Sacramentum Caritatis is an apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist as source and summit of the Church's life and mission.

Why This Study Guide?
Since 1947, when Pius XII wrote Mediator Dei, the first papal encyclical on the liturgy, we have received a number of statements, from Popes, bishops, and the Second Vatican Council, on the importance of our liturgical prayer. During these 60 years we also have experienced great changes in the way we pray together. Even though changes have occurred in the form, the prayer of the liturgy remains the same: together, through Christ, we respond to the Father's love. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy underlines this point: Christ celebrates the liturgy; it is God's work in which we participate by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The liturgy is the prayer that Christ prays in his body, the Church. In light of the many changes we have seen, we need to consider why we sing and pray together, and why we sing and pray aloud. Pope John Paul II, in his 1998 Apostolic Letter Dies Domini, called us to make the Sunday Eucharist the center of our weekly feast of the Lord's Day. The distillation of this teaching is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church's treatment of Sunday. In 1997, Cardinal Roger Mahoney wrote to the people of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles: "Gather Faithfully Together." Many other bishops have encouraged us to a new appreciation of the privilege of celebrating the Eucharist.

In this apostolic exhortation, Pope Benedict urges us to "eucharistic enthusiasm," calling us to reflect on the connection between God's action in the eucharistic mystery, our celebration of the liturgy, and the service of our neighbor through which God transforms the world. He underlines that salvation is God's work, and shares with us his wonder at the ways God draws us, as willing co-workers in Christ, into the accomplishment of that salvation.

This study guide aims at helping us read carefully what the Pope says to us, reflecting and praying on the mystery we are celebrating. It will help us to share and discuss our reflection with friends in Christ and to keep learning to celebrate God's gift more fully as the year progresses.

Key theological themes
As he develops his argument, Pope Benedict sounds several key themes that arise from the biblical and patristic renewal of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and are found in many texts that treat the Church's liturgy. Since, in a sense, the Pope takes these points for granted, it can be helpful to keep them in mind as we read this exhortation.

The Revelation of the Trinity through Jesus Christ. Jesus' gift of self, in his ministry, in his action at the Last Supper, and in his Passion and death, expresses God's love for all men and women. Jesus is God's gift to us; God is the giver, and Jesus' self-gift embodies the love with which God sent the incarnate Son into the world. By his self-emptying love of God and neighbor, Jesus expresses how God lives; he reveals the love that is the essence of God's life. In Jesus' relationship, in the Holy Spirit, with the Father, and in his expression of his love of God through his love of neighbor, we are shown that God's life is wrapped up in the self-giving ("self-communication") of the Father to the Son, in the response of the Son to the Father's love, and in the Holy Spirit's binding Father and Son together as mutual love. This giving and responding, we believe, is eternal, so we say the Son is "begotten of the Father before all ages," that is, outside of time. The mutual love of the three Persons isn't just something that God does, but is the way that God lives. The outpouring of the Trinity in the Incarnation, then, reveals the inner life of God. It tells us that God's holiness involves a humility in loving service that we find reflected in Jesus' reaching out to sinners, outcasts and the poor, in his pouring self out in love, in his ministry, at the Last Supper, and on the Cross.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The glorified Christ, together with the Father, sends the Holy Spirit to stir up faith in persons touched by Jesus' life, and to make them his body, the sacrament of God's salvation for the world. Because of the continuing outpouring of the Holy Spirit, there is a tangible, though invisible, presence of Christ, both as God's gift and as the only proper human response to God's love, in the Church's entire tradition of prayer and service. The Spirit has faithfully guided our liturgical prayer through the history of the Church, and continues to do so today. It is in the Spirit that we give ourselves to the Father in union with Christ's self-offering. It is in the Spirit that God transforms our lives, configuring them to Christ and giving us communion with all the saints.

The New Covenant in Jesus Christ. Uniting in his body both God's offer of love and the perfect human response of total openness to God, Jesus becomes the new and everlasting covenant between God and God's creation. The Holy Spirit, binding the members of the Church together as body of Christ, makes them the sign or sacrament of God's self-gift, definitively received in Christ. The unity of the Church, then, expresses the accomplishment of God's gift in the Paschal Mystery. The eucharistic celebration, with its dynamic of offering, transformation, reception, and mission, makes present the fullness of God's work in Jesus Christ. The Mass, the sacrificial meal of the new covenant, unites us as worshippers in God's sanctification of both the Church and the world.

As we read through Sacramentum Caritatis, we will hear Pope Benedict touch on all these points. He calls us to be aware of how much God loves us, and to respond with "eucharistic enthusiasm," with wonder, in celebration and in service. Precisely because the celebration of the Eucharist involves us in common action, it will be helpful for us not just to read what the Pope says, but also to gather for conversation in small groups, so we can share what the Pope's reflections stir up in our hearts. To help with that process, the few words about each paragraph can serve as an introduction to prayerful reading of the paragraph. Questions for discussion follow the few words about each paragraph of the text.

Introduction
1. The sacrament of charity, the Holy Eucharist is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of himself, thus revealing to us God's infinite love for every man and woman. This wondrous sacrament makes manifest that "greater" love which led him to "lay down his life for his friends."
Read the complete paragraph from the document.

The Pope develops the image of Jesus as servant, washing the disciples' feet. Isaiah wrote about the Servant of God; in Jesus, God's servant becomes our servant. How comfortable are we with this image of God's infinite love? Where do we let God wash our feet? Do we let ourselves wonder at God's love for us in Christ?

The food of truth
2. In the sacrament of the altar the Lord meets us . . . and becomes our companion along the way.... to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. . . . In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us in particular the truth about the love which is the very essence of God. It is this evangelical truth which challenges each of us and our whole being.
Read the complete paragraph from the document.

A "Gospel truth" that God is love! Are we Christians known for inviting all people to accept God's gift of love? Can we name a handful of the ways that our parish embodies this message of the Gospel? Do we feel that this truth of the Gospel is at the center of our life as disciples?

The development of the eucharistic rite
3. We can gratefully admire the orderly development of the ritual forms in which we commemorate the event of our salvation. The Holy Spirit has guided our liturgical history, keeping the Eucharist at the center of the Church's life. The liturgical reforms decreed both by the the Council of Trent and by the Second Vatican Council need to be understood as providentially guided historical developments of the rite. In a particular way, the Synod Fathers acknowledged and reaffirmed the beneficial influence on the Church's life of the liturgical renewal which began with the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. . . . whose riches are yet to be fully explored. "Traditionalists" who criticize the reforms of the Second Vatican Council as a break in tradition are wrong. There was no break but rather an orderly development under the guidance of the Spirit in the Church. Extremists on the left, who say the liturgical tradition was caught in a dead end and needed to be jettisoned in one sense or another, are also wrong. The Holy Spirit has been at work in every age, keeping the Church faithful in celebration, and at the same time gracefully moving the Church to greater understanding, to reform, and renewal. This is a particularly Catholic way of looking at our history!
Read the complete paragraph from the document.

From Pius X to Benedict XVI, how much "orderly development" do we notice? Think of Pius X's contributions: urging frequent Communion, congregational singing, and participation of children in the sacraments. Can we rejoice that God is at work in our liturgical history?

The Synod of Bishops and the Year of Eucharist
4. The Pope reminds us of the buildup to the Jubilee Year for the new millennium, and to the celebration of the Year of the Eucharist in 2004-2005. In many places people worked together to reawaken and increase eucharistic faith, to improve the quality of eucharistic celebration, to promote eucharistic adoration and to encourage a practical solidarity which, starting from the Eucharist, would reach out to those in need.
Read the complete paragraph from the document.

Reaching back in our memory through the last ten years, what events of faith and prayer stand out? Papal liturgies of repentance and seeking forgiveness, interfaith prayer in Assisi and Rome, the Holy Year, Pope John Paul's funeral Masses, Pope Benedict's taking up of his ministry? What do we remember from our parish's life? What memories move us to thanksgiving and wonder?

The purpose of this Exhortation
5. This exhortation seeks to build on the rich and varied proposals that emerged from the Synod, and to offer some basic directions aimed at a renewed commitment to eucharistic enthusiasm and fervor in the Church. . . . I wish here to endorse the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers by encouraging the Christian people to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the eucharistic mystery, the liturgical action, and the new spiritual worship which derives from the Eucharist as the sacrament of charity. Returning to a favorite theme, Pope Benedict asks us to consider the relationship between the sacrament of the Eucharist and Christian love, both of God and of neighbor. In the Eucharist, God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us.
Read the complete paragraph from the document.

Note that the initiative comes from God. God's love comes to us bodily, that is, in the body of Christ that is the Church, in a way we can respond to and cooperate with as God continues working in and through us.

God's love comes to us bodily! Might we be called to greater reverence for the other members of our parish, with whom we celebrate this great mystery? How clearly do we see the link between the Eucharist and the love of God and our neighbor? Where do we need God's help in seeing that connection? Might we keep praying for each other as we read through this text?

Part I: The Eucharist, a Mystery to be Believed.

These paragraphs are full of theology and spirituality. They contain more than can be absorbed in one sitting. Try reading them slowly, savoring them, returning to them in contemplation. Try to let yourself share Pope Benedict's wonder at God's love!

"This is the work of God:
that you believe in him
whom he has sent" (John 6:29)

The Church's eucharistic faith
6. The mystery of faith! With these words . . . the priest proclaims the mystery being celebrated and expresses his wonder before the substantial change of bread and wine . . . a reality which surpasses all human understanding. The priest, Pope Benedict says, sees God at work in us all, moving us to trust in God's faithfulness and to open ourselves to receive the meaning of our lives from God's hand. As we open ourselves in faith, God transforms us! Awakened by the preaching of God's word, faith is nourished and grows in the grace-filled encounter with the Risen Lord which takes place in the sacraments: "faith is expressed in the rite, while the rite reinforces and strengthens faith." As by God's grace we keep rediscovering our eucharistic faith, God deepens our ecclesial sharing in Christ's mission. Renewed eucharistic faith will lead to a renewal of the Church and fulfill God's plan for us in these years after the Second Vatican Council.

Read the entire paragraph from the document. This paragraph sums up so much of what we believe that it could be a source of our study and prayer for weeks. Read it again, sentence by sentence, stopping to let it sink in!

Our liturgy expresses faith, and builds up faith. As we celebrate we discover more deeply what we believe about God's love. It's important that we keep coming back! In what ways do we find ourselves sharing Pope Benedict's wonder at God's work in the Eucharist?

The Blessed Trinity
and the Eucharist

Note that Jesus, in his gift to us, is first of all the gift of the Father. Jesus offers the totality of his life, a life characterized by his awareness of God's love for him, and by his conviction that God wants to love all human persons with that same love. Jesus' self-offering ministry expresses and responds to the Father's love.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

Does this picture of the Father's love deepen my understanding of Jesus' love for me?

A free gift of the Blessed Trinity
8. The Eucharist reveals the loving plan that guides all of salvation history. There the Deus Trinitas, who is essentially love, becomes fully a part of our human condition. . . . God's whole life encounters us and is sacramentally shared with us. Jesus' gift draws us into the love of God, so that we become sharers in God's life. The "mystery of faith" is thus a mystery of trinitarian love, a mystery in which we are called by faith to participate.

The wonder of the Paschal Mystery is that we are brought, through our union with Christ, into the very life of God. We come to relate to the Father in Jesus Christ, confident that when the Father sees us he sees the Beloved, and pours out the Spirit of Love on us and through us!
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

The Eucharist:
Jesus the true Sacrificial lamb

The new and eternal covenant in the blood of the Lamb
9. In the mystery of Christ's obedience unto death, even death on a Cross, the new and eternal covenant was brought about. In his crucified flesh, God's freedom and our human freedom met definitively in an inviolable, eternally valid pact. . . . The Eucharist contains this radical newness, which is offered to us again at every celebration.

Pope Benedict puts heavy stress on the newness of Christian worship. That newness has to do with the coming together of God's freedom not just with the human freedom of Jesus, but, in every celebration of the Eucharist, with our freedom.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

Are we being called to a level of personal presence that we don't always bring to church? In our contemplation of Christ's self-gift, do we see a level and intensity of freedom that we might yearn for?

The institution of the Eucharist
10. . . . [T]he institution of the Eucharist . . . took place within a ritual meal commemorating the foundational event of the people of Israel: their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. But the freedom brought by the Exodus was itself a sign of the freedom from sin and death which would result from God's final, definitive work of salvation. Jesus' blessing of the bread and wine proclaims that God is at work in his self-offering, and that through his death God will establish that new covenant of forgiveness. His action interprets his impending suffering and death, and promises that his disciples will share by faith in God's lasting faithfulness, in his Resurrection.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

Can I be filled with wonder as I contemplate Jesus' action, his interpretation of his suffering and death, his trust in God's faithfulness, and his care for his disciples? Offering ourselves, eating and drinking our communion in his self-offering, we are brought into Jesus' relationship with the Father!

Figura transit in veritatem
11. The newness of God's action in Jesus' self-offering brings about the fulfillment of the ancient Passover rite. Jesus' command "Do this in remembrance of me" expresses his expectation that the Church, born of his sacrifice, will receive this gift, developing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the liturgical form of the sacrament. The remembrance of his perfect gift consists not in the mere repetition of the Last Supper, but in the Eucharist itself, that is, in the radical newness of Christian worship. In this way, Jesus left us the task of entering into his "hour." "The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation." Through our celebration of the rite, we are brought into Jesus' self-giving, and our lives are changed as they are offered in Christ. It is this transformation, of which the transformation of the bread and wine is a sacrament, that is the radical newness of the worship that we offer.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

The newness of Christian worship happens in us, as we are brought into Jesus' "hour" and find, offering ourselves with him, that God's faithfulness is greater than we ever imagined. Is this a truth that we keep growing into, by God's grace, as we pray together from year to year?

The Holy Spirit and the Eucharist

Jesus and the Holy Spirit
12. Here the Holy Spirit's activity is traced through the entirety of Jesus' life, and the foundation is laid for the Spirit's action in the Church's offering of her life in Christ.

The Church, his bride, is called to celebrate the eucharistic banquet daily in his memory. She thus makes the redeeming sacrifice of her Bridegroom a part of human history and makes it sacramentally present in every culture.... We need a renewed awareness of the decisive role played by the Holy Spirit . . . .
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

Christ and the Spirit are at work in the Church, in our preaching, our ministry of service and in our prayer together as Christ's Body. The Spirit abides with us, making Christ present, and bringing us more and more into union with Christ. Where do we notice ourselves growing in the Spirit?

The Holy Spirit and the eucharistic celebration
13. This paragraph refers to the decisive role played by the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic celebration, particularly with regard to transubstantiation. Pope Benedict urges us all to use the eucharistic prayers as foundations for our meditation, so that we come to appreciate more fully the work of Christ and the Spirit in our transformation into the one body of Christ.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ. (Eucharistic Prayer III) Excerpts from the English translation of the Roman Missal ©1973, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. (ICEL).

Do we see God granting this prayer? In what ways does our parish stand out as the body of Christ?

The Eucharist and the Church

The Eucharist, causal principle of the Church
14. Through the sacrament of the Eucharist Jesus draws the faithful into his "hour." ... the Church is able to celebrate and adore the mystery of Christ present in the Eucharist precisely because Christ first gave himself to her in the sacrifice of the Cross.... For all eternity Christ remains the one who loved us first.

Jesus is the gift of the Triune God. Jesus' gift of self is the perfect expression in a human life of the Trinity's life. We respond to that love, but God has taken the initiative. Our offering of self is always in response to God's reaching out to us in Jesus Christ.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

The Church, then, is a gift of God's love. We do not save ourselves. God takes care of our salvation. Can our prayer, preaching, and ministry be more firmly rooted in God's love for us and for all people?

The Eucharist and ecclesial communion
15. The Eucharist is thus constitutive of the Church's being and activity. This is why Christian antiquity used the same words, Corpus Christi, to designate Christ's body born of the Virgin Mary, his eucharistic body and his ecclesial body. This clear datum of the tradition helps us to appreciate the inseparability of Christ and the Church. ... From the Eucharistic center arises the necessary openness of every celebrating community . . . . By allowing itself to be drawn into the open arms of the Lord, it achieves insertion into his one and undivided body.

Through the Eucharist God unites us in the body of Christ and makes us members one of another. We are constantly challenged to remain open to God's work in all the baptized.
Read the entire paragraph from the document.

In every Eucharist we pray for the whole Church. In January we join other Christians in a week of prayer for unity. How do we see our parish communities, which often worship in different styles, with different types of music, remaining close to each other in faith and prayer? In what ways are we able to pray and work with the Orthodox Christians in our area? With Protestant Christians? Can we share our love for the Eucharist, even though we are not able to join them in sacramental Communion?

In the next part, we'll continue making our way through the first third of Sacramentum Caritatis. In the paragraphs to come, the Pope reflects on the relationship between the Eucharist and the other sacraments.