Living Eucharist means realizing the Gospel in our everyday lives, with all the evangelical demands and contradictions.  For it is by identifying with the Jesus of the Gospels that we, first, manifest the reality of the Body which we become by sharing in the eucharistic food and, second, that we make a difference in the world.  In this context it is patently inconceivable that eucharistic living is anything but just living.  Righteousness and just actions are a fruit and measure of eucharistic living.

Just as Eucharist must be understood broader than an "unbloody sacrifice of the cross," so must Precious Blood spirituality be understood in terms broader than Jesus' shedding of his Precious Blood, as rich and implicit an image as that may be.  Indeed, Precious Blood spirituality is really just another paradigm for Eucharist.  They have parallel internal dynamics: Eucharist is the creating tension between Word and Food, between prophetic and messianic, between dying and rising, between losing and embracing, between doing and being, between covenantal meal and sacrificial memorial.  The Precious Blood marks a creating tension between violently spilled and lovingly poured out, between senselessly emptied and willingly filled, between ignoble death and eternal life, between the dead wood of the cross and the ever viable tree of life.

Both Eucharist and Precious Blood spirituality have their negative aspect that we humans wish to shun; they also have their positive aspect that we humans wish to encompass without also embracing that dying.  But this cannot be.  The only way to life is through death.

Precious Blood spirituality calls us to liminal ("on the edge") living.  This is no poetic reflection, but a clear statement of a challenging way to live.  Make no mistake about it: this is hardly a call to make dramatic changes in one's life.  There is more at stake than a shaking "conversion experience" that is really no more than the seed planted in sand and the shoot soon withers.  The creating tension of Precious Blood spirituality (and Eucharist) makes much greater and lasting demands on us: it demands that in whatever state in life or ministry we presently find ourselves, we always choose to do perfectly God's will, just as Jesus did.  Only in doing God's will is God's reign present.  Only in doing God's will is a peaceful and just humanity reborn.  Only in doing God's will does the seed of God's prophetic Word take root in good soil, and grow in a healthy shoot that feeds and nourishes.

Christ's new commandment is to love one another.  But lest we turn these words into innocuous fluff that we can ignore, Jesus also gave us the commandments to share a meal and wash other's feet.  Love, true Christian love, is always played out between surrendering ourselves to being filled by God and spending ourselves in emptying service.  Being filled and being emptied are the only ways to enter into the depths that Eucharist offers.  They are also the only ways to enter into living an authentic Precious Blood spirituality.  They are the only ways to love as God has first loved us.  This is our gift.  This is our identity.  This is our hope.  This is our challenge.

(Joyce Ann Zimmerman, C.PP.S., "A New Commandment: Eucharist as Loving, Eating and Drinking, and Serving", The Wine Cellar, February 1995, pp. 5-14)

REFLECTION

1.       How is Eucharist a paradigm for Precious Blood spirituality?

2.       How does this paradigm offer me a way of  "living Eucharist" -- ie." realizing the Gospel in my everyday life?