Eucharist and Mission

24th Missionary Day

Around the Eucharistic Christ, the Church grows as the people, temple, and family of God: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. At the same time, it better understands its character as a universal sacrament of salvation and as a hierarchically structured visible reality.

To truly live from the Eucharist, it is also necessary to spend time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, an experience that I myself undertake every day, drawing strength, consolation, and sustenance from it.

Could the Church fulfill its vocation without cultivating a constant relationship with the Eucharist, without nourishing itself with this sanctifying food, without basing its missionary action on this indispensable foundation? To evangelize the world, it needs apostles who are "experts" in the celebration, adoration, and contemplation of the Eucharist.

In the Eucharist, we relive the mystery of Redemption culminating in the Lord's sacrifice, as emphasized by the words of consecration: “my body which will be given up for you… [my] blood which will be shed for you” (Lc 22:19-20). Christ died for all; the gift of salvation, which the Eucharist makes sacramentally present in the course of history, is for all:“Do this in remembrance of me.” (Lc 22:19). This mandate is entrusted to ministers ordained through the sacrament of Holy Orders. All men are invited to this banquet and sacrifice, so that they may share in the very life of Christ:“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.” (Jo (6:56-57). Nourished by Him, the faithful understand that the missionary commitment consists in being a “A pleasing offering, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” (Rm 15,16), to always form more “one heart and one soul” (At 4:32) and become witnesses of his love to the ends of the earth.

(St. John Paul II, message of the year 2004)