¹ Deus Caritas Est paras 13 & 14. They are worth citing at length.

13. Jesus gave this act of oblation an enduring presence through his act of institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He anticipated his death and resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine, his very self, his body and blood as the new manna (c.f. Jn 6.31–33). The ancient world had dimly perceived that man's real food – what truly nourishes him as man – is ultimately the Logos, eternal wisdom: this same Logos now truly becomes food for us – as love. The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving. The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realised in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God's presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus' self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental “mysticism”, grounded in God's condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish.

14. Here we need to consider yet another aspect: this sacramental “mysticism” is social in character, for in sacramental communion I become one with the Lord, like all other communicants. As Saint Paul says, ‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor 10.17). Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. We become ‘one body’, completely joined in a single existence. Love of God and love of neighbour are now truly united: God incarnate draws us all to himself. We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist: there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us.

² Ratzinger, Joseph, Milestones, Memoirs 1927–1977, San Francisco 1998, p. 19–20Google Scholar.

³ The Feast of Faith, San Francisco 1986, p. 127ffGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 129, 135.

⁵ Guardini, Romano, The Spirit of the Liturgy, London 1935, p. 121Google Scholar.

⁶ Ibid., p. 141.

⁷ Ratzinger, J., The Spirit of the Liturgy, San Francisco 2000, p. 7Google Scholar.

⁸ Allen, John L., Cardinal Ratzinger, Continuum 2000, pp. 73–5Google Scholar.

⁹ The Feast of Faith, p. 71.

¹⁰ Milestones, p. 146ff.

¹¹ J. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 23.

¹² Originally published as ‘Gestalt und Gehalt der eucharistischen Feier’, Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift 6, 1977, pp. 385–96Google Scholar; Feast of Faith, pp. 33–60.

¹³ The Feast of Faith, p. 34.

¹⁴ Ratzinger, J., God Is Near Us: The Eucharist the Heart of Life, San Francisco 2003, pp. 42–55Google Scholar, quotation from p. 51.

¹⁵ God Is Near Us, pp. 56–73.

¹⁶ The Feast of Faith, p. 38f.

¹⁷ God Is Near Us, p. 61.

¹⁸ Though he acknowledges in Deus Caritas Est the validity of calling Eucharist ‘Agape’– see note 1 above.

¹⁹ The Feast of Faith, p. 41

²⁰ J. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 78.

²¹ See the remarks in Ratzinger, , Principles of Catholic Theology, San Francisco 1987, p. 288fGoogle Scholar.

²² J. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 168.

²³ The Feast of Faith, p. 125.

²⁴ J. Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 77.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 80.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 165f.