1. 8. Prayer and Eucharist
It is sometimes said that Christianity is the religion of love. If so, love and personal connection is first and
foremost, and the first personal unions is that of the Christian with Christ: me and Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus
of Nazareth and me.
The largest union reached in and through prayer and, in a 'body', through the Eucharist. Without prayer
and without the Eucharist, Christianity is nothing more than an airy abstraction of well-intentioned.
Some words of Benedict XVI to help deepen the two words that refer to the most mysterious and
unthinkable that unions can humans.

2. 8.1 Prayer is ...
To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of
inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of
God—what is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and
comfortable things that we desire at this moment—that meagre, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our
desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we
come before God, we too are forced to recognize them
Spe Salvi, n.º 33
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At the base of the formation of the Christian person and the transmission of faith is necessarily prayer, personal friendship with Christ and the
contemplation of the Father's face it. And the same applies obviously to all our missionary commitment, particularly for family ministry. Thus,
the Family of Nazareth is to be for our families and our communities subjected to constant prayer and trusting way of life as well.
Rome. Monday June 6, 2005
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2.8 The man without prayer
“Prayer is a crucible in which our expectations and aspirations are exposed to the light of God's Word, immersed in dialogue with the One who
is the Truth, and from which they emerge free from hidden lies and compromises with various forms of selfishness” (cf. Spe Salvi, n. 33).
Without the dimension of prayer, the human "I" ends by withdrawing into himself, and the conscience, which should be an echo of God's
voice, risks being reduced to a mirror of the self, so that the inner conversation becomes a monologue, giving rise to self-justifications by the
thousands.
Basilica of Saint Sabina. Wednesday February 6, 2008.
2.8.a
Therefore, prayer is a guarantee of openness to others: whoever frees himself for God and his needs simultaneously opens himself to the
other, to the brother or sister who knocks at the door of his heart and asks to be heard, asks for attention, forgiveness, at times correction, but
always in fraternal charity. True prayer is never self-centred, it is always centred on the other. As such, it opens the person praying to the
"ecstasy" of charity, to the capacity to go out of oneself to draw close to the other in humble, neighbourly service.
Basilica of Saint Sabina. Wednesday February 6, 2008
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True prayer is the driving force of the world since it keeps it open to God. For this reason without prayer there is no hope but only illusion. In
fact, it is not God's presence that alienates man but his absence: without the true God, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, illusory hopes become
an invitation to escape from reality. Speaking with God, dwelling in his presence, letting oneself be illuminated and purified by his Word
introduces us, instead, into the heart of reality, into the very motor of becoming cosmic; it introduces us, so to speak, to the beating heart of
the universe.
Basilica of Saint Sabina. Wednesday February 6, 2008
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Jesus warns us against the canker of vanity that leads to ostentation and hypocrisy, to superficiality and self-satisfaction, and reasserts the
need to foster uprightness of heart. At the same time he shows us the means to grow in this purity of intention: by cultivating intimacy with
the heavenly Father.
Basilica of Saint Sabina. Wednesday February 25, 2009
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3.8 Praying is a process
Concerning prayer he urges us to be "constant", and to be "watchful in it with thanksgiving" (Rm 12: 12; Col 4: 2), to "pray constantly" (1 Thes
5: 17). Jesus is in the depths of our hearts. He makes himself present and his presence will remain, even if we speak and act in accordance with
our professional duties. For this reason, in prayer there is within our hearts an inner presence of relationship with God, which gradually
becomes also an explicit prayer
Basilica of Saint Sabina. Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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4.8 The request is a fight…
The prayer of supplication full of hope [...] makes us experience God as the only anchor of salvation. Even when collective prayer of God's
people is the voice of one heart and one soul, is dialogue "heart to heart" as the poignant plea for Queen Esther when her village was about to
be exterminated: "My Lord, our God, you are unique. Come to my relief, I'm single and I have no relief but in you, and my life is in great danger
"(Est 4, 17 l.) With a "great risk" need a greater hope, the hope is that you can only count on God.
Basilica of Saint Sabina. Wednesday, February 25, 2009.
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St John has been included in his account of the sayings of the Lord for the "Palm Sunday" a modified form of the prayer of Jesus in the Garden
of Olives. First of all a statement: "My soul is troubled" (12:27). Here comes the fear of Jesus, widely described by the other three evangelists:
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3. their terror against the power of death, especially the abyss of evil he sees, and which must come down. The Lord suffer our troubles with us,
takes us through the last anguish until light. In John, are then two prayers of Jesus. The first contained only conditionally, "What shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour "(12:27). As a human being, Jesus also feels compelled to pray to be free from the terror of passion. We too can
pray this way. We can also complain to the Lord, like Job, to present all our requests that arise in us against injustice in the world and the
shackles of our own self. Before him, we can not take refuge in pious phrases, in a fictional world. Always pray to God also means fighting and,
like Jacob, we can say, "not let you go
until you bless me" (Gen 32.27). WYD. St. Peter´s Square Sunday April 5, 2009.
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But then comes the second claim of Jesus: "Glorify your name" (Jn 12:28). In summary, this request is expressed as follows: "Not my will but
yours be done" (Luke 22:42). In the end, the glory of God, your honor, his will, is always more important and more true to my thoughts and my
will. And this is essential in our prayer and our lives: to learn this right order of reality, accept it closely, trust God and believe that He is doing
what is right, that his will is truth and love my Life is good if I learn to adjust to this order. Life, death and resurrection of Jesus are our
guarantee that we can truly trust God. This will place his kingdom.
WYD. St. Peter´s Square. Sunday April 5, 2009.
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5.8 To pray with the Word
The disciples are thus drawn deep within God by being immersed in the word of God. The word of God is, so to speak, the bath which purifies
them, the creative power which transforms them into God’s own being. So then, how do things stand in our own lives? Are we truly pervaded
by the word of God? Is that word truly the nourishment we live by, even more than bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that
word? Do we love it? Are we deeply engaged with this word to the point that it really leaves a mark on our lives and shapes our thinking? Or is
it rather the case that our thinking is constantly being shaped by all the things that others say and do? Aren’t prevailing opinions the criterion
by which we all too often measure ourselves? Do we not perhaps remain, when all is said and done, mired in the superficiality in which people
today are generally caught up? Do we allow ourselves truly to be deeply purified by the word of God?
St. Peter's Basilica. Holy Thursday April 9, 2009
5.8.a
Mary's poem - the Magnificat - is quite original; yet at the same time, it is a "fabric" woven throughout of "threads" from the Old Testament,
of words of God. Thus, we see that Mary was, so to speak, "at home" with God's word, she lived on God's word, she was penetrated by God's
word. To the extent that she spoke with God's words, she thought with God's words, her thoughts were God's thoughts, her words, God's
words. She was penetrated by divine light and this is why she was so resplendent, so good, so radiant with love and goodness. Mary lived on
the Word of God, she was imbued with the Word of God. And the fact that she was immersed in the Word of God and was totally familiar with
the Word also endowed her later with the inner enlightenment of wisdom. Whoever thinks with God thinks well, and whoever speaks to God
speaks well. They have valid criteria to judge all the things of the world. They become prudent, wise, and at the same time good; they also
become strong and courageous with the strength of God, who resists evil and fosters good in the world.
Thus, Mary speaks with us, speaks to us, invites us to know the Word of God, to love the Word of God, to live with the Word of God, to think
with the Word of God. And we can do so in many different ways: by reading Sacred Scripture, by participating especially in the Liturgy, in
which Holy Church throughout the year opens the entire book of Sacred Scripture to us. She opens it to our lives and makes it present in our
lives.
Castel Gandolfo. Monday August 15, 2005
5.8.b.
6.8 To adore
I would say: adoration is recognizing that Jesus is my Lord, that Jesus shows me the way to take, and that I will live well only if I know the road
that Jesus points out and follow the path he shows me. Therefore, adoration means saying: "Jesus, I am yours. I will follow
you in my life, I never want to lose this friendship, this communion with you". I could also say that adoration is essentially an embrace with
Jesus in which I say to him: "I am yours, and I ask you, please stay with me always".
October 15, 2005
6.8.a
Praise the Lord loud voice for all the miracles we've seen. Yes, we too have seen and even now we see the miracles of Christ: how he brings
men and women to give up the comforts of life and be totally at the service of those who suffer, how to give men and women the courage to
oppose violence and lies to spread throughout the world the truth, how, in secret, leads men and women to do good to others, to bring about
reconciliation where there was hate, to create peace where enmity reigned.
WYD. St. Peter´s SQUARE. Sunday April 1, 2007.
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4. Adoring the God of Jesus Christ, who out of love made himself bread broken, is the most effective and radical remedy against the idolatry of
the past and of the present. Kneeling before the Eucharist is a profession of freedom: those who bow to Jesus cannot and must not prostrate
themselves before any earthly authority, however powerful. We Christians kneel only before God or before the Most Blessed Sacrament
because we know and believe that the one true God is present in it, the God who created the world and so loved it that he gave his Only
Begotten Son (cf. Jn 3: 16).
Basilica of St. John Lateran. Thursday May 22, 2008.
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We prostrate ourselves before a God who first bent over man like the Good Samaritan to assist him and restore his life, and who knelt before
us to wash our dirty feet. Adoring the Body of Christ, means believing that there, in that piece of Bread, Christ is really there, and gives true
sense to life, to the immense universe as to the smallest creature, to the whole of human history as to the most brief existence. Adoration is
prayer that prolongs the celebration and Eucharistic communion and in which the soul continues to be nourished: it is nourished with love,
truth, peace; it is nourished with hope, because the One before whom we prostrate ourselves does not judge us, does not crush us but
liberates and transforms us.
Basilica of St. John Lateran. Thursday May 22, 2008.
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7.8 The Sacrarium
"If you love me". Dear friends, Jesus said these words at the Last Supper in the context of the moment when he instituted the Eucharist and
the priesthood. Although they were addressed to the Apostles, in a certain sense they are addressed to all their successors and to priests who
are the closest collaborators of the successors of the Apostles. Let us hear them again today as an invitation to live our vocation in the Church
ever more coherently: you, dear Ordinands, listen to them with special emotion because precisely today Christ makes you share in his
priesthood. Accept them with faith and with love! Let them be imprinted on your hearts, let them accompany you on the journey of your
whole life. Do not forget them, do not lose them on the way! Reread them, meditate on them often and, especially, pray on them. Thus you
will remain faithful to Christ's love and realize with joy ever new that his divine word "walks" with you and "grows" within you.
St. Peter's Basilica. Sunday April 27, 2008.
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The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the God who does not leave us alone on the journey but stays at our side and shows us the way. Indeed, it is
not enough to move onwards, one must also see where one is going! "Progress" does not suffice, if there are no criteria as reference points.
On the contrary, if one loses the way one risks coming to a precipice, or at any rate more rapidly distancing oneself from the goal. God created
us free but he did not leave us alone: he made himself the "way" and came to walk together with us so that in our freedom we should also
have the criterion we need to discern the right way and to take it.
Basilica of St. John Lateran. Thursday May 22, 2008.
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8.8 The mass
Celebrate the Eucharist means to pray. Properly celebrate the Eucharist when we in our thoughts and our being in the words which the Church
proposes. They present the prayer of every generation, we carry on the way to the Lord. And as priests in the Mass are those who, by their
prayers, give way to the prayer of the faithful today. If we are united inside the words of prayer, if we are guided and transformed by them,
the faithful are also available to those words. And so, we all really "one body and one soul" with Christ.
STATIONS OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM. Friday, April 6, 2007
8.8.a
Indeed, as we celebrate the Eucharist, we proclaim that he has withdrawn from the world and not leave us alone, and, though we can not see
and touch as with the material realities and sensitive, is always with us and among us; moreover, is in us, because it can attract each other and
communicate his life to every believer who will open the heart.
Vatican Basilica. Monday December 31, 2007.
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Now, as we prepare to celebrate Holy Mass, we must ask ourselves if we wear the dress of love. Let us ask the Lord to drive away any hostility
from our hearts, to free us of all sense of self, and truly ourselves with the garment of love, that we are people of light and do not belong to
darkness.
Vatican Basilica. Holy Thursday April 5, 2007.
8.8.c
We must not take this faith for granted! Today we run the risk of secularization creeping into the Church too. It can be translated into formal
and empty Eucharistic worship, into celebrations lacking that heartfelt participation that is expressed in veneration and in respect for the
liturgy.
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5. The temptation to reduce prayer to superficial, hasty moments, letting ourselves be overpowered by earthly activities and concerns, is always
strong. When, in a little while, we recite the Our Father, the prayer par excellence, we will say: "Give us this day our daily bread", thinking of
course of the bread of each day for us and for all peoples. But this request contains something deeper. The Greek word epioúsios, that we
translate as "daily", could also allude to the "super-stantial" bread, the bread "of the world to come". Some Fathers of the Church saw this as a
reference to the Eucharist, the bread of eternal life, the new world, that is already given to us in Holy Mass, so that from this moment the
future world may begin within us. With the Eucharist, therefore, Heaven comes down to earth, the future of God enters the present and it is as
though time were embraced by divine eternity.
Basilica of St. John Lateran. Thursday June 11, 2009.
8.8.d
9.8 The Sunday
Dear friends, sometimes, in principle, can be uncomfortable having to schedule on a Sunday mass. But if you take this commitment
constataréis later that this is exactly what gives meaning to free time. Do not be deterred from participating in Sunday Mass and also help
others to discover. Indeed, for the Eucharist releases the joy that we need, we must learn to understand ever more deeply, we must learn to
love it. Commit to it, worth it!
Discover the intimate riches of the liturgy of the Church and its true greatness: it is not us that we are celebrating for ourselves, but is, instead,
the living God himself who is preparing a banquet for us. With the love of the Eucharist also rediscover the sacrament of Reconciliation, in
which the merciful goodness of God always allows us to start our life again.
WYD. Cologne - Sunday August 21, 2005.
9.8.a
We need this bread to cope with fatigue and tiredness of the journey. On Sunday, Lord's Day is the occasion to draw strength from him, who is
Lord of life. Therefore, the Sunday precept is not a duty imposed from outside, a weight on our shoulders. Instead, participate in the Sunday
celebration of the Eucharistic Bread food and experience the communion of brothers and sisters in Christ is a necessity for the Christian is a
joy, so the Christian can find the energy to the way we should go every week. Moreover, there is an arbitrary way: the way God shows us his
word goes in the direction inscribed in the essence of man. The word of God and reason go together. Follow the word of God, be with Christ,
means for man to fulfill himself, to lose is to lose oneself.
May 29, 2007
9.8.b
It was the year 304, during the persecution of Diocletian, when Roman officials surprised about fifty Christians celebrate Sunday Mass in
northern Africa, and arrested. It has preserved the protocol process. The proconsul Saturninus said the priest: "You have acted against the
order of the emperors and Caesars to gather all these people here." The writer adds that the Christian priest's response came from the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Was: "We held safely (Securi), which is the Lord." "What is the Lord 'and I poured the Latin Dominicus. It is hardly
translatable into its versatility. Because it designates the Lord's day, but then referred to its contents, the sacrament of the Lord and his
resurrection and his presence in the Eucharist. Returning to the protocol: the deputy insists on asking for explanations, keep calm and
magnificent response of the priest: "We have done because we can not omit what is the Lord." Here is expressed unequivocally aware that the
Lord is above Mr. This awareness gives the priest the "security" (as he puts it) when it was clear the insecurity and helplessness total outside
the small Christian community. Almost more impressive still are the answers given by the homeowner, Emeritus, in whose offices took place
the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. When asked why he allowed the meeting banned in his home, said the meeting were brothers who
could not close the door. The deputy insists again. And then clearly, in the second response, the real subject and motor. "You ought to denying
them entry," he had said the deputy. "I could not do it," answered Emeritus, quoniam sine Dominican non possumus' because we can not do
without the Lord's day, without the mystery of the Lord. The will of the Caesars is contrasted by the clear and firm "can not" of the Christian
conscience. Refers to the "we can not keep silent," the duty of the Christian message that Peter and John had claimed to violate the gag order
imposed by the Sanhedrin (Ac. 4, 20). "We can not do without the Lord's day." There is a painful obedience to an order outside of the Church is
an expression of a duty and an intimate love. Is an indicator of what has become the center of existence, the whole being. Indicates something
so important that needed to be made at the risk of life, from a high security and inner freedom. Those who spoke thus would seem absurd to
buy the survival and external peace to the waiver of this vital foundation. They did not think of a casuistry that, weighing the choice between
duty and duty Dominican citizen, between the precepts of the Church and the threat of the death sentence, could dispense with the cult as
less urgent. It was not a choice between a precept and the other, but between the meaning of life and a meaningless life. In this light it is
understandable the phrase of St. Ignatius of Antioch listed as the theme of these reflections: "We live keeping the Lord's Day, which also raised
our lives. [...]» "Whoever is thirsty, come to me and drink", says Christ on the last day, most of the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7, 38). The party
reminds Israel suffered thirst in the burning desert and water, which appears as a realm of death with no way out. But Christ is shown as the
rock from which flows the inexhaustible source of fresh water: death, becomes a source of life. Whoever is thirsty, come. Are we not the world
has become, with all his knowledge and power, in a desert where we can not find the source and alive? Whoever is thirsty, come: Jesus is still
today the inexhaustible source of living water. We just come and drink for the next sentence is worth for us, "If someone believes in me, his
heart shall flow rivers of living water" (7, 38). Life, the real, can not simply "take", just receive. It introduces us to the dynamics: the dynamics
of
Christ that is life. "How could we live without it?"
The resurrection, the foundation of the Christian life ..., pp. 73-74
9.8.c
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6. 10.8 New nuclear fission
This is, to use an image well known to us, inducing nuclear fission in the depths of being, the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love
over death. Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that gradually change the
world. All other changes remain superficial and can not save. Thus we speak of redemption: what had the most intimate level has indeed
happened, and we can enter into its dynamic. Jesus can distribute his Body, because he truly gives
himself.
WYD. Cologne-Sunday August 21, 2005.
10.8 .a
This first fundamental transformation of violence into love, death into life, brings other changes. Bread and wine become his Body and Blood.
At this point the transformation can not be stopped, rather, is where to start fully. The Body and Blood of Christ given to us so that we
ourselves are transformed. We ourselves must become the Body of Christ, his blood. We all eat the one bread, and this means that we
ourselves become one. Worship, as we said, it becomes, thus binding. God is not only against us, as the totally Other. He is within us, and
we're at it. His dynamic enters us and from us wants to spread to others and spread throughout the world, that his love can truly become the
dominant measure in the world. I find a like to illustrate this new step that the Last Supper shows us the different nuances of the word
"adoration" in Greek and Latin. The Greek word is proskynesis. It means the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true
measure, the norm that we follow. It means that freedom is not simply about enjoying life in total autonomy, but by the measure of truth and
goodness, to become, thereby, ourselves, true and good. This gesture is necessary even if initially our yearning for freedom is reluctant, at
first, in this perspective. Completely make our only possible in the second step presents the Last Supper. The Latin word for adoration is ad-
oratio, mouth to mouth, kiss, hug and hence ultimately love. Submission becomes union, because he to whom we submit is Love This
submission makes sense, because we do not impose anything on the outside, but liberates us from the depths of our being.
WYD. Cologne. Sunday August 21, 2005.
10.8.b
With the Eucharist we find ourselves in the "hour" of Jesus, which speaks the gospel of John. Through the Eucharist this "hour" of Jesus
becomes our own hour, his presence among us. Together with the disciples he celebrated the Passover of Israel, the memorial of God's
liberating action that led Israel from slavery to freedom. Jesus follows the rites of Israel. Pronounced over the bread the prayer of praise and
blessing. However, something new happens. Give thanks to God not only for the great works of the past, he thanks him for his own exaltation,
to be held by the cross and resurrection, speaking to the disciples in words that sum up the Law and the Prophets " This is my Body, given in
sacrifice for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. " He then distributes the bread and the cup, and at the same time, instructs them
to say again and again in his memory what he was saying
and doing at that time. What's happening? How can Jesus distribute his Body and his Blood? Making the bread into his Body and the wine into
his Blood, he anticipates his death, he accepts it in his heart and transforms it into an action of love. What from the outside is simply brutal
violence, the Crucifixion, "from within becomes an act of love-giving. This is the substantial transformation which took place at the Last Supper
and was destined to spark a series of transformations leading ultimately to the transformation of the world that God is all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15,
28). All men always hope in his heart, somehow, a change, a transformation of the world. Here now is the central act of transformation that
alone can truly renew the world: violence is transformed into love and, therefore, death in life. Since this act transmutes death into love, death
as such is already conquered from within, second, it is already present in the resurrection. Death is, so to speak, mortally wounded, so that,
henceforth, can not be the last word.
WYD Cologne Sunday August 21, 2005.
10.8.c
This is, to use an image well known to us, inducing nuclear fission in the depths of being, the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love
over death. Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that gradually change the
world. All other changes remain superficial and can not save. Thus we speak of redemption: what had the most intimate level has indeed
happened, and we can enter into its dynamic. Jesus can distribute his Body, because he truly gives himself.
August 21, 2005
10.8.d
11.8 To be an eucharist
Our salvation lies in us the body of Christ, as Christ himself: taking us from him every day and every day by returning to Him daily offering our
bodies as the site of the word. We become His body followed, descending and ascending. It all speaks the simple
phrase "descendit of caelis." Speaks of Christ and in doing so, talk to us.
The Christian God, p. 69
11.8.a
Not only let's say beautiful things on the Eucharist, but especially we should live of his force
Vatican Basilica. Sunday October 2, 2005.
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7. St Leo the Great recalls that "our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ aspires to nothing other than to become what we receive"
(Sermo 12, De Passione 3, 7, PL 54). If this is true for every Christian it is especially true for us priests.
To become the Eucharist! May precisely this be our constant desire and commitment, so that the offering of the Body and Blood of the Lord
which we make on the altar may be accompanied by the sacrifice of our existence. Every day, we draw from the Body and Blood of the Lord
that free, pure love which makes us worthy ministers of Christ and witnesses to his joy. This is what the faithful expect of the priest: that is, the
example of an authentic devotion to the Eucharist; they like to see him spend long periods of silence and adoration before Jesus as was the
practice of the Holy Curé d'Ars, whom we shall remember in a special way during the upcoming Year for Priests.
Basilica of St. John Lateran. Thursday June 11, 2009.
11.8.c
12.8 The eucharist is cosmic
Zechariah says that the kingdom of the king of peace extends "from sea to sea (...) to the ends of the earth." The ancient promise of land made
to Abraham and the fathers, is replaced here with a new vision of the messianic king space is no longer a country, which then would be
separated from others and therefore would inevitably be against other countries. His country is the earth, the whole world. Overcoming all
boundaries, it creates unity in diversity of cultures. Look across the clouds of history that separated the prophet Jesus, we see from afar
emerge in this prophecy the network of Eucharistic communities embracing the earth, worldwide, a network of communities that make up the
"kingdom of peace "of Jesus from sea to sea to the ends of the earth. He comes to all cultures and all parts of the world, wherever, to the
miserable huts and poor areas, and the splendor of the lecture them. Everywhere it is the same, the One, and so all praying together, in
communion with him are also linked together in a single body. Christ himself becoming dominant in our bread and giving it to us. This builds
his kingdom.
WYD. St. Peter´s Square. Sunday April 9, 2006
12.8.a
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3: 28).
"You are all one"! In these words the truth and power of the Christian revolution is heard, the most profound revolution of human history,
which was experienced precisely around the Eucharist: here people of different age groups, sex, social background, and political ideas gather
together in the Lord's presence.
The Eucharist can never be a private event, reserved for people chosen through affinity or friendship. The Eucharist is a public devotion that
has nothing esoteric or exclusive about it. Here too, this evening, we did not choose to meet one another, we came and find ourselves next to
one another, brought together by faith and called to become one body, sharing the one Bread which is Christ. We are united over and above
our differences of nationality, profession, social class, political ideas: we open ourselves to one another to become one in him. This has been a
characteristic of Christianity from the outset, visibly fulfilled around the Eucharist, and it is always necessary to be alert to ensure that the
recurring temptations of particularism, even if with good intentions, do not go in the opposite direction. Therefore Corpus Christi reminds us
first of all of this: that being Christian means coming together from all parts of the world to be in the presence of the one Lord and to become
one with him and in him.
Basilica of St. John Lateran. Thursday May 22, 2008.
12.8.b
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