Ave Maria Meditations
When we speak about the Eucharist, we have to focus on the essence of the liturgy, on the mystery of the Eucharist, and this is Christ, the living Christ, our Incarnate God, who is really living with His mind, His heart, His soul, and His divinity in the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist. But in this mystery, He is veiled as His divinity was veiled when He walked on the earth…
In a deeper and more radical manner, the same happens in the mystery of the Eucharist, which is an extension of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is continued because now not only is Christ’s divinity veiled by His humanity, but the Eucharistic species of bread and wine veil both the humanity and the divinity of Christ. Christ is veiled, but He continues to be the same; He lives here on earth in the same reality of His Incarnation but in a different mode. It is now a sacramental mode…
This could only have been invented by Love. The Eucharist is a divine invention. It could not have been invented by a creature, by anyone. He reserve this to Himself because of His unending love for us, and therefore this is the sacramentum caritatis; and at the same time the Eucharist is the sacramentum fidei, the mysterium fidei. Love desires to be close to the beloved. There is no way to be closer to us, there is no more humble, fragile, vulnerable, and defenseless way then the Eucharist. It can only be an invention and a maximum expression of divine Love towards us.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider
