Our Holy Father on the Holy Eucharist

It is with deep emotion that we listen once more to the words spoken here in this Upper Room 2000 years ago…"This is My Body". We have heard words which emerge from the depths of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. Jesus takes bread, blesses and breaks it, then gives it to his disciples, saying, "This is my Body". God's covenant with his People is about to culminate in the sacrifice of his Son, the Eternal Word made flesh. In the Incarnation, the Son of God, of one being with the Father, became Man and received a body form the Virgin Mary. And now, on the night before his death, he says to his disciples, "This is my Body, which will be given up for you."

"This is the cup of my Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant; it will be shed for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me." In obedience to Christ's command, the Church repeats these words each day in the celebration of the Eucharist. Words which rise from the depths of the mystery of the Redemption. At the celebration of the Passover meal in the Upper Room, Jesus took the cup filled with wine, blessed it and gave it to his disciples. This was part of the Passover rite of the Old Testament.

At every Holy Mass, we proclaim this mystery of faith, which for tow millennia has nourished and sustained the Church as she makes her pilgrim way amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, proclaiming the Cross and Death of the Lord until he comes. In a sense, Peter and the Apostles, in the person of their successors, have come back today to the Upper Room, to profess the unchanging faith of the Church: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.

Through the Eucharist, Christ builds up the Church. The hands which broke bread for the disciples at the Last Supper were to be stretched out on the Cross in order to gather all people to himself in the eternal Kingdom of the Father. Through the celebration of the Eucharist, he never ceases to dream men and women to be effective members of his Body.

"Remembering therefore, this salutary command and all that was done on our behalf, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven and the coming again in glory" (Byzantine Divine Liturgy). This mystery of faith we proclaim in every celebration of the Eucharist. Jesus Christ, the Priest of the new and eternal covenant has redeemed the world by his Blood. Risen from the dead, he has gone to prepare a place for us in his Father's house. In the spirit who has made us God's beloved children, in the unity of the Body of Christ, we await his return with joyful hope.

The above are excerpts from our Holy Father, Pope John Paul's Mass in the Cenacle (Upper Room) on March 23, 2000 during his Jubilee pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

last updated 15 May 2000 Copyright © 1999-2001, St. Thomas the Apostle Church