has its source and culmination in the celebration of the Eucharist, that is, in communion with the Triune God and the unity among human persons that is realized in Christ through the Holy Spirit (IL #7, emphasis added).Later on, it reminds us that regular participation at Mass and regular reception of the Sacrament is the primary practical way that we embark on our journey of encounter with God and unity with our neighbours:
The Eucharistic assembly manifests and nourishes the missionary synodal life of the Church. In the participation of all Christians, in the presence of different ministries and the presidency of the bishop or priest, the Christian community is made visible, in which a differentiated co-responsibility of all for the mission is realized (#25).Highlighting the quality of our liturgical presence – not simply showing up to Mass, but looking to it as the most important way that we participate in a missionary, synodal Church (#12) – reminds me of Sacrosanctum Concilium's own famous expression of “the wish of the Church that all the faithful should be led to take that full, conscious, and active part in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (SC #14).
The People of God is never simply the sum of the baptised; rather, it is the ‘we’ of the Church, the communitarian and historical subject of synodality and mission, so that all may receive the salvation prepared by God (#3, emphasis added).We’re invited to see the People of God as the mystery, a real work and gift of God’s own saving presence in the world, at least insofar as Christians faithfully show the charity and truth of God. De Lubac puts it this way:
Grace which is produced and maintained by the sacraments does not set up a purely individual relationship between the soul and God or Christ; rather does each individual receive such grace in proportion as he is joined, socially, to that one body whence flows this saving life-stream….All the sacraments are essentially sacraments of the Church; in her alone do they produce their full effect, for in her alone, ‘the society of the Spirit’ is there…participation in the gift of the Spirit” (Catholicism, p. 82-83)The True Body of the Church, which bears and is bound together by the Sacrament of the Real Presence of Christ (the Eucharist), can therefore be the Sacrament of the True Body in the world, the means of “the salvific unity willed by God,” visible to the world (IL #9). Here is the sacramental basis for the IL’s vision of a missional Church.