The Source and Summit

Have you ever dug a little deeper and found treasure?

Today I decided to see where the often quoted Catechism passage on the Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Christian life” (1324 CCC) was rooted. Not so much theologically, although that’s always a bonus, but rather the paper trail through councils, popes, and saints.

If you look at the footnote, those tiny numbers sprinkled throughout a church document (not a Da Vinci Code trail), we see a reference to LG 11 and PO 5 immediately after the sentence.

That’s code for two Vatican II documents, Lumen Gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, and Presbyterorum Ordinis, on the ‘Ministry and Life of Priests’, paragraph 5.

Okay, I said the word, code.

Lets look at these two passages in turn.

The first part of paragraph 11 of Lumen Gentium reads,

11. It is through the sacraments and the exercise of the virtues that the sacred nature and organic structure of the priestly community is brought into operation. Incorporated in the Church through baptism, the faithful are destined by the baptismal character for the worship of the Christian religion; reborn as sons of God they must confess before men the faith which they have received from God through the Church (4*). They are more perfectly bound to the Church by the sacrament of Confirmation, and the Holy Spirit endows them with special strength so that they are more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ (5*). Taking part in the eucharistic sacrifice, which is the fount and apex of the whole Christian life, they offer the Divine Victim to God, and offer themselves along with It.(6*) Thus both by reason of the offering and through Holy Communion all take part in this liturgical service, not indeed, all in the same way but each in that way which is proper to himself. Strengthened in Holy Communion by the Body of Christ, they then manifest in a concrete way that unity of the people of God which is suitably signified and wondrously brought about by this most august sacrament.

Fount and apex is another way of saying source and summit. But alas, there is another squiggly number, a 6, — a footnote that drives the curious even deeper to… (6) Cfr. Pius XII, Litt. Encycl. Mediator Dei 20 nov. 1947: AAS 39 (1947), paesertim p. 552 s.

In Mediator Dei, we read…

66. The mystery of the most Holy Eucharist which Christ, the High Priest instituted, and which He commands to be continually renewed in the Church by His ministers, is the culmination and center, as it were, of the Christian religion. We consider it opportune in speaking about the crowning act of the sacred liturgy, to delay for a little while and call your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this most important subject.

A beautiful passage then follows from Pope Pius XII about the victim-hood of Christ and of his priests. In other words, the nuclear core of our spiritual life is the Pascal sacrifice and re-presented by the alignment (via obedience which makes one transparent as two pointa which align in the heavens) to Christ of the minister. That should give us some pause as to the need to follow rubrics. The GIRM and Redemptionis Sacramentum, come to mind.

Returning back to our CCC footnote PO 5, Presbyterorum Ordinis, part of that paragraph reads,

The other sacraments, as well as with every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are tied together with the Eucharist and are directed toward it.(15) The Most Blessed Eucharist contains the entire spiritual boon of the Church,(16) that is, Christ himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, by the action of the Holy Spirit through his very flesh vital and vitalizing, giving life to men who are thus invited and encouraged to offer themselves, their labors and all created things, together with him. In this light, the Eucharist shows itself as the source and the apex of the whole work of preaching the Gospel. Those under instruction are introduced by stages to a sharing in the Eucharist, and the faithful, already marked with the seal of Baptism and Confirmation, are through the reception of the Eucharist fully joined to the Body of Christ.

The same teaching is echoed in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Liturgy, where in paragraph 10 it states:

10. Nevertheless the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper.

The liturgy in its turn moves the faithful, filled with “the paschal sacraments,” to be “one in holiness” (26); it prays that “they may hold fast in their lives to what they have grasped by their faith” (27); the renewal in the eucharist of the covenant between the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire. From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, is achieved in the most efficacious possible way.

Our life in the Eucharist is much like a footnote trail. The deeper you go, the more the little things catch your eye, like the tiny spaces between words, and the more you will see and discover in your walk with Christ. Words can lead to spaces, and spaces form pauses, a chance to breath and contemplate. Our spiritual life needs words and silence — as Jesus the Divine Word is also the Divine Silence.

Footnotes can be an addictive pastime.