![]() ![]() Such a choice is personally motivated and promoted from within. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a conscious and free choice. For God has willed that man be left 'in the hand of his own counsel' (Sir 15:14), so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously. For its part, authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. We read in the Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council: "Our contemporaries make much of this freedom and pursue it eagerly, and rightly so. It is the principal trait of humanity and the source of human dignity. What this freedom is each of us knows to some extent, according to his own experience. We have a true vision of the man of our times and we speak truthfully of him, when, while remembering the physical hunger of millions of brothers, men of all continents, we intend to speak now of the hunger of the human soul, which is no less than the hunger for real freedom. He hungers according to the demands of this earth whose master he was made (cf. At the same time created from "the dust of the earth" (Gen 3:7) and placed among the creatures of the visible world, subjected to the laws of creation and even to some degree to the laws of nature (cf. "Our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee" (St Augustine, Confessions I, 1). Created in the image and likeness of God himself (Gen 1:26), man can find the final appeasement of his hunger and fulfilment of his desires in God alone. ![]() The Eucharist is the food which satisfies man's deepest hunger. has anointed me he has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release for all who are deprived of freedom" (cf. It is right to return to the words with which he described himself and his mission at the beginning of his work in Galilee: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he. Mk 3:14 Greek text), with the Eucharistic Jesus, in a special way. When we are gathered here in such numbers from all the parts of the world, it is therefore right to be with him (cf. He has instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood precisely in order to be, to be really and sacramentally (Trid. And again Jesus defines himself and his mission in the same way, for he had said to his disciples: "I am with you always, to the end of time." (Mt 28:20). This same Jesus Christ today faces us all, the People of the New Covenant, here on American soil, in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, where the Eucharistic Congress is taking place. And thus Israel, the People of the Old Covenant, is faced by the Messiah, by him whom the Father had "anointed with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 10:38) and "sent into the world" (Jn 3:17). By these words he reveals his messianic mission. Such were the words of Jesus on the day when, according to Saint Luke, at the age of thirty he arose in the synagogue of Nazareth, facing his fellow countrymen officially for the first time. ![]() "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me he has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release for prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." (Lk 4:18-19). The text appeared originally in the 18 November 1976 issue of this paper. We are reprinting the text of the homily delivered by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Archbishop of Krakow, during the International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, on 3 August 1976. THE EUCHARIST AND MAN'S HUNGER FOR FREEDOM ![]()
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