Commentary on Ecclesia de Eucharistia

Introduction to Ecclesia de Eucharistia

On Holy Thursday in 2003, during the twenty-fifth year of his service as Successor of Saint Peter, Our Holy Father Pope John Paul II gave us a wonderful Easter gift. His ministry as Successor of Saint Peter has been marked by a comprehensive and most rich presentation of the Catholic faith and its practice. As a priest, I have always been inspired by the letter which he has written to priests on every Holy Thursday. Each of these letters has been a reflection, in some way, on the Holy Eucharist, the heart of the priestly life and ministry.

On Holy Thursday in 2003, in place of his annual Letter to Priests on the great gifts of the Holy Eucharist and the ministerial Priesthood, the Holy Father wrote a letter to all of the faithful on the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. He signed the Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, “On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church,” during the celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican. Ecclesia de Eucharistia was the Holy Father’s wonderful Easter gift to us in 2003.

In the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate, our Holy Father chose to give thanks to God for the years of his service as Successor of Saint Peter by dedicating his fourteenth encyclical letter to the Holy Eucharist, the source and highest expression of our life in Christ. Clearly, he could not have more fittingly expressed his gratitude for the Holy Eucharist and for his ministry as priest, Bishop and Pope, which comes from and is in service of our Eucharistic Lord.

Context of the Encyclical Letter

The Holy Father places the Encyclical Letter within the context of the new evangelization and, more specifically, the Year of the Rosary (October 2002-October 2003) as a privileged means of the new evangelization. By announcing the Year of the Rosary in his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, “On the Most Holy Rosary,” the Holy Father has urged us to renew the ancient devotion of praying the Rosary, contemplating the face of Christ through the eyes of His Mother, the ever-Virgin Mary, so that we might live in Christ more fully each day. With the Encyclical Letter “On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church,” which is a kind of crown of all of the Holy Father’s rich teaching of the faith and its practice, Pope John Paul II invites us to contemplate the “Eucharistic face”of Christ.

The Holy Eucharist is the fullest and most loving way in which Christ faithfully remains with us in the Church. We contemplate Christ best in His Eucharistic face. Our Holy Father writes:

From the time I began my ministry as the Successor of Peter, I have always marked Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and of the priesthood, by sending a letter to all the priests of the world. This year, the twenty-fifth of my Pontificate, I wish to involve the whole Church more fully in this Eucharistic reflection, also as a way of thanking the Lord for the gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood: “Gift and Mystery”. By proclaiming the Year of the Rosary, I wish to put this, my twenty-fifth anniversary, under the aegis of the contemplation of Christ at the school of Mary. Consequently, I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the “Eucharistic face” of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist (n. 7a).

The Holy Father had reminded us, in his most instructive Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, “At the Close of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000,” that the new evangelization is nothing less than turning to Christ anew, looking upon His face and taking up, with Him, the cross, the daily conversion of life, by which we grow in holiness of life. The observance of the Year of the Rosary was key to the new evangelization. By praying the Rosary, we find new energy and enthusiasm in studying and living our Catholic faith, for the prayerful meditation on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary leads us to a deeper knowledge and love of Christ. Our Holy Father has even enriched our praying of the Rosary by adding five new mysteries, the Luminous Mysteries, in order that our meditation upon the great mystery of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ may be more complete.

Most central of all to the new evangelization is the Holy Eucharist, our communion with Christ in His true Body and Blood. In fact, the Rosary always leads us to desire the fullest possible communion with Christ, which we have in the Holy Eucharist, and it is a way for us to extend our Eucharistic communion with Christ throughout the day. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the Holy Father, having exhorted us to pray the Holy Rosary as an essential tool for the new evangelization, then presented to us the Encyclical Letter “On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church” as we go forward in carrying out the new evangelization in our homes, parishes and communities. In seeking to live our Christian life with new enthusiasm and energy, we turn first to the Holy Eucharist, our most privileged encounter with Christ on this earth.

Contents of the Encyclical Letter

“The Church from the Eucharist” is comprised of an introduction, six chapters and a conclusion. In the Introduction, the Holy Father points out the central place of the Holy Eucharist in the life of the Church and provides a summary of some of the most important documents of the Church’s teaching on the Holy Eucharist.

The Holy Father points out a contrasting situation regarding the Holy Eucharist in the Church today, which he, as Bishop of the Universal Church, must address. On the one hand the reform of the Sacred Liturgy, in accord with the teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, “has greatly contributed to a more conscious, active and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar on the part of the faithful” (n. 10a). The new Order of the Mass, which may be celebrated in the vernacular, makes it possible for us to enter ever more fully into the Eucharistic Sacrifice. To the degree that we prepare ourselves well for participation in the Holy Mass and, then, give our full attention to the words and actions of the Mass, the reform of the Sacred Liturgy achieves its most noble end.

Among what the Holy Father calls the “lights” of the liturgical reform he mentions the increase of Eucharistic devotion and of worship of the Most Blessed Sacrament outside of the Mass. He mentions, in particular, the “devout participation of the faithful in the Eucharistic procession on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ” (n. 10).

Also, I note with deep joy the extended periods of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament each week in many parishes. Some parishes and institutions have continuous adoration of the exposed Blessed Sacrament. What countless blessings have come to the Church and the world through the never-ceasing prayers before the presence of our Eucharistic Lord.

On the other hand, the Holy Father realistically points out “shadows” in our Eucharistic faith and practice. He points out the abandonment of Eucharistic devotion and adoration in some places of the Church. He also notes the liturgical abuses which have occurred through a mistaken or incomplete understanding of the reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Liturgical abuses introduce confusion about the Church’s faith in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

The Holy Father could not fail to mention a certain “reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery,” which is expressed in an exaggerated emphasis upon the Holy Eucharist as Banquet, without a proper understanding of the Eucharist’s “sacrificial meaning.” The Holy Eucharist is indeed a Banquet, but the Heavenly Food of the Banquet is the Body and Blood of Christ offered on the altar, one with the Sacrifice of Calvary.

The Holy Father also mentions a tendency to obscure the necessity of the ordained priesthood, which comes through apostolic succession from Christ Himself, for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. It is always helpful to return to the institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Lord’s Supper, at which our Lord also instituted the ministerial Priesthood, so that He might renew His Sacrifice on Calvary in every time and place (n. 10c).

The “lights” and “shadows” indicate for us all the need to treasure anew the greatest gift which Christ has given us in the Church, the Holy Eucharist. New enthusiasm and new energy in studying and living our Catholic faith is necessarily new enthusiasm and new energy in contemplating the “Eucharistic face” of Christ.

Conclusion to Archbishop Burke’s Introduction

Our reflection now turns to the six chapters of Ecclesia de Eucharistia: Mystery of the Faith; The Eucharist Builds the Church; The Apostolicity of the Eucharist and of the Church; The Eucharist and Ecclesial Communion; The Dignity of the Eucharistic Celebration; and At the School of Mary, “Woman of the Eucharist.” May our reflection upon the mystery of Christ’s abiding presence with us through the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Banquet be at the heart of our work to carry out the new evangelization of our world.

Reflections on Each of the Six Chapters of the Encyclical Letter

1. Mystery of the Faith

Introduction

In the Introduction of the Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the Holy Father expresses the desire to “rekindle” our wonder at the Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Christian life” (n. 11).

Rekindling our wonder at the Holy Eucharist is at the heart of the new evangelization to which we are called at the dawn of a new Christian millennium. Our Holy Father made clear to us, in his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, that the program of the new evangelization is Christ Himself. The Holy Father instructs us to contemplate the face of Christ, to recognize His presence with us in the Church, most of all, in the Sacrament of His true Body and Blood, and so to become more and more like Christ in our daily living.

Eucharistic Sacrifice

After the consecration of the bread and wine, that is after the bread and wine have become truly and completely the Body and Blood of Christ, and after the priest has shown the Body and Blood of Christ to the congregation and has adored Christ by genuflecting before the Sacred Host and the Precious Blood, he immediately invites the congregation to proclaim the mystery of faith. The congregation then sings or says: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” or one of the other memorial acclamations which all have the same content: Christ’s Passion and Death, His Resurrection and His Return in Glory at the end of time. The memorial acclamation reflects the deepest truth about the Holy Eucharist, its inseparability from the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ.

Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist on the night He was betrayed, the night before His cruel Passion and Death. He instituted the Holy Eucharist so that the fruits of His Suffering and Dying on the Cross, on the next day, would be constantly offered in the Church, to all peoples of every time and place. The Mass is, as the Holy Father reminds us, “not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation” of our Lord’s Passion and Death. Christ desired that the sacrifice which He was going to offer at Calvary on Good Friday continue always in the Church, and He fulfills His desire by the most wondrous sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, in which He, acting through His minister, the ordained priest, offers ever anew the one sacrifice of His life on the cross. Our Holy Father states in a striking manner the inseparability of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacrifice of Calvary:

This sacrifice [of Calvary] is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there. Each member of the faithful can thus take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its fruits” (n. 11c).

The Holy Eucharist is indeed the “inestimable gift” of Christ to us, before which the only fitting response is adoration. The celebration of the Holy Mass truly makes us present at the sacrifice of Calvary.

The Holy Eucharist is not just one of the many gifts which Christ has left to us in the Church. It is the gift of Christ’s true Body and Blood, the gift of the whole fruit of His saving Passion and Death (n. 11b). All the other gifts of Christ to us are only fully understood in relationship to the gift of the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Banquet. That is why the Holy Father rightly first turns to the teaching on the Holy Eucharist in assisting us to carry out the new evangelization.

Christ’s Universal Charity

Contemplating the face of Christ at the Lord’s Supper and at every celebration of the Mass, we contemplate His love, the incarnation of Divine Mercy which “knows no measure” (n. 11c). When Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist, he declared the bread to be His Body given for us and the wine to be His Blood poured out for us. The Holy Eucharist is not simply a partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ, not simply a banquet, but is always, at the same time, a sharing in Christ’s sacrifice. The Heavenly Bread, which is the Holy Eucharist, is essentially sacrificial, it is the Body and Blood of Christ, offered and poured out for us as He gave up His life for us on the cross. The sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated at every celebration of the Mass. Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ is always participation in Christ’s Suffering and Dying.

It is important to understand that the sacrifice of Christ is one. “The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age” (n. 12b). This is the great wonder and treasure of the Holy Mass. The Mass is not an additional sacrifice to Calvary. It is not a constant multiplication of the one sacrifice of Calvary. It is the sacrifice of Calvary, it is Calvary’s “commemorative representation,” which, by the universal charity of Christ, makes his “one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time” (n. 12c).

In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ offers Himself completely to God the Father. God the Father, in response to the total obedience of His Son, gives Christ eternal life by raising Him from the dead. We, the Church, sharing in Christ’s sacrifice, are called to offer ourselves in union with Christ. We are called to share in His universal charity, which “knows no measure.” Through the Holy Eucharist, God the Father responds to our sacrifice with the gift of eternal life.

The Real Presence

Pope John Paul II reminds us: “The Eucharistic Sacrifice makes present not only the mystery of the Saviour’s passion and death, but also the mystery of the resurrection which crowned his sacrifice” (n. 14). Christ can only become the Bread of Life for us because He is risen from the dead and is alive for us in the Church. We refer to the living presence of Christ with us in the Holy Eucharist as the Real Presence. In order to help us understand more fully the meaning of the Real Presence, our Holy Father refers us to a text of Pope Paul VI who explained that the term does not imply that the other presences of Christ in the Church are “not real,” but underlines that the Eucharistic presence “is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present” (n. 15a).

The proper term for the change of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, which takes during the Holy Mass, is transubstantiation. No other term has been found to be as adequate in pointing to the Eucharistic mystery. Theologians and saints, down the Christian centuries, have desired to plumb ever more the depth of the mystery of the Eucharist, of the profound reality which transubstantiation expresses. Often, too, their love of the Holy Eucharist and desire to express their love has taken poetic form, for example, the hymn of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Adoro Te devote (“Devoutly I adore You”), to which our Holy Father refers. Once again, Pope Paul VI underlines the truth which must be reflected in all thinking, speaking and writing about the Holy Eucharist: Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, must firmly maintain that in objective reality, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the consecration, so that the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus from that moment on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine (n. 15c).

Eucharistic Banquet

Christ makes Himself substantially present to us through the Holy Eucharist with one only end in view, namely that we may receive Him in Holy Communion. “The Eucharistic Sacrifice is intrinsically directed to the inward union of the faithful with Christ through communion;…” (n. 16). The Holy Eucharist is true spiritual food, Christ nourishing the life of the Holy Spirit within us through the reception of His glorious Body and Blood. The sixth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John helps us very much to understand the Eucharistic Banquet. Christ made it clear that only by eating His Body and drinking His blood can we have life within us. The disciples understood the true import of His teaching, for, from that day, some refused to believe and left His company. Holy Communion, participation in the Eucharistic Banquet, is Christ’s way of sustaining His life poured out within us at the moment of our baptism, and strengthened and increased within us from the moment of our confirmation. The Sacraments of Initiation — Baptism, Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist — are essentially related to one another. “Thus by the gift of his body and blood Christ increases within us the gift of his Spirit, already poured out in Baptism and bestowed as a ‘seal’ in the sacrament of Confirmation” (No. 17).

Conclusion

Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ is already now a participation in the fullness of communion with God, which will be ours in the Heavenly Kingdom. The Holy Eucharist is likewise the Spiritual Food to sustain us along life’s pilgrimage home to God the Father. In the wonderful words of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Holy Communion is “a medicine of immortality, an antidote to death.” That is why the Church so much desires that the dying receive Holy Communion and calls the Holy Communion of the dying by a special name, Viaticum, food for the journey from this life to the next.

The fact that Holy Communion is an anticipation of the life to come also means that it commits us to preparing the day of Christ’s Final Coming during each moment of our lives. The account of the institution of the Holy Eucharist in the Gospel of Saint John underlines the mandate which the Holy Eucharist is for us. It is a sharing in the outpouring of Christ’s life for love for us and for all; it contains the command to wash the feet of our brothers and sisters. I conclude this reflection with the inspiring words of our Holy Father:

Proclaiming the death of the Lord “until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26) entails that all who take part in the Eucharist be committed to changing their lives and making them in a certain way completely “Eucharistic” (No. 20c).

2. The Eucharist Builds the Church

Introduction

After having reflected upon the Holy Eucharist as the mystery of faith (Chapter One), Pope John Paul II next considers the Holy Eucharist as the source of the strength and growth of the Church.

The Holy Father is inspired by the teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which reminds us that the work of our redemption continues to be carried out in the Church, principally by the offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass. The teaching of the Council also underlines for us the truth that the unity of all the faithful in the one Body of Christ is “both expressed and brought about” in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (n. 21a).

The importance of the Holy Eucharist for the life of the Church, from her very beginnings, cannot be emphasized enough.

At the Beginnings of the Church

The celebration of the Holy Eucharist was, in fact, the source of the life of the Church at her very beginnings. On the night before He died, Christ, in the company of the Apostles, instituted the Holy Eucharist, in order that, through the priestly ministry of the Apostles, the faithful might always share in the spiritual fruits of the sacrifice which He would carry out on Calvary on the following day, Good Friday. The 12 Apostles, symbolically recalling the 12 tribes of Israel, represent the new People of God, embracing all the nations, called to life from the pierced Heart of Christ and sustained in life from the glorious Heart of Christ now seated at the right hand of the Father. The Last Supper, which is the First Eucharist, “laid the foundations of the new messianic community, the People of God of the New Covenant,” just as the sacrifice at Mount Sinai had sealed the Old Covenant. Rightly, we can say that Christ constituted the Church at her beginnings at the Last Supper (n. 21b).

When our Lord transformed the bread and wine of the Last Supper into His true Body and Blood, He made possible our communion with Him through the Most Blessed Sacrament. Through the institution of the Holy Eucharist, our Lord made it possible for us to become one body with Him. Our Lord instructed the Apostles to renew His Supper, so that the People of God might be built up in every time and place through communion with Him, that is communion in His true Body and Blood (n. 21c).

Our Holy Father makes clear the profound meaning of Eucharistic communion for our life in the Church by reminding us that we not only receive Christ in Holy Communion but He also receives us. Christ truly calls us friends by inviting us to the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Banquet. In other words, Christ deeply desires that we be in His company and that He be in our company, and He fulfills His desire, best of all, through the Eucharistic Banquet and Sacrifice (n. 22a). Communion with Christ in the Holy Eucharist has enabled the Church, from her very beginnings, to carry out her mission of being a sign of salvation in Christ for all the nations. The Church is constituted to carry out the mission of Christ in the world. Christ alive within the Church continues His saving work. The Holy Father recalls the definitive words of our Lord Jesus: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” (Jn 20:21) At the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Church receives her mission which is to share in the mystery of Christ’s Suffering, Dying and Rising from the Dead. At the same time, at the Mass, she also expresses most fully the same mission of bringing all mankind into communion with God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit (n. 22b).

Confirming the Church in Unity

Participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Banquet sustains the Church in the unity which her members enjoy because of Baptism. All of the Church’s members are incorporated into Christ, become truly members of the Body of Christ, through the waters of Baptism. The Holy Eucharist nourishes the life of Christ within us from the moment of our baptism. It is in virtue of our unity with Christ in Baptism and in the Eucharist that we are also one with each other. The Holy Eucharist confirms the unity of the many members of Christ (n. 23a).

The unity of the Church has its source in the “joint and inseparable activity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (n. 23b). The Church is called into being through Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, by which He has won the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us, Her members.

Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Christ became incarnate for our salvation through the action of the Holy Spirit. It is also the Holy Spirit who overshadows our gifts of bread and wine at the Mass, transforming them into the true Body and Blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit unceasingly nourishes and strengthens His life within us through the incomparable spiritual food which is the Body and Blood of Christ.

The Holy Eucharist binds brothers and sisters in Christ in the deepest possible unity, far beyond any merely human bond. Participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Banquet is not merely sharing a meal together. Rather, it is sharing in the divine communion which alone can bring mankind to unity and peace (n. 24a).

There is in us, at one and the same time, the deepest desire of communion with one another and the tendency to division, what our Holy Father calls the “seeds of disunity,” due to original sin and our actual sins (n. 24b). The Holy Eucharist fulfills our desire for unity with one another in a way beyond all our imagining; it makes us one with each other in the divine Son of God. Our unity with one another has its origin in God. It cannot be destroyed by any human force and has its eternal fulfillment in the life which is to come.

At the same time, the Holy Eucharist strengthens us, so that we may purify ourselves of the seeds of disunity. Communion with Christ strengthens us to overcome, with Christ, the division which sin always introduces into our lives. Here we see the essential connection of the Holy Eucharist and Penance. Through the confession of our sins, which separate us, in varying degrees, from God and from another, we are prepared to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, uniting us to God and to one another. At the same time, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ enlightens our minds and inflames our hearts to see what keeps us from unity with God and with each other, and to root out from our hearts these seeds of disunity.

Worship of the Eucharist Outside of the Mass

In the context of reflecting upon how the celebration of the Holy Eucharist builds up the life of the Church, the Holy Father underlines the importance of worship of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass. He reminds us that, the Real Presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine, from the moment of the Consecration of the Mass, remains as long as the species themselves remain, and that, therefore, the Church reserves the Body of Christ in the tabernacle after the distribution of Holy Communion.

The reserved Blessed Sacrament comes directly from the Sacrifice of the Mass and inspires the desire for Holy Communion, also spiritual communion when it is not possible to receive sacramental communion. So important is worship of the Blessed Sacrament that our Holy Father reminds bishops and priests of their responsibility “to encourage, also by their personal witness, the practice of Eucharistic adoration, and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in particular, as well as prayer of adoration before Christ under the Eucharistic species” (n. 25a).

Our Holy Father draws our attention to the profound reality of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. It is spending time with the Lord. He likens it to the experience of the Beloved Disciple who rested his head on the breast of the Master. Through prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, we experience the inexhaustible love of the glorious Sacred Heart of Jesus, from which Christ unceasingly pours forth His grace upon us.

In Novo Millennio Ineunte, the Apostolic Letter “At the conclusion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000,” our Holy Father reminded us that our time requires, above all, that we be persons of prayer. In other words, he taught us that the new evangelization will be accomplished, first of all, through the power of prayer. As we recognize the need of more intense prayer in our lives, we sense the need to pray in the presence of our Eucharistic Lord. The Holy Father exclaims:

How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support! (n. 25b).

Church teaching urges us to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. The example of the saints inspires us to treasure, in a most special way, Eucharistic adoration. Our Holy Father quotes Saint Alphonsus Liguori: “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us” (No. 25c).

Conclusion

Through the Holy Eucharist, first of all by participation in the Sacrifice of the Mass and then by Eucharistic worship outside of Mass, we contemplate the Face of Christ as directly and fully as is possible for us on this earth. From our contemplation of the Face of Christ, we will draw the grace to live in Christ every day. It is the Holy Eucharist, above all, which builds up the Church in unity and love.

3. The Apostolicity of the Eucharist and of the Church

Introduction

In the beginning of the third chapter of his Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II reminds us that the relationship between the Church and the Holy Eucharist is so intimate that the marks of the Church — one, holy, catholic and apostolic — also describe the Holy Eucharist. He then devotes the third chapter to a reflection upon the apostolic character of the Holy Eucharist (n. 26).

Apostolic in Three Senses

The Holy Father describes the three meanings which the apostolic character or apostolicity of the Church has. First of all, it means that the Church “was and remains built” upon the foundation of the Apostles. So, too, the Holy Eucharist was entrusted by Christ to the Apostles and has come to us through the unbroken succession of the apostolic ministry (n. 27a).

Secondly, apostolicity means that the Church hands on the “deposit of the faith,” received from the Apostles. So, too, the Church celebrates the Holy Eucharist “in conformity with the faith of the Apostles.” The Holy Father points out that the teaching authority of the Church has necessarily defined “more precisely” the doctrine on the Holy Eucharist, in order to remain true to the faith of the Apostles. He states: “This faith remains unchanged and it is essential for the Church that it remain unchanged” (n. 27b).

Thirdly, the Church is apostolic because the Bishops, successors to the Apostles, teach, sanctify and guide the Church. They carry out the apostolic ministry in communion with the Holy Father, Successor of Saint Peter, Head of the Apostles, and with the assistance of priests who share in their apostolic ministry. The existence of the