At the General Audience the Pope talks about the prayer with which Jesus instituted the Eucharist
The food that gives strength
to those who are tired and bewildered
The Eucharist is the food of pilgrims which also becomes strength for those who are weary, worn-out and bewildered”. The Holy Father said this at the General Audience on Wednesday, 11 January, speaking of the prayer with which Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
With
his words and gestures at the Last Supper, the Pope recalled, Jesus shows “his
identity and his determination to fulfil his mission of total love to the very
end, of offering himself in obedience to the Father's will”. In this regard his
prayer for the disciples who were being put to the test “helps them to overcome
their weakness in their effort to understand that the way of God passes through
the Paschal Mystery of death and Resurrection, anticipated in the offering of
the bread and the wine”.
This prayer, the Pope underlined, that “Jesus prayed and prays ceaselessly for every person so that the evil which we all encounter in life may not get the upper hand and that the transforming power of Christ's death and resurrection may act within us”. By joining in this prayer and by participating in the Eucharist, which is its culmination, “we too can transform our own crosses into a free and responsible sacrifice of love for God and for the brethren, so that, “despite our weakness and our infidelity, our life may not be lost but rather be transformed”.
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