Deacon Lawrence Toth
(Fifth in Series)
On June 24, 2026, Pope Leo’s teaching on the documents of Vatican II had the theme, “The Mystery of the Eucharist.” Quoting Saint Augustine, the pope says, “It is your own mystery that you receive. To what you are, you respond: Amen, and your response is like your signature. You are told, ‘The Body of Christ,’ and you reply, ‘Amen.’ Be therefore members of the Body of Christ, so that your Amen may be true. Be what you see, and receive what you are.”
The two parts of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, “are so closely connected with each other that they form but one single act of worship.” Pope Leo continues, “It is by receiving Him in His Word and in the Eucharist that we become what we receive. We become the Body whose Head is the risen Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, who prepares a place for us in heaven.” Recalling that the Mass is a sacrifice that we offer not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, he says that those who participate in it learn “to offer themselves; through Christ, the Mediator, they should be drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other.”
The pontiff elaborated on the Liturgy of the Word, saying that, “it is important to remember that it is not merely a matter of acquiring intellectual knowledge of the Scriptures, but of receiving the Word that is living and effective, spoken by God to everyone and at the same time to each individual. This Word nourishes and sustains us together with the Eucharistic Bread and leads us from the decay of sin to new life in Christ.”
Pope Leo closed by saying that, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he did so “in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the centuries until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is eaten, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.”