How we all become missionaries of the Eucharist

When we participate in the Eucharist and receive Holy Communion, we are then challenged to take what we have received into the world.

It can be tempting to attend Mass every Sunday and then to go back to our everyday lives as if nothing happened.

However, Christ did not institute the Eucharist so that we could live ordinary lives, but so that we could become, “missionaries” in the world.

We may not be called to become a full-time volunteer at our local soup kitchen, but we are challenged to bring Christ to every person we meet.

St. John Paul II commented on this aspect of the Eucharist on the World Day for Missions in 2004:

At the end of every Mass, when the celebrant takes leave of the assembly with the words “Ite, Missa est,” all should feel they are sent as “missionaries of the Eucharist” to carry to every environment the great gift received. In fact anyone who encounters Christ in the Eucharist cannot fail to proclaim through his or her life the merciful love of the Redeemer.

This is a mission that we are all given every time we attend Mass, whether we realize it or not.

This doesn’t mean that everyone is supposed to start a Bible study at their place of work, or inside their retirement home.

What it does mean is that each person needs to discern how God is calling them to be a missionary and spread the Gospel of Christ through their lives.

One way to discern that calling is to return to the Church for Eucharistic adoration, as St. John Paul II recommends:

To live the Eucharist it is necessary, as well, to spend much time in adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament, something which I myself experience every day drawing from it strength, consolation and assistance (cfr Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 25). The Eucharist, the Second Vatican Council affirms, “is the source and summit of all Christian life” (Lumen gentium, 11), “the source and summit of all evangelization.”

He goes even further to say that Eucharistic adoration is essential to being a missionary:

How could the Church fulfil her vocation without cultivating a constant relationship with the Eucharist, without nourishing herself with this food which sanctifies, without founding her missionary activity on this indispensable support? To evangelise the world there is need of apostles who are “experts” in the celebration, adoration and contemplation of the Eucharist.

St. Teresa of Calcutta is one example of someone who balanced a life of mission with Eucharistic adoration.

The next time we attend Mass, may we remember how we are being sent into the world to live a Eucharistic life.