Pope speaks on Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration

(March 13, 2009) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday insisted that the faithful be made aware of the intrinsic relationship between the celebration of the Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration, saying the Eucharist is at the very source of the Church and the font of holiness and grace for its members. The Pope’s exhortation came in an address he delivered on Friday to participants in the plenary assembly of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments that discussed the theme of Eucharistic Adoration. Pope Benedict observed that bishops of the 2005 Synod, on the theme of the Eucharist, had expressed concern over a certain confusion generated after the Second Vatican Council regarding the celebration of Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration. The Pope said this was because of a wrong interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. The Council, in fact, underscored the unique role of the Eucharistic mystery in the life of the faithful and reaffirmed that all of the Church’s activities are to be ordered according to the mystery of the Eucharist, as it is on the Eucharist that the Church continually lives and grows. “It is our duty,” Pope Benedict said, “to understand the precious treasure of this ineffable mystery of faith both in the very celebration of the Mass as well as in the cult of the sacred species preserved after Mass, in order to extend the grace of the sacrifice. The transubstantiation of bread and wine during Mass and the real presence of Christ are the truths of faith, the Pope stressed.