Review article
Eucharist – the Font, the Height and the Centre of Christian life (Benedict XVI)
Nela Veronika Gašpar
; Theology of Rijeka, Dislocated Studies of Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
Pope Benedict XVI links the apostolic exhortation about the Eucharist, the sacrament of love, with his first encyclical letter Deus caritas est, where he also speaks about the sacrament of Eucharist, in
order to underline its relationship with Christian love, either towards God or man. Pope Benedict stresses that “being a christian is not a result of an ethical decision or a great ideal, but it is a encounter with an event, a Person, which gives to the life a new horizon and a final destination.” Since God firstly loved us (cf. 1 John 4,10), love is not only a commandment, but also an answer to the gift of love by which God comes towards us. Jesus' death on the cross is the height of revelation of God's love in its “most radical form” (John 19,37). To this act of offering Jesus gave a continuous presence by the establishment of the Eucharist during the Last supper. He anticipates his death and resurrection by giving himself in that moment to his disciples as bread and wine (cf. John 6,31-33). Therefore, the word agape according to Pope Benedict denotes the eucharist: “there God's own
agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us”. From this it proceeds that “the eucharist is the height and the centre of the whole Christian life”, and a Christian is invited
to give “to his life an authentic eucharistic foundation”.
Keywords
Eucharist; Love; sacrament; paschal mystery; establishment
Hrčak ID:
71311
URI
Publication date:
16.8.2010.
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