THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE EUCHARISTIC LIFE
The Universal Church today celebrates the Solemnity of Pentecost and for us in the Northeast Minneapolis we have our annual Eucharistic procession through all the seven churches, showing the world and the neighborhoods on what our faith is founded, on what it is nourished and makes it grow to maturation.
Since this Pentecost and our local Eucharistic procession events have coincided, I want to affirm that they are not conflicting but rather there is a sacred perichoresis, an interpenetration between them. This is affirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church about the Holy Spirit and the Church “on the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit”, among many roles of the Holy Spirit listed in number 737, one of them is that, “the Holy Spirit makes present the mystery of Christ, supremely in the Eucharist, in order to reconcile them, to bring them into communion with God, that they may “bear much fruit”.
Although the New Testament does not explicitly state that the Holy Spirit has converted and converts the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and that, through the Eucharist, persons become the mystical body of Christ. This truth, however, emerges from what Bible generally says about the presence and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in the person and saving action of Christ. The two divine operations respond to the decision of the Father, to the direct intervention of Christ, but are accomplished through the working of the power of the Holy Spirit, called “the Spirit of sanctification” (cf. Romans 1:4).
Of the two epiclesis/invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic Prayers, the first asks for the sending of the Holy Spirit for the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and the second for the spiritual transformation of individual present in the Eucharistic assembly as members of the mystical body. The Catechism highlights several times role of the Holy Spirit in Eucharistic conversion (1333, 1357). If baptism is at the origin of mystical incorporation, the Eucharist is for the full maturation and vitality of the mystical body of Christ.
In the same number 737 the Catechism teaches that the Holy Spirit prepares the faithful and goes out to them with his graces, to draw them to Christ. Indeed, besides making Christ present in the liturgical assembly, the Holy Spirit also invites every baptized to and convokes the Eucharistic assembly. The Eucharist and the Eucharistic life of the Church is the action of the Father, through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
The Eucharistic life which begins in the Eucharistic celebration and communion must grow to maturation, lived in perfect charity by witness and service. But this cannot be achieved without the power of the Holy Spirit who translates the teaching and example of Christs so that each one of us can personalize it and apply it to our own lives.
On this Pentecost Sunday we are newly filled and transformed by the Holy Spirit, we are transformed into a mystical body of Christ especially through the Eucharistic sacrifice. With the Eucharistic procession we are witnessing by showing the neighborhoods through prayers, praises, worship with songs and hymns, the joy received from the Eucharistic faith, telling the neighborhoods that our life is a Eucharistic life, that “we cannot live without the Eucharist”.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Apostles, the Eucharistic Mother, pray for us to always to remain docile to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to live a truly Eucharistic faith.
+Fr. Justus