Introducing his reason for the document, the Holy Father writes:

I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic "amazement" by the present Encyclical Letter, in continuity with the Jubilee heritage which I have left to the Church in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte and its Marian crowning, Rosarium Virginis Mariae. To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the "program" which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization. (6)

For Pope John Paul II, Christ and Mary are inseparable, just as Christ and his Church are inseparable. This inseparable link is embodied in the Eucharist. He continues:

By proclaiming the Year of the Rosary, I wish to put this, my twenty-fifth anniversary, under the aegis of the contemplation of Christ at the school of Mary. Consequently, I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the "Eucharistic face" of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist. (7)

An entire chapter of the document is devoted to Mary, Woman of the Eucharist. Reference to Mary is found in thirteen of the sixty-two paragraphs of the encyclical (6, 7, 19, 25, 53-59, 62).