{"id":1961,"date":"2005-09-26T09:29:47","date_gmt":"2005-09-26T09:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-eucharist-and-love.html"},"modified":"2005-09-26T09:29:47","modified_gmt":"2005-09-26T09:29:47","slug":"the-eucharist-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-eucharist-and-love.html","title":{"rendered":"The Eucharist and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Angleus address, the last from Castel Gandalfo:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The whole of Jesus’ earthly existence, from his conception until his death on the cross, was an act of love, to the point that we can summarize our faith in these words: "Jesus, caritas" — Jesus, love. In the Last Supper, knowing that his hour had come, the divine Master gave his disciples the supreme example of love, washing their feet, and entrusted to them his precious legacy, the Eucharist, in which the whole paschal mystery is centered, as the venerated Pope John Paul II wrote in the encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia." Take and eat, all of you, because this is my Body," "Take and drink all of you, because this is the cup of my Blood." <\/p>\n

Jesus’ words in the cenacle anticipated his death and manifested the consciousness with which he faced it, transforming it into a gift of himself, in the act of love that gives itself totally. In the Eucharist, the Lord gives himself to us with his body, with his soul and with his divinity, and we become one with him and among ourselves. <\/p>\n

Our response to his love therefore must be concrete, and must be expressed in a genuine conversion to love, in forgiveness, in reciprocal acceptance and in attention for the needs of all. Many and varied are the forms of service that we can offer our neighbor in everyday life, if we pay a little attention. The Eucharist becomes in this way the source of the spiritual energy that renews our life every day and, in this way, renews the love of Christ to the world. <\/p>\n

Exemplary witnesses of this love are the saints, who drew from the Eucharist the strength of an operative and often heroic charity. Now I am thinking in particular of St. Vincent de Paul, whose liturgical memorial we will celebrate day after tomorrow, who said: "What joy to serve the person of Jesus in his poor members!" and he did so with his life. I am also thinking of Blessed Mother Teresa, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, who, in the poorest of the poor, loved Jesus, received and contemplated every day in the consecrated Host. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday’s Angleus address, the last from Castel Gandalfo: The whole of Jesus’ earthly existence, from his conception until his death on the cross, was an act of love, to the point that we can summarize our faith in these words: "Jesus, caritas" — Jesus, love. In the Last Supper, knowing that his hour had come,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Eucharist and Love - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/the-eucharist-and-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Eucharist and Love - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday’s Angleus address, the last from Castel Gandalfo: The whole of Jesus’ earthly existence, from his conception until his death on the cross, was an act of love, to the point that we can summarize our faith in these words: "Jesus, caritas" — Jesus, love. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. 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