The Great Exchange

"But from farthest east to farthest west my name is great among the nations, and everywhere incense and a pure gift are offered to my name, since my name is great among the nations, says Yahweh Sabaoth" (Malachi 1:11).

If the first and most fundamentalal truth that must be believed about the Eucharist is that Jesus Christ is truly and substantially present to us in the Blessed Sacrament, we must next consider why exactly He has made Himself present in this manner. After all, Christ can (and often does) manifest His presence in a variety of ways in our lives--and yet it is this Sacrament which the Church calls "the source and summit of the Christian life." Why, then, does Christ choose to come to us hidden under the appearances of bread and wine?

To Fulfil the Law
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says to His hearers, "Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them." Many people suppose that through Jesus' sacrificial death on the Cross, that He did away with sacrifices. This idea is only partly correct. The fact is that Jesus completed in Himself everything that the Old Testament sacrifices meant and pointed toward. Jesus came to be our ultimate sacrifice, and it is for this reason that He comes to us hidden under the forms of Bread and Wine, and bids us to eat Him.

For many Christians, the connection between Christ's sacrificial death and the Eucharist is not immediately apparent. They have been led to believe that the culmination of the Old Testament sacrifices was the death of the bull or goat or lamb. But this is only half the story of sacrifice.

Christ Our Pasch
The New Testament makes it plain that Christ's death was a sacrifice for our sins. This fact is brought out clearly when St. John the Baptists calls Him "the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). The fact that Jesus is crucified on the feast of the Passover is not simply coincidence, but rather is filled with significance. St. John notes this significance several times, such as when he refers to the fact that none of Jesus' bones were broken, referring to the law regarding selecting the Passover lamb. He reinforces the point again when he comments that it was a hyssop branch on which Jesus was offered the sour wine--hyssop being the plant used to apply the blood on the doorposts at Passover. In 1 Corinthians 5:6, St. Paul makes things perfectly clear: "For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ." Examples could be multiplied like loaves and fishes.

The Jewish Passover, then, becomes the key touchpoint for understanding Jesus' sacrifice. The original Passover involved the killing of a lamb, and spreading its blood on the doorposts of one's home, in order that the firstborn son might not die when the angel of death passed by. Jesus, as our Paschal Lamb, is crucified for us, having His blood spread on the "doorpost" of the Cross, in order to expiate our sins, bringing us out of slavery to sin and reconciling us to God. And for many Christians, that is the end of the sacrifice, and as such, Jesus' coming to us in the Eucharist makes very little sense.

Keeping the Feast
Had you been a Hebrew in Egypt at the first Passover, and dutifully followed Moses' instructions to kill a lamb and smear its blood on the doorposts of your house, and then gone to bed thinking that all would be well, you would have woken up far more than sadly mistaken. You would have been bereaved. God was very specific when He gave the instructions for the Passover sacrifice. It is laid out for us in Exodus 12. Verses 1 to 7 speak of the selection and slaughter of the lamb, and about spreading the blood on the doorposts. But it goes on from there. Verse 8 says very clearly: "That night, the flesh must be eaten, roasted over the fire; it must be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs" (emphasis mine). In fact, the next three verses give very detailed instructions about how the lamb must and must not be eaten, and verses 13 and 14 lay out the benefits of doing so, or the implied penalty of disobedience.

That is, the feast is integral to the sacrificial process. It was not enough for the Israelites to simply kill the lamb; they had to eat it, as well. In fact, if the lamb was too much for one household to consume, they had to join with another household to make sure all of it was eaten. This principle holds true for essentially every Old Testament sacrifice. This is why St. Paul writes "Now compare the natural people of Israel: is it not true that those who eat the sacrifices share the altar?" (1 Corinthians 10:18). The slaughter of the animal was for the expiation of sin, but the eating of the animal was how one appropriated that expiation to himself.

If Christ is our Passover Sacrifice, then it becomes clear why He chooses to come to us under the appearances of Bread and Wine. His emphatic statements in John 6, that unless one eats His flesh and drinks His blood, that one has no life in him, but whoever does eat His flesh and drink His blood has eternal life (cf. John 6:51, 53-56), suddenly take on greater import when we recognise that this eating Him is the very means by which we must participate in the salvation He purchased for us on the Cross. It was Jesus' real flesh and blood that He gave up for us on Calvary, and of that flesh He says, "My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink" (John 6:56). Jesus again makes this clear when He instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, saying, "This is My body given for you," and "Drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Luke 22:19; Matthew 26:27-28). Through the Eucharist, we enter into Christ's redeeming sacrifice on Calvary, and appropriate to ourselves the graces He won for us.

A Massive Sacrifice
Earlier, I mentioned that St. Paul explicitly refers to Christ as our Passover Sacrifice. In chapter 5 of his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes to excoriate a particular member of the congregation for his incestuous lifestyle, and rebukes the whole church for tolerating this behaviour. He compares sin in the congregation to yeast in a lump of dough, and recalls the injunction of the Passover, that the feast should be eaten with only unleavened bread:

Your self-satisfaction is ill founded. Do you not realise that only a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Throw out the old yeast so that you can be the fresh dough, unleavened as you are. For our Passover has been sacrificed, that is, Christ; let us keep the feast, then, with none of the old yeast and no leavening of evil and wickedness, but only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:6-8)

In his instructions on excommunication, Paul ties that notion directly to Christ our Pasch, and commands us to keep the New Passover with sincerity and truth. He ties the sacrificial meal together with the Crucifixion.

He is even more specific about the Eucharist being a sacrifice in chapter 10 of the same epistle, which I quoted in brief above. In warning against idolatry, and specifically knowingly eating food sacrificed to idols in order to share in the worship of those idols, St. Paul draws a direct analogy between sharing in pagan sacrifices, sharing in Old Testament sacrifices, and sharing in the Eucharist:

For that reason, my dear friends, have nothing to do with the worship of false gods. I am talking to you as sensible people; weigh up for yourselves what I have to say. The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? And as there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we all share in the one loaf. Now compare the natural people of Israel: is it not true that those who eat the sacrifices share the altar? What does this mean? that the dedication of food to false gods amounts to anything? Or that false gods themselves amount to anything? No, it does not; simply that when pagans sacrifice, what is sacrificed by them is sacrificed to demons who are not God. I do not want you to share with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons as well; you cannot have a share at the Lord's table and the demons' table as well. Do we really want to arouse the Lord's jealousy; are we stronger than he is? (1 Corinthians 10:14-22)

St. Paul really couldn't be much more explicit. We share in Christ's sacrifice on the Cross when we partake of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. The writer of the Book of Hebrews again makes this sacrificial aspect clear at the close of his epistle:

Remember your leaders, who preached the word of God to you, and as you reflect on the outcome of their lives, take their faith as your model. Jesus Christ is the same today as he was yesterday and as he will be for ever. Do not be led astray by all sorts of false doctrines: it is better to rely on grace for inner strength than to rely on food, which has done no good to those who concentrate on it. We have our own altar from which those who serve in the Tent have no right to eat. The bodies of the animals whose blood is taken into the sanctuary by the high priest for the rite of expiation are burnt outside the camp, and so Jesus too suffered outside the gate to sanctify the people with his own blood. Let us go to him, then, outside the camp, and bear his humiliation. There is no permanent city for us here; we are looking for the one which is yet to be. Through him, let us offer God an unending sacrifice of praise, the fruit of the lips of those who acknowledge his name. (Hebrews 13:7-15)

The author is contrasting the Jewish Law and sacrificial liturgy, with its emphasis on clean and unclean animals for sacrifice, with the New Law of Grace. We don't need to focus on sacrificing and eating clean animals, for we have a better Food which those who offer the Jewish sacrifices have no right to eat--Jesus Christ. Against the Judaizers, he exhorts the Hebrew Christians to pursue Christ "outside the gates"--that is, according to the New Covenant, and to offer God the sacrifice of praise through Christ, that is, we offer God Christ's own sacrifice, and unite ourselves to it, in order that we may offer ourselves with Christ, as St. Paul says, "as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God" (Romans 12:1).

The above passage from Hebrews gives a brief outline of the Mass, which is the liturgical setting for the Eucharistic Sacrifice. In it, we have the Word of God proclaimed and preached, and then we offer to God the bread and wine, with our tithes and our whole selves. When the priest prays the prayers of consecration, God accepts our offering of thanksgiving to Him, and in exchange, Jesus makes Himself present to us in the Bread and Wine which become His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. He offers Himself to us, and we are united to Him in His once-for-all Sacrifice on Calvary, as we appropriate the grace given to us in the Crucifixion, and in Him, with Him, and through Him, offer ourselves up to God as adopted members of His Family through the Blood of the New Covenant, in what Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, calls the Great Exchange.

A Missive Sacrifice
This is why, as I said at the beginning of this article, the Church refers to the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life. Because Christ is truly present in the Eucharistic elements, and through Communion we participate in His eternal offering of Himself to the Father, and apply His sacrifice to our lives, the Sacrament truly is our Salvation. It truly is the beginning of all our love and labour as Christians, and the focus toward which all our faith and our work is oriented. In this act of uniting our entire selves with Christ, meaning is given to all the disparate threads of our everyday existence. Our job, our marriages, our commutes, our joys, and even our sorrows and sufferings take on a redemptive value in their union with and participation in the Sacrifice of Christ. About this, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,

The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ's sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.

In the catacombs the Church is often represented as a woman in prayer, arms outstretched in the praying position. Like Christ who stretched out his arms on the cross, through him, with him, and in him, she offers herself and intercedes for all men. (#1368)

This is what St. Paul is talking about when he instructs us to be living sacrifices (cf. Romans 12:1), and why he can write to the Colossian Church, "It makes me happy to be suffering for you now, and in my own body to make up all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church" (Colossians 1:24).

In the offering up of each and every aspect of our lives, we are able to redeem the time. Nothing that we do or suffer is wasted if we bring it to God in the Mass. Our suffering even becomes a powerful form of intercessory prayer as it is united to the infinite merits of Christ. And in return, we receive grace through the Sacrament to become more like Christ and to bring His light back into the world from which we came. This is the focus of the Mass--to be filled with grace in order to bring the Lord we have just received into the world which so desperately needs Him. The very term "Mass" is taken from the dismissal in Latin, "Ite, missa est." We are sent out (missa) "to love and to serve the Lord." Thanks be to God!

"In Remembrance of Me"
From Luther onward, Protestants have been essentially uniform in their denial of the sacrificial component of the Eucharist. While one denomination to the next has varying understandings of the meaning of the Lord's Supper, its meaning and its practice, that it is most assuredly not a sacrifice is something they all hold in common, despite the clear teaching of Scripture as outlined above. The source of the Protestant's difficulty with this teaching is the idea that if the Eucharist is truly Christ, and is actually a sacrifice, then Christ must be being repeatedly sacrificed at every Mass. Essentially, we would be re-crucifying Christ, which the Bible equates with the gravest of sins. Moreover, since Hebrews clearly states that Christ died once and can die no more, and that His offering was complete and there is no more need of other sacrifices (cf. Hebrews 9:25; 10:11-18), it seems Scripture is clearly against the notion that the Mass is a sacrifice.

However, to come to this conclusion is to simply misunderstand what the Mass is, and what the sacrifice of the Eucharist entails. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, He said to "Do this in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22:19, cf. 1 Corinthians 11:25). What Christ meant by that instruction is the key to understanding what the Sacrifice of the Mass is. This will be the subject of our next article.

God bless
Gregory


(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)

"Hoc est enim Corpus Meum"

"I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.
Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;
and the bread that I shall give
is my flesh, for the life of the world....
"For my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink" (John 6:51, 55).

The first and most important truth that we must believe about the Eucharist is precisely that It is Jesus Christ Himself. Every other fact, every other aspect, every belief and devotion surrounding the Blessed Sacrament is centred on this basic reality: that what once was bread and wine, after the words of consecration are pronounced by the priest, have now been substantially changed into the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the risen and glorified Jesus Christ. At the moment when the priest of God invokes the Holy Spirit and prays over the gifts with the words of Christ Himself, "This is My Body...This is My Blood," the bread and wine cease to be, and instead are changed into Jesus Himself.

Substantially Present...
Now, I say that the bread and wine are substantially changed, because, to all outward appearances, what one sees, smells, touches, and tastes is still bread and wine. However, on a deeper level (dubbed "substance" in Aristotelian physics), that which makes bread, bread, and wine, wine, has been done away with, and in its place is the very Substance of the God-Man. This is the fundamental mystery of the Eucharist--that Jesus makes Himself present and yet hides Himself in such an extraordinary way.

This mystery is what the Church officially refers to as "Transubstantiation", a term coined by Hildebert de Lavardin, Archbishop of Tours, (c. 1100), and given a thorough definition by St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas was renouned for how he took the best of Aristotle's philosophical thought and "baptised" it by showing how it was compatible with Catholic theology on many points. His masterpiece, the Summa Theologica, is a great example of this synthesis. So is the concept of Transubstantiation. According to Aristotle's view of the world, things were composed of "substance" and "accidents". "Substance" refers to what a thing is, in and of itself. "Accidents" refer to the particular qualites that make up or describe a particular substance. For example, birds come in all shapes, sizes, colours, and so forth. Yet the substance of "bird" is common to them all, whether the particular bird is black, blue, red, or so forth. A canary and an ostrich share the same substance of "bird" although their accidents are drastically different. On the other hand, an ostrich does not share the substance of "canary" with the canary. The average airspeed of an unladen swallow is an accident, as is whether it is African or European.

If that's even remotely clear (this site might help), what has it got to do with the Eucharist? Well, since the very beginning of Christianity, the Church has taught that Jesus really meant what He said when He said, "This is My body." Christians believed that even though they still saw bread, that it had been transformed into His flesh. It requires a very profound act of faith to embrace something that one's senses clearly reject, and for centuries the Church puzzled over exactly how to understand and explain the mystery of Jesus' bodily presence, yet the appearance of bread and wine. St. Thomas' understanding of Aristotle's categories gave us the notion of Transubstantiation. Unlike most changes in material things, where the accidents change but the substance remains the same; and even unlike other miraculous changes, such as Jesus' turning water into wine, where both the substance and the accidents are changed, in the Eucharist, the accidents of bread and wine remain, but the substance of bread and wine are changed into the substance of Jesus Christ. That is, that underlying reality that makes Jesus, Jesus--typically formulated as His "Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity" become present under the appearances of bread and wine.

...not Physically Present
As a theory of the Eucharistic Mystery, Transubstantiation dated back to the late 11th or early 12th Century, and the term was widely used by the time the 13th Century rolled around, even being used at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. However, it was not until Protestant challenges to the doctrine that the term and its Thomistic understanding were officially promulgated at the Council of Trent. Nevertheless, the belief that the term was attempting to describe, namely, that Jesus Christ was truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the Eucharistic elements, goes all the way back, as I said, to the Early Church. This is illustrated by the fact that one of the earliest and principle accusations against the Early Christians by their persecutors, was the charge of Cannibalism. This charge was indicative that Christians were practicing and proclaiming a belief that went beyond a simple memorial meal with symbolic associations to the Saviour's death. Such memorial meals existed in other, pagan religions. The oddity was the Christians' insistence that this was, indeed, more than simply a symbolic association with Jesus, but that they were, in fact, eating Him.

As such, the initial response that Christians are cannibals seems justified. Even the Jewish hearers of Jesus' preaching reacted with similar disgust and abhorence when Jesus proclaimed that He would indeed give His flesh and blood to His followers to eat, and that by eating it, they would be united to Him, and have eternal life (cf. John 6:51ff.). We'll examine Jesus' words in the Bread of Life Discourse, and other relevant Scripture regarding the Eucharist later in this post. For now I'll simply offer a rebuttal to the charge of cannibalism.

Cannibalism involves the killing and eating of another person in order to gain certain attributes of that person. While on the one hand, we do receive grace from the Sacraments--that is, we receive God's life and strength to enable us to live more holy lives--the difference between consuming the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist lies in the fact that Christ's flesh and blood, while truly and substantially present, are not physically present, in the manner in which they were when Jesus Christ walked the streets of Galilee with His Apostles. This fact is illustrated in the official writings of the Church, which, though stressing the reality of Christ's presence, and that He is present "Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity," they are very careful not to describe this presence with the term "physical". We are not carving up Jesus and devouring Him piecemeal in the Eucharist. Rather, He makes Himself fully present in each and every particle of each and every Host, and in each and every drop of sacramental wine. In fact, on those rare occasions throughout history, known as "Eucharistic Miracles", when the Bread and Wine are actually physically changed into Jesus' flesh and blood, they are not consumed for this very reason--Catholics are not cannibals!

The Witness of Scripture
On my journey into the Catholic faith, I was very invested in what the Bible had to say, having come from a Protestant background that stressed that the Bible alone was our sole authority. While as a Catholic, I no longer believe in Sola Scriptura, I still absolutely believe that it is the inspired Word of God, and as such, is an integral source for knowing and living our faith. Moreover, since many of the people who object to the Church's teaching of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, are themselves Protestant, it is absolutely important to know what the Bible has to say on this topic.

What never ceases to amaze me, when turning to the Scriptures regarding this topic, is the overwhelming testimony to the truth of the Catholic claims. I say this is amazing, because on the one hand, so many who claim to go "by the Bible alone" reject out of hand the clear teaching of Scripture, and, on the other hand, the Scriptural teaching on the Eucharist just couldn't get any clearer! For the purposes of this article, I will examine three or four passages that speak most clearly about Jesus' Real Presence.

1 Corinthians 10:16

The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?

We'll examine 1 Corinthians 10 at greater length in the next article, on the Eucharist as Sacrifice, but foundational to the concept that the Eucharist is Christ's sacrifice re-presented for us is the truth that the Eucharist is truly Christ Himself. And just as in the Old Testament sacrificial system, the people participated in the effects of the sacrifice by consuming the victim (cf. v. 18), so we in the New Covenant participate in the salvific power of Christ's sacrifice by our participation in the Eucharist--by eating the flesh and blood of the Lamb of God.

1 Corinthians 11:23-32 (cf. Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-20)

For the tradition I received from the Lord and also handed on to you is that on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and after he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' And in the same way, with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.' Whenever you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup; because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation. That is why many of you are weak and ill and a good number have died. If we were critical of ourselves, we would not be condemned, but when we are judged by the Lord, we are corrected by the Lord to save us from being condemned along with the world.

After his brief discussion of the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist in chapter 10, St. Paul returns to discussing the Eucharist in chapter 11, rebuking the church at Corinth for their lack of reverence and charity when they partake of the Lord's Supper. He goes on to remind them that the Eucharist is not simply a communal meal among believers, but a sacred event. The tradition, he says, was directly revealed to him by Jesus Himself. Either this occurred at some point after his conversion, not recorded in Acts, or perhaps his statement is a testament to the authority of the Church in ordaining him to proclaim the Gospel and celebrate the Eucharist (cf. Luke 10:16). In any case, he emphasises the absolute primacy of this Tradition.

Paul then gives us the oldest account of the Institution Narrative in Scripture (since 1 Corinthians was written earlier than the Synoptic Gospels). Jesus' words of institution again reaffirm the reality of His presence, for He says quite clearly, "This is My body...This is My blood." In order to bring that point home, Paul warns us that partaking of the Eucharist unworthily is tantamount to murdering Jesus: we are "answerable for the body and blood of the Lord" (v. 27)--a legal phrase meaning to be guilty of homicide.

He concludes by explaining just what it means to partake unworthily--that is, they do not recognise the Presence of Christ in the meal, and do not act with charity toward others in the congregation. The two great commandments then find their fullest expression in the Eucharist--and failure to obey them in this setting leads to dire consequences: sickness and death (vv. 29-30). Such dire consequences are hardly appropriate for a symbolic ceremony, but make perfect sense if, in fact, by partaking unworthily, a person is indeed guilty of an equivalent crime to the recrucifixion of Christ!

John 6 (Don't worry, I won't be quoting the entirety here)

After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee--or of Tiberias--and a large crowd followed him, impressed by the signs he had done in curing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside and sat down there with his disciples. The time of the Jewish Passover was near...
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were sitting there; he then did the same with the fish, distributing as much as they wanted...
Jesus answered: 'In all truth I tell you, you are looking for me not because you have seen the signs but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat. Do not work for food that goes bad, but work for food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of man will give you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.'
Then they said to him, '...Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them manna from heaven to eat.'
Jesus answered them: 'In truth I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; for the bread of God is the bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.'...
'I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that a person may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.'
Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus replied to them: 'In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me. This is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.'
This is what he taught at Capernaum in the synagogue. After hearing it, many of his followers said, 'This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?' Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, 'Does this disturb you? What if you should see the Son of man ascend to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the outset who did not believe and who was to betray him. He went on, 'This is why I told you that no one could come to me except by the gift of the Father.' After this, many of his disciples went away and accompanied him no more.
Then Jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want to go away too?' Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.' (vv. 1-4, 11, 26-28a, 31-33, 48-69)

John 6 is perhaps the clearest and most explicit biblical statement about the Eucharist being the Flesh and Blood of Jesus. The fact is, He couldn't be any more clear. The narrative begins with the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. Just in case we are tempted to divorce the event from the Eucharist, St. John gives us two pointed indicators. First, in verse four, he seems to randomly point out that it was almost time for Passover, the same feast on which Jesus would institute the Eucharist. Second, when St. Andrew (whose feast we celebrate today) brings the boy who gives Jesus the five loaves and two fish, John describes Jesus distributing them with the Eucharistic formula of "took, blessed, broke, and gave" (cf. Matt 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 24:30; 1 Cor 11:23-24). This formula is used in every case where Jesus is described as celebrating the Eucharist, and its usage in all the accounts of the feeding of the five thousand led the Early Christians to interpret a Eucharistic significance to that miracle. As such, John is clearly alluding to the connection between Jesus' teaching, and the Blessed Sacrament, as if such pointed "wink, wink; nudge, nudge" behaviour was necessary.

Even after all the signs that Jesus has performed, including feeding the five thousand, the people still demand a sign, and specifically refer to the Manna that came from heaven that their ancestors ate in the desert. This reference to the Manna prompts Jesus' Bread of Life discourse, the first half of which deals with the reference to "coming from heaven" and the second half stressing that the Bread from Heaven who is Jesus is to be eaten. Jesus calls Himself the Bread of Life, the Bread of Heaven, or some such derivitave a total of twelve times, and reiterates that this Bread is His flesh, and must be eaten, a staggering four times. And each time He becomes more emphatic, and His words become more and more obviously literal, and less possible to interpret metaphorically.

And His audience realises this. They begin to complain that His teaching is difficult and His language is intolerable. They know He's not playing word-games. In fact, because of His teaching, they actually stop following Him. Now, at other times in His ministry, when Jesus' hearers misunderstood Him, He took the time to correct them--or at least to set His Apostles straight (cf. Matt 16:5-12). However, now that He's placed eternal life or eternal condemnation on the table, Jesus surely would not let even those considered His disciples to walk away over a simple misunderstanding. But He did let them walk away--because they understood Him perfectly well.

Many, wanting to deny the clear and obvious meaning of this text try to find some way to foist a figurative interpretation onto Jesus' incredibly literal words. They try to compare it to other statements, such as "I am the Vine, and you are the branches" or "I am the Light of the world." The difference, however, is that in those other cases, the figurative meaning makes sense: We do derive all our life and ability to be good from Jesus; and His teaching and His grace does expose and free us from the darkness of sin and error. But the metaphorical meaning of eating one's flesh and drinking one's blood, in ancient Palestine, meant to attack someone. As Fr. John A. O’Brien explains in his book, The Faith of Millions, "The phrase 'to eat the flesh and drink the blood,' when used figuratively among the Jews, as among the Arabs of today, meant to inflict upon a person some serious injury, especially by calumny or by false accusation. To interpret the phrase figuratively then would be to make our Lord promise life everlasting to the culprit for slandering and hating him, which would reduce the whole passage to utter nonsense" (p. 215). The prophet Micah gives a graphic example of this usage:

Then I said,
'Kindly listen, you leaders of the House of Jacob,
you princes of the House of Israel.
Surely you are the ones who ought to know what is right,
and yet you hate what is good and love what is evil,
skinning people alive, pulling the flesh off their bones,
eating my people's flesh, stripping off their skin,
breaking up their bones, chopping them up small
like flesh in the pot, like meat in the stew-pan?' (Micah 3:1-3)

The other "out" that those trying to foist a figurative interpretation on the text try to use is John 6:63, where Jesus says, "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." This, they say, means that eating Jesus' flesh isn't literal, because it would avail nothing. Rather, Jesus' words are "spiritual", which they try to make mean "metaphorical." But holding this view leads to several problems. First, "spiritual" is never used in Scripture to mean "figurative". Second, it would mean that Jesus' Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection meant nothing, for these were all physical acts where Jesus took on flesh, and through that, brought about our redemption! Finally, we'd be understanding the passage to mean that Jesus had just said that it's faith in His teaching, not the Eucharist, that brings life. But what was His teaching? What were His life-giving words? That we must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Jesus' words only bring us life if we obey them (cf. Matt. 7:21-27)! To avoid the clear, literal teaching of John 6 by making it figurative is to reduce the text to an enormous, non-sensical bundle of contradictions.

The fact is, it is the Spirit that gives life--the Spirit of faith. Our fleshly, worldly reliance on human reason can do us no good when we approach the sacred mysteries. While our reason is good, and can lead us to much truth, there comes a time when it reaches the end of its ability, and we must trust in faith on the revelation of Jesus--and the Eucharist is a prime example of just such a time.

The Witness of the Church Fathers
Before I conclude, I wanted to offer a few quotations from the Early Church Fathers, to verify what I said above, that belief in Jesus' Real Presence goes back to the earliest time of Christianity. This seems obvious from the fact that it is so clear in Scripture, and yet reading the unanimous testimony of the Church's Tradition further bolsters our faith in this mysterious Sacrament.

One of the earliest witnesses is St. Ignatius, who himself knew John the Apostle. Writing against certain heretics in AD 110, he says, "Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1).

In his First Apology (66), St. Justin Martyr writes about 40 years later, "We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus."

Lest I bore you, dear reader, with the length of this post, I'll limit myself to one more quotation before I conclude. In the most intimate terms, St. Clement of Alexandria writes toward the end of the second century, "'Eat my flesh,' [Jesus] says, 'and drink my blood.' The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3).

Examples could be multiplied. For a good starting place, I'd recommend reading the Catholic Answers tract, The Real Presence, from which the above quotations were drawn.

Conclusion: An Intimate Encounter
St. Clement's words above reveal something of the intimacy inherent in the Eucharist. Jesus Christ is not only truly present to us in the Eucharist, but we partake of Him, we eat Him, and are nourished by His very life--Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. There are many, including myself, who have likened this intimate union to the marriage act, but indeed, it goes even deeper than that.

Ultimately, when we partake of the Eucharist, as St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, we are doing in a fully efficacious way what the Israelites did when they ate the victim of their animal sacrifices. We are uniting ourselves to the Sacrifice of Christ, and appropriating it to our own lives. We are accepting Him as our "personal Lord and Saviour" every time we receive Him. This sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist will be the theme of our next article.

God bless,
Gregory
Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle

(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)

The Source and Summit

In the famous vision of St. John Bosco (depicted in the painting that is the background for this blog), the Catholic Church is seen as a great boat on stormy seas. On all sides it is being attacked by enemies, fignting against the great ship with an array of weapons, ranging from actual armaments such as cannons, to things like books and pamphlets. Indeed, in the world today we see both actual physical violence, and intellectual and psychological weaponry employed in the assault on Catholics and the Church. However, the Pope steers the Barque of Peter toward two giant columns emerging from the stormy sea. The first and larger column has above it a great Eucharistic Host, and a sign saying "Salus Credentium". The second, smaller column has a statue of the Blessed Virgin surmounting it, with the inscription, "Auxilium Christianorum." It is when the Church is safely moored to these two columns that the sea becomes calm and She is victorious over her enemies.

By my recent series of articles on the Blessed Virgin Mary, I hope I helped strengthen that anchor to the smaller pillar, "The Help of Christians." Through my writings on the Blessed Sacrament, I hope to help us acheive a greater knowledge of, and love for, the Eucharist--truly, "The Salvation of the Faithful." And it is no exaggeration to refer to the Eucharist as our salvation, for truly, hidden under the appearances of Bread and Wine is our Saviour, truly present to us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It is through our act of Holy Communion that we are able to participate in His once-for-all Death on Calvary and appropriate to ourselves the Grace of Redemption which He purchased for us. This is the sacrifice and sacrament of the New Covenant, by which we celebrate with thanksgiving our adoption as Sons and Daughters of God. It is our spiritual Food and Drink, sustaining our souls in sanctifying grace, and making us more like Jesus Himself until we come to inherit the promise of eternal life--as He Himself promised us: "I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (John 6:51, NJB).

As such, the Holy Eucharist truly is the source and the summit of the Christian life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (nos. 1324-1327) expresses it thus:

The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch."

"The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit."

Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.

In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking."

In other words, in the Eucharist, we have the foundation and reason for every other aspect of the Church's life, and the goal to which every action and thought should be oriented as Christians, because in the Eucharist, we have Jesus Christ Himself, and the opportunity for the most intimate union with Him possible this side of Heaven.

The greatest tragedy in the Church, I believe, is that so many either do not realise this great gift, or else they out-and-out deny that it is true. When I was a Pentecostal, the thought that Jesus could be truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the "Lord's Supper", was preposterous, bordering on blasphemous. It seemed an obvious thing that He was being metaphorical at the Last Supper. Communion was only a commemoration of His sacrifice, and, lest its meaning be diminished through over-frequent celebration, Communion services were relegated to once a month, on the first Sunday of the month--unless, of course, something more important was going on that particular Sunday. This did not serve to preserve the meaning of this sacred act, but truly to further diminish whatever meaning remained after the Greatest of Sacraments was stripped of all but a symbolic significance.

As I related in my Eucharistic testimony, once I discovered the truth of the Bible's teaching on the Eucharist, and found that teaching faithfully preserved in the Catholic Church, I hungered intensely to be able to participate at that Table--so much so that despite the questions and the challenges that Catholicism posed to my faith, I pressed on to literally take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

And yet, Protestants aren't the only ones who have a diminished understanding of this Blessed Sacrament. While many of them out and out deny the truth, so many Catholics themselves have never properly learned it, or understood it. Many simply find it too hard to accept and so deny it themselves.

As such, in this series of posts on the Eucharist, I want to emphasise, clarify, and explain as best as I can the glorious truth that Jesus loves us so much that He comes to be with us in this Sacrament--that He longs to unite Himself to us and make us more and more like Him. In the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, we truly can enter into an intimate Communion with our Blessed Lord and Saviour.

Paragraph 1323 of the Catechism states,

"At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet 'in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us'" (quoting Sacrosanctum Concilium 47).

Using this as our jumping-off point, I'll be writing an article dealing with each of the points made: The Eucharist as Jesus' Real Presence; the Eucharist as Sacrifice; the Eucharist as Memorial; the Eucharist as a Sacrament of Love and Unity; the Eucharist as a Vehicle for Grace; and the Eucharist as a Pledge of Future Glory.

God bless
Gregory

(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)

I'm Still Here...

Howdy all.
I feel a brief apology and a slightly less brief explanation for my silence might be in order--in case anyone's still around who cares.

I do apologise for my lack of attention to my blogs lately. I've had a busy sort of year, between new a new shift at work, a new job/promotion, more responsibility, less energy, a mission trip to Haiti, running our recent Halloween for Hunger food drive for our parish, plans for a new Catholic outreach project here in Hamilton, as well as the general throes of life and marriage. On top of all of that, it seems that returning from Haiti, in particular, has caused certain unresolved issues in my past to manifest in a sort of depression, which has played out, by and large, through far too much sleeping and not enough desire to do any of the things I need to do, and that I love to do. This blog, as well as Doubting Thomist, and my art, have all, unfortunately, become the main victims of my busy life and psychological malaise.

That was then,of course, and this is now. And hopefully now will yield something different. I have and am taking steps to put my life back in order. The step, though, that most concerns you, dear reader, was actually taken by my beautiful and loving wife, who as an early Christmas present, bought me an HP Mini laptop with a Rogers Internet Stick, for the express purpose of getting me back to blogging! Because she's just awesome that way! And it is on this very laptop (which even happens to be a wonderful shade of my favourite of hues), that I am currently composing this message to you.

So here's the plan:
As I mentioned, there are various steps I am taking to get my life heading in the way I think God wants it to go. Some of those steps are significantly more immediate than others, and some are significantly more personal than others. In a nutshell, I'm intending to pursue a vocation to the Permanent Diaconate, and will contact the Diocese regarding that by week's end. I'll be old enough to start formation for the Diaconate in May, so it seems an appropriate time to get those ducks in a row. Saturday, Melissa and I are getting formation on becoming Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, so that we can serve more faithfully and purposefully in that most important aspect of the Christian Faith: the Eucharist. Over the next little while, I plan as well to join the Lay Dominicans, something I've been discerning for quite some time. On top of that, I mentioned a Catholic outreach above that I want to bring to Hamilton. I would love to see that kick off by Lent of next year, but it may wait until the following September, depending on certain details. Hopefully I can keep you more informed in the coming weeks and months.

So in all that hectic business, thanks to my new laptop, I'll have opportunity to blog during various periods of downtime previously unavailable to me: namely, break time at work! That's 45 minutes a day that I truly have nothing better to do than to write about the truth and beauty of the Church that Jesus founded! That's the sure thing, time-wise, on top of any other spare opportunity I get, like now, for example, while I sit in my car waiting for my wife to finish a tutoring session.

So expect new articles here and at Doubting Thomist on a much more frequent basis! Next up for here, we'll be returning to the series I'd begun on the Eucharist. Over at Doubting Thomist, I'll continue to tell you What I Saw in Haiti.

May God richly bless you as he has Melissa and me.

Sorry for the lack of posting

But you're not going to get anything out of me for a little while.

I've been a bit absent lately as I prepare to go on a mission trip to Haiti. My team is leaving tomorrow, and we'll be back on the 13th. So yeah, needless to say, I won't be posting for a little bit--but when I get back, I'll let you all know how it went, over at Doubting Thomist.

Please pray for Fr. Bill Trusz, Nassrin Msiss, Daniel D'Souza, Mark Drotar, and I, as we go to be with the Haitien people of Beau-Sejour, a remote mountain village, as they slowly rebuild from the earthquake, as we offer our compassion and solidarity with them, and teach them First Aid to help equip them to better take care of themselves.

God bless
Gregory

Body of Christ

Image © 2010 Gregory Watson

Pencil Sketch, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".

I know I don't typically post my artwork here at Barque of Peter. That's what Doubting Thomist is for (and the image is posted there, too), but it just seemed to fit so perfectly with my recent and ongoing writings on the Eucharist, that I thought I'd put this sketch up here, too.

It's the value drawing of a painting I plan to do in the not too distant future. The image was inspired by an experience I had this past February or March. I was sponsoring someone through the RCIA process at my parish, and on one of the Rites of Welcoming, we happened to be in the front pew during Communion. At the time, we had a seminarian with us doing his internship, Deacon (now Father) Jeff Oehring, who happened to be distributing the Host directly in front of where I was kneeling after receiving the Eucharist. I looked up from prayer, and right in front of my face was the ciborium that he was holding, and reflected in it, I could see myself, and the entire church behind me. Immediately, I knew I had to paint it.

Hence the image here, depicting, in a slightly different way, the scene that I saw. I say slightly different because that's not technically me in the foreground of the ciborium. It was intentionally a generic blurry person. Also, the structure of the church is decidedly more traditional and Gothic than my parish. Finally, I had intended to depict reception of the Eucharist kneeling and on the tongue (of course, the image doesn't depict the actual communicating, so it's a bit ambiguous that way, which is good in its way because it's applicable to a wider range of Catholic experience then).

The title, "Body of Christ", is as multi-layered as is the term in Catholic theology, which is what made me want to make this image. Obviously, first and foremost, it refers to the Eucharistic Host, in which Jesus is truly present, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The moment captured is right when the priest or other minister of Holy Communion would say, "The Body of Christ" before administering the host to the communicant. However, the priest's hands are also a part of the meaning of "Body of Christ", since we hold that the priest is himself an alter Christus--by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest has the authority to act in persona Christi for us, a tangible sign and example of Christ's presence among us.

Finally, the reflection of the Church in the ciborium brings out a third dimension to "Body of Christ", in that we, the Church, is the Body of Christ, and we, individually, are members of it. It is through Communion that we become that Body, as St. Paul writes, "The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? And as there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we share in the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).

God bless
Gregory

Journeying Into His Real Presence

Sorry for the long delay in new posts. Had to deal with a comment on an old Open Forum, turned it into an article unto itself for Doubting Thomist, and then had to deal with the slew of comments it generated--as well as actual, you know, life stuff.

Anyway, before I delve into the strictly apologetical writing on the Eucharist, I wanted to write a personal post and give a testimony of sorts about how I came to believe that Jesus is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist.

As anyone who's been around this blog for any length of time--or who's read the blurb below my name in the right hand sidebar, or, for that matter, has read my Conversion Story--knows, I grew up in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. Despite having a deep and lively faith, believing that Jesus could in the Bible, and still did today work miracles of all sorts, and believing that we should be filled with the Spirit and have Jesus alive in our hearts, we deplored the notion that sacraments had any efficacious power. While the Baptism of the Holy Spirit could cause one to speak in tongues and prophesy, baptism in water was simply a symbolic action (for adults and children old enough to decide on their own). While miraculous healings were claimed all the time, the clear biblical instruction to anoint with oil in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick was by and large overlooked. While the sanctity of marriage was stressed, the sacrament of marriage was never mentioned. Ordination was outright denied, within the ceremony itself, to have any power to confer any unique authority to the newly ordained pastor. Confession was supposed to be to God alone, because the Temple Veil had been torn open at the Crucifixion, and "confirmation" was when someone said something, or some sign was perceived, as verifying a thought that you had that you weren't sure was from God or not.

And, of course, we celebrated the "Lord's Supper", because He commanded us to do so, after all. But while, "Do this in memory of Me" was taken literally, "This is My body...This is My blood..." was most certainly not! And while the Book of Acts was used to argue that every time someone was baptised in the Holy Spirit, they spoke in tongues, and therefore tongues had to be the initial evidence of the baptism in the Spirit, apparently the clear example of Acts that the early Christians met together daily to "break bread" was not in any way an instruction on how often the Lord's Supper was to be celebrated. In an effort to keep this memorial meal from losing its meaning and impact, it was celebrated on the first Sunday of every month, instead--with saltine crackers and Welch's grape juice.

Now, to be fair, Communion in the Pentecostal Church really is just a symbol of that Last Supper. The cracker and grape juice one receives really is only a token of Jesus' Body and Blood. Not having anything even resembling Holy Orders in the Pentecostal Assemblies, let alone valid Apostolic Succession, there is no one capable of consecrating the bread and wine so that it would actually become the Body and Blood of Christ, even if they believed that it should.

Despite this rather impoverished view of the Eucharist, we still managed to take it rather seriously in my family. I remember one morning saying to my mother as a little boy, "I'm glad we're having communion today, Mommy, because I'm hungry!" This comment greatly disturbed her, and she wouldn't let me partake, understanding, even as a Pentecostal memorialist, that this was no ordinary food.

I remember, as a boy, very in tune to the love of God and attracted to the mystical things in life, staring at the cup of grape juice (it was a little clear plastic "shot glass", more or less), and seeing the sparkle from the ceiling lights reflecting in the deep purple of the juice, and listening to the words, "This is My blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. Drink this, in memory of Me." I "knew" Jesus was being metaphorical when He said those words, but even so, I felt that it was something. At the time, I didn't even know what the Catholic Church was, let alone what it taught about the Eucharist. I just knew Pentecostalism, and the various Protestant denominations I encountered at private Christian school growing up. Nothing in my upbringing even suggested that Jesus might have actually meant what He said. Even so, I had a glimmer.

During high school, I undertook to actually read through the whole Bible, cover to cover. I actually made it, too (after stalling out repeatedly in Leviticus). Actually going through the text, cover to cover (even with a Protestant Bible, missing its seven-plus books, and containing very dispensationalistic footnotes), really makes you sit up and say, "Hey, I've never heard of this before!" I'd been going to church all my life--memorising Bible verses since I was six years old or younger. But they never covered everything, cover-to-cover. I quipped to a friend of mine recently that the rule of faith for Protestants is not the Bible, but the Bible Alone. What I meant by that rather glib statement, was what I began to learn when I actually read the Bible through for the first time: There's a heckuva lot in there that never gets touched. And I'm not talking about obscure Old Testament prophecies. I mean a good chunk of everything between 2 Thessalonians and Revelation.

This included certain fascinating (and eventually life-altering) tidbits such as St. Peter's statement in his first epistle, "Baptism now saves you" (1 Peter 3:21). That one made me sit up and say "huh?" As I said above, I believed baptism was nothing more than a symbol of our new life in Christ--not the thing that actually gave us new life in Christ! What on earth could Peter be talking about?! This small portion of a verse eventually revolutionised my thinking about baptism--but that's another article. But a similar phenomenon happened as I read through 1 Corinthians. I saw St. Paul building up an argument, from at least chapter 10, and culminating in chapter 11, that took "the Lord's Supper" far beyond anything I'd understood before. I couldn't articulate it then, and didn't know how to ask what I wanted to ask, let alone who to ask it of. So, beyond offering confirmation of those glimmers I'd had in childhood, I pocketed this idea as "something to investigate" later.

Later ended up being Bible College (where so many things are investigated). In a class on Worship, taught by a former Catholic, we discussed at some length the centrality of the Eucharist (I believe Bible College was the first time I'd heard the term) and its centrality in the Christian life. That it was central was news to me, honestly. I could never understand why so much time was devoted to it in classical art, since it was only celebrated once a month! Of course, I found out that there's a spectrum among Protestants--from once a year (or not at all), to quarterly, to monthly, to weekly. Those of us who celebrated no more regularly than monthly, like myself, viewed weekly celebration as ritualistic, and tending to take the meaning out of the Eucharist. That was, after all, the justification for less frequent celebrations. Of course, the sad irony is that it's those who celebrate it less who think it means less.

We further discussed different interpretations of the Eucharist--from Zwinglian Memorialism, to a Calvinist view of a "Spiritual Presence", to Lutheran "Consubstantiation", and finally, Catholic "Transubstantiation." That someone would actually believe that the Eucharist was really Jesus boggled my mind. However, my previous experiences and study of Scripture had already convinced me that a purely memorialist understanding of the Lord's Supper was insufficient. Calvin's "middle of the road" approach seemed very much in keeping with what I was discovering. I talked to a friend of mine about all of this, because it was so new to me. I figured most common sense people would believe in a memorialist understanding, and that this new "Spiritual Presence" concept was somewhat "out there". But I was challenged by it, and wanted to see where others stood. I still remember my shock when my friend told me he agreed with the notion of Consubstantiation--that Jesus was truly and bodily present with the bread in the Eucharist. It was enough of a shock that someone could believe such a thing--it was augmented by the fact that my friend believed it. I resolved to research this further.

It was around this time that I'd been introduced to Catholicism--in no small part by the worship class I mentioned, but also through history classes and theology and others. I'd met the Early Church Fathers while researching papers, and found that these giants were startlingly Catholic in their beliefs. At first, I easily dismissed their Catholicism as somehow being "leftover paganism" (or, more sinisterly, "pagan syncretism"). I would read St. Augustine and say, "He sure makes some amazingly good points here, but about this, he's way off," until one day I realised the arrogance of supposing that I, a Bible College undergrad, knew more about theology than one of the people who essentially wrote the book on it. Around this time I also started dating the woman who would become my wife, herself a cradle Catholic. I started attending Mass with her, and experiencing (though merely as a spectator) the Eucharistic Liturgy for myself. I studied the Fathers, I studied contemporary Catholic sources like the Catechism and websites like Catholic Answers and Biblical Evidence for Catholicism. And I studied the Scriptures--I intensely scrutinised what the Bible had to say about the Eucharist. What I didn't study, awkwardly, was my Bible College course load. It's a strange irony to learn more about your faith than ever before, and fail the courses trying to teach it to you.

I remember sitting in History class, hearing the professor disparage various Catholic beliefs saying, "And then the Catholics started believing such and so on this or that date. How ridiculous is that?" Transubstantiation definitely received such attention, the belief being attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas as if no one had ever taught or heard of such a thing as Jesus transforming the Eucharistic elements into His flesh and blood. I remember thinking, "I could probably put together a thoroughly biblical defence of that doctrine in 10 minutes--and I don't even believe in it!" It was, perhaps, the overwhelming bias of my history professor that led me to really pursue an investigation of what the Catholic Church actually taught.

So I investigated Scripture (the conclusions of which will make up the next few articles, so I won't go into great detail here). As I said, 1 Corinthians had made an impact. Being the earliest-recorded account of the Eucharist, St. Paul's thoughts had particular interest to me. I knew from childhood that one wasn't to partake "unworthily", but what did that mean? In the context of chapter 11, Paul writes rather clearly, that "a person who eats and drinks without recognising the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation" (v.29). Earlier, in verse 27, he writes that eating and drinking unworthily makes us "answerable for the body and blood of the Lord" (v. 27), which, I found out, was a juridical term in Paul's day, meaning, "You're guilty of murdering that person." Now that's a fancy claim to make about a symbol! And it was so serious that many who were guilty of this were getting sick, and even dying, at the Corinthian Church! This was certainly serious business! Something more was going on than a symbolic memorial. Something seemed to be going on even beyond a "spiritual presence." If I'm to recognise a body, there must be a body to recognise!

Could Jesus have really meant what He said, when He said, "This is My body"? Instinctively, I said, "That's cannibalism!"--which, incidentally, is what the pagan Romans accused the early Christians of. Hmmm. I said, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"--which is what the unbelieving Jews said in John 6.

So I read through John 6. At first, I wanted to isolate it from the notion of the Eucharist. But St. John doesn't allow that. In verse 4, he lets us know that Jesus said everything in the context of the Jewish Passover--the same Feast He was celebrating with His disciples the night before He died. The insinuation was clear. And Jesus said, in no uncertain terms, "I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (v. 51). That's staggering enough, but then He repeats this four different times in four different ways--each and every time getting more specific and more literal. "Spiritualising" John 6, or taking Jesus figuratively, is completely impossible. This is clearly seen in the fact that he let the multitudes leave Him because they couldn't accept this teaching. Had it been a metaphor, He could have--and should have--corrected their misunderstanding. But the Jews, and even His disciples, knew exactly what He meant, and that He meant it. And because they couldn't accept it, they walked away from Him.

I realised, at this point, that because the Reformers, and their successors, couldn't accept it, they rewrote their theology.

It seemed to me that changing my theology to not recognise the Body was exactly the same thing as walking away from Jesus. I didn't want to walk away from Jesus, and I knew what He meant in John 6. I knew what He meant in that Upper Room. I knew what Paul meant about "recognising the Body". I recognised the Body, and I hungered for Him.

However, because I still struggled with other Catholic beliefs, I remained outside the Catholic faith. I attended Mass every week for three years as I struggled to believe in these other things, believing all the while that "This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Happy are those who are called to His supper."

I remember thinking, and praying, during this time, that I wish I could be called to that supper. I had heard about mystics in the middle ages who, for whatever reason, were barred from receiving Jesus, but He Himself brought them the Host. I wished, I longed for such an experience--that when I responded with the prayer, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word, and I shall be healed," that maybe, just maybe, Jesus would work just such a miracle, and say that Word. That miracle never came, and my "Eucharistic Hunger" (as my priest called it) continued to grow--often to unbearable peaks. This itself was the miracle, the word of healing for which I prayed. My hunger for Jesus in the Eucharist was the impetus--often the only impetus--for continuing to struggle with the other doctrinal issues keeping me from faith in the Catholic Church. Finally, I was able to surrender in faith to the Catholic Church, and really recognise the other "Body of Christ".

I remember, that Easter Vigil night, when I was to be Confirmed and receive my First Holy Communion, that a diabolical doubt overtook me. "What if I'm wrong? What if it really is just bread and wine? What if this 'Eucharistic Hunger' I've built up over more than three long years finds its culmination in an anti-climactic let-down of a lie?"

For two hours I sat, enveloped by the beauty of the liturgy--from the lighting of the candles through the Scripture readings that outlined God's plan of salvation, up until that Great Alleluia and the proclamation of the Gospel, and Jesus' Resurrection, and on through the homily, the baptisms, the confirmations, and right up until the Eucharistic Liturgy with this nagging doubt, this awkward "What if...?"

I recognise that feelings are not what we should base our faith on. I recognise that Grace is not something we can perceive with our emotions or our senses. But God is faithful, and when I came up to receive our Precious Lord for the first time, He did not disappoint! I felt such an overwhelming sense of His Presence going through me that I was compelled to let out a little of my inner Pentecostal. I returned to the pew speaking in tongues (as quietly as possible, so as not to freak out any of my fellow new converts), and could not stop the entire time the packed church's parishioners filed up for their own encounter with the Risen Lord.

I will not say that this experience is normative, or that every time I receive Communion I'm caught up into ecstacy. But I know in my knower (as my mother would say) that this truly is Jesus, the Lamb of God. Despite bad music, sloppy liturgies, and even, occasionally, faithless priests, Jesus is still present, truly and completely, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist, waiting for us to come to Him and imbibe on Him, so that He may come into us and dwell with us in a manner more intimate than anything else we can experience.

It's deeper than sex.
It's better than chocolate!

Jesus Himself ardently desires your presence at the altar. Don't wait three long years as I did. Run to Him, and let Him fill your soul so that you become, literally, what you eat--until you become another Christ.

Amen.


(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)