#42. Receiving Holy Communion Part 2: The Body of Christ. Understanding the Mass and Its Parts.

When we receive Holy Communion we know that we receive the Body of Christ in the sign of the Consecrated Bread and the Blood of Christ in the sign of the Consecrated Wine. There is, however, a wonderful "multilayering" of the different meanings of the term "Body of Christ" which we receive in Holy Communion.

The Three Ways the New Testament Uses the Term "the Body of Christ":

1. As the human Body of Christ which is now Risen

2. As the Eucharistic Body of Christ

3. As the Mystical Body of Christ, i.e. the Church

 

https://theeucharist.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/mcsween_p40.jpg

 

The human Body of Christ which is now Risen. The great revelation of our Christian Faith is that God is One yet Three Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (the Most Holy Trinity). Out of love for us God the Father sent his only Begotten Son to us. The Son became human  by the power of the Holy Spirit  in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  The Son of God became flesh–a human being–and dwelt among us. He had all the qualities of a human being except he knew no sin. He got tired, hungry, thirsty; he was limited in his humanity by time and space; he was mortal and could suffer and die. He was fully human, the Church teaches, and yet also fully God.

The Son of God did stop being God when he became human.

Of course, we know he did suffer and die for us on the Cross and on the Third Day he rose from the Dead. Now he dies no more. Catechism #645 states that the Risen body of Christ is the same body in which he was crucified, but it now possesses "the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills." It says the Risen body of Christ is no longer confined to this earth but belongs "to the Father’s divine realm."

Catechism #646 states "Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life...In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus' Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is ‘the man of heaven’."

 

I have written elsewhere about the state of a Risen Body (See HERE). It is more spiritual than physical and yet it is still physical, a transformed type of physical with no limitations and such a "spiritualized body" is quite mysterious to us in this life.

The Eucharistic body of Christ. Now the Body of Christ that we receive in Communion is the Risen Body of the Crucified Christ. We do not receive ordinary, mortal flesh and blood in the Eucharist. What I mean, is that we receive the risen flesh and blood of Christ. We are not cannibals who eat mortal, dead flesh; we are communicants in the Risen Body of Christ.

But we also receive the Risen, glorified Body (and Blood of Christ) "under the signs" (sacrament) of the Consecrated Bread and Wine of the Eucharist. We eat this Bread and Drink this Wine, but the very essence (equivalent to the "substance") of the bread and wine is totally changed to actually be the Risen Body and Blood of Christ. He comes to us in this form of Food so that we may indeed receive him within ourselves. The Risen Body of Christ in the Sacrament of the Consecrated Bread is called Christ's Eucharistic body. (The same applies to the Blood of Christ).

 

It should be noted that when we say we receive the Risen  Body and Blood of Christ, we are receiving actually the entire Person of Christ, the Son of God as human and Risen. We don't, in other words, receive parts of Christ but as the Catechism teaches, in Communion is "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." (#1374)

The Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. Now the Church has a most marvelous teaching which  is thoroughly Catholic in its "pedigree." It concerns what is termed the "Whole Christ."  Quite simply it is the Risen Christ united to his disciples by their Baptism "into him." All who are baptized are united to him who is the Head of his Body the Church. (See Colossians 1:18 HERE) This Mystical Body includes the living and the dead who are now alive in Christ, the Communion of Saints.

 

Catholics therefore believe that since the Resurrection of Christ, Christ is not solely "an individual" but he is a "corporate being." This teaching is often referred to by its Latin term "Totus Christus" or "the Whole Christ." ("Christ and his Church thus together make up the "whole Christ" (Christus totus). The Church is one with Christ." Catechism #794)We believe that you cannot have Christ without his Body the Church, because his Body the Church is united to him, really and spiritually.

This meaning of "the Body of Christ" as Church is called "the Mystical Body of Christ."

The word "mystical" is used with a number of nuances: "it is called mystical body, because it is neither a purely physical nor a purely spiritual unity, but supernatural...The relation of the faithful with Christ is mystical, not physical." (See wikipedia article on "Mystici Corporis Christi" HERE) It also refers to a union which is sacramental and involves the sacraments, also called "the mysteries":

"Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called ‘mystical’ because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments—‘the holy mysteries’—and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him..." (Catechism # 2014)

One implication of this is that when we therefore receive Christ in Holy Communion, we also are given one another as the Church. We are bonded to one another in Christ which is why this act of receiving the Whole Christ in the Eucharist is called Communion. We are placed in Communion with Christ and also in Christ with one another the Church.

 

St. Augustine famously preached:

"If, therefore, you are the Body of Christ and His members, your mystery is presented at the table of the Lord, you receive your mystery. To that which you are, you answer: `Amen’…Be a member of Christ’s Body, so that your `Amen’ may be the truth." (Sermon 272)

"There you are on the table [the altar], there you are in the cup." (Sermon 229)

"If you receive them well [i.e. the Body and Blood of Christ in the form of Bread and Wine], you are that which you receive." [the Body of Christ the Church] (Sermon 227)

Next Week: Communion and the Holy Spirit

 

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# 28 The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Understanding the Mass and Its Parts.

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.

 

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The Risen Body of Christ and the Church

We believe that "God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten Son...so that we should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) The Son of God took flesh, became human, while still remaining God, in the Person of Christ Jesus. This Jesus suffered for us out of God’s sacrificial love, died on the Cross and rose from the dead, his humanity now and forever being in a new and glorious state that transcends our physical lives while still retaining our human nature.

 

 

In the Easter Season, I have written about this Risen Body of Christ (See HERE). I also wrote about how it is the Risen Christ that we receive in the Eucharist (See HERE). We do not receive Jesus in the same state in which he existed on the Cross or at any other time that he lived our mortal existence on earth; instead we receive his Risen Body, his risen flesh and blood, i.e. the totality of who Jesus is in his Risen state. This reception of the Risen Christ in the Eucharist nourishes our relationship with the Risen Christ.

 

This relationship with the Risen Christ is a relationship with Christ and all who are united to him in Baptism, i.e.  the Church. Since his Resurrection, Jesus does not exist separate from his People, the Church. He has, of course, his own body formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary and now Risen, but he has also united us to himself in a real and unbreakable union.

 

This truth is referred to as the Mystical Body of Christ, i.e., we are the Body of Christ and he is the Head of this Body, the Church. This "mystery" exists in what we call a sacramental manner. Sacraments in general take visible things and/or relationships and by the Holy Spirit communicate through them the life of the invisible Risen Christ to us. It is in this way that the Church may be spoken of as a "sacrament."

 

"As sacrament, the Church is Christ's instrument. ‘She is taken up by him also as the instrument for the salvation of all,’ ‘the universal sacrament of salvation,’ by which Christ is ‘at once manifesting and actualizing the mystery of God's love for men.’The Church ‘is the visible plan of God's love for humanity,’ because God desires ‘that the whole human race may become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one temple of the Holy Spirit.’" (Catechism#776)

 

Altar Mural St. Timothy in Mesa, Arizona

 

So it is important for us to realize that when the Church is called the Body of Christ, we speak of a real union between those who belong to Christ and Christ himself, but we do not lose our individuality or free-will as a result of this union. This is why another image is also used to describe the Church as the Bride of Christ. In marriage, a man and woman "become one," i.e., united together in a single communion of covenant love, but they still remain who they are, a man and a woman. So with Christ and his Bride the Church.

 

What is relevant to our consideration here is that we are united in the Church to the Risen Christ. "The Church is the Body of Christ. Through the Spirit and his action in the sacraments, above all the Eucharist, Christ, who once was dead and is now risen, establishes the community of believers as his own Body." (Catechism#805)

 

This is another way of saying that the Church is called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live the Risen life of Christ now, in the manner it is possible in our mortal lives now. It is a life, above, all of the life-changing and saving sacrificial love of Christ that never ends.

 

Moreover, Christ gives us his Risen life, his risen self, body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. The Eucharist renews and strengthens our union in the Body of Christ, the Church, with the risen Christ and with one another. Thus we have this diagram to sum up what I have been describing here:

 

 

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What Kind of Body and Blood are Received in the Eucharist?

 

 

 

Last week I wrote about the kind of body a risen body is. One would need to read this entry first before considering further discussion of our relationship with the Risen Body of Christ. Ultimately, Easter reminds us that we are united to Christ, the Risen Lord, and we share in his Resurrection now (in certain ways) and will share fully in his Resurrection at the end of time.

 

Now there are several ways we are in relationship with the Risen Body of Christ even in this world. I examine one of those ways here in our receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus is quoted in John 6 as saying "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have no life in me." When the author of John wrote his version of the Gospel, he knew that Jesus was speaking of the Eucharist.

 

The question of what Jesus means when he says "eat my flesh and drink my blood..." even in the context of the Eucharist, still vexes and confuses a number of people today. In a Yahoo Forum, the question was raised about "Christians being cannibals"  The so-called "Best Answer" stated:

"Only Roman Catholics who believe the elements miraculously change into the body and blood of Christ during Mass would be cannibals - IF that doctrine was true! But if it is not true, then they are simply eating a wafer and wine even though they imagine it has been changed."

Another Forum participant said "They [Catholics] only pretend he is present"

 

None of these mistaken opinions are true: we are not cannibals when we eat the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood nor are we merely eating a wafer and drinking wine and nothing else nor are we "pretending" Christ is present in the Eucharist.

What St. Augustine wrote about some of the disciples in John 6, who misunderstood Jesus and deserted him, is relevant to these kind of opinions just quoted:

St. Augustine

"Their understanding of that saying was silly, their thoughts were materialistic (carnal), and hence they believed that the Lord was about to cut pieces from his flesh and give them to them...[But what Jesus meant was this:] Understand what I have said in a spiritual manner: not this body which you see, will you eat, and this blood which they will shed who crucify me, will you drink. What I commended was a kind of sacrament: understood spiritually it will give you life. Although the sacrament must be celebrated in a manner that is visible, it must be understood in a manner that is invisible." (From Augustine's Commentary on Psalm 98, but with a note on John 6; emphasis added)

St. Augustine needs to be carefully understood here. When Augustine says we need to understand Jesus’ words about eating his flesh and blood in a spiritual way does not deny the reality of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. I am always amazed when "spiritual" people seem to deny that the spiritual is "really real" when it comes to the Eucharist! They seem to need some kind of physical proof that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. Evidently for them the physical is what's "really real"!

St. Thomas Aquinas commented on the above quote from Augustine:

"When Augustine says, ‘You will not be eating this body which you see,’ he does not intend to exclude the reality of Christ’s body; what he does rule out is that they would eat it under the same form in which they are looking at it [i.e., in its earthly form, before the Resurrection]...[Augustine did not mean that] the body of Christ is in this sacrament only as a ‘mystical symbol.’ Rather, he meant that Christ’s body is there spiritually, that is, invisibly and by the power of the Spirit. (Summa Theologiae, IIIa.75.1, ad primum)

That which is "spiritual," which for Christians means that which comes from the Holy Spirit, is certainly real, actually ultimately real, for God in both Spirit and Real.

 

I do believe that if we first affirm that it is the Risen Body and Blood of Jesus that we are receiving in the Eucharist, and if we then distinguish carefully between Jesus' physical body before his Resurrection and his Risen Body after his Resurrection,  we can avoid some of the misunderstandings of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist having to be real as an earthly physical body and blood.

There is a sense in which the Risen Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist is "physical," because the Resurrection of the Body means that we don’t lose our bodies in death, but they will be raised and transformed into a new and glorious body like that of the Risen Christ,  and whatever remains in a "physical sense" so transcends our earthly reality as to be considered "heavenly’:

"Christ’s Resurrection was not a return to earthly life...In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is ‘the man of heaven.’" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #s645 & 646)

 

I wrote last week about a proposed concept of a "transphysical" body, so see that.

 

 

 

Now we receive the Risen Christ in the Eucharist; we therefore are not cannibals, since we receive a spiritual and not a mortal flesh and blood in the Eucharist. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas certainly believed that Christ is really present in the Eucharist (according to the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence). But as they affirm, Christ does not give us his body and blood in its earthly state, before the Resurrection; rather Christ gives us his transformed (transfigured) and risen body: Therefore the Catechism states:

"What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh ‘given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit,’ preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at baptism." (CCC#1392; emphasis added)

Our belief in the Real Presence of Christ does not require us to believe in stories of bleeding hosts or earthly flesh commingled with the Eucharist! Such phenomena, whatever they may be, are not the body and blood of Christ given to us in the Eucharist, since it is the Risen Christ we receive in the Eucharist.

The point of all this, I would argue, is that on Sunday, especially, the Day of Resurrection, the whole Church gathers to really encounter the Risen Christ. How can one miss Mass without a good excuse if he or she really believes what the Church teaches: that the Risen Christ is Really Present in our Eucharist?

Also, by receiving him in Holy Communion, we recall our ongoing communion in the Risen Christ. This has implications beyond our hope that we will share in the Resurrection of the dead after our physical death. There is a spiritual principle given here: it is a reminder that when we die with Christ we shall also rise with Christ. When we die spiritually (and really) to sin, to selfishness, to self-centeredness, to prejudice, pride, discrimination, and all else that is not an expression of God’s love, we are promised that this leads to the new and transformed life represented in the Resurrection of Christ. We share in part in this Risen life , even now!

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What is a Risen Body?

 

 

It is a fundamental article of the Catholic Faith that we believe in "the resurrection of the body." (See the Apostle’s Creed). The first body to be raised from the dead is that of Jesus. Easter, of course, celebrates his Resurrection; but we believe that we also will have our bodies raised from the dead in union with the Risen Lord.

 

What exactly is the resurrection of the body? First, it is not what we call the resuscitation of a dead body. Sometimes a person may be clinically dead and through medical technology might be quickly brought back to life. Nothing about such a resuscitated body would be changed: it would still be subject to decay, pain, wounds, illness, even death again. It would still be what we call "a mortal body." A risen body is not subject to any of the things a mortal body is subject to because a risen body is immortal.

 

St. Paul, in teaching about how the risen body is different from our earthly body writes: "For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality." (1 Corinthians 15:53)

 

Suppose, however, that a dead body could be brought back to life and by a supernatural act be preserved from further aging, decay, wounds and pain, illness, and death again? Would that be a risen body? Again the answer would be "no." This is because a risen body is a different kind of body than our present earthly body. There is a change that an earthly body undergoes in the resurrection. Again, St. Paul writes:

 

"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep [i.e., die], but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

 

In some ways, when we try to artistically portray the Risen body of Christ, it still looks like what we would expect a body to look like in this world. Thus, Alexander Ivanov's portait of the Risen Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene, is typical:

 

 

 

But, I would say we would have to portray a Risen Body differently, but it is difficult to say how; perhaps like this:

 

The problem is that a risen body belongs not to this world but to "the life of the world to come" and is thus unable to be adequately pictured in terms of this world.

 

This leads us back to the original question, slightly modified: what is this changed risen body like? The various Gospel accounts about the appearances of Jesus after his Resurrection describe something mysterious about his physical manifestation. The Catechism describes what is titled "The condition of Christ's risen humanity":

 

"By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion. Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ's humanity can no longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the Father's divine realm. For this reason too the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to awaken their faith." (#645)

 

"Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before Easter: Jairus' daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These actions were miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised returned by Jesus' power to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they would die again. Christ's Resurrection is essentially different. In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus' Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is ‘the man of heaven’." (#646)

 

So Christ has a glorious body, which exists in a state of life beyond space and time, possessing properties our body does not have in this present earthly state. St. Paul calls this "a spiritual body." (1 Corinthians 15:44) He doesn’t mean, however, that the risen body has no physical component; otherwise, we could just say that the soul survives death and the physical body doesn’t. Human beings are a unity of soul and body, and the Catholic Christian teaching is that this unity will survive death in the resurrection of the body.

 

What we need is a term to describe a physical state which transcends this present earthly existence in which we live. A physicality beyond space and time, immortal and glorious. It would be both spiritual and physical; if in this present existence of ours, our bodies seem to be more physical, in the Resurrection they will seem to be more spiritual. Yet, both physical and spiritual will be transformed in the risen body. Thus, one term suggested is that a  body is "transphysical." "Trans-" as a prefix can mean "beyond" or "changed" and the physicality of a risen body would be beyond the present earthly and mortal state of our body: it would be a new creation, a changed kind of matter or materiality.

 

That Christ is the first-fruits of this Risen life and body (see 1 Corinthians 15:23) has a number of implications of how we share in his body and risen life, as the next several teachings will examine.

 

 

 

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