In our last article we spoke about the doctrine of the Real Presence – that Jesus is really, truly and substantially present in the Eucharist – that He is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.  As it was mentioned, this is a belief which requires faith – since we cannot fully understand it.  That does not mean, however, that there aren’t ways to begin to penetrate the mystery more deeply.  For the Church, this transformation of ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ occurs through transubstantiation.  

Transubstantiation was a word brought into usage by St. Thomas Aquinas as he tried to understand the mystery of the Real Presence.  Using the Greek philosopher Aristotle as a guide, he saw that the material things of the earth had both substance and accidents.  This sounds, at first glance, like very philosophical language, but when it is put into a concrete example it easy to understand the distinction.  For example, if we were looking at a table, we would say that its substance is wood, but its accidents are that it is of a certain shape, color or height.  Now, to bring the example into bread, when we look at a loaf of bread we see that its substance is that of bread, but its accidents may be that it is of a certain size or shape.  And to bring the idea even more closely to what we are looking at, if we look at a host prior to its consecration at Mass, we see a host that is the substance of bread and has the accidents of being a certain size and shape.  
For St. Thomas, something nothing short of miraculous takes place at Mass – at the words of consecration, the accidents of the host remain, it is still of a certain size and shape and appearance, but its substance has changed – it is no longer the substance of bread, it is now the substance of Jesus Christ Himself – of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.  In that sense, then, the appearance of bread and wine become like a veil, which veils from our human sight what they actually now are.  

It was the Scholastic mind of St. Thomas that helped to understand the mystery more clearly, but the belief in the Real Presence is something that goes back to the very beginning of the Church.  We see St. Ignatius of Antioch writing in the year 110 AD write, “I desire the Bread of God, the heavenly Bread, the Bread of Life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…I wish the drink of God, namely His blood…” (Letter to the Romans).  St. Irenaeus of Lyons writing in 180 AD writes, “just as bread from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread but the Eucharist, made up of two elements, one earthly and one heavenly” (Against Heresies).  St. Cyril of Jerusalem in one of his post-Easter catechesis sermons in 350 AD says, “these things having been learnt, and being fully persuaded that what seems bread is not bread, though bread by taste, but the Body of Christ; and that what seems wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ.”  These witnesses to the ancient belief of the Real Presence show how our own beliefs in the Eucharist continue in this same understanding that they had, that when Jesus said, “this is my Body and this is my Blood” and, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you” and “my flesh is true food and blood is true drink” He was speaking the truth.

(This article is part of a series of articles on The Sacraments which will appear in the bulletin over the course of this year.)

 Having taken a look at the prefiguring of the Eucharist in the Old Testament, we can now turn our attention to the New Testament, to the Last Supper in particular.  When Jesus gathers with His Apostles the night before He is crucified and dies, He gathers with them to celebrate the Jewish feast of Passover.  As we talked about in the last article, the Passover was a commemoration of the flight of the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, it was the day that the paschal lamb was sacrificed and the blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doorways of the people, protecting them from death.

​In the celebration of the Last Supper, Jesus takes the Passover bread and prays over it, but then something dramatic happens – He begins to change the Passover meal from the commemoration of what happened in Egypt to being a commemoration of what He is about to do on the Cross.  He is the Paschal Lamb, the One who is slain and it is His Blood that preserves us from death.  In the course of the meal, Jesus takes the bread and gives it to His disciples, but something has changed – no longer is it mere bread.  As He gives it, He tells them that “this is my body” and, likewise the cup, “this is my blood.”  The ancient Passover meal has come to its fulfillment in the institution of the Eucharist. No longer is this meal celebrated simply to remember and make present again the flight of Israel out of slavery, it is celebrated as the very memorial of our own salvation, when Christ offers Himself up to the Father on the cross and gives Himself to us under the appearances of bread and wine. 

St. Paul speaks of the early Christian community continuing to celebrate this sacred meal.  He speaks in his First Letter to the Corinthians (11:23 – 26) of the mystery as being handed on to the first believers, “for I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”

So, how do we know that this bread is really His Body and this chalice really His Blood?  Well, because He tells us it is!  He says very clearly, “this is my Body” and “this is my Blood” – He does not speak of it as a “symbol” of His Body and Blood, but that it really truly IS His Body and Blood.  We see also, earlier in His ministry, Christ speaking about the necessity of eating His Body and drinking His Blood in order to find eternal life, “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6: 54). And once again, this is not symbolic language, He is speaking very clearly and, lest people be confused, He states directly, “my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink” (John 6:55)

It is these sayings of Christ which have led the Church to profess her faith in the Real Presence - that in the Eucharist, Jesus is really, truly, and substantially present.  In the Eucharist He is present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.  This is one of those mysteries of faith which can be hard to understand, but there is no room for doubt, because the Teacher Himself has told us exactly what the Eucharist is – it is Himself.

 (This article is part of a series of articles on The Sacraments which will appear in the bulletin over the course of this year.)

Over the course of this year we have been taking a look at the sacraments and examining them through the lens of the rituals which accompany their celebration.  Having already examined baptism and confirmation we now turn to the third sacrament of initiation – the Eucharist.  If you recall, a couple of years ago I wrote a series of bulletin articles examining the Mass – if you would like a copy of those, please feel free to contact the rectory – so rather than republishing that complete series, I want to examine the Eucharist by looking at the Eucharist in the Old Testament, the Eucharist in the New Testament, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and then a few insights of the saints who can help us to marvel at the gift that is the Eucharist. 

As you may recall, the Second Vatican Council spoke of the Eucharist and its celebration as being the source and summit of our faith.  Having just celebrated the Christmas Season and spent time pondering the mystery of the Incarnation we are called to ponder the reality that Christ is as really and truly present in the Eucharist as He was present in the manger in Bethlehem.  This is an amazing reality – one that we can scarcely comprehend – that the Lord is present to us every time we are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  A lifetime of reflection and prayer could be spent on this mystery and gift! 

To start our reflection now, let us turn to the Old Testament and see the various ways the Eucharist was prefigured. Saint Augustine once wrote that “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”  We see a number of events in the Old Testament which prefigure the institution of the Eucharist.  The first such event is the mysterious figure of Melchizedek.  Melchizedek was the King of Salem, the town that would eventually come to be known as Jerusalem.  In Genesis, Chapter 14, Abraham has an encounter with him, in which he approaches Abraham and bears with him both bread and wine.  Melchizedek is not only the King of Salem, but is also a high priest and so we see an offering that connects both bread and wine with the priesthood and the worship of the God.  Then, as quickly as he appears on the scene, Melchizedek disappears into the mists of time, but not before he makes such a distinct impression that one of the Psalms, would talk about “being a high priest forever, in the line of Melchizedek.” 

We also see the prefiguring of the Eucharist during Israel’s experience in the desert – as they move from captivity and slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land and freedom.  There, in the desert, they find themselves dying from hunger and plead with Moses to intercede on their behalf with God.  And God responds by sending manna from heaven.  This manna appears on a daily basis and is sufficient to provide for the needs of the people, but it will not last until the next day.  Each day they must have the faith and confidence that God will provide for them and, of course, He does.  We see this manna truly is “daily bread” nourishing the People of God on their journey from slavery into freedom.  It is not hard to see the allusion to the Eucharist that will be the true bread come down from heaven.

Perhaps the greatest prefiguring, however, is in the Passover.  On the night before the people of Israel flee Pharaoh’s oppressive rule, the Lord asks the people to celebrate the Passover meal.  It is prepared by using unleavened cakes of bread.  Along with this, the blood of the lambs which have been sacrificed are spread over the lintels of the doors, protecting the people of Israel from the avenging Angel of the Lord.  Here, in this sacred meal of our Jewish forefathers we see another prefiguring of the Eucharist – here we see the ritual use of bread which carries with it significance beyond its mere physical form and nourishment and we see, mixed in with this ritual, the use of the blood of the lambs to protect people from death.  Once again, it is easy to see how this Jewish ritual meal prefigures the advent of the Eucharist and it is the Passover meal that Jesus celebrates with the Apostles which we know as the Last Supper.

(This article is part of a series of articles on The Sacraments which will appear in the bulletin over the course of this year.)

I remember a priest who had been ordained for nearly forty years commenting to me about his experience of Christmas.  He mentioned what a busy time of year it was and how hard it was to feel in the “Christmas spirit” and then as soon as he was ready to celebrate (after the final Christmas Mass!) people were already beginning to move on. He said as he grew older, however, he began to see the fact that his Christmas celebration was just beginning as other people’s was ending and because of that Christmas began to be more than a day, but in keeping with the Church’s year, it was truly an entire season and became the source of real joy for him, because he looked forward not only to one day, but to a celebration of weeks.  I found that not only to be an interesting statement, but one I saw as true in my own life and I think there is something in that for all of us.

We live in a culture that quickly moves forward – Halloween isn’t over and we’re already getting ready for Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving isn’t over and we’re already getting ready for Christmas, Christmas isn’t over and we’re already thinking of New Year’s Eve.  But isn’t there something lost in that attitude?  Isn’t there something lost in looking beyond the present moment?  I think of that sometimes with the proliferation of smart phones – so many people taking pictures or videos of events, are we missing actually just being present at the event?  Do we spend so much time looking forward to what comes next or recording what is that we never actually enter what is unfolding in any significant way?  Perhaps it’s a symptom of our culture which seems unable to sit still for more than a few moments at a time and or can never be quite satisfied with what it has, but is always looking for something else.  That is one of the beautiful things about the Church’s celebration of Christmas and part of the genius of Catholicism – we celebrate Christmas not just for a day, but for an entire season – for weeks!  This event, the Incarnation of the Son of God, is too significant, too important, too full of joy for it to be contained in the celebration of a day, it has to be meditated on and rejoiced in over the course of days and weeks. 
​
Our Christmas celebrations this year were beautiful and a particular thank you to all who had a role in making them so!  What a great gift that we can continue to celebrate!  So as we start a new year, keep the Christmas tree up (unless it’s a fire hazard!), the lights shining on the houses, the carols in our hearts, “Merry Christmas” on our lips, the crèche up and the joy and wonder of how graced and privileged we are to have been given such a Savior in the depths of our souls.  A blessed New Year to all of you but, most especially, a continued Merry Christmas!