. 9,11,27:PL 32,775.
195.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. myst. 5,9,10:PG 33,1116-1117.
St. Augustine admirably summed up this doctrine that moves us to an ever more complete participation in our Redeemer's sacrifice which we celebrate in the Eucharist: This wholly redeemed city, the assembly and society of the saints, is offered to God as a universal sacrifice by the high priest who in the form of a slave went so far as to offer himself for us in his Passion, to make us the Body of so great a head. ... Such is the sacrifice of Christians: "we who are many are one Body in Christ" The Church continues to reproduce this sacrifice in the sacrament of the altar so well-known to believers wherein it is evident to them that in what she offers she herself is offered.196
196.
St. Augustine, De civ Dei, 10,6:PL 41,283; cf. Rom 12:5.