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The Eucharist and the New Evangelization

                Pope Benedict XVI has called the Church to a deeper consideration of the “New Evangelization.” This term has been increasingly prevalent since its first use by Blessed John Paul II in 1979. It is rapidly gaining clarity and force as the current Holy Father urges each member of the Church to rediscover the necessary role of evangelization in the Christian life. Though the New Evangelization is certainly connected to each great mystery of the faith, prayerful consideration reveals a special relationship between the Eucharist and the New Evangelization.

                The “newness” of the New Evangelization consists in the new circumstances in which evangelization is being carried out[1] and explains that evangelization is meant to be “…new in its ardor, new in its methods, and new in its expression.”[2] By this New Evangelization, the Church is not proclaiming that something already done is inadequate, nor is she trying to begin again something already begun. Instead, the Church is taking up anew the mission that has always been part of her identity. [3] The center of the New Evangelization is the center of all evangelization: the person of Jesus Christ, to whom one cannot help but bear witness once he meets Him.[4] The New Evangelization is also new in its call to each member of the Church to consider his own response to the Lord’s missionary mandate,[5] for “Being Christian and ‘being Church’ means being missionary… Loving one’s faith implies bearing witness to it, bringing it to others and allowing others to participate in it.”[6] The New Evangelization, then, is not so much a new initiative as it is a new consideration of the constant activity of the Church.

                The Eucharist and the New Evangelization are intimately intertwined, since the New Evangelization has Christ at its center and the Eucharist is Christ. Further, the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life.”[7] Christian life is lived in the Church, and “the Church exists in order to evangelize.”[8] Therefore, the Eucharist is also “the source and the summit of all evangelization…”[9] The truth of this statement is summarized by Blessed John Paul II’s statement, “…the Eucharist is at the center of the process of the Church’s growth.”[10] One sees, then, a reciprocal relationship between the Eucharist and evangelization: the Eucharist nourishes evangelization, while evangelization leads to the Eucharist. Presbyterorum Ordinis accentuates this truth, explaining that “…all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it”[11] and “No Christian community can be built up which does not grow from and hinge on the celebration of the most holy Eucharist.”[12]

                The Eucharist is the source of evangelization, because the encounter with Christ leads one to proclaim Him to others. This is seen in a simple way in the Gospel pericope recounting the journey to Emmaus of the disciples who are unsuspectingly joined by the risen Christ.[13] The two disciples have spent the whole day journeying towards their destination, seeking to unpack the events of the preceding days. Undoubtedly their own fatigue and the unusual attractiveness of their enigmatic companion inspire the compassion with which they invite the hidden Lord Jesus, “stay with us, for it is growing dark.” However, all sentiments of weariness melt away and are supplanted by evangelical zeal when “their eyes were opened and they recognized Him” in the breaking of the bread. They immediately undo the day’s journey, hastening to proclaim their encounter with the risen Christ to the Apostles in Jerusalem.

                Blessed John Paul II states that, “Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus…”[14] Recognizing Christ in the breaking of the bread, each member of the Church should be filled with the same urgency of proclamation as seized the disciples. In her preparations for the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, the Church asserts, “Those who have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep Him for themselves, they must proclaim Him.”[15] Each believer, reflecting on his own encounter with Christ in the Eucharist, ought to consider whether he receives the Lord in a way that impels him to proclaim Christ’s Presence to all.

Yet there is a striking way in which the Eucharist, the source of evangelization, is a profound manifestation of Christ’s evangelizing action. Again, this can be seen by closely considering the disciples at Emmaus: “Jesus himself drew near and went with them,” and they did not have the power to apprehend Christ’s presence on their own, but “their eyes were opened.”[16] Christ initiates the contact that He makes with His followers, as part of His redemptive work of drawing all things to Himself[17]; it is through Christ’s action that the disciples recognize Him. It is through Christ’s Eucharistic sacrifice, which “is celebrated on the altar,” that “the unity of the faithful… is both expressed and brought about.”[18] In the Eucharist “Christ receives each of us” and “brings about in a sublime way the mutual ‘abiding’ of Christ and each of his followers.”[19] The Eucharist, then, is both the means by which Christ draws us to Himself and it is the fullest expression of the intimacy to which He draws us.

                The Eucharist is the summit of evangelization, for all evangelization has as its goal union with Christ.[20] The Christian experience admits of many ways of realizing a personal encounter with the Lord, but Christ is uniquely present in the Eucharist.[21] Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist is a substantial, real presence of His whole Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, even as the same were present to the disciples at Emmaus. There is an external level on which it is clearly evident that the Eucharist is the summit of evangelization, for the Eucharist is the sacrament by which Christian initiation is completed[22] and evangelization seeks to initiate new members into Christ’s Body, the Church.[23] While one cannot undermine the importance of the sacramental Communion achieved at the summit of evangelization, it is worthwhile to reflect on the fact that the Eucharist encapsulates the whole message of evangelization. The Eucharist is the “word made flesh” sent into the world, the Eternal Word of God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses beautifully, “The Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith…”[24] Therefore, the highest expression of evangelization, the most complete evangelization, is contained in the Eucharist itself in a real and profound way: “For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself…”[25] and it is Christ Whom all evangelization seeks to proclaim. 

                In one sense, Christ’s evangelizing is the source that leads to the Eucharist. The Lord’s evangelizing mission precedes His bestowal of the Eucharist. It is at the end of His public ministry Christ, with great love, institutes this sacrament as a pledge of His love.[26] Further, the Eucharist, once instituted, contains a mandate: “Do this in memory of me.”[27] The Eucharist necessitates a proclaiming again, “until He comes.” At its summit, the Eucharist compels evangelization.

                The consideration of the relationship between the Eucharist and the New Evangelization is inexhaustible; the two will draw on and lead to one another continually until the time when “God will be all in all.”[28] As the Church zealously and joyfully proclaims the Gospel amidst the challenges of the modern world, she recalls that “Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the Church’s mission, every work of pastoral planning, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and in turn be directed to that mystery as its culmination.”[29] Proponents of the New Evangelization can depend truly on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as the firm and stable strength that will enable them to proclaim the Good News with “an interior enthusiasm that nobody and nothing can quench,”[30] for in the Eucharist is the fulfillment of Christ’s promise, “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”[31]

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