Eucharistic preacher: The same Christ who performed miracles is made present at every Mass
Presence, memory, food, sacrifice, communion, promise.
Eucharistic preacher Monsignor Joseph Malagreca fashioned those six themes into meditations on the mystery of the Holy Eucharist for several hundred people gathered in the Cathedral of St. Joseph.
“You can meditate and pray to Jesus over and over and still find more riches in the reality of the Eucharist,” said Msgr. Malagreca, one of 57 Eucharistic preachers specially commissioned to help bring the Eucharistic Revival to parishes throughout the country.
The pastor of Holy Cross Parish in the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, gave talks on the Eucharist in English and in Spanish and led a bilingual Holy Hour during Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament on July 3 in the Cathedral.
It was the middle day of the St. Junipero Serra Arm of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage moving through the Jefferson City diocese on its way to Indianapolis for this week’s National Eucharistic Congress.
The Eucharistic Pilgrimage is part of a nation-wide focus by the Catholic Church in the United States to inspire a stronger relationship with Jesus through the Eucharist and the
Sacrament of Holy Communion.
Msgr. Malagreca’s teaching took place after a mile-long Solemn Eucharistic Procession around the shaded pathways of the park across the street from the Cathedral.
“Part of the reason for a Eucharistic procession is because this Jesus who is present on the altar and present in the tabernacle wants to be present among his people,” Msgr. Malagreca stated.
“We are the Church walking with the Eucharist, accompanying Jesus, and he is at the heart of the Church, and we are bringing his presence out with us, hoping that as people pass by, their eyes and their hearts will be open and they will worship him with us,” the priest stated.
“The same Jesus”
Msgr. Malagreca noted that God has always been present in the world he created.
“But certainly when Jesus took flesh in the womb of Mary, God became present in this world in a powerful new way,” the priest stated. “God now has a body, has blood, has human form.”
Msgr. Malagreca marveled at what Mary must have experienced, “walking around with God in her womb for nine months, always aware that God is with her.”
One of the names given to Jesus is Emmanuel — “God With Us.”
“Jesus is born in a manger in a stable,” the priest noted. “God is present among us — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.”
Shepherds came to worship him, but not everyone did.
“For 33 years, Jesus walked around Israel, and some people get it, and some people still don’t,” said Msgr. Malagreca. “Some are astounded by him. Some are befuddled by him.”
Jesus’s transfiguration on Mount Tabor gave a clear glimpse to those who witnessed it that he’s not just a man but God Among Us.
“They had seen him raise the dead, walk on water, heal the sick, so they were aware of who he is, and they worshiped him,” said Msgr. Malagreca.
Jesus’s mother Mary, John the Apostle and Mary Magdalene remained with him at the foot of the cross.
“He is fully present to them as they look on his face covered in blood.”
He died, was buried, rose from the dead and appeared to his Apostles, encouraging them to carry on his mission.
Thomas called out, “My Lord and my God!” — something that people still say today at Mass at the Consecration.
“The same Jesus that is standing before Thomas and the others in the upper room is present to us — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — at every Mass,” the priest pointed out.
Specifically, Jesus is present in the poor, with whom he identified; in the sacred assembly of people gathered for the Mass; in their priest; in the proclamation of God’s Word; in the Sacraments of the Church.
“And it is Jesus who consecrates the bread and wine and Jesus who is the Sacrament n the Eucharist,” Msgr. Malagreca noted. “Jesus acts in all the other sacraments, but in this Sacrament, he himself IS the Sacrament!”
“Table ministry”
At the Last Supper, after blessing the bread, breaking it, giving it to his Apostles and saying, “Take and eat, for this is my Body,” and after blessing the wine and giving it to them, saying, “Take and drink, for this is my Blood,” Jesus told them to “Do this in memory of me.”
“He gave the Apostles an order to repeat this action, to remember him,” said Msgr. Malagreca. “And in obedience to him, the Church has been doing this for 2,000 years.”
The Mass has been celebrated on every Sunday since then, and every day at least since the fifth or sixth century.
“Not a day goes by — except for Good Friday — without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being celebrated somewhere in the world,” the priest noted. “In fact at every moment of the day, Mass is being offered somewhere in the world.”
The whole Church remembers that God became a man, that he lived among his people, that he gave specific teaching and did specific things, that he died on the cross to save humanity, rose from the dead and continues to fill his people with the Holy Spirit.
“We don’t forget who Jesus is, because he gave us a way to remember,” said Msgr. Malagreca. “He reminds us of the past and makes it present in our midst so that we never forget who he is and what he has done for us — how he saved us with his Body and Blood.”
Msgr. Malagreca noted that in every church, the altar of sacrifice is also a table.
“Jesus wants us to share this meal with him,” the priest pointed out. “He is giving us food for the journey.”
A precursor to that gift was how he accepted five barley loaves and two fish and miraculously fed 5,000 people with them.
“Everyone was astounded at his power,” Msgr. Malagreca declared. “And Jesus used this miracle as an opportunity to teach them about himself — ‘I am the bead of life. This is the bread come that has come down from heaven. Whoever eats this will never die, because the Bread of God has come down from heaven and given life to the whole world.”
Jesus wasn’t referring to the miracle he had just performed but about the greater miracle he was planning to do: “He would command bread to become his Body and Blood.”
This is the same Jesus who taught with authority, healed the sick, drove out evil spirits and gathered the people around him into one body.
“He loved to sit down and break bead with people,” Msgr. Malagreca noted. “Table fellowship was an important part of Jesus’s ministry.”
And at the end of that three-year ministry, he raised that table ministry to a sublime level — offering his very self as true food and true drink for the forgiveness of sins.
No one should decline that gift.
“A major aspect of the Eucharistic Revival is to call Catholics to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus worthily,” Msgr. Malagreca noted. “If you are in a state of mortal sin, repent and be healed in Confession. If there is an obstacle, take it away. If the faith is low, take it up and receive the Body of Christ!”
Sacrifice and Communion
“Sacrifice means taking something of your own and giving it to someone else,” said Msgr. Malagreca.
He believes parents tend to be experts on what it means to sacrifice.
“It’s amazing how much parents love their children, how much they give, how much they work, how much they do,” he said.
But not even parents’ sacrifices compare in importance to the sacrificing of oneself to God, in union with Christ.
“God is only pleased with one sacrifice,” said Msgr. Malagreca. “The self-offering of his Son on the altar of the cross.”
That’s why the altar in any Catholic church is not merely a table.
“It is an altar because of what is done here — the eternal sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus,” Msgr. Malagreca stated. “And we enter into the one sacrifice of Christ at every Mass.”
The priest, ministering in the person of Christ, offers with the people the eternal sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ.
“It is the sacrifice of Jesus who saved us by offering himself on the cross,” said Msgr. Malagreca.
The people at Mass do not stand by as a passive audience.
“You are participants!” said Msgr. Malagreca. “You are baptized Catholics and you are invited by Jesus to join yourself in his offering.”
That’s why members of the congregation come forward to present the bread and wine for consecration at the Offertory.
“You’re saying, ‘There I go. That’s me. I’m putting my life on the altar, and God is going to transform my life into the Body and Blood of Jesus, and I’m going to offer myself with Jesus,’” the priest stated.
Msgr. Malagreca noted that “Communion” means becoming one.
It’s like the taste of heaven a man and woman who love each other experience in Holy Matrimony.
It’s also a taste of heaven when a parish is united with a sense of holy brotherhood and sisterhood.
“Jesus has given his Body and Blood to us so that we may have Communion, so that we may be one with him,” said Msgr. Malagreca.
Communion brings unity with God and one another.
“In the Body and Blood of Jesus, we have access to the Father and are one with God,” the priest noted. “At the same time, we are made one with our brothers and sisters in the Body and Blood of Jesus that is offered on the cross for us.”
“Thy Kingdom come”
The celebration of the Mass reaches into the past, celebrates in the present and reaches into the future.
“When you partake of the Mass, you celebrate the promise that God’s kingdom will come,” said Msgr. Malagreca. “It is a foretaste of heaven. It’s as if you’ve left earth behind and walked into heaven.”
It reflects the belief and hope that better things are still to come.
“No matter what our problems are, what our difficulties are, what our tragedies are — if people die, if we get sick, if we get injured or are infirm — we get that foretaste of heaven, and it sustains us,” he said.
Before leading the people in a bilingual period of Adoration, Msgr. Malagreca urged his audience to do six things based on the themes he presented:
- Worship Jesus, who is fully present in the Eucharist;
- Be conscious of who Jesus is and all he has done;
- Receive Holy Communion at every opportunity, in a proper state of grace;
- Renew daily the giving of oneself to God through the Body of Jesus;
- Cast away sinful obstacles in order to be in Communion with the Lord.
- Never lose hope that God’s kingdom is coming “and that it will be great.”
