During the Eucharistic Act of Night-Time Adoration (31 October 1982)

On Sunday, 31 October 1982, the Holy Father spoke to the worshippers at a night-time adoration of the Eucharistic Lord, reminding them that “the crucified and risen Lord is truly present in the Eucharist, not only during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, but as long as the sacramental species exist.”

God is here. Come worshippers. We adore Christ the Redeemer!

1. With these beautiful words the faithful people of Spain sing their faith in the Eucharist.

This is why I was happy to know that you wanted me to participate with you in Eucharistic adoration. With joy, alongside Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, I meet with you, members of the Spanish Night Adoration, who, with many other Christians who join you from many corners of Spain, have a profound awareness of the close relationship that exists between spiritual vitality and apostolate of the Church and the sacred Eucharist.

With your vigils of adoration you pay a tribute of ardent faith and love to our Lord Jesus Christ, truly present in this Sacrament, with his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the consecrated species.

This presence reminds us that the God of our faith is not a distant being, but a very close God, whose delights are found in being with the children of men (cf. Pr 8, 31). A Father who sends us his Son, so that we may have life and have it in abundance (cf. John 10:10). A Son, and our Brother, who with his Incarnation truly became Man, while remaining God, and wanted to remain among us "until the end of the world" (cf. Mt 28, 20).

2. Faith makes us understand that the sacred Eucharist constitutes the greatest gift that Christ has offered and permanently offers to his Bride. It is the root and summit of Christian life and of every action of the Church. It is our greatest treasure, in which "all the spiritual good of the Church" is contained ( Presbyterorum Ordinis , 5). Which must jealously care for everything that refers to this mystery and affirm it in its integrity, as the central point and proof of that authentic spiritual renewal proposed by the last Council.

In this consecrated Host the words of Christ are summarized, his life offered to the Father for us and the glory of his resurrected Body. In your hours of adoration before the Holy Host you realized that this presence of Emmanuel, God-with-us, is at the same time a mystery of faith, a pledge of hope and a source of charity with God and among men.

3. Mystery of faith, because the crucified and risen Lord is truly present in the Eucharist, not only during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, but as long as the sacramental species exist.

Our praise, adoration, thanksgiving and our supplication to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are based on this mystery of faith.

This very presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, under the species of bread and wine, constitutes a connection between time and eternity, and gives us a pledge of the hope that animates our journey.

Indeed, the sacred Eucharist, in addition to being a sacramental testimony of the first coming of Christ, is at the same time a constant announcement of his glorious second coming, at the end of time.

A pledge of future hope and an impulse, also full of hope, for our journey towards eternal life. In front of the sacred Host we hear again the sweet words: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will refresh you" ( Mt 11, 28).

The sacramental presence of Christ is also a source of love. Because “love is paid for with love” you say in this Spanish land.

Love, first and foremost, for Christ himself. The Eucharistic encounter is, in fact, an encounter of love. For this reason it is essential to approach him with devotion and purified from every serious sin.

And love to our brothers. Because the authenticity of our union with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament must translate into our true love for all men, starting with those who are closest to us. You will have to notice it in the way you behave with your family, your colleagues, your friends; in the commitment to live in peace with everyone; in the readiness to reconcile and forgive when necessary. In this way, the sacred Eucharist will be a leaven of charity and bond of that unity of the Church desired by Christ and advocated by the Second Vatican Council.

4. I end by exhorting you, beloved worshipers and all the children of all Spain, to profound Eucharistic piety. It will bring you closer to the Lord every time. And it will require you to appropriately resort to sacramental confession, which leads to the Eucharist, just as the Eucharist leads to confession. How many times can the night of silent adoration also be the propitious moment of encountering the sacramental forgiveness of Christ!

This Eucharistic piety must focus first of all on the celebration of the Lord's Supper, which perpetuates his love sacrificed on the cross. However, it has a logical continuation - of which you are faithful witnesses - in the adoration of Christ in this divine Sacrament, in the visit to the Blessed Sacrament, in prayer before the tabernacle, as well as in other exercises of devotion, personal and collective, private and public. , which you have practiced for centuries. These whom the last Ecumenical Council strongly recommended and to whom I myself have exhorted on repeated occasions (cf., ex. gr., John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae , 3: Teachings of John Paul II, III, 1 [1980] 583 ss.; John Paul II, Homilia in urbe Dublin habita, die 29 sept. 1979 : Ibid. II, 2 [1979] 413 ss.).

“The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this Sacrament of Love. Let us spare no time to go and visit him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith and open to making amends for the serious shortcomings and sins of the world. May our adoration never be interrupted” (John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, 3: Teachings of John Paul II, III, 1 [1980] 583 ff). And in these hours next to the Lord, I ask you to pray in a particular way for priests and religious, for vocations to the priesthood and the consecrated life.

Praised be the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.

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