It is a very extraordinary thing that one of the despised "popular devotions" which those who went on and on, 30 years ago, about the so-called spirit of Vatican II really thought could safely be junked (along with devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, so unecumenical) as part of their supposed "renewal" of the Church was adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Today, the renewal of the Church, this time the genuine article, means bringing it back.
On Sunday (when we kept Corpus Christi), the Pope told a crowd of 30,000 at the Angelus that the Eucharist "constitutes the Church's most precious treasure". It is "like the beating heart that gives life to the whole mystical body of the Church, a social organism based on the spiritual but real tie to Christ":
"Without the Eucharist, the Church simply would not exist. In fact, it is the Eucharist that transforms a human community into a mystery of communion, capable of bringing God to the world and the world to God. The Holy Spirit, which transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, transforms all those who receive it with faith into members of the body of Christ, so that the Church is really a sacrament of unity of men with God and among themselves."
The day before, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury had said that Catholics should "ask our Lord what he has in mind for you" by meeting Christ "present among us in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar". Bishop Davies added that "I would like to say to each of you that where the Holy Eucharist is found you will also find the answer to the greatest questions of your lifetime".
