God

"Paul VI's intention regarding the liturgy, regarding the vulgarisation of the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy so that it would coincide more or less with the Protestant liturgy... with the Protestant Supper. And further on: "... I repeat that Paul VI did everything in his power to bring the Catholic Mass – beyond the Council of Trent – closer to the Protestant Supper. He was particularly helped by Monsignor Bugnini, who did not always enjoy his confidence on this point. [...] Of course, I did not attend the Calvinist Supper, but I did attend Paul VI's Mass. And Paul VI's Mass presents itself first and foremost as a banquet, does it not? It insists very much on the aspect of participation in a banquet, and much less on the notion of sacrifice, of ritual sacrifice, in the face of God, while the priest shows only his back. So I do not think I am mistaken in saying that the intention of Paul VI and of the new liturgy that bears his name is to ask the faithful for greater participation in the Mass, to give a greater place to Sacred Scripture and a lesser place to everything else in it, some say “magical”, others “consubstantial consecration”, [correcting himself] transubstantiation, which is the Catholic faith. In other words, Paul VI had the ecumenical intention of removing – or at least correcting, attenuating – what was too “Catholic”, in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and of bringing the Catholic Mass – I repeat – closer to the Calvinist Mass."

"The Latin osculum is neither very old nor frequent. It is one of three words that can be translated by the English, "kiss." In comparison with the affectionate basium and the lascivious suavium, osculum was a latecomer into classical Latin, and was used in only one circumstance as a ritual gesture: In the second century, it became the sign given by a departing soldier to a woman, thereby recognizing her expected child as his offspring. In the Christian liturgy of the first century, the osculum assumed a new function. It became one of two high points in the celebration of the Eucharist. Conspiratio, the mount-to-mouth kiss, became the solemn liturgical gesture by which participants in the cult-action shared their breath or spirit with one another. It came to signify their union in one Holy Spirit, the community that takes shape in God's breath. The ecclesia came to be through a public ritual action, the liturgy, and the soul of this liturgy was the conspiratio. Explicitly, corporeally, the central Christian celebration was understood as a co-breathing, a con-spiracy, the bringing about of a common atmosphere, a divine milieu."

"Much is invested in the Liturgy. The number of persons that assist in the Eucharistic celebration, however, continues to decrease. The Liturgy finds itself involved in a continuous and damaging change. To the loss of the mystery, the sacred, the respect one must respond with an interiorization of the Liturgy: religiosity, holy silence, Eucharistic devotion and rediscovery of confession."

"In his own poetic style, the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin liked to meditate on the Eucharist as the firstfruits of the new creation. In an essay called The Monstrance he describes how, kneeling in prayer, he had a sensation that the Host was beginning to grow until at last, through its mysterious expansion, "the whole world had become incandescent, had itself become like a single giant Host." Although it would probably be incorrect to imagine that the universe will eventually be transubstantiated, Teilhard correctly identified the connection between the Eucharist and the final glorification of the cosmos."

"We are both poets and we both like to play. That's the similarity. The difference is this: I like to play euchre. He likes to play Eucharist."

"If they love their eternal health, never neglect a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to the Most Holy Mary of Sorrows."

"Following the example of Mary, Eucharistic spirituality has to be lived also through daily offering, through commitment to peace and to unity, through solidarity towards all, particularly towards people who suffer and are alone."

"These are days of profound joy, fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit expressed in praise, proclamation of the Word through preachers, tools of God calling to conversion. The days include intense adoration of the Jesus present in the Eucharist. He walks among us today touching and healing hearts to grant health of body and spirit."

"Although Christian "clergy," such as bishops and deacons, begin to appear around the year A.D. 100 in early Christian communities, priests emerge as Christian leaders only much later. Priests came to be the ordained clergy tasked with officiating rituals like the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, also known as Communion. And what about their celibacy? Even here, evidence is both unclear and late: there were reports that some bishops at the Council of Nicea, called by Emperor Constantine in A.D. 325 to address the problem of heresies, argued for a consistent practice of priestly celibacy. This, however, was voted down at the conclusion of the council. The debate resurfaced a couple of hundred years later, but still without uniform agreement. Over time, priestly celibacy became a serious point of disagreement between the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Roman Catholic churches and contributed to the Great Schism between the two in A.D. 1054. Pope Gregory VII attempted to mandate priestly celibacy, but the practice was contested widely by Christians in the Orthodox Eastern Mediterranean world. Five centuries later, the issue was once again at the forefront of debate when it became a significant factor in the Protestant split from Catholicism during the Reformation."

"A martyr to the cause of man, His blood is freedom's eucharist, And in the world's great hero list His name shall lead the van."

"We are united not only by the vast waters of the Pacific Ocean but also by faith in Jesus Christ. This faith which we share as brothers and sisters is what brings us here today to proclaim our profound faith in our Saviour Jesus Christ...We see the end of missionary efforts and we too have become missionaries to take part in the new evangelisation united with the Holy Father."

"We need to free ourselves from a practice of faith that is objectively individualistic, that does not take into consideration the fact that we are a community ("Communio") founded upon Baptism and the Eucharist. We have to free ourselves from a practice of faith that is objectively apolitical, that does not realize the Spirit of God will renew the face of the earth including the social, economic and political structures."

"Christ's presence among men takes place primarily through the Eucharist."

"They used to say of Abba Isaac that he used to eat ashes from the thurible used at the Eucharist with his bread."

"When the rights of God are trampled with impunity, the rights of man are in danger."

"With Eucharistic faith, upheld by ecclesial tradition and based on the words of the Lord, we have access to real, though imperfect, certainties. Finally, in the face of the solitude and desperation that undermine mankind today, the Eucharist offers us... profound companionship and a promise of eternal life that fills us with definitive hope."

"We know that Father Nimatullah lived a holy life. He was a man of prayer, totally 'enraptured by God'. He spent days and nights in meditation, prayer and adoration of the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary was his patron and Father Nimatullah prayed Her Rosary. He was also a very humble, sensitive and patient person who lived his monastic vows of 'obedience, chastity and poverty' to perfection."

"We are here to pay respect to the successor of Peter and share with him all our joys and worries of our pastoral experiences. We want to share, with the Pope and others, our concern in regard to the lack of Eucharistic ministers, thus the gradual spiritual starvation of our Catholic people and their moving away from us to find spiritual nourishment elsewhere. What can we do to stop this spiritual wandering of our people?"

"In our opinion, celibacy is about the Eucharist,"

"Witness to the presence of God in the world to counter groups and strong forces which openly try to destroy the idea of Jesus Christ in the world."

"Isolation is not a new situation for Japanese Christians, it was like that even at the time of persecutions: even then they could not meet in churches, but they carried on faith in families. Today faced with the threat of the coronavirus and the impossibility of celebrating the Eucharist from a liturgical point of view, Christians, once again, are showing that faith can be equally lived in a profound way."

"Thousands of communities meet on Sunday not for the Eucharist but for a service of the Word. We cannot allow this situation to continue. If the faithful and the priests become used to this wound in our faith life, they will give up looking for solutions. We vehemently oppose other distortions of our faith; therefore we must reject this one as well."

"For the evangelical left, those who suffer largely exist as mechanisms for others’ salvation, but not as beings with consciences of their own—or more precisely, they are allowed to have their own conscience if and only if it fits into their salvation model. Else, they can be considered as corrupted. The black man loses his “blackness,” which is a state of grace and nothing to do with skin color. Clarence Thomas isn’t “really” black but Bill Clinton is, in the same way that the Eucharist literally becomes the body of Christ."

"It has become more evident that the celebration of the Eucharist is truly the culmination and source of all the life and mission of the Christian communities, which are called to live and transmit the message of hope and peace of the Gospel from generation to generation."

"One of the greatest problems in present-day Eucharistic celebration is the temptation to abandon the traditional explanations without proposing appropriate substitutions. It was easy to demolish the past, but explanations have not been suggested that might last longer. The solution of course is not to continue with the guidelines of the past, and beyond renewing exterior forms, we must add new vital sap. The form can change or remain the same, what is important is to have a new justification, with greater vigor and support."

"The things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me thy grace to labour for. Amen."

"What will convert America and save the world? My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer."

"When the Sisters are exhausted, up to their eyes in work; when all seems to go awry, they spend an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This practice has never failed to bear fruit: they experience peace and strength."

"It is my firm belief, that any devotion that leads the faithful to a more frequent and fruitful celebration of the sacraments, especially reconciliation and the most holy Eucharist, deserves to be supported."

"In most cultures in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, dancing groups in traditional costume is used in the most important celebrations of the people’s life. These dances can also express the joy, happiness and unity of the people during Mass. There is no better way to build Christian community through the Holy Eucharist, the center of the Church."

"John Peckham,"

"Faced with the present situation in Spain the Lord calls us Catholics to suffer and be scorned because we are Christians, Christian religious sentiment is attacked and ridiculed by certain media."

"Invisibly our Eucharistic celebrations gather a still absent people, one of those who are searching for God in the righteousness of their hearts. For a particular Church, the way of living the Eucharist cannot be separated from its concrete history with the people she was given to by the Lord."

"If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists. This norm is not at all a punishment or a discrimination against the divorced and remarried, but rather expresses an objective situation that of itself renders impossible the reception of Holy Communion: '... If these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage'."

"We have to let God's love break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires. That is why prayer is so important: daily prayer, private prayer in the quiet of our hearts and before the Blessed Sacrament, and liturgical prayer in the heart of the Church."

"There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us. And on the far side of every cross we find the newness of life in the Holy Spirit, that new life which will reach its fulfillment in the resurrection. This is our faith. This is our witness before the world."

"In the Eucharist Jesus Christ nourishes us with his Body and his Blood, allowing us to share in the eternal fullness of divine life, allowing us to sit at table with Him at the Supper for which we rejoice for ever with the knowledge and love of God, communion of life with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints, and with all those whom we have loved on this earth and whom Jesus saved with his Cross"

"We have to make sure that we always recognize that we don't own the sacraments, the sacraments are the work of Christ. It is he who comes to us ... and it's his grace that takes precedence over everything else. Therefore we should see in each of those encounters with Christ in the sacraments a sacred experience even beyond our comprehension. And the one, of course, that's the supreme of everything is the Eucharist, because that's when Christ sacrificed on Calvary. We're fed with the same food that the disciples were fed at the Last Supper, and the same blood of the covenant from the cross is given to us. So again, it's Christ who is there, Christ offering the sacrifice. We are with him but it is he who does it all, it is he who feeds us."

"There is nothing wrong with a church being small and simple. As long as we can pray in it and celebrate the Eucharist. Above all, it is important to have a temple of God also in our hearts too, adorned with prayer and good works, if we really want to be children worthy of His name."

"“The Eucharist has always carried the memory of Jesus’ meals with tax collectors and sinners.”"

"When our Lord has prepared a person in this unbearable state of misery - for this prepares him much better than all the spiritual practices that all people might be able to accomplish - then our Lord comes and leads him to the third stage. In this stage the Lord removes the cloak from his eyes and reveals the truth to him. Bright sunshine appears and lifts him right out of all his misery. It seems to this person just as though the Lord had raised him from the dead. In this stage the Lord leads a person out of himself into himself. He makes him forget all his former loneliness and heals all his wounds. God draws the person out of his human mode into a divine mode, out of all misery into divine security. Here a person becomes so divinized that everything he is and does God does and is in him. And he is lifted up so far above his natural state that he becomes through Grace what God in his essence is by nature. In this state a person feels and is aware that he has lost himself and does not at all feel himself or is he aware of himself. He is aware of nothing but one simple Being."

"If any man be well grown in grace, he must needs come [to receive the Eucharist], because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast: but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come, that so he may grow in grace. The strong must come lest they become weak; and the weak that they may become strong. The sick must come to be cured; the healthful to be preserved."

"The center of eucharistic spirituality is found, of course, in the communal celebration itself; but private prayer and adoration of the blessed sacrament are an excellent means of personally digesting the immense riches of the actual celebration."

"[T]he conciliar debate on Marian devotion influenced the postconcilar debate on celibacy. Devoid of all connotations of sexuality, Mary had long served a twofold purpose in maintaining the discipline of celibacy. First, she provided a justification for a celibate priesthood. The medieval monk Petrus Damiani argued that because Jesus was born of a virgin, he could be touched only by virgin hands, thereby establishing a connection between sexual purity and the Eucharist celebration. Second, she served as a chaste role model and mother figure for priests. Mary, Pius XII wrote, provided the priest solace in his daily struggles against the temptations of the flesh: “When you meet very serious difficulties in the path of holiness and the exercise of your ministry, turn your eyes and your mind trustfully to she who is the Mother of the Eternal Priest and therefore the loving Mother of all Catholic priests.” Many bishops and theologians wanted the council to expand Marian doctrinal some supported conferring on Mary a new title, “Mother of the Church.” However, not all council fathers shared this view. Some preferred that piety be more centered on the Bible and the liturgy and less on devotional practices, including Marian worship. They felt that Marian devotion often diverged from the message found in scripture and in the liturgy. They also feared that any elaboration of Marian devotion would undermine the ecumenical movement. Thus, the seemingly innocent question of where to locate a statement on Mary had far-reaching theological and political ramifications. On August 29, by a margin of only forty votes, the council fathers decided in favor of incorporating a statement on Marian piety into ‘’Lumen Gentium’’. Although Paul VI later preempted the decision of the council fathers and bestowed upon Mary the title they had denied her, “Mother of the Church,” the popularity of Marian devotion continued to decline in Western-Europe."

"I think I can say that living in the Divine Will is to walk precisely in this direction: to enter into intimacy with the Lord Jesus in the shadow of God's presence, allowing Jesus to accompany us and living our life with Him in every aspect. And so, it is not a question of doing the Divine Will in the sense of a purely material execution, as servants, but of living in It as children and letting ourselves be embraced by the love of God."

"...my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality."

"My opinion is that the best law is an education of quality, that begins in the family, grows at school and finds in society a stimulus for the formation of people. We are greatly lacking in civic friendship, we look at one another as mad people and not as brethren or as people who share the same ideal, the same purpose."

"Experience tells me that when there is great concern about cultivating this intrinsic dynamism in the Eucharistic celebration, the way of our communities and of the individual faithful becomes alive and strong."

"We must work for this. Our God is the God of life and life is his gift. In no way can we be among those who work for death, on the contrary we must work for life. The Congress was a call to all men and women to remember we are loved by God and we must love him in return."

"I'm so blessed by the Lord, the way He has revealed Himself to me through His Eucharist, and by the priests who have supported me all these years, and the people."