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Cardinal Robert Sarah reflected on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the meaning of the priesthood in a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica Saturday marking his 50th ordination anniversary.
“The priest lives joy in its fullness at Holy Mass, which is the raison d’être of his existence, what gives meaning to his life,” Sarah said in his homily at the Altar of the Chair on September 29, 2019.
“During the daily Mass the priest comes face to face with Jesus Christ and at that precise moment, he is identified, he identified himself with Christ, becoming not only an Alter Christus, another Christ, but he is really Ipse Christus, the same Christ,” he said. The Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said the inner life of a priest should center around three things: the cross, the Eucharist, and the Virgin Mary.
“According to St Josemaría Escrivà, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the vital spring of the priest, the pillar on which his priestly existence is built,” he said.
Sarah explained that the cross makes possible “the birth of divine life within us” and that the Virgin Mary watches over one’s spiritual development as a mother, who “educates us to grow in faith.”
“Without the Eucharist we cannot live,” he said. “Jesus reveals to us the secret of this heavenly food, that it is His very flesh that becomes nourishment to enable us to live from His own life, in the unheard-of intimacy of friendship with him.”
“In this Eucharist we entrust the Church and all priests to the maternal goodness of the Virgin Mary, our Mother and Mother of the Church,” he prayed.