contemplative:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y188/ginnyroc/uscatholic.jpg
What is it about this front cover that makes me not want to read the article?
Probably becuase you knew the article would say things like this:
This emphasis is greatly diminished in a major document coming from the Vatican this year and in some Catholic publications, which tend to concentrate on Eucharist as exclusively an object of adoration.
Father Keith Pecklers, a professor of liturgy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, says many liturgists regard the document proposed for discussion at the Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome in October as “discouraging, one-sided, and totally inadequate.” Titled The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church, this 17,000-word preparatory statement has sections on the history, theology, and spirituality of the Real Presence, but its discussion of liturgy and mission is preoccupied with ceremonial propriety. The section on the Mass ends abruptly with the Communion of the faithful and the hope that “the mystery, celebrated and received, may be fruitful.”
Pecklers fears the impression may be given that the Mass exists solely to obtain the Blessed Sacrament. “There seems to be an overemphasis on adoration versus service and a mostly individualistic link between the believer and Jesus,” he says.
Lost in all this, he adds, is the emphasis the early church placed on Eucharist as holy bread and holy drink, especially St. Augustine’s insistence that Christians partake of Christ’s Body in order to become Christ’s Body in the world. Also lost in the document, he says, is the intimate connection between eucharistic authenticity and service. Only a few lines near the conclusion do the words “a commitment to the poor” appear for the first time.
