Yesterday afternoon’s interventions. Do go read. Much of interest, and gives you a good sense of the scope of the issues these bishops are grappling with.

Why, is it asked, do all of these issues come up at this Synod on the Eucharist? Shouldn’t they just be passing regs on kneeling and stuff and go home?

No. The Eucharist is, as we all know by heart, the source and summit of our faith life. It is the gift left by Christ to his Church so that we might be, individually and communally joined to him, entering into His life of grace and bringing that Life into the world. It is a cosmic moment with profound consequences.

Or should be, at least, and that is the heart of the matter.

A while back I opined, probably ignorantly, that the fact that the main modern thrust of the liturgical movement came in France and Germany after World War II intrigued me.  What I read about it indicated an implied concern that the Church of these nations, as a whole, perhaps not been what they could have been, even in the face of the extremes of Nazism. That the distance of the people from the presence of Christ in the Eucharist had led, in some way, to weakness in the face of evil.

I see a lot of that in these interventions. The Church exists in a world besieged with all different kinds of evil. Is the Church a light in that world? Do the Catholic people stand out as witnesses to the love of Christ, the counter-cultural radical love of the Gospel that will not stand for slaughter of the defenseless, material indulgence, exploitation of the poor, and is always ready to allow itself to be purified and judge lest we become enamored more of our selfish, worldly pursuits than of holiness?

If we are faltering, if we are becoming no different than the pagans and near-pagans…we need to cling more closely to Christ in the Eucharist, to seek to understand what His presence there means, to be more prepared spiritually to receive Him and to let the fruits of that presence grow in our personal lives as well as in our life as His Body, the Church. To that end, catechesis, proper celebration of the sacrament, catechesis, popular devotion, and even more catechesis – as well as simple access to the Bread of Life – are all issues of import. If you read the interventions, you read the words of men who are taking the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist very, very seriously, not as a beautiful sign of Catholic identity or the truth of the Catholic faith, but as what He promised: The Bread of Life.