The Holy Eucharist and its origins

            In the celebration of the Eucharist, the bread and wine become the real Body and Blood of Christ “by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1333).  The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is, like his Incarnation itself, one of the great mysteries of faith.  Often we think of a mystery as being some kind of problem that we have not yet solved or explained.  For instance, physicists struggle to reconcile theories about the “very large” things in our universe (general relativity), with theories about the very small things (quantum mechanics).  Or we might be watching the latest episode of CSI, wondering how the detectives and forensics experts will solve the “mystery” of the crime.  The Eucharist is not a mystery in this sense of being something that we could understand fully, but haven’t completely figured out yet.  By calling the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist a mystery, we are saying that it is a truth that is really beyond our ability to understand fully.  “The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ” (CCC 1333).

            Although Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is a mystery, nevertheless, the tradition of the Church has throughout its history tried to articulate that mystery to the best of its ability.  We can’t comprehend God’s gift of the Eucharist in all its fullness, but we can do our best to explain this sacrament’s meaning as the full reality of Christ’s presence.  “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.  This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present (CCC 1374)”.

            Now what does that mean?  There are a couple of key ideas here that are hard to wrap our minds around: (1) presence, and (2) substance.  First, God is omnipresent, which means that God is present everywhere, at the same time.  Yet we, as limited human beings, are not present to one another in this way, nor can we fully comprehend God’s presence.  So God makes himself fully present to us in a way that respects our limitations as creatures in space and time, by being fully present to us in a specific way, at a specific location, at a specific time.  This full presence of God is found in the Eucharist. 

            There are many different ways in which presence is experienced among human beings, and various degrees of presence.  For example, a good friend of mine can be faintly present to me in my memory, or through an image or photograph.  In another way, my friend can be present to me more closely through the words he has written to me in a letter or an email.  An even closer presence is found as we converse over the phone, and hear each other’s voices.  A still closer presence is found as we meet together, face to face, at a specific time and in a specific place.  On another level and in another way, presence between human persons may be found in its most intimate expression through the sacrament of matrimony.

            One can make an imperfect but helpful comparison with the above when talking about God’s presence to human persons.  God is faintly present to us when we think about him, or see images depicting Jesus, the saints, or scenes from the Bible.  God is still more present to us when we read the Bible and learn about what he has done for us and how much he loves us.  Yet God is even more present when we pray (both personally and communally) contemplate, or meditate.  Here we listen to God’s voice speaking lovingly to us, his children, in the silence of our hearts.  Yet God is most present to us when we come to meet him face to face at a specific time, and in a specific place – this being in the Eucharist.  Although we do not see Jesus in the flesh, in his body and blood, with our bodily eyes, in the Eucharist, we can still see him and perceive the presence of his soul and his identity as God through the eyes of faith.  Receiving the Eucharist in communion is the most intimate way that we can be with God in this earthly life, and is participation in the consummation of Christ’s marriage to his Church.  God’s real presence in the Eucharist, in the fullest sense, is called substantial.  But what does that mean?

            When we hear the term “substance”, we are as likely as not to have memories of chemistry class and bizarre combinations of molecules that we can see, touch or maybe even hear exploding.  In the chemistry lab, loosely speaking, we observe with our senses one substance “change” into another in a chemical reaction.  Yet “substance”, in the philosophical tradition informing the theology of the Eucharist, means something entirely different.  Part of the meaning of “substance” in this tradition is “that which remains throughout change”.  For example, you, as a physical and biological being, are in constant change.  Chemical reactions are happening in your body all the time, and cells are dying and being replaced.  Yet through this process of continual change, your substance, “you”, properly speaking, remains in existence.  Although you may have a whole new body every few years, you don’t have a whole new you.  Throughout the change, substance remains. 

During the Eucharistic celebration, the bread and wine are converted into the Body and Blood of Christ at the consecration.  “The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces [the words of consecration], but their power and grace are God’s.  This is my body, he says.  This word transforms the things offered (CCC 1375)….  By the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.  This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation (CCC 1376).”  Transubstantiation – there’s that word substance again.  Just as “transportation” means to carry someone or something to somewhere else, so “transubstantiation” means to change the substance of someone or something into the substance of someone or something else.

             Wheat and grains are harvested and made into bread.  Grapes are harvested and made into wine.  Although the appearance and chemical constitution of these things changes throughout the various processes they undergo, their substance (that which makes them configurations of organic matter) remains fundamentally the same.  At the consecration, although the body and blood of Christ still have the appearance of bread and wine, their substance (that which makes them organic matter) is no longer the same, but is converted into the person of Christ, his substance, that is, the presence and being of God.  How God actually brings this about is a miraculous mystery greater than creation itself.

              With respect to the second question, the Church understands the Bible as talking about the Eucharist in many places.  “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word eucharistein, which means, “to give thanks”.  “Eucharist” thus means “thanksgiving”.  One of the most important passages in Scripture that refers to the Eucharist is Luke 22:19.  During the Last Supper, Jesus “took bread, and when he had given thanks [eucharistesas] he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  The Greek word for “remembrance” here is anamnesis, which, in the history of that language, meant more than simply recalling the memories of things past.  The Greek poet Homer, who wrote about Troy, would use the word anamnesis in his poems in such descriptions as “the Trojans remembered their fear”.  By anamnesis, Homer didn’t mean that when the Trojans went into battle they remembered that they had been afraid in the past – it meant that they were afraid at that time in the same way that they had been before.  Similarly, when the author of Luke has Jesus use the word anamnesis, “in remembrance of me”, Jesus means not simply to remember his presence at the Last Supper and his sacrifice for us as something past, but to receive his same presence “now” in the Eucharist.  In the gift of the Eucharist, Jesus is as really present to us now as he was then, although we cannot see and hear him in the same way.

            Another important passage in Scripture regarding the Eucharist is St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 11:23-26.  “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks [eucharistesas], he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you.  Do this in remembrance [anamnesin] 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 [anamnesin] of me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” 

            Although the Bible talks about the Eucharist in the Gospels, Paul’s letters, and a number of other places, you don’t find the Bible discussing “transubstantiation” or “substance”.  This is partly because the authors of the Bible did not have these words as part of their tradition and vocabulary, and partly because of the fact that the Scripture writers could not answer questions later Christians asked about what they wrote, because they could not hear, or necessarily anticipate, those questions.  All of the explanations for things in the Bible, or answers to questions about the Bible, are not always given within the Bible itself.  That is why the Church has to rely upon the Holy Spirit’s voice in other sources, Tradition and the Magisterium, to guide it in the process of coming to understand God’s revelation in the Scriptures.