COMMENTARY: Without the priest, there is no Eucharist, and without the Eucharist, there is no Church.
By Father Roger Landry, EWTN News,
Father Roger Landry Father Roger Landry, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, has been appointed by the U.S. bishops a “National Eucharistic Preacher.”
The center of the Eucharistic revival, the three-year initiative of the Church in the United States, is obviously and appropriately the Eucharistic Jesus — the root, center, source and summit of the Christian life.
But as the Church celebrates on Aug. 4 the patron saint of parish priests, St. John Mary Vianney, it is a fitting time to focus on the indispensable importance of the priest in the Eucharistic life of the Church. Without the priest, there is no Eucharist, and without the Eucharist, there is no Church.
For the Eucharistic revival to spur the renewal of the Church, there is a need to strengthen the Eucharistic dimension of the priests we have and to pray to the Harvest Master for many more priestly laborers in his vineyard. …