Pope Benedict's Westminster Cathedral Homily

From a theological point of view, the highlight of Pope Benedict's recent visit to the UK was his homily at Westminster Cathedral, in which he offered nothing less than an outline of a theology of Eucharistic sacrifice.

Christ's saving sacrifice can be seen under three aspects: the sacrifice of the Cross, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the ongoing presentation of the sacrifice of the Cross in the Heavenly Liturgy:

I would like to consider the word of God which has been proclaimed in our midst and reflect on the mystery of the Precious Blood. For that mystery leads us to see the unity between Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, the Eucharistic sacrifice which he has given to his Church, and his eternal priesthood, whereby, seated at the right hand of the Father, he makes unceasing intercession for us, the members of his mystical body.

The sacrifice of the Cross brings about the forgiveness of our sins, and also effects the flowing forth of the life of the incarnate Son into the Church where it finds liturgical expression (above all in the Mass):

The outpouring of Christ’s blood is the source of the Church’s life. St John, as we know, sees in the water and blood which flowed from our Lord’s body the wellspring of that divine life to the Hebrews draws out, we might say, the liturgical implications of this mystery.

Our own sufferings - our own crosses - themselves find liturgical expression in the Mass, and are a contunation of Christ's own Cross, which, as eternal high priest of the Heavenly Liturgy, He unites with His own sacrifice:

The Eucharistic sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ embraces in turn the mystery of our Lord’s continuing passion in the members of his Mystical Body, the Church in every age. Here the great crucifix which towers above us serves as a reminder that Christ, our eternal high priest, daily unites our own sacrifices, our own sufferings, our own needs, hopes and aspirations, to the infinite merits of his sacrifice.

Echoing the concluding words of the Eucharistic Prayer, Benedict explains that the sufferings of the Church and the sufferings of the Christian are essentially sacrificial - and, as such, liturgical - uniting us as they do with the threefold aspects of Christ's own sacrifice (the Cross, the Mass, the Heavenly Liturgy):

Through him, with him, and in him, we lift up our own bodies as a sacrifice holy and acceptable to God (cf Rom 12:1). In this sense we are caught up in his eternal oblation, completing, as St Paul says, in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the Church (cf Col 1:24). In the life of the Church, in her trials and tribulations, Christ continues, in the stark phrase of Pascal, to be in agony until the end of the world

Accordingly, when united with the sacrifice of Christ suffering of the faithful (of the sick, the disabled, the bereaved, the lonely, the disadvantaged) is not only sanctifying for the individual concerned, but sanctifying and sacrificial and redemptive for others, and, indeed, for the entire Church - precisely because it is, like the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacrifice of the Heavenly Liturgy, a continuation and prolongation of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross:

the mystery of Christ’s precious blood...is also present, often hidden in the suffering of all those individual Christians who daily unite their sacrifices to those of the Lord for the sanctification of the Church and the redemption of the world. My thoughts go in a special way to all those who are spiritually united with this Eucharistic celebration, and in particular the sick, the elderly, the handicapped and those who suffer mentally and spiritually.

Benedict's message is that suffering, when accepted and understood and consecrated in the right way, is, in effect, Eucharistic, inasmuch as it both draws its power from the Mass (which itself draws its power from the outpouring of Christ life and blood of Calvary) and participates in the sacrifice of the Mass precisely as a continuation of Christ's own sufferings (there is a strong echo here of St Catherine of Siena's idea that to be a Christian is to be "another Himself" - an extension of Christ).

Benedict's Westminster Cathedral homily provides not only an outline of the Catholic doctrines of salvation, the Mass, and redemptive suffering, but also the foundations for an understanding of asceticism, prayer, mystical theology, purgatory and the transference of merits, popular devotions (epecially the Divine Mercy, the Sacred Heart, the Precious Blood, veneration of the Blessed Sacrament), and much else besides.

The Holy Father has the gift of being able to pack a great deal of profound theological reflection into a short and easily understandable homily.