Ecclesia de Eucharistia
John Paul II's last encyclical, on the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church: the Eucharist as sacrifice and real presence, its power to build the Church, its dependence on the apostolic ministry, the conditions for communion, and the dignity of its celebration.
Background and Occasion
Every Holy Thursday John Paul II wrote a letter to priests. In 2003, the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate, he wrote an encyclical instead, signing it at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. It was the last of his fourteen encyclicals and one of the most personal. The Pope recalls celebrating Mass in many places, on mountain paths, on lake shores, in stadiums and city squares, and says that the Eucharist has been the centre of his life as a priest.
He gives two reasons for writing. Positively, he wanted to rekindle Eucharistic amazement in the Church at the start of the new millennium. Negatively, he was concerned about shadows: in some places Eucharistic adoration had been abandoned, and in others the Eucharist was presented as a mere fraternal meal, its sacrificial meaning obscured, and liturgical abuses had spread.
Structure
After an introduction, the encyclical has six chapters: The mystery of faith; The Eucharist builds the Church; The apostolicity of the Eucharist and of the Church; The Eucharist and ecclesial communion; The dignity of the Eucharistic celebration; and At the school of Mary, “woman of the Eucharist”. It has 62 sections.
Central Teaching
The mystery of faith
The opening thesis is that the Church draws her life from the Eucharist. The first chapter restates the doctrine of Trent and of Paul VI’s Mysterium Fidei. The Mass is the sacrifice of the Cross made present, not repeated; it is offered by Christ through the priest, and the Church unites herself to it. In it Christ is really and substantially present by transubstantiation, a mystery that surpasses understanding and can be received only in faith. The Eucharist is also a pledge of the future glory and a source of commitment to transform the world.
The Eucharist builds the Church
The second chapter develops a principle of the Fathers and of Vatican II: the Church makes the Eucharist, and the Eucharist makes the Church. By receiving the Body of Christ, the faithful become his Body. The Pope urges the practice of adoration outside Mass, which he calls of inestimable value for the life of the Church.
Apostolicity
The third chapter applies the Creed’s mark of apostolicity to the Eucharist. The Eucharist was entrusted to the apostles and is celebrated validly only by a priest ordained in apostolic succession. The ordained priest acts in the person of Christ, and his ministry cannot be replaced by the community. The encyclical notes that this is why the Catholic Church cannot share the Eucharist with communities that lack valid orders, and it urges the faithful to attend Sunday Mass and priests to celebrate daily.
The Eucharist and ecclesial communion
The fourth chapter explains that the Eucharist presupposes communion as well as creating it. Its invisible dimension requires the life of grace: those conscious of grave sin must receive the sacrament of Penance before Communion, as St Paul’s warning shows (1 Corinthians 11:27–29). Its visible dimension requires communion in the profession of faith, the sacraments and the Church’s hierarchy. For this reason concelebration with other Christians is not permitted, though in certain specific cases Catholic ministers may give the sacraments to individual Christians not in full communion, under conditions set by Church law.
The dignity of the celebration
The fifth chapter defends beauty and reverence in the liturgy: architecture, music, art and the observance of liturgical norms. Inculturation is welcomed but must respect the substance of the mystery and be approved by the Holy See. The Pope announces a forthcoming document on liturgical norms, which appeared in 2004 as the instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum.
Mary, woman of the Eucharist
The final chapter presents Mary as the model of Eucharistic faith. She received the Word in her womb before the Church received him in the sacrament, and her fiat anticipates the Amen of every communicant.
Theological Significance
Ecclesia de Eucharistia joins the doctrine of the Eucharist to ecclesiology. Its central claim, that the Eucharist builds the Church, recovers a patristic theme and gives Vatican II’s teaching that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life (Lumen Gentium 11) a full development. It also reaffirms, after a period of confusion, the doctrines of sacrifice and real presence and the necessity of the ordained priesthood.
Its teaching on communion and on the dignity of the liturgy shaped the Synod on the Eucharist (2005) and Benedict XVI’s exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (2007).
For readers of this site, the encyclical is the most recent papal companion to Pohle’s treatment of the Eucharist as sacrament and sacrifice, and to the course’s lessons on the Eucharist and Holy Orders.