As we go forth from the Diocesan Synod and continue to pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance in implementing the synod recommendations and as we begin a “Year of the Eucharist,” called by Pope John Paul II, I want to offer some excerpts from my homily at the opening Mass of the Synod (Oct. 11):

“The Church draws her life from the Eucharist.” (No. 1) So begins Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, “Ecclesia de Eucharistia,” (2003). “This truth ... recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church,” (No. 1) says the Pope. Quoting from the Second Vatican Council, the Pope continues, “The Eucharistic sacrifice is the ‘source and summit of the Christian life.’” (“Lumen Gentium,” No. 11) “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our passover and living bread.” (P.O. No. 5)

“Consequently the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless loveÖ Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church the perennial making present of the Paschal Mystery ... The thought of this leads us to profound amazement and gratitude.” (No. 1-5)

Let us take up the Holy Father’s challenge “to rekindle this Eucharistic amazement.” I propose three ways: study, prayer, and recalling the attraction, the amazement we have all experienced at high points in our encounter with our Eucharistic Lord.

One experience of my own easily comes to my mind and continues to motivate me. When I was 12 years old and in the seventh grade, “out of the blue” I was moved by God’s grace to attend and serve the 6:30 a.m. daily Mass at the sisters’ convent across town during Lent. I never missed a day. There was absolutely no precedent in my life or in my family history for this.

During that Lent, the Lord drew me into the divine action of the Mass and into a personal relationship with Himself that has had a profound influence on me ever since. For one thing, my vocation to the priesthood blossomed during that Lent. A love for the Mass and for devotion to the Blessed Sacrament also dates from the “Eucharistic amazement” that I experienced that Lent.

At mid-Lent, a boyhood friend joined me to attend and serve daily Mass. This friend also became a priest and, like myself, served as a missionary priest in Latin America for a number of years. God clearly has his own way of drawing us to Himself in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and subsequent devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. I recommend that each person recall an incident of “amazement” you experienced in the context of the Eucharist. How have you been attracted to the Eucharist?

In the encyclical, the Pope comments: “To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the ‘program’ which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization.” (No. 6)

From the themes which surfaced for the Synod, it is evident that we are, indeed, striving to “contemplate the face of Christ” and that our intention is “to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization.” (No. 6)

We now place the fruits of our labor, our sacrifice of praise, on the altar along with the gifts of bread and wine, so that the offering of ourselves might become commingled with the offering of Christ — and transformed into a perfect offering, in our name, to the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

At Mass, just before the Consecration, the priest extends his hands over the gifts and invokes the Holy Spirit upon them, to transform them: “And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist.” (Eucharistic Prayer No. 3)

And, then, following the Consecration, the priest invokes the Holy Spirit upon the assembly of God’s people: “Grant that we, who are nourished by his Body and Blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ. May he make us an everlasting gift to you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints....” How awesome to consider that through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, each of us is a gift to the Father!

The Eucharistic commingling of our offerings with the perfect offering of Christ is effected every day in our parishes, and it is the very source from which our whole ministry, and all our works of faith flow. For, when all is said and done, the parish is nothing less than a Eucharistic community called together in faith around the altar, called to holiness and sent forth on our common mission as followers of Christ: 1) to transform the world, the workplace, the family, the civic community after the mind of Christ; 2) to make every effort to hand on the faith as effectively as possible at all levels ñ in the parish and in the domestic church of the family.

The same Holy Spirit who transforms our offerings in the Mass and makes present the central event of salvation, makes us a gift to the Father and strives to transform us into a unity of love and guide us in all we do. “Be not afraid.” What we undertake in the Synod and its implementation is God’s work, even as the Eucharistic Sacrifice is God’s work. We are God’s instruments. It is Christ who summons us “to put out into the deep” on the sea of our diocesan history at the beginning of a new millennium of life in Christ. “Be not afraid.”

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