By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Some eucharistic practices, including eucharistic adoration, have brought people closer to the real presence of Christ, but there may be some drawbacks to watch for, said some members of the Synod of Bishops.

Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini, papal vicar of Rome, said the discovery of eucharistic adoration has been "a key development," especially for youths, in establishing a relationship with that invisible reality of the divine.

He said the church has had to learn how to explain Christ's presence to people who live in a culture that does not understand reality unless it is visible.

"In the extended silence of adoration, (people) find a better opportunity of personal relationship with Christ and God the Father," he said in his Oct. 6 speech to the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. Portions of some speeches from the Oct. 2-23 synod were released by the Vatican.

French Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes said while eucharistic adoration has become very popular in France there were some dangers. He said adoration risked becoming too individualistic a practice in which the person could lose a sense of the church as a spiritual community.

He also warned that with eucharistic adoration "there is an absence of words." The church must make sure young people understand their faith and can express that faith, he said.

He also said eucharistic adoration could lead to a neglect "of the other different ways the risen Christ has real presence."

Bishop Perrier said adoration of the Eucharist does help prayer "escape the trap of introspection," because this form of adoration is seeing Christ "face to face." He said it probably became popular with so many young people because today's generation "cannot live without images."

"By looking at the host, certainly, we do not see Christ in his divinity or in his humanity, but we do fix our eyes on the most direct sign of his real presence," he said in his Oct. 6 talk.

Another synod member said the sign of the Eucharist needs to be made more "clearly visible" as the bread that becomes the body of Christ.

Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron of Agana, Guam, said perhaps "the church needs to restore the 'breadness' of the bread," by using the "unleavened bread used in the ancient and primitive church rather than the wafer-thin, mass-produced bread we use as hosts for our people today."

He said using signs that "fully and powerfully represent the reality they signify and not just approximate them" might lead the faithful to "better appreciate the Eucharist."

He said in his experience small faith communities more successfully grasped the faith.

In order to foster that sense of a close community, he suggested the priest take the Eucharist to seated people.

"What sort of a banquet does one go to which requires you to stand rather than sit?" Archbishop Apuron asked.

He said that, in the Gospels, St. Mark said "Christ served the apostles -- he did not ask or invite them to come up" in order to receive his body and blood.

The archbishop praised the Neocatechumenal Way in Guam and said he has witnessed "a remarkable growth in faith in the lives of thousands of people" who are part of this parish-based process of faith formation.

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops