The Eucharist is the Catholic Christian’s best loved celebration and way of worship. It is impossible to separate the Eucharist and the Filipino Ctaholics. Barangays and sitios will have their own chapel for the neighborhood Mass. They may not be that religious at home, but the Filipino Catholics in the new “diaspora” (known as OCW abroad) will look for the nearest Church where they can attend Mass.

The Eucharist is the heart and summit of Church life. In it Church brings together the Church and all the members in the sacrifice He once offered to His Father. It contains the whole spiritual good of the Church, Jesus Christ Himself. Our Pasch and the living bread which give life to humans. ( PO, 5). The Eucharist brings together the promise of salvation given in the past to sinful humans and the fulfillment of the promised salvation through the passing over (crossing) of Jesus to His Father.

In the Eucharist we have the promise of salvation given in the past, its fulfillment in Jesus and onward to the hope, the fulfilled salvation in the future. It is more than a time clock, for the Eucharist spans the past, the present and ushers us to eternity. As the Christian offers the Eucharist, he or she finds promise beyond weakness. When a bereaved someone offers the Eucharist, s/he discovers that there is hope beyond desperation.

Eucharist as Thanksgiving

The Eucharist is thanksgiving. The word “eucharistein” (GK) means to give thanks. No one can render thanks without crossing over or taking the side of another, the giver. It is first of all Jesus who thanked the Father for everything He has received, including ourselves and He prayed for us. (John 17:9-11). He was giving thanks to the Father; He was about to go to, to cross and pass over to the Father’s side.

This is the precise moment in time when Jesus needs the apostles, and then later on the priest/s, in order to, not just to repeat the Eucharist “Do this in memory of me”, but to live in the mystery of giving thanks, expressing gratitude to the Father, bringing himself and others through Jesus and in Him, across to the side of the Father with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Eucharist and the Priest

For the priest the central place for both his ministry and the spiritual life is the Eucharist because it contains Jesus Christ Himself our Passover. (PDV, 26; PO, 5) The priest and the Eucharist are inseparable, not only because of the Theology of the Priesthood and the Eucharist, but also because of the expectation of the faithful. So often people ask their priests “Father, what time is your Mass? Father, where is your next celebration of the Mass?”

When people ask those questions it is not really the time or the occasion they are addressing. More profoundly they are underlining and strongly confirming the mysterious link/connection between the Eucharist and the Priest. Mysterious because they do not fully understand; but mysterious also because the link is heavily transmitting a meaning.

Why the Priest and the Eucharist? Why create a link between the very Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood and the fragile breakable human person underneath the Priesthood. Could not Our Lord Jesus Christ have chosen an Angel or an Archangel to handle this most holy of the Sacraments? The link between the weakness of the priest and the sacredness of the Sacrament is a mystery itself; a mystery that carries the greatness God and the Glory due to Him.

The (Two) Eucharist Callings of the Priests

Through these two Sacraments the priest carries in himself two tasks: to carry in himself, in his humanity an instrument of death that leads to life, and to become a messenger of hope that assures life. To be a messenger of hope and life especially for the poor and those even lesser than him.

Listen to St. Paul speak of the power in the minister and the inherent weakness of the priest. “We hold this treasure in pots of earthen ware, so that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own. We are subjected to any kind of hardship, but never distressed; we see no way out but we never despair; we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down but still have life in us; always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body. Indeed while we are still alive, we are continually being handed over to death, for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our mortal flesh. In us, then, death is at work, in you, life.” (I Cor. 4:7 – 12).

The Marian Eucharist

As the priest and the Eucharist are inseparable, so are Mary and the Eucharist. The Blessed Mother Mary was always close to her Son Jesus in all the important moments of the Lord’s life - - - the Incarnation (Luke 1:28-38); the first miracle in Cana (John 2:1-12); the crucifixion and the death (John 19:25-27). It is presumed although not mentioned in the Gospels, that Mary could have been present at the First Eucharist. If Mary is present in the First Eucharist, she should be present also in every Eucharist, because if the Body of Christ, to which a Communion time we always assent to with an Amen, was the same Jesus conceived in her womb and there for nine months was nourished while receiving the flesh , blood and bone from her own, then at the same time of receiving Communion we also say YES to the woman who mothered Jesus her Son to maturity , and to the level of heroic of love that saved us.

In Marian expression (devotion) the approach to Jesus, her Son, was in a plea, “whatever He tells you to do, do.” In the Eucharist Jesus expressed the way to the Kingdom of the Father in the prayer “Thy will be done.” In the next Eucharist we celebrate, or even right now in this Eucharist we offer, should there be a difference in the prayer expression - - - Marian and Eucharistic?