Lectio on Give them yourselves to eat Eucharist

Give yourselves to eat

It will be "they" who satiate the hungry and thirsty crowds for God by giving "the living bread, come down from heaven" (Jn 6:51) for all generations, until the end of time. The promise will become reality in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, on that evening full of mystery in the imminence of the Passion: "Do this in memory of me" (Lk 22:19). There, in the priesthood of the apostles, each of us was born as a priest of the new and eternal Covenant.
(cf. Ps 86:6).

Humanity cannot do without Jesus. It hungers and thirsts for Him. It asks the priest for Christ and has the right to expect it from him because he was constituted precisely to give him through the proclamation of the Word, but above all through the transubstantiation of bread and wine.

"The Eucharistic mystery, in which the death and resurrection of Christ is proclaimed and celebrated in anticipation of his coming, is the heart of ecclesial life. For us, it has a very special meaning: it is in fact at the center of our ministry. The latter is certainly not limited to the Eucharistic celebration, implying a service that goes from the proclamation of the Word, to the sanctification of men through the Sacraments, to the guidance of the people of God in communion and service. But the Eucharist is the point from which everything radiates and to which everything leads. Our priesthood was born in the Cenacle together with it.

"Do this in memory of me" (Lk 22:19): Christ's words, although addressed to the whole Church, are entrusted as a specific task to those who will continue the ministry of the first apostles. It is to them that Jesus entrusts the act he has just accomplished of transforming the bread into his Body and the wine into his Blood, the act in which he expresses himself as Priest and Victim. Christ wants this act of his to become sacramentally also an act of the Church through the hands of priests. By saying "do this" he indicates not only the act, but also the subject called to act, that is, he establishes the ministerial priesthood, which thus becomes one of the constitutive elements of the Church itself.

This act must be performed "in his memory": the indication is important. The Eucharistic act celebrated by priests will make present in every Christian generation, in every corner of the earth, the work accomplished by Christ.

Wherever the Eucharist is celebrated, there, in a bloodless way, the bloody sacrifice of Calvary will be made present, there Christ himself, the Redeemer of the world, will be present. "Do this in memory of me"... Not a simple memory, but a "memorial" that makes present; not a symbolic reference to the past, but a living presence of the Lord among his own."
(John Paul II, Letter to Priests, 23.III.2000, va.10-11.12).

What the priest has in relation to the Eucharistic body of Christ, the beating heart of the Church, "is a mysterious, formidable power.

On the basis of this power he becomes the administrator of the greatest good of the Redemption, because he gives men the Redeemer in person. Celebrating the Eucharist is the most sublime and most sacred function of every priest. And for me, from the first years of my priesthood, the celebration of the Eucharist has been not only the most sacred duty, but above all the deepest need of the soul".
(John Paul II, Gift and Mystery. On the 50th anniversary of my priesthood).

Priest, humanity invokes you, beseeching the infinite mercy of God awaits you, anxiously awaits you. Only you enjoy the infinite richness of being able to give Christ, divine bread that fulfills the deepest expectations of man.
(cf. Luke 9:13).

Only you have this power of infinite sanctification.
Only you, sacramentally identified with Christ the Head, can transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
Only you, who act in the Person of Christ through the indelible sacred character impressed by the Spirit on your soul, can perform this miracle for the good of the Church and of all humanity!
«Dear brothers - the Holy Father asks us! - You who "bear the burden of the day and the heat" (Mt 20:12), who have put your hand to the plow and do not look back (cf. Lk 9:62), and perhaps even more you who doubt the meaning of your vocation, or the value of your service! Think of those places where men anxiously await a Priest, and where for many years, feeling his absence, they have not ceased to hope for his presence.

And it happens, sometimes, that they gather in an abandoned Sanctuary, and place on the altar the stole still preserved, and recite all the prayers of the Eucharistic liturgy; and behold, at the moment that corresponds to the transubstantiation, a profound silence descends among them, sometimes perhaps interrupted by a cry..., so ardently do they desire to hear the words, that only the lips of a Priest can effectively pronounce! So fervently do they desire Eucharistic Communion, of which only by virtue of the priestly ministry can they become participants»..
(Letter Novo incipiente, 8.IV.1979, n. 28).

The benevolence and goodness of Christ has entrusted to us priests the great "Mystery of faith" for the good of all believers. The Eucharist "is the principal and central reason for the existence of the sacrament of the Priesthood, which was effectively born at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist and together with it... We are united in a singular and exceptional way to the Eucharist. We are, in a certain way, 'from it' and 'for it'. We are also, and in a particular way, responsible 'for it'"..
(John Paul II, Domiminicae Cenae, n. 2).

Priests are part of the people of God. They too are among the "faithful in whose regeneration and formation" the Mother of God "cooperates with a mother's love" (Lumen Gentium, n. 63). Indeed, they have a special right to her affection, her protection, her guidance in consideration of the mystery of the Upper Room. No one is like them to Christ her Son, no one is more intimate than they are to the heart of Christ, no one can generate the Eucharist like them.

Their vocation is great and demanding. They are "friends" of Christ (cf. Jn 15:14), and they feel unworthy. Holy Mother, the disciple-priest took you into his home (cf. Jn 19:27) and you, despite human frailty, led him to holiness. Watch over all priests, O Mary! They trust in you, do not leave them alone, hold them close to the heart of your Son, the supreme and eternal priest.

"Mary, Mother of grace, take care of your priest sons who, like you, are called to be collaborators of the Holy Spirit, who makes Jesus reborn in the hearts of the faithful. Teach them to be faithful dispensers of the mysteries of God: so that, with your help, they may open the path of Reconciliation to many souls and make the Eucharist the source and summit of their own life and that of the faithful entrusted to them. Amen".
(Congregation for the Clergy, 19.III. 1999).