Was it coincidental that Pope John Paul II died during the Year of the Eucharist that he, himself, proclaimed? Or was the timing, as some are saying, providential?

No matter which side of that ledger you come down on, you could hardly argue against the dramatic effect of the statement. For the Church will forever remember that the Holy Father went out pointing the world to Jesus really present in the Blessed Sacrament — just as he had done throughout his 26½-year pontificate.

In honor of that memory, the Register presents, in condensed form and in Q-and-A format, some highlights of John Paul’s 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (On the Eucharist in its Relationship to the Church). The document can be read in its entirety at vatican.va on the Internet.

Why did Jesus give us the Eucharist?

Jesus instituted the Eucharist in order to give us (and all believers throughout the ages) a way of sharing in the most important event of all human history: his death and resurrection. By that event, he won the salvation of every person in every time and place. In the celebration of Mass, it becomes our event, “as if we had been present there. Each member of the faithful can this take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its fruits” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, No. 11). “The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age” (No. 12).

Do Catholics believe that Jesus is crucified again each time Mass is offered?

The Pope is clear on this point: “The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. What is repeated is its memorial celebration ... which makes Christ’s one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time” (No. 12).

What does it mean to truly participate in the Mass?

On the cross, Jesus offered himself wholly to the Father. In the Eucharist, that offering of Christ to the Father is re-presented in our midst. Participating in the Eucharist means offering ourselves, in union with Christ, completely to the Father (No. 13).

What part does the Holy Spirit play in the celebration of Mass?

It is the power of the Holy Spirit that allows the bread and wine to become the body and blood of Christ for us. The priest calls down the Holy Spirit in the prayer of Mass called the epiclesis. We also receive the Holy Spirit when we receive the Lord in holy Communion. The Pope quotes Saint Ephrem on this point: “He who eats [the Eucharist] with faith, eats fire and spirit. … Take and eat this, all of you, and eat with it the Holy Spirit (No. 17).”

Some say focusing on Christ’s physical presence in the Eucharist distracts people from caring for one another, and from tending to the pressing problems and issues of our day. Is this true?

If we really understand what we are doing at Mass — the focal point of which is the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — then celebrating it “increases, rather than lessens, our sense of responsibility for the world today.” The Pope insists that he wants to “reaffirm this forcefully at the beginning of the new millennium, so that Christians will feel more obliged than ever not to neglect their duties as citizens of the world” (No. 20).

What does it mean to say that “the Eucharist builds the Church”?

In receiving Communion, I receive Jesus. I take his body into my body. But I am not joined only with Jesus. Through my union with him, I’m also joined with every other person who receives his body in every time and place, and they are united with me. In receiving the body of Christ, we, the Church, become the body of Christ (Nos. 22-23). What they taught us in health class is even more true in Catholic theology: We are what we eat.

Can a Catholic receive communion when attending a Protestant worship service?

No. “The Catholic faithful ... while respecting the religious convictions of [their] separated brethren, must refrain from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations, so as not to condone an ambiguity about the nature of the Eucharist and, consequently, to fail in their duty to bear clear witness to the truth. This would result in slowing the progress being made toward full, visible unity” (No. 30).

Must a Catholic who has committed serious sin go to confession before receiving Communion?

Yes. The Pope uses authoritative language to “reaffirm that in the Church there remains in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave concrete expression to the Apostle Paul’s stern warning when it affirmed that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthy manner, ‘one must first confess one’s sins, when one is aware of mortal sin’” (No. 36).

Why does the Pope spotlight the woman who anointed the head of Jesus?

The Gospels present this account of the anointing of Jesus by the woman in Bethany just before the Last Supper. This act of reverence and love, which Jesus recognizes as preparing him for death, serves as a “prelude” to the Last Supper and to the suffering, dying and rising of Jesus which follows it. The Pope presents this woman as a model for us in our celebration of Mass. “Like [this woman], the Church has feared no ‘extravagance,’ devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist” (No. 47). She can also be seen, in a certain light, as the first practitioner of Eucharistic adoration.

Why does the Church insist that the Eucharist be celebrated in a formal and regulated manner? Some argue that such formality discourages the warm and friendly atmosphere proper to a banquet.

“Though the idea of a ‘banquet’ naturally suggests familiarity, the Church has never yielded to the temptation to trivialize this ‘intimacy’ with her Spouse by forgetting that he is also her Lord and that the ‘banquet’ always remains a sacrificial banquet marked by the blood shed on Golgotha. The Eucharistic banquet is truly a ‘sacred’ banquet, in which the simplicity of the signs conceals the unfathomable holiness of God” (No. 48).

Why is Mary the “woman of the Eucharist”?

The Pope gives the Blessed Mother this lovely title in the final chapter of his encyclical. Mary is a model for us in our Eucharistic faith by so abandoning herself to God’s word that she will carry the Son of God in her own body, against all common sense. Our Amen when receiving Communion at Mass is much like Mary’s fiat (“Let it be done to me as you say”) to the archangel Gabriel.

Barry Michaels writes from

Blairsville, Pennsylvania.