12th Step: Conclusion: A Eucharistic and Missionary Life

It is time to conclude our preparatory journey towards consecration to the Heart of Jesus with this twelfth and final step.

Consecration is for the sake of mission

Every consecration begins with a call from God for a setting apart. We see this with the vocation of the patriarchs, judges, and prophets in the Old Testament, as well as in the choice of the apostles in the New Testament. From the very beginning, this call is oriented towards a mission in service of the people of God.
The consecration itself is the work of God. As in any divine election, it is inseparable from the mission. In both the Old and New Testaments, whenever God calls, it is to send. There is no consecration without mission. This is particularly clear with the consecration of Jesus Himself, the Anointed One of God.

The Eucharistic analogy

In his letter to priests in 2005, the last one he wrote, John Paul II stated: “If the entire Church lives from the Eucharist, priestly existence must, in a special way, have a ‘Eucharistic form’. The words of the Institution of the Eucharist must therefore be for us not only a formula of consecration but also a ‘formula of life’.”
The term “consecration” first appeared in the history of the Church with Tertullian, in the context of the Eucharist, to express that the wine is changed into the Blood of Christ. It is God who consecrates.
Four essential elements of consecration are signified by the four verbs used: the bread is taken, blessed, broken, and given by Jesus. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying: “Take, eat; this is My Body” (Mt 26:26). We find these actions at the multiplication of the loaves, the institution of the Eucharist, and the pilgrims at Emmaus.
These correspond to the four stages of the Eucharistic liturgy, regardless of the time and rite: the offertory (He took it), the consecration (He blessed it), the breaking of the body (He broke it), and communion (and He gave it to them).
These represent the four mysteries of our lives:

• Mystery of election
• Mystery of blessing
• Mystery of the cross
• Mystery of mission

1. He took it
2. Every consecration begins with a personal experience of encounter with Christ who “seizes” individuals. Phil 3:12: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
   This is baptism! Reactivating the experience of the outpouring of the Spirit, the actualisation of the grace of baptism offered to every Christian.
3. Eph 1:4-6, 11: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. He predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.”
4. He blessed it
5. In humility, the total gift of oneself, including one’s weaknesses and poverty, and the deep conviction that without the Lord, one can do nothing (cf. Jn 15:5), the Lord can transform everything, as He did at the multiplication of the loaves (cf. Mk 6:37-44). It sufficed that a young man gave Him five loaves and two fish for a vast crowd to be fed.
6. Eph 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
7. He broke it
8. Just as Jesus broke the bread to share it with His disciples, so He breaks in those He calls what prevents them from giving themselves to the world and to others. Through these breakages, the Lord seeks to purify them in order to make them available for mission.
9. He broke St. Claude, St. Margaret Mary, Charles de Foucauld, Pierre Goursat…
10. He gave it to them
11. Election and consecration are for the sake of mission.
    Just as the baptised person does not consecrate themselves but is consecrated by the Lord, so they do not send themselves on mission: they are sent. Availability is therefore a natural consequence of consecration. One who declares to offer themselves unreservedly to the Lord can only be available to serve Him wherever He pleases, to do whatever pleases Him.

Thus concludes our preparatory journey of devotion to the Heart of Jesus…