 |
| It is the Glorified and Risen Christ in the Eucharist |
Last week I wrote about the Epiclesis (calling upon the Holy Spirit) and the Consecration of the bread and wine in the Eucharist. I wrote:
"The ancient understanding of the Mass is that the Risen and Glorified Christ is Really Present in the worship under the appearances of bread and wine that have been duly consecrated. There is a wondrous transformation of the ordinary bread and wine where the Risen Christ becomes present in a way he was not before the Consecration."
I also noted the teaching of the Catechism (#1333): "At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood." (#1333)
The sacramental presence of the Crucified and Risen Christ through the bread and wine after the Consecration is called his Real Presence. By this we mean it is not a symbolic presence only, or psychological (in our mind only), or an imagined presence, or present only spiritually, if by spiritually we wrongly mean "only figuratively, or ‘not quite really.’"
The Catholic Church teaches and believes that the Risen Christ is really and entirely present under the appearances of consecrated bread and wine: "In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.’" (CCC#1374)
Over the centuries, many in the Church have tried to explain how it is that the bread and wine are changed to become really the Body and Blood of Christ. The Church has favored an explanation called "transubstantiation" ( a change, trans-, of substance). The term "substance" is used in a very philosophical way, meaning "essence," what a thing is (esse). One can see the challenge of saying the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ when after the Consecration bread and wine are still there on the Altar.
But according to the idea of transubstantiation the appearances of the bread and wine, that is, the physical properties of bread and wine, do remain after the Consecration, but the very essence or reality of the bread and wine are replaced (changed) by the essence and reality of the Crucified and Risen Christ. The Eucharist is the only time such a thing happens, and ultimately, this is a mystery.
To say that Christ is also bodily present under the appearances of the Consecrated bread and wine has to also be understood carefully. It is the Risen and glorified Christ who is Really Present. In other words, his is not a physical reality like that in time and space here on earth (or throughout the universe). Some have proposed the word "transphysical" to describe the Risen Body and Blood of Christ (For an extensive reflection of mine on this go HERE). The Body of Christ "is present in the eucharist not in the usual, natural, visible, local ways bodies are normally present, but rather in a spiritual, non-visible, substantial and sacramental manner." (Nathan Mitchell, Real Presence, p.100).
So what we see and taste in the Consecrated bread and wine are the physical properties of bread and wine, but the true reality we receive is not bread and wine but the Crucified and Risen Body and Blood of Christ. Also, we do not receive only part of Jesus in the Eucharist. We receive the whole Christ, his whole reality, "body and blood, soul and divinity."
In the ritual practice of the Mass, it is only after the bread is Consecrated that the Priest shows the Host for adoration and genuflects, not to bread which would be absurd, but to Christ Really Present, and the same for the Consecrated wine. The elements which we now call the Body and Blood of Christ must be handled with the greatest care and reverence and will be given as Communion in the Mass. Some of the Consecrated bread will be reserved in the Tabernacle for the Sick and we genuflect whenever we pass by the Tabernacle. Thus we express our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Next Week: The Four actions mentioned in the Consecration.
