Selected quotes of Pope Benedict XVI offered daily for prayer and reflection….

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The Eucharist
 


The Christian feast, the Eucharist, plumbs the very depths of death. It is not just a matter of pious discourse and entertainment, of some kind of religious beautification, spreading a pious gloss on the world; it plumbs the very depths of existence, which it call death . . . what the tradition sums up in the sentence: The Eucharist is a sacrifice, the presentation of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.

 

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
'God Is Near Us:
The Eucharist, the Heart of Life'

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


The Eucharist is far more than just a meal; it has cost a death to provide it, and the majesty of death is present in it. Whenever we hold it, we should be filled with reverence in the face of this mystery, with awe in the face of this mysterious death that becomes a present reality in our midst.

 
'God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life'
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


Bread made of many grains contains also an event of union: the ground grain becoming bread is a process of unification. We ourselves, many as we are, must become one bread, one body, as St. Paul says (cf. I Cor. 10: 17). In this way the sign of bread becomes both hope and fulfillment.

 
Solemnity of Corpus Christi
St. John Lateran
15 June 2006

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


Take part in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration! You will see that it is not time lost; rather it is the very thing that can keep your family truly united and centered.

 
Vespers
Munich Cathedral
10 September, 2006

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


From communion with Christ in the Eucharist flows the charity that transforms our life and supports us all on our journey toward the heavenly homeland.

 
Angelus
18 June 2006

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


The Eucharist is the Lord Jesus who gives himself 'for the life of the world' (John 6:51).
In every time and in every place, he wants to meet human beings and bring them the life of God.

 
Angelus
18 June 2006

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


The Church Fathers have called the Eucharist a drug of immortality. And so it is, for in the Eucharist we come into contact, indeed, we enter into communion with the Risen Body of Christ, we enter the space of life already raised, eternal life. Let us enter into communion with this Body which is enlivened by immortal life and thus, from this moment and for ever, we will dwell in the space of life itself.

 
Homily
Church of San Lorenzo
in Piscibus, Rome
9 March 2008

 
 
 
The Eucharist
 


‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ In these words is perceived the truth and the strength of the Christian revolution, the deepest revolution of human history, which is experienced precisely gathered around the Eucharist. Here people of different ages, sex, social condition and political ideas gather. The Eucharist can never be a private event, reserved to people chosen on the basis of affinity or friendship. The Eucharist is a public worship that has nothing of esotericism or exclusivity. We have not decided with whom we want to gather; we have come and found ourselves together with each other, gathered by faith and called to become one body, sharing the only Bread that is Christ… And it is necessary to keep watch always so that the temptations of particularism, even if with good intentions, do not head in the opposite direction. The feast of Corpus Christi reminds us above all that to be Christians means to come together from all parts to be in the presence of the only Lord and to be one in him and with him.

 
Homily
Feast of Corpus Christi
May 22, 2008

 

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