For a Eucharistic life

In his prayer intention for the month of July, “for a Eucharistic life”, Pope Francis invites the faithful to pray “that Catholics place at the centre of their lives the Eucharistic Celebration, which transforms human relationships and opens up an encounter with God and their brothers and sisters”.

The video, set in the U.S. city of Detroit, is interspersed with scenes from Holy Mass and three parishioners going out to their community to serve their neighbours in need, in their own way reciprocating the love and gift of self they had received in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. The Pope begins by affirming that “if you are the same at the end of Mass as you were at the beginning, something is wrong. The Eucharist”, he explains, “is the presence of Jesus, it is deeply transforming. Jesus comes and must transform you”. The Holy Father continues that “in the Eucharist, it is Christ [...] who gives himself for us” and Christ who “invites us, so that our lives may be nourished by Him and may nourish the lives of our brothers and sisters”.

The Pope explains that “the Eucharistic Celebration is an encounter with the Risen Christ” and also “a way of opening ourselves to the world as He taught us”. The Holy Father affirms that “each time we participate in the Eucharist, Jesus comes and [...] gives us the strength to love like He loved, because it gives us the courage to encounter others, to go out of ourselves, and to open ourselves to others with love”.

Commenting on this month’s prayer intention, Fr Frédéric Fornos, sj , Director of the Worldwide Prayer Network, calls attention to the number of times “we reduce the Mass to a ritual, the priest’s homily, or to receiving communion”. He explains that instead, “it is a personal and communal encounter with the Risen Lord” and he adds that “when we allow ourselves to be transformed by Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, we assimilate His way of living and we will want to share in His mission of compassion for the world”.

Available online at www.thepopevideo.org and translated into 23 languages, the video for the prayer intention for July was created and produced by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, in cooperation with La Machi Agency and the Dicastery for Communication.