Here is the
address Benedict
XVI delivered
today upon
receiving in
audience
participants in
the Plenary
Assembly of the
Pontifical
Committee of
International
Eucharistic
Congresses.
The gift of
Christ and of
his spirit,
which we receive
in the
Eucharist,
fulfills with
superabundant
fullness the
longing for
fraternal unity
that harbors in
the human heart,
and at the same
time raises it
well above the
simple human
convivial
experience.
Through
communion with
the Body of
Christ,
the Church
becomes ever
more herself:
mystery of
"vertical" and
"horizontal"
unity for the
whole human
race.
Opposed to the
germs of
disintegration,
which daily
experience shows
so rooted in
humanity because
of sin,
is the
generating force
of unity of the
Body of Christ,
the Eucharist,
continually
forming the
Church, which
also creates
communion among
men.
In fact, it is
always
a
celebration of
faith around the
Eucharistic
Christ, the
Christ of the
supreme
sacrifice for
humanity, to
which the
faithful
participate not
only those of a
particular
Church or
nation, but, in
so far as
possible, from
several places
of the globe.
Task of the
Eucharistic
Congresses,
above all in the
present context,
is also that of
giving a
peculiar
contribution to
the new
evangelization,
promoting
mistagogic
evangelization
(cf. postsynodal
apostolic
exhortation "Sacramentum
Caritatis," No.
64), which is
carried out in
the school of
the Church at
prayer, starting
from the liturgy
and through the
liturgy.
However,
every congress
bears in itself
an evangelizing
inspiration in a
more strictly
missionary
sense, so much
so that the
binomial
Eucharist-mission
becomes part of
the guidelines
proposed by the
Holy See. The
Eucharistic
table, table of
sacrifice and of
communion, thus
represents the
diffusing center
of the ferment
of the Gospel,
propelling force
for the
construction of
the human
society and
pledge of the
Kingdom that is
coming.
Finally, I leave
you with a
liturgical-pastoral
indication.
Because the
Eucharistic
celebration is
the center and
summit of all
the various
manifestations
and forms of
piety,
it is important
that every
Eucharistic
congress is able
to involve and
integrate,
according to the
spirit of the
conciliar
reform, all the
expressions of
the Eucharistic
worship "extra
missam" that
sink their roots
in popular
devotion, as
well as the
associations of
the faithful
that in various
titles of the
Eucharist bring
inspiration. All
Eucharistic
devotions,
recommended and
encouraged also
by the
encyclical
"Ecclesia de
Eucharistia"
(Nos. 10; 47-52)
and by the
postsynodal
exhortation "Sacramentum
Caritatis," are
harmonized
according to an
Eucharistic
ecclesiology
oriented to
communion. Also
in this sense
the Eucharistic
congresses are a
help to the
permanent
renewal of the
Eucharistic life
of the Church.
