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The Eucharist and Christ’s Real Presence…

From: www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/realpres/a12.html

And as they were eating, He took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ (Mark 14:22)	And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’ (Mark 14:23-24)

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The simplest way to express what Christ asks us to believe about the Real Presence is that the Eucharist is really He. The Real Presence is the real Jesus. We are to believe that the Eucharist began in the womb of the Virgin Mary; that the flesh which the Son of God received from His Mother at the Incarnation is the same flesh into which He changed bread at the Last Supper; that the blood He received from His Mother is the same blood into which He changed wine at the Last Supper. Had she not given Him His flesh and blood there could not be a Eucharist.

We are to believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ - simply, without qualification. It is God become man in the fullness of His divine nature, in the fullness of His human nature, in the fullness of His body and soul, in the fullness of everything that makes Jesus Jesus. He is in the Eucharist with His human mind and will united with the Divinity, with His hands and feet, His face and features, with His eyes and lips and ears and nostrils, with His affections and emotions and, with emphasis, with His living, pulsating, physical Sacred Heart. That is what our Catholic Faith demands of us that we believe. If we believe this, we are Catholic. If we do not, we are not, no matter what people may think we are.
Father John A. Hardon S.J.

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The Real Presence

The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church Lineamenta - Synod of Bishops XI Ordinary General Assembly
Many reasons exist for calling the pastors together to treat a subject so decisive for the life and mission of the Church. By its nature, a synodal assembly is consultative. On this occasion the Holy Father is not calling the bishops to make recommendations on how to present doctrine but to consider the needs and pastoral implications of the Eucharist in celebration, worship, preaching, charity and various works in general.

Mane Nobiscum Domine - Pope John Paul II
Apostolic Letter of the Holy Father, John Paul II, to the bishops, clergy and faithful for the Year of the Eucharist.

Ecclesia De Eucaristia - Pope John Paul II
Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Bishops, Priests and Deacons, Men and Women in the Consecrated Life and all the Lay Faithful on the Eucharist in its Relationship to the Church. Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, April 17, 2003.

Perpetual Adoration, True Peace in the World - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Fr. Hardon explains with the utmost clarity and ease how to achieve true peace. And in doing so, he also tells us how we can come to know what the will of God is for each one of us. How many people have searched for the answer to these questions?

The Real Presence and Perpetual Adoration - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Fr. Hardon at his best as the Defender of the Real Presence.

The Real Presence - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
“My purpose will be to defend the following thesis: that the Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ, who is in the Blessed Sacrament both as Reality and as Presence. He is in the Eucharist as Reality because the Eucharist is Jesus Christ. He is in the Eucharist as Presence because through the Eucharist He affects us and we are in contact with Him - depending on our faith and devotion to the Savior living really in our midst.”

Transubstantiation and Reason - John Young (Catholic.net)
“Protestants reject transubstantiation, and so do many Catholic scholars. The average Catholic is vague concerning the nature of the Eucharistic presence of Christ, and one can sympathize with him, in view of the lack of clear teaching about the Most Blessed Sacrament. The basic objection to the Catholic doctrine of the real presence is not that it is against Scripture, but that it is against reason.”

The Sacrament of Unity - Papal Homily at Italian Eucharistic Congress (Zenit)
Here we are faced with a further dimension of the Eucharist, which I would like to touch upon before concluding. The Christ whom we encounter in the sacrament is the same here in Bari, as in Rome, as in Europe, America, Africa, Asia, Oceania. He is the one and same Christ who is present in the Eucharistic bread everywhere on earth. This means that we can only encounter him together with all others. We can only receive him in unity.

Father John Corapi on the Eucharist and Benedict XVI - (Zenit.org)
“Father Corapi: I have produced a new series entitled ‘The Power of the Eucharist,’ which is the theme of all of my missions throughout the country this Year of the Eucharist. I am trying to concentrate on this theme, attempting to both educate and inspire the faithful to a greater knowledge of the doctrine of the Eucharist and a practical love that engenders reverence at Mass and the practice of the Holy Hour, or a ‘holy minute,’ as I tell people. If you can’t make a holy hour, make a holy minute. You can’t outdo God in generosity. If we give him a little of our time, he’ll give us so very much in return.”

The Eucharist: Foundation of the Christian Family - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
“Without the Eucharist, there would not be a livable sacrament of matrimony or a stable Christian family….The Holy Eucharist is indispensable for living out the supernatural, and therefore humanly impossible, demands that Christ places on those who enter marriage in His name.”

Imitating Christ in the Eucharist - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The Eucharist and Sanctity - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Multiculturalism, Science and the Eucharist - Rev. Dr. Patrick J. Dolan, PhD
This is a paper submitted for publication on the Eucharist–particularly as one might want to explain it to those who come from a scientific or technological background. It highlights a dimensional aspect of the Eucharist as a complimentary outlook for the scientific community. This article is not one to miss.

Come Follow Me - Rev. C. Frank Phillips, C.R.
An article on the call to follow your vocation.

Families Draw Their Life from the Eucharist - Pope John Paul II (EWTN)

Pope Calls Church’s Missionary Effort an “Urgency” - (ZENIT)
In his message for World Mission Sunday, John Paul II says that the Church’s missionary commitment is an “urgency” that is inseparable from the Eucharist.

Eucharist Seen at Heart of Missionary Endeavor - (ZENIT)
In his message for World Mission Sunday, John Paul II emphasizes that the Church can only carry out its missionary mandate in tandem with the Eucharist.

The Eucharist and our Commitment to Life - (Priests for Life)

Eucharist - Seasons of Grace - Douglas Bushman, STL

The Eucharist and Its Effects on the Soul

The Real Presence and Sanctity - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Easter and the Holy Eucharist - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
We do not usually associate Easter and the Holy Eucharist. But we should. Our faith tells us that God became man in order that, by His death on the Cross, He might redeem the world. But this same faith tells us that, when Christ died on Calvary, the Church came into existence. We may therefore say that we were delivered from sin by the Savior’s death, and receive the blessings of His grace through the Mystical Body which came into being the moment Jesus expired on Good Friday.

Apostolate for the Eucharistic Life - The True Presence - Media
A place to go to listen over the internet to the Apostolate’s daily radio reflections. This place is well worth a visit. Check out their current library of talks on the Eucharist and interviews with many well known speakers and writers on the Eucharist.

How to Live in the Presence of God - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
“The Savior is described by St. Luke as telling His followers to pray continually and never lose heart. Let us think seriously about what we are told. We need, that is we should, which means we are expected to, pray continually.”

Imitating Jesus Christ, Incarnate God -Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
“Since the dawn of Christianity, the divinity of Christ has been the single most frequently and strongly challenged mystery of our faith. We say that the Church is going through the most serious crisis of the twenty centuries of her history. At the center of this crisis is the widespread doubt and denial that Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, is the Son of the Living God. There is nothing else in our Catholic faith that needs to be more clearly understood and firmly believed than Christ’s divinity.” - Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The Apostolic Character of the Holy Eucharist - Archbishop Raymond L. Burke (St. Louis Review Online)
“My fourth reflection upon Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, ‘On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church,’ centers on the third chapter of the encyclical letter, ‘The Apostolicity of the Eucharist and of the Church.’ In chapter two, Pope John Paul II presented the Holy Eucharist as the source of the strength and the growth of the Church. The relationship between the Church and the Holy Eucharist is, in fact, so intimate that the marks of the Church — one, holy, catholic and apostolic — also describe the Holy Eucharist. In chapter three, our late Holy Father devotes his attention to the apostolic character of the Holy Eucharist, because of its particular importance to our understanding the Holy Eucharist in our time (no. 26).”

The Holy Eucharist and the Growth of the Church - Archbishop Raymond L. Burke (St. Louis Review Online)
“Pope John Paul II reflects upon the Holy Eucharist as the source of the strength and the growth of the Church. Our Holy Father is inspired by the perennial teaching of the Church, expressed in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, ‘Lumen gentium,’ of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. The teaching of the council reminds us that the Church receives its strength and growth from the altar of Christ’s Sacrifice. Even as the individual members of the Body of Christ are strengthened and grow in holiness, most of all, by participation in the Holy Mass, so does the whole Body of Christ receive its life and development from the Eucharistic Sacrifice (no. 21a). The importance of the Holy Eucharist for the life of the Church, from her very beginnings, cannot be emphasized enough.”

The Church and the Holy Eucharist - Archbishop Raymond L. Burke (St. Louis Review Online)
“In presenting the Church’s pastoral plan at the beginning of the Third Christian Millennium, our Holy Father Pope John Paul II reminded us strongly that it is not a question of some ‘new program,’ which we must invent, but rather ‘the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition’ of the Church. In short, the Church’s pastoral plan is Christ Himself dwelling with us through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into our souls. The plan is our life in Christ or holiness of life through daily conversion. It is the ‘larger and more demanding normal pastoral activity,’ which helps each of us and the whole Church to meet the ‘high standard of ordinary Christian living’ (Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio ineunte, ‘At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000,’ Jan. 6, 2001, nos. 29-31).”

For more articles on the Eucharist written by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., visit the Hardon Archives.

The simplest way to express what Christ asks us to believe about the Real Presence is that the Eucharist is really He. The Real Presence is the real Jesus. We are to believe that the Eucharist began in the womb of the Virgin Mary; that the flesh which the Son of God received from His Mother at the Incarnation is the same flesh into which He changed bread at the Last Supper; that the blood He received from His Mother is the same blood into which He changed wine at the Last Supper. Had she not given Him His flesh and blood there could not be a Eucharist.
We are to believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ - simply, without qualification. It is God become man in the fullness of His divine nature, in the fullness of His human nature, in the fullness of His body and soul, in the fullness of everything that makes Jesus Jesus. He is in the Eucharist with His human mind and will united with the Divinity, with His hands and feet, His face and features, with His eyes and lips and ears and nostrils, with His affections and emotions and, with emphasis, with His living, pulsating, physical Sacred Heart. That is what our Catholic Faith demands of us that we believe. If we believe this, we are Catholic. If we do not, we are not, no matter what people may think we are.
Father John A. Hardon S.J.

16. “I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ORPHANS”
O my child, son of the Cross and of my Heart: your father and mother may fail you, but I will never abandon you!
Even at my death I did not leave my children orphans, for day and night they can find me on their altars.
With the tenderness and gentleness of a thousand mothers, the Last Supper came to sweeten the bitterness of Calvary; for I knew that in the Holy Eucharist you would always have with you a father and a mother, and would never be alone while on earth…
And, therefore, although my Passion caused me excessive sufferings, yet I found consolation and relief in the thought that I was to leave myself to you in the Holy Eucharist.
I wished, my beloved child, that my body, which was crushed under the burden of the cross, and my blood, which was shed for all mankind, should be, within the Sacrament, your consolation and joy.
I wished it… my dearly beloved child. In those supreme moments of indescribable anguish, the thought that you would be happy in the possession of the Holy Eucharist increased my strength during My passion, and lessened My fear. And that is why the Institution of this Holy Sacrament immediately preceded My greatest sufferings.
It could not be otherwise, my dearly beloved child, than that the thought of always living by your side would lessen and alleviate My sufferings.
It was this thought that caused me to sing the song of thanksgiving with joy as I walked with my Apostles to the Garden of Olives. And during the painful moments of my Passion, I had continually before my mind those sweet hopes which had been with me during the Last Supper.
When my body was being scourged cruelly… and when my blood was pouring on the ground, I rejoiced, my dearly beloved son. I rejoiced at being ground like wheat in the mill and pressed like grapes in the winepress, thus making myself the bread and the wine to nourish you at the Eucharistic banquet.
Before death had taken me away from men, I had disposed and arranged to multiply my life upon their altars.
Do you not see then my child, that even in dying I have not left you as an orphan; for every day and at every moment of the day, from one end of the world to the other, these words of my Priests rise to Heaven: “This is My Body. This is My Blood”; and I rejoice at being a constant victim for love of you.
O Jesus, O my beloved Jesus! O Jesus hidden here beneath these Sacramental veils! Grant that at every moment of my life I may return gratitude and love to you for your great love for me!
O Mary, my Mother, our Lady of the Eucharist! Help me to offer thanks to Jesus, and always to prepare myself perfectly to receive Him with a love like yours. Amen.
From the book “Before the Altar”, by Concepcion Cabrera de Armida
Permission received

HOW DOES EUCHARISTIC ADORATION INCLUDE EUCHARISTIC PETITION?

First, we are not trifling with words when we say adoration of the Eucharist includes petition. Why is it important to know this?
Because otherwise, we are liable to deprive ourselves and others of many blessings Christ intends to give us and others through our fervent petitions before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. In technical language, adoration is the act of religion by which God is recognized as alone worthy of supreme honor because He is infinitely perfect and has a right o our total obedience as our Creator and total dedication as our destiny.

Thus, we find adoration includes every form of prayer, including the petitions by which we ask God for what we need and for what others need. What are we doing when we ask God for something? We are acknowledging our complete dependence on Him for everything that we have received in the past, that we have now and that we hope for in the future and that we hope for in the future. You can see how we adore Our Lord when we humbly acknowledge our utter dependence on Him in our petitions.

Now we can ask how adoration in general differs from Eucharist adoration. Is there any difference? Does it make a difference?

Yes. There is a crucial difference. After all, adoring God in general is not the same as believing the three fundamental truths underlying Eucharistic adoration. Yes, every time we ask God for something we are adoring Him. But it is one thing to adore God in general, and it is something quite distinct to first believe that God became man, that Jesus Christ is God become man and that Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is really present in the Holy Eucharist, and then adore Him.

Five times a day, almost one billion Muslims throughout the world bow in profound adoration to Allah, turning always in the direction of Mecca. Are they adoring God? Yes, because Allah for them is the one infinite Creator of Heaven and earth. But no Muslim in his right mind would ever bow or prostrate himself before the Blessed Sacrament. So profound is the difference between general adoration of God (no matter how authentic) and Eucharistic adoration that since the middle of the twentieth century, two million Catholics in the Sudan have been starved to death by the Muslims for adoring Jesus Christ as though he were Allah. But Isam which is the Arabic for Jesus, is God.

Here in fact is the basic difference between all Christian and non-Christian religions: Non-Christians may believe in God, but they vehemently, virulently deny that God became man and became the Son of Mary in the person of Jesus Christ. Moreover, here lies the basic difference between Catholic Christianity and the form of Christianity that separated from the Church in the sixteenth century: As Catholics, we believe Jesus Christ is physically on earth in the Holy Eucharist. The inheritors of the so-called Reformation do not believe this. In fact, this difference is so deep that several of my fellow Jesuits who came before me died as martyrs for their steadfast devotion to the Holy Eucharist. They were persecuted because the inheritors of the Reformation considered these devout Catholics “idolators” for adoring Our Lord in the Eucharist.

In summary, we ask, when we adore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, should we beg Him for His Grace? Emphatically, yes! When we ask Him for light and strength for ourselves and for others, are we adoring Christ in the Holy Eucharist? Again, emphatically, yes! This prayer of adoring petition presumes faith in Christ’s divinity, and with resounding emphasis, presumes faith in the Real Presence. Thus, our Eucharistic petitions are an important part of Eucharistic adoration. www.therealpresence.org www.lifeeternal.org

REWARD
“The simple life, My child, is the best for the dedicated. The dedicated, those who have accepted a vocation, must live only as human beings in the world, but must accept the spiritual…. Discipline must be returned to the Orders. Many must now retire from the world that has been given to Satan. Know now, my brothers and sisters of religious orders: you will be mocked, you will be scorned, but you will please the Eternal Father and receive your reward in the Kingdom.” - St. Francis of Assisi

MOTHER OF GRACE
“My child and My children, I have come to you under many names in the past, but I want you to acknowledge Me as the Mother of Grace. Because that is why I come to you now, My children: to give you the graces necessary to remain upon earth in a state of purity and perseverance, and knowledgeable to the truth that will lead you and keep you on the narrow road to Heaven.” - Our Lady, September 14, 1985

CO-REDEMPTRIX
“You will not stop the words of My Mother. She is your Co-Redemptrix, and as such, it is She Who has been given the mission to bring you back onto the road to the Kingdom. Without Her you will be lost.” - Jesus, August 5, 1974

PROTECTRESS
“I come to you as a Protectress of peace.” - Our Lady, October2, 1990
SHIELD
“I ask you for a constant vigil of prayer so that satan will not enter upon you. You must now say when you arise: I will protect myself with the shield of the Immaculate Conception. You will say before you enter your bed (which will not be a bed of security and comfort now): I protect myself with the shield of the Immaculate Conception. For, My children, when you sleep he does not sleep.” - Our Lady, July 1, 1971

MANTLE OF LOVE
“My children, as a Mother, My heart is torn for you. O mothers who come to Me, hearts bleeding in sorrow, I will comfort you, for I, too, know the suffering of loss. Come to Me, all you who sorrow and weep for your children, for I will place My mantle of love and comfort upon you. Come to Me, and I will lighten your burden.” - Our Lady, October 6, 1979

SINLESS
“Remember, My children, come to My Mother; for in Her memory of Her human days upon earth, She above all humans created–sinless, without the stigma of sin, a perfect life upon earth without sin, and assumed into Heaven, body and spirit–She above all can direct you because She is your Mother; She is the Queen of Heaven, and the Mother of every human being upon earth.” - Jesus, August 14, 1979

NATIONS
“As a great Mother of great sorrows, She has opened Her heart to all mankind, choosing of Her own free will to act as your Mother, the Mother of all nations, the Mother of all children of earth–to guide you back to the road to Heaven.” - Jesus, October 6, 1979

BELOVED DAUGHTER
“You have witnessed, my child, the arrival of my beloved daughter, my first and only child, one whom I cherished–a true miracle from the Father.” - Saint Anne, September 7, 1973

BEAUTY
Soul: Now within the light I can see Our Lady. Oh, She is so beautiful. She is just so beautiful! Words cannot describe Her beauty. All I can say is, this is something that is not earthly; it’s the most heavenly sight that anyone could see. Our Lady has on Her white gown, with the gold trim all about the edge. And She has the mantle over Her head. I very seldom have even seen a wisp of Our Lady’s hair. It is so beautiful. - October 6, 1988

TRUTH
Soul: She wants to give to all a simple truth from the Father. Our Lady says that much has been questioned by man of Her immaculate conception of Jesus. And also Her birth.
Now Our Lady said that the Father knew before Her birth and the birth of all on earth what would transpire in time to come.
Therefore, Her birth was not by accident, because before time came, it was all deemed to be. Therefore, the questioning also of the birth of Her Son would be most easy to understand, Our Lady said, if you know the power of the Father. For nothing is impossible with God.
The world needed to be saved. The gates of Heaven needed to be opened to a sinful man. Therefore, the Father deemed to send His Son to earth and planned before “My birth,” Our Lady says–Her birth, that She should be there to bring forth this heavenly Being Who would be known as the Son of Man and the Son of God.
It was the plan of the Father to try to teach man and lead him back to the road to the Kingdom which had been shut to him. And because of his evil ways and his turning to Satan, he had lost that road and the keys had been taken from him temporarily.
Therefore, when, Our Lady said, She saw Her Son sacrificed upon the wood, She suffered greatly. But Her suffering and Her joy was intermingled, for She was given the knowledge before the birth of the Son that He would come to save all mankind. Therefore, when He returned to the Father, Her heart was lightened, knowing that She would remain but a short time and join Him in the Kingdom. So the loss was but a temporary heartache to Her.
Our Lady knows that many question this. It is only because Satan wishes to place doubt and destroy the truth. So Our Lady asks that you keep in your heart the truth and be not swayed by scientific minds that have been given great knowledge, but never the truth. - December 30, 1972

ONLY CHILD
“I come to you as your God, and I also want to make this clear: I did not have any brothers or sisters in My family. My Mother was Mary Ever Virgin. This was a supernatural manifestation from Heaven and only those who are in the light, they fully understand the existence of My Mother and the role She played in establishing the One, True Church upon earth.” - Jesus, October 2, 1987

GENTLEST
“I give you My heart, torn anew by My own. I give you My Mother, the gentlest of creatures, human and sublime. I give you My Mother Who will be with you through the battle until I return as I ascended into Heaven.” - Jesus, August 14, 1979

CONSECRATED
“My children, it is only because many years ago you consecrated your country to Me* that you have not received the destruction that is gradually coming closer to you from the outside world. But if you turn from Me know I no longer will be able to shield you.” - Our Lady, July 1, 1971

*In 1846, eight years before Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Sixth Council of Baltimore formally chose the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived without sin as the Patroness of the United States.

MY HEEL
“I stand upon the head of the serpent. My heel will crush him, but not until man and the world have been cleansed. I come as a Mediatrix of all graces, representative through My Son in the Father.” - Our Lady, March 18, 1973

INSTRUMENT
“To give Me honor does not detract or take from the honor to My Son. I say this, My child, to you and My children in all humility. I, your Mother, I, too, am but an instrument of the Father in Heaven. My Son has chosen to send Me to you as a Mediatrix between your world and the world of the Father.” - Our Lady, December 24, 1974

GENESIS 3: 15
“My children, I–My heart is greatly saddened at the distortion of doctrine in My Son’s Church. I understand that man can be misled, for I have often counseled you that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. You must examine your Bible, the Book of life. Genesis, chapter 3. There must be no changes in the story of the origin of mankind. ‘She’ must remain. ‘He’ must not replace it in the story of the serpent’s attack upon Eve.
“The Eternal Father has stated that the serpent shall crawl on his belly, stomach, My children. I use several words to illustrate the manner in which man is describing this time. He will crawl, the serpent, as the lowest animal among the beasts because he has deceived Eve. But the Eternal Father in His mercy has stated that He will place enmities between the serpent and the woman, between, enmities between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed; and the serpent shall have his head crushed by the woman and the serpent shall lie in wait for her heel.
“Be it known that the Eternal Father has deemed that man shall not change the words to ‘he’ and ‘he.’ I say this not to bring any false notions in your mind, My children, that I repeat this in pride. Far be it from Me, for I have not sought, neither on Heaven or earth, to be prideful; but, My children, I must bring to you the words of truth. Many are changing the words to suit their own interpretations of the Book of life, and these interpretations are based upon man’s own seeking.” - Our Lady, September 28, 1978

MOTHER
“Do not keep Me in awe, My child, for I am more a Mother than a friend to you.” - Our Lady, November 1, 1971
Taken From Directive from Heaven