INSTRUMENTUM LABORIS, English version text

From the Introduction:

From the very beginning, the Church has drawn her life from the Eucharist. This Sacrament is the reason for her existence, the inexhaustible source of her holiness, the power of her unity, the bond of her communion, the source of her dynamism in preaching the Gospel, the principle of her evangelizing activity, the font of charity, the heart of human promotion and the anticipation of her glory in the Eternal Banquet at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (cf. Rev 19:7-9).

The Risen Lord is present in his Church in various ways, but he is present in a particularly unique way in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Through the words of consecration and the grace of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for the praise and glory of God the Father. This inestimable gift and great mystery were realized at the Last Supper. With the express command of the Lord Jesus: “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19), the Sacrament passes down to us through the Apostles and their successors. In this regard, St. Paul, in his account of the bread and cup of the New Covenant, writes: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you” (1 Cor 11:23). Sacred Tradition accounts for its faithful transmission from one generation to the next, down to the present day.

Under Divine Providence, the deposit of Eucharistic faith, despite various doctrinal and disciplinary controversies, has come to us in its original purity as a result of primarily two ecumenical councils: Trent (1545-1563) and Vatican II (1962-1965). Various individual popes have also made notable contributions to a better understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist, among them, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, both of whom undertook the task of applying in the universal Church the deliberations of the Second Vatican Council. The pontificate of Pope John Paul II enriched the Catholic Church with important documents on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, such as The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia and the Apostolic Letter Mane nobiscum Domine. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has also shown his intention to continue the implementation of the Second Vatican Council and to follow faithfully the two-thousand-year-old tradition of the Church by stating in his first discourse, addressed through the College of Cardinals to the whole Church, that the Eucharist is the lasting centre and source of the Petrine service entrusted to him.

These documents provide a profound reflection on the Sacrament of the Eucharist which has important spiritual and pastoral implications. The question of great pastoral concern, episcopal responsibility and prophetic vision is to see how this rich patrimony of faith can be implemented in the Catholic Church, extended over five continents, in the initial years of the Third Millennium of Christianity and beyond.

Well worth taking the time to read...