The Eucharist and The End

Neil at CatholicSensibility links to an article about the Eucharist and martyrdom, focusing on archbishop Romero, reminding us that, in that the Eucharist is the celebration Christ's sacrifice and triumph over death:

The eucharist was essential for the early Christian martyrs, for it was seen as the foretaste of the heavenly banquet to which they were about to be called. Upon seeing the execution of Papylus and Carpus, the martyr Agathonica exclaimed, "For me too this dinner has been prepared, I too must eat my share of this glorious dinner." 15 For Romero, "Each priest killed is for me a new concelebrant in the eucharist of our archdiocese."16 The martyrs bridge the gap between earth and heaven by participating in the sacrifice of Christ on both the earthly and the heavenly altars. This gives us hope that the way things are is not the way things have to be or will be. Through Christ's sacrifice, the beginnings of the future heavenly kingdom have irrupted into human history. As Romero puts it, "Christ arisen has put in history's womb the beginning of a new world. To come to Mass on Sunday is to immerse oneself in that beginning, which again becomes present and is celebrated on the altar at Mass."
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The eucharist makes us look back to Calvary twenty centuries ago ... [b]ut it also looks ahead to the future, to the eternal, eschatological and definitive horizon that presents itself as a demanding ideal to all political systems, to all social struggles, to all those concerned for the earth. The church does not ignore the earth, but in the eucharist it says to all who work on earth: look beyond. Each time the Victim is lifted up at Mass, Christ's call is heard: "Until we drink it anew in my Father's kingdom." And the people reply: "Come, Lord Jesus."... Death is not the end. Death is the opening of eternity's portal. That is why I say: all the blood, all the dead, all the mysteries of iniquity and sin, all the tortures, all those dungeons of our security forces, where unfortunately many persons slowly die, do not mean they are lost forever.