NEWS ABOUT BENEDICT

---

Eminent Cardinals,
Venerated brothers in the Episcopate and Priesthood,
Dear brothers!

With great joy and always with sincere appreciation, I greet you on the occasion of your plenary session.

On this important occasion, I am pleased, first of all, to greet the Prefect, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, whom I thank for his description of the work that you have been doing the past few days and afor expressing your sentiments.

I extend my affectionate greeting and sincere thanks to the members and officials of the dicastery, starting with the Secretary, Mons. Malcolm Ranjith, and his under-secretary, and all the others, who in different functions, offer their services with competence and dedication to "the regulation and promotion of sacred liturgy'
(Pastor Bonus, n. 62).

In the Plenary, you reflected on the Eucharistic Mystery, particularly on the subject of Eucharistic Adoration. I know that after the publication of the Instruction Eucharisticum mysterium on May 26, 1967, and the promulgation on June 21, 1975, of the Document "De sacra communione et cultu mysterii eucharistici extra Missam", the insistence on the Eucharist as the inexhaustible source of sanctity has been a primary concern of the dicastery.

And so I welcomed the proposal that the plenary would occupy itself with the subject of Eucharistic Adoration, trusting that a new collegial reflection on this practice may contribute to make clear, according to the competence of the dicastery, the liturgical and pastoral means with which the Church in our time can promote faith in the real presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and to assure to the celebration of Holy Mass all the dimensions of adoration.

I underlined this aspect in the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis, in which I assembled the fruits of the XI Ordinary General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod which took place in October 2005.

In pointing out the importance of the intrinsic relation between the celebration of the Eucharist and Adoration (Cfr No. 66), I cited a teaching of St. Augustine: "Nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando" (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98, 9: ccl 39, 1385) - No one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it.

The Synodal Fathers did not fail to show their concern for a certain confusion generated after the Second Vatican Council on the relation between the Mass and the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (cfr. Sacramentum caritatis, n. 66).

This echoed what my predecessor, John Paul II, had already expressed on the deviance that had somehow infected the post-conciliar liturgical renewal which showed "a rather reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, n. 10).

The Second Vatican Council brought to light the singular role that the Eucharistic mystery has in the life of the faithful (Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 48-54, 56).

As Pope Paul VI re-stated several times: "The Eucharist is the supreme mystery: indeed as Sacred Liturgy tells us, it is the mystery of the faith (Mysterium fidei, n. 15).

The Eucharist is at the origins of the Church itself (cfr. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, n. 21) and is the spring of grace, constituting an incomparable occasion for the sanctification of Christ's humanity as for the glorification of God.

In this sense, all the activities of the Church are ordered to the mystery of the Eucharist (cfr. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 10; Lumen gentium, n. 11; Presbyterorum ordinis, n. 5; Sacramentum caritatis, n. 17); while it is due to the Eucharist that "the Church continuously lives and grows" even today (Lumen gentium, n. 26).

Our task is to perceive the most precious treasure that is this ineffable mystery of the faith "in the celebration of the Mass as in the care of the sacred species which are saved after the Mass to extend the grace of the Sacrifice"(Istruz. Eucharisticum mysterium, n. 3, g.).

The doctrine of the trans-substantiation of bread and wine and of the Real Presence are truths of the faith that are evident in Sacred Scriptures itself and later confirmed by the Fathers of the Church.

In this regard, Pope Paul VI recalled that "The Catholic Church has not only taught but has lived the faith, in the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, always adoring this great Sacrament with latreutic cult which pertains only to God" (Mysterium fidei No. 56; cfr. Catechism of the Catholci Church, n. 1378).

It is timely to recall the various accessions that the word 'adoration' has in the Greek and Latin languages. The Greek word proskynesis indicates the gesture of submission, the recognition of God as our true measure, whose norm we must accept.

The Latin word adoratio, on the other hand, denotes the physical contact, the kiss, the embrace, which is implicit in the idea of love. The aspect of submission presages a relationship of union, because that to which we submit ourselves is Love.

In fact, in the Eucharist, adoration should become union: a union with the living Lord and with his Mystical Body, As I told the young people on the plain of Marienfeld, in Cologne on the XX World Youth Day, on August 21, 2005: "God is no longer just in front of us, as the Totally Other. He is within us, and we are in him. His dynamic penetrates us, and from us, he wishes to be propagated to others and extend himself all over the world, so that his love may truly become the dominant measure in the world" (Teachings, Viol, 1m oo 467 ss).

In this perspective, I reminded the young people that in the Eucharist, one lives the fundamental transformation of violence to love, of death to life. It then brings with it other transformations. Bread and wine become the Lord's Body and Blood. But the transformation should not stop here, rather, it is here that it should begin in full.

"The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves may be transformed in our turn."

My predecessor, John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Spiritus et
Sponsa, on the 40th anniversary of the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, urged taking the necessary steps to examine more deeply the experience of renewal.

Such an examination in depth will be possible only through a better knowledge of the mystery, in full loyalty to sacred Tradition, and by
growing the life of liturgy within our own communities (cfr. Spiritus et Sponsa, nn. 6-7).

In this, I fully appreciate the work that the Plenary has done on the subject of the formation of the entire People of God in the faith, with special attention to seminarians in order to favor the growth of a spirit of authentic Eucharistic adoration.

St. Thomas explains: "That in this Sacrament the true Body and true Blood of Christ are present cannot be learned with the senses, but with faith alone, which rests on the authority of God" (Summa theologiae, iii, 75, 1; cfr. Catechismo della Chiesa Cattolica, n. 1381).

We are livign through the days of Lent which constitute not only a journey of more intense spiritual training, but also an effective preparation to better celebrate Easter.

Recalling the three pentitential practices that are very dear to the Biblical and Christian tradition - prayer, alms-giving and fasting - let us encourage each other to rediscover and live with renewed fervor fasting not only as an ascetic practice, but as a preparation for the Eucharist, and as a spiritual weapon to fight any eventual disordered attachment to ourselves.

May this intense period of the liturgical life help us to keep far away all that can distract the spirit and to intensify that which can feed the soul, opening it to the love of God and of our neigbor.

With these sentiments, I now formulate for all my wishes for the coming Paschal celebrations, and as I thank you for the work that you have done in this Plenary Session, as well as for all the work of the Congregation, with affection I impart to all my benediction.

---