Passionate love for Christ leads to...

3. "When the ecclesial Community celebrates the Eucharist, especially on Sunday the Day of the Lord, it experiences in the light of the faith the value of the encounter with the Risen Christ and is ever more aware that the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is 'of many' (Matthew 26:28).

"We who nourish ourselves with the Body and Blood of the crucified and risen Lord, cannot keep this gift' to ourselves; on the contrary we must share it.

"Passionate love for Christ leads to courageous proclamation of Christ; proclamation which, with martyrdom, becomes a supreme offering of love for God and for mankind.

"The Eucharist leads us to be generous evangelizers, actively committed to building a more just and fraternal world.

"I sincerely hope the Year of the Eucharist will inspire every Christian community to respond with 'fraternal solicitude to some of the many forms of poverty present in our world' (Mane Nobiscum Domine, 28), because by our mutual love and, in particular, by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ (cf. John 13:35; Matthew 25:31-46).

"This will be the criterion by which the authenticity of our Eucharistic celebrations is judged (Mane Nobiscum Domine, 28).

"Missionaries, bread broken for the life of the world."

from a message for World Mission Sunday (Oct. 23, 2005)
written by Pope John Paul II Feb. 22, 2005
released by the Vatican yesterday