CV NEWS FEED // Holy Thursday, which celebrates Jesus’ Last Supper with His apostles, commemorates the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist. On this feast day throughout his pontificate, Pope John Paull II wrote a letter to priests.
The Polish pope’s final letter to priests was written in 2005, during the Year of the Eucharist. That year, from the hospital, he wrote, “My thoughts turn to you, dear priests, as I spend this time recuperating in hospital, a patient alongside other patients, uniting in the Eucharist my own sufferings with those of Christ.”
In this letter, the Pope reflected on how the words of the consecration encompass priestly spirituality.
Filled with gratitude
He began with the theme of gratitude, looking at the first words of consecration: “Giving thanks, He said the blessing.”
“Gratitude is the disposition which lies at the root of the very word ‘Eucharist,’” Pope John Paul II wrote. “This expression of thanksgiving contains the whole Biblical spirituality of praise for the mirabilia Dei [marvels of God].”
Through the Eucharist, he added, Christ thanks God the Father with man and for man. This gratitude of Christ should shape every priest’s life.
Pope John Paul II then reflected on Christ’s words: “Take this, all of you, and eat of it.”
Christ gave Himself fully in His sacrifice at the Cross, which the Last Supper anticipated through the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
“In a certain sense, when he says the words: ‘take and eat’, the priest must learn to apply them also to himself, and to speak them with truth and generosity,” the saint wrote. “If he is able to offer himself as a gift, placing himself at the disposal of the community and at the service of anyone in need, his life takes on its true meaning.”
“Saved in order to save”
Next, the Pope wrote, a priest’s life is one that is saved in order to save, reflecting on the words of consecration: “For this is My body, given up for you.”
Christ’s sacrifice, the Pope continued, is for all men and all time, and through the sacrament of the Eucharist, priests become privileged heralds of salvation.
“Yet unless we sense that we ourselves are saved, how can we be convincing heralds? We are the first to be touched inwardly by the grace which raises us from our frailty and makes us cry ‘Abba, Father’ with the confidence of God’s children (cf. Gal 4:6; Rom 8:15),” he wrote.
Holiness, the Pope added, is the full expression of salvation. “Only if our lives manifest the fact that we are saved do we become credible heralds of salvation.”
A life of “remembrance“
Next, the Holy Father wrote about how a priest’s life should be one that “remembers,” as Christ commands in the words of consecration, “Do this in memory of Me.”
“The Eucharist does not simply commemorate a fact; it commemorates Him! Through his daily repetition in persona Christi of the words of the ‘memorial’, the priest is invited to develop a ‘spirituality of remembrance,’” the Pope wrote. “At a time when rapid social and cultural changes are weakening the sense of tradition and leading the younger generation especially to risk losing touch with their roots, the priest is called to be, within the community entrusted to him, the man who faithfully remembers the entire mystery of Christ.”
A consecrated life
Next, Pope John Paul II wrote, the words “the mystery of faith” remind priests that their lives are consecrated. By celebrating the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, priests are also entrusted with guarding it.
“It is our relationship to the Eucharist that most clearly challenges us to lead a ‘sacred’’ life,” he wrote. “This must shine forth from our whole way of being, but above all from the way we celebrate.”
Pope John Paul reflected on the final words of the consecration: “We proclaim Your death, oh Lord, and profess Your resurrection until You come again.”
These words, he wrote, remind priests that their lives must be centered on Christ.
“Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, the remembrance of Christ in his Paschal Mystery leads to the desire for a full and definitive encounter with Him,” he wrote. “We live in expectation of his coming! In priestly spirituality, this expectation must be lived out through pastoral charity, which impels us to live in the midst of God’s People, so as to direct their path and to nourish their hope.”
Mary and the Eucharist
Pope John Paul II concluded his letter by noting the importance of the Blessed Mother’s closeness with the Eucharist.
“Who more than Mary can help us taste the greatness of the Eucharistic mystery?” he wrote. “She more than anyone can teach us how to celebrate the sacred mysteries with due fervour and to commune with her Son, hidden in the Eucharist.”
The Pope invited priests to join St. John the Beloved in following Jesus’ invitation to “behold your mother,” the Mother of God.
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