Pope John Paul II: Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Part 17

In 2003, on Holy Thursday, 2003. Pope John Paul II issued what would be his final encyclical: Ecclesia de Eucharistia, "On the Eucharist and Its Relationship to the Church." This encyclical contains much to prayerfully ponder/meditate on. The encyclical's Chapter One, The Mystery of Faith, continues as follows:

"17. Through our communion in his body and blood, Christ also grants us his Spirit. Saint Ephrem writes: 'He called the bread his living body and he filled it with himself and his Spirit . . .

"'He who eats it with faith, eats Fire and Spirit . . . Take and eat this, all of you, and eat with it the Holy Spirit. For it is truly my body and whoever eats it will have eternal life'.²⁷ The Church implores this divine Gift, the source of every other gift, in the Eucharistic epiclesis. In the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, for example, we find the prayer: 'We beseech, implore and beg you: send your Holy Spirit upon us all and upon these gifts . . . that those who partake of them may be purified in soul, receive the forgiveness of their sins, and share in the Holy Spirit'.²⁸ And in the Roman Missal the celebrant prays: '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'.²⁹ Thus by the gift of his body and blood Christ increases within us the gift of his Spirit, already poured out in Baptism and bestowed as a 'seal' in the sacrament of Confirmation."

Notes

²⁷Sermo IV in Hebdomadam Sanctam: CSCO 413/Syr. 182, 55.

²⁸Anaphora.

²⁹Eucharistic Prayer III.