The Eucharistic Christ, daily Bread of the Christian, is the most powerful cause of our sanctification and also the inexhaustible source of a dialogue that is total and constantly renewed.
But this dialogue, if it is to develop properly, needs to take place in the context of mutual work and production.
The humanization of nature by the work of man, the producer of bread and wine, is the ever-renewed presupposition for the divinization of workers through the Eucharist.
Working together is necessary for producing the matter of the sacrament. Its institution presupposes, throughout the holy history of Israel, the experience of human communion rooted in the transformation and humanization of nature through work.
The Eucharist, and above all daily Communion, signifies the increase of the supernatural charity of Christians. This is itself at the origin not purely and simply of their work but of more generous work, work that is therefore more rational and favors the earthly city and growth in productivity (which is indispensable from in view of the population explosion of the Third World).
To be specific: when in the course of working to produce more, a person opens himself to the Eucharist which is the final purpose of that production as well as the best means of obtaining it, his performance is vastly improved.
Man is all of a piece; his spiritual life enlightens his mind and strengthens his free will, thus resonating through all his earthly activity. Grace spurs him on to action and productive labor for the sake of others.
All things being equal, the sacramental grace of Communion and above all daily Communion most effectively launches people of our time upon a rational and generous program of work which is capable of rescuing whole nations from hunger, ignorance, misery, sickness, and, indirectly, from the arms race and nuclear war.
The Eucharist is a symbol of productive labor. The matter of the Eucharistic sacrifice speaks of temporal production already achieved today within the framework of the three sectors of the economy: agriculture supplies wheat and grapes, industry the machines which transform these into bread and wine, and services coordinate their distribution.
Father Bertrand de Margerie, S.J., (+2003) was a French Jesuit priest and a renowned theologian.
