The Source and Summit of Social Teaching

“The Eucharist is the sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas here says something which so many saints throughout history, from the greatest of the canonized to the least of the lowly little ones, echo and intensify in their own lives. It is the eucharist which is the ultimate and fundamental sign of love. It is the witness of the Father’s great love for each of us, memorializing and making present Christ’s sacrifice and allowing us to participate in the same. Yet it is also the impetus to our own apostolic activity, the cause of our zeal and the desire of our hearts to do works of charity and bring justice to the world. It is truly the source and the summit of our interior life.

So many in the world today, and perhaps especially young people, have a great thirst for justice. We see it in those who have a heart for the developing world, for those affiliated with the LGBTQ+ movements, for those standing with and for Black lives and other oppressed groups. That hunger and thirst for justice, that commitment to equality and raising up the lowly, is not a sociological phenomenon. There is something written on the human heart which begs for justice to reign.

The deeper truth of that hunger, though, is not to see merely earthly equality, which in fact would fall far short of the longed-for peace of our hearts. Rather, what all people of good will are longing for is to see the Kingdom of God made manifest here below, in our earthly city, in our short lifespan. We yearn to see the whole world wiped clean of every tear, freed from every yoke of oppression. Yet saint Paul says it best, “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

If we want to see justice, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, and all other good gifts, we cannot simply fight an earthly battle, stage only an earthly protest, found merely an earthly organization. We find in the Eucharist an impetus to confront the deeper reality of suffering and injustice, and we are sustained by the medicine of immortality which allows us to fight for peace and transformation.

St. John Chrysostom challenges, “Do you wish to honor the Body of Christ? Do not ignore Him when He is naked.” Indeed, if our faith were only creed and confession, we would have a very stagnant belief. And yet, Pope St. John Paul II offers this as well, “If our Eucharistic worship is authentic, it must make us grow in awareness of the dignity of each person.” If our faith can be found in the distressing disguise of the poor, then we must also look upon the glorified wounds of the risen Christ to understand the true dignity of human persons, the true identity of each and the end for which all of us were created. Our apostolic activity, our work with the poor and vulnerable, must also lead us back to the Eucharist where we can be united to God in love and more closely to our brothers and sisters in a true bond of charity.

The love for souls and the worship of Christ cannot be divorced. To serve the least of our brothers and sisters, we must draw strength from the Eucharist, which sensitizes us to the needs of those who suffer and reminds us that they are one with us. And we must bear in mind that in working among the poor and vulnerable, that it is into communion that we are bringing them, reminding them of their own dignity and raising them up to their full stature as Sons and Daughters of God. The whole plan of Catholic Social Teaching – the dignity of the human person, the preferential option for the poor, the dignity of work and rights of workers, solidarity, care for creation – all of these are not ends in themselves but responses to our great commission and avenues of ministry and evangelization to continue the work of Christ.

The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love. It shows to us God’s love and plan for us, it bids us to go forth and share that love with the world, and it impels us to bring back with us all we serve so that they might share in that love as well. We must be willing to do as Jesus demanded in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet: “The feast is ready… Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find” (Matthew 22:8-9). May we be willing to allow our zeal to be transformed by Christ in the Eucharist and let all our good works be at the service of His transforming gospel.