Eucharistic Realism and the Call for Adoration

Pope Benedict XVI General Audience this week was fascinating to read and a wonderful reminder of what we believe about what occurs in every Mass celebrated by the Church. The Rite of the Eucharist is not about socialisatoin according to the Holy Father. This was an wonderful address and I invite visitors to read it all at the Zenit site.

A prodigious writer, Rupert left very numerous works, still of great interest today, in part because he was active in several important theological discussions of the time. For example, he intervened with determination in the Eucharistic controversy that in 1077 led to the condemnation of Berengarius of Tours. The latter had given a reductive interpretation of the presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, describing it as only symbolic. The term "transubstantiation" had still not entered the language of the Church, but Rupert, using at times audacious expressions, made himself a determined supporter of the reality of the Eucharist. Above all in a work titled "De divinis officiis" (The Divine Offices), he affirmed with determination the continuity between the Body of the Word Incarnate of Christ and that present in the Eucharistic species of bread and wine. Dear brothers and sisters, it seems to me that at this point we must also think of our time; the danger exists also today of re-appraising the Eucharistic realism, to consider, that is, the Eucharist almost as just a rite of communion, of socialization, forgetting too easily that the risen Christ is really present -- with his risen body -- which is placed in our hands to draw us out of ourselves, to be incorporated in his immortal body and thus lead us to new life. This great mystery that the Lord is present in all his reality in the Eucharistic species is a mystery to be adored and loved always anew!

I would like to quote here the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which bear in themselves the fruit of the meditation of the faith and of the theological reflection of 2,000 years: "The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as 'the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.' In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained'" (CCC, 1374). With his reflection, Rupert was a contributor to this precise formulation.