Sacramentum Pacis: The Eucharist as the Sacrament of Peace

Abstract

This paper will examine the nature of the Eucharist as a “sacrament of peace”, a sacrament by which the Christian believer is reconciled to Christ and the Church. While, properly-speaking, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the ordinary means of this activity, one sees that the Eucharist provides a healing balm for sin, enflames the soul with the fire of charity, and reveals itself as both a symbol of peace already realized and a sign of peace yet to come. This “sacrament of peace” bestows God’s peace to the Church, which, in turn, commissions the Christian to embody this peace through works of mercy and initiatives of justice. Through this, we see the social and missional implications for a community centered around the Eucharistic table. Helpful to this investigation will be the Eucharistic theology of the late Orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.