Pope says Eucharistic life cannot ignore neighbour

(September 12, 2011) A person who can kneel before the Eucharist and receive Christ in Communion must be attentive to the needs of his neighbour and ready to share his goods with others, said Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. He was speaking at the closing Mass of Italy's 25th National Eucharistic Congress held at the Adriatic port city of Ancona. "A Eucharistic spirituality is a real antidote to individualism and egoism that often characterizes daily life," the Holy Father said presenting the Eucharist as the key to a person-centred social development. He proposed that responsibility in community life is born from the Eucharist, such that the poor, sick and needy are placed at the centre of social development.
"To be nourished by Christ is the way not to remain blind and indifferent to the fortunes of our brothers, but to enter into the very logic of love and of gift," the Pope said. "He who is able to kneel before the Eucharist, who receives the Lord's body cannot fail to be attentive, in the ordinary course of the days, to situations unworthy of man, and is able to bend down personally to attend to the needy, is able to break his bread with the hungry, share water with the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned," he said. The Pope proposed the Eucharistic spirituality as an antidote to individualism that builds relationships in the family and the Church community. Referring to Italy’s serious unemployment problem the Pontiff affirmed that a Eucharistic spirituality is "a way to restore dignity to man's days and, hence, to his work."
At the end of the Mass, Pope Benedict XVI recalled the 10^th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, making it an occasion to call on nations and people to reject attempts to solve problems with violence. "In remembering to the Lord of Life the victims of the attacks carried out that day and their families, I invite the leaders of nations and men of good will to always reject violence as a solution to problems, to resist the temptation to hatred and to act in society, inspired by the principles of solidarity, justice and peace," the Holy father said speaking before praying the midday ‘Angelus’. The previous day, Saturday, the Pope sent a message to the US in which he condemned violence in God's name but said that 10 years after September 11, the world still had much to do to address the grievances that give rise to acts of terrorism.
Following the Mass, Pope Benedict had lunch with a group of the laid-off workers in Ancona and expressed the Church’s solidarity and closeness with labourers. He also held a meeting with families and priests in Ancona’s Cathedral and later addressed young engaged couples before flying back to Rome Sunday night.