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The Eucharist, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, is 'the source and summit of the Christian life'.1 Today, however, the number of the baptised receiving the Eucharist weekly has significantly decreased. Declining Mass attendance2 is unmistakable evidence that the Eucharist is not always a priority in the life of the baptised. This decline may suggest that many of the baptised do not regard the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life. Here one could list many valid reasons for the deficit in the understanding of the eucharistic celebration. Just to name only one: one's presence at Sunday Mass is often thought of as being more about the ritual reception of the Eucharist-that is, the minimal fulfilment of the Sunday obligation-than about an existential living out of the eucharistic gifts.3
However, deficient understanding of the Eucharist is also accompanied by Christological confusion. According to Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, 'Arianism was not just a historical theological chapter in the Church's history, but it still lives in the head of many Christians. Theologically, many baptized are still Arians'.4 This means that many Christians are happy to be caught up in the historical moral dimension of Jesus' existence, but that faith in the God-man Jesus Christ is still difficult for many. This deficient faith naturally affects understanding of the Eucharist. Concentration on the historical aspects of Jesus' life and actions must inevitably lead to the fact that the sacred in the symbols of the eucharistic celebration can no longer be perceived and understood.
Against this reduction of faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments proposes that the church develop a 'eucharistic spirituality' that is close to human existence and that can lead to an authentic liturgical celebration and experience, and in this manner avoid ritualism.5
But what does 'eucharistic spirituality' mean? In my opinion, this is a form of Christian life that is nourished and modelled after the Eucharist. According to Augustine, eucharistic spirituality includes a spiritual movement towards God (in deum), who makes himself tangible in the person of Jesus Christ.6 Because Christ gives himself completely to us by suffering, dying, and rising again and he nourishes our faith in the gifts...