Homily notes based on Mane Nobiscum Domine / Stay with us Lord Pope John Paul II’s Letter to the Faithful

“Stay with us, Lord, for it is almost evening” (Lk 24;29)

This is the invitation of those who met the Wayfarer on their journey to Emmaus. Their hearts burned within them as he, the Risen Lord whom they did not recognise, explained the scriptures to them. The light of the Word unlocked the hardness of their hearts and opened their eyes. Pressed by them to “stay” he agreed and at their shared table they recognised him in the “breaking of bread”. The Wayfarer, Jesus, the light of the world, still accompanies us, he walks at our side, opening the Scriptures and leading us into a deeper understanding of the mysteries of God.

Jesus described himself as the “light of the word” (Jn 8:12) and this quality appears at those moments, those epiphanies in his life, like the Transfiguration and the Resurrection, in which his Divine glory shines forth. Yet in the Eucharist the glory of Christ remains veiled. The Eucharist is pre-eminently a mystery of faith. At every Mass the liturgy of the Word of God precedes the liturgy of the Eucharist. At the Mass there is a unity of the two “tables”, the table of the Word and the table of the Bread. Jesus speaks of the mystery of his person and refers to the gift of himself that he will give at the Last supper, “My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (Jn 6:55). We know what he said was troubling for most of his listeners but it led Peter to express the faith of the Apostles and of the Church throughout history, “Lord to whom can we go, you have the message of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).

It is important that no dimension of the Eucharist is neglected. We are constantly tempted to reduce the Eucharist to our own dimensions. We limit the Eucharist to serve our own needs, we can sometimes dilute the significance of Christ’s presence to the merely symbolic. But we do not bow to symbols, we bow, we genuflect to the presence of Christ himself. We must open ourselves to the dimensions of the mystery of Christ. As our late beloved Holy Father John Paul II says, “The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation”

The most obvious element of the Eucharist is that is it a meal. A meal born on the eve of Christ’s passion and death. Every meal, even the simple meals in our own homes, expresses fellowship, the desire to be one together in unity. In the celebration of the Eucharist God wishes to establish fellowship with us and in turn we ourselves must try to build fellowship with each other.

The Eucharist is a sacrifice. In the Eucharist, Christ makes present for us anew the sacrifice offered once and for all on Calvary. Present in the Eucharist as the Risen Lord, he nonetheless bears the marks of his passion. Every Mass is a “memorial” as the acclamations following the consecration remind us, “We proclaim your death Lord Jesus, until you come in glory”.

The mystery of the “real presence” makes a demand on our faith. With the entire tradition of the Western Latin Church, ourselves, and our Eastern brothers and sisters (the Orthodox), we believe that Jesus is truly present under the appearance of Bread and Wine. This presence has been called “real” not in an exclusive way, as if to suggest that other forms of Christ’s presence are not real, but par excellence, because Christ becomes substantially present in the reality of his body and blood. This being our faith we must therefore approach the Eucharist fully aware that we are approaching Christ himself. “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed”.