Soon Ireland will host the 50th
International Eucharistic Congress,
just as the Church prepares to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of
the opening of the Second Vatican
Council. Drawing upon that great
contribution to the teaching of the
Church, the theme for the upcoming
congress will be,
"The
Eucharist: Communion with Christ and
with one another."
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin
explained that the theme was chosen
because the celebration of the
congress coincides with the 50th
anniversary of the inauguration of
Vatican Council II. Archbishop
Martin added that, the council was
a “moment of
renewal for the Church's teaching
and for her understanding of herself
as Body of Christ and Body of God,"
according to the announcement
from the pontifical committee.
"The theme has its direct
inspiration in paragraph 7 of the
Constitution 'Lumen gentium' which
reads: 'Really
partaking of the body of the Lord in
the breaking of the Eucharistic
bread, we are taken up into
communion with Him and with one
another. 'Because the bread is one,
we though many, are one body, all of
us who partake of the one bread'. In
this way all of us are made members
of His Body, 'but severally members
one of another,'" the
statement continued.
Archbishop Martin suggested that the
theme could be developed along the
lines of such topics as: “communion
with Christ as a foundation for
Christian life;
the Eucharist
as a way of life for clergy,
Christian families and religious
communities; the gesture of
'breaking bread' as a principle of
Christian solidarity;
the Eucharist, seed of life for the
world of suffering and fragility;
and ecumenism and the sharing of the
one bread."
