St Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 AD), head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria expresses the Eucharist as a wonderful mystery:
The Word is everything to a child: both Father and Mother, both Instructor and Nurse. ‘Eat My Flesh’ He says, ‘and drink My Blood [John 6:55]’. 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. O incredible mystery!12
The Catholic and Orthodox Churches allow only those who have been baptised and instructed accordingly to share in the Eucharist. At the Last Supper only the twelve were allowed to partake in it.
Justin gets to the pinnacle of his testimonial: 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 nourished [food becomes part of our own body], is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.13
This is wonderful! We have testimony from the early Christians, following the apostles, that the Eucharist is actually the Body and Blood of Jesus!
Sacrifice Another aspect of the Eucharist is that of sacrifice. St Irenaeus (c.140-202 AD) became the second Bishop of Lyons when he succeeded St Pothinus in about 178. Regarding the Holy Eucharist he explains that Christ confessed the cup to be His Blood. Then referring to Malachai 1:10-11 he says that the prophet Malachias declares that God’s name will be declared among the gentiles, the non Jews; and a pure sacrifice will be offered to the Lord Almighty.
St Irenaeus says the prophet makes it clear that ‘the former people will cease to make offerings to God; but that in every place sacrifice will be offered to Him, and indeed, a pure one; for His name is glorified among the gentiles. That sacrifice is the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ’.14
Some Christians claim that Catholics have the intention of resacrificing Christ through the celebration of the Eucharist. But Christ does not die again. In fact there has only ever been one Mass, the Last Supper. Every Mass since Christ celebrated the Last Supper is the death and resurrection of Christ sacramentally re-presented: ‘The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.’15 In other words we share in the one sacrifice of Calvary together with the resurrection and glorification of Christ as the power of Christ’s total self-gift transcends time. Pope John Paul II says: ‘Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is an almost tangible return to his ”hour”, the hour of his Cross and glorification. Every priest who celebrates Holy Mass, together with the Christian community which takes part in it, is led back in spirit to that place and that hour.’16 Vatican II called it ‘the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages.’17
The Pope refers to the Council of Trent, a Church Council held from 1545 to 1563 AD: ‘The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it.18 What is repeated is its memorial celebration, its “commemorative representation” (memorialis demonstration),19 which makes Christ’s one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time’.20 Therefore Christ is not recrucified but we celebrate the one sacrifice which transcends time; spiritually we are at the foot of the Cross at Calvary as well as at the resurrection of Christ.
The Eucharist in the form of the Blood of Our Lord is the cup of salvation, which Christ offers us as a gift which goes beyond time:21 The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work. Nor does it remain confined to the past, since ‘all that Christ is – all that he did and suffered for all men – participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times’.22
The Pope also emphasises that the Eucharistic sacrifice transcends time when he proclaims: ‘This sacrifice is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there.’23
He explains the sense of awe which should fill the faithful and especially the priest: In the paschal event [Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension and glorification] and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout the centuries, there is a truly enormous ‘capacity’ which embraces all of history as the recipient of the grace of redemption. This amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist. But in a special way it should fill the minister of the Eucharist.24
He also relates the Eucharist as unifying heaven and earth, and permeating all creation. In fact Jesus restores all creation to the Father through the priestly ministry of the Church.
The Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ unites heaven and earth. Christ holds nothing back. He gives Himself totally to us, in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. We receive the total Christ as He offers Himself as sacrificial lamb in obedience to God the Father and for us. This self-giving act of love means that we are being united with Him. This leads us to St Irenaeus and his expressing strongly the belief that the Eucharist having the element of bread, contains the divinity of Jesus and thus is sanctifying for those who receive Him with open hearts:
For as the bread from the earth, receiving the invocation of God, is no longer common bread but the Eucharist, consisting of two elements, earthly and heavenly, so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible but have the hope of resurrection into eternity.25
No wonder Vatican II called the Eucharistic Sacrifice ‘the source and summit of the Christian life’.26 It is the greatest sacrament which is Christ’s action of total self-gift as He unites with His faithful when they receive Him in the Holy Eucharist with open hearts.
The Pope affirms this par excellence when he says, ‘Consequently the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.’27 What a beautiful description of the awesome love of God whereby we are receiving the Risen Christ.
Real Presence God is omnipresent, present in all places at the same time. Therefore is present in heaven as well as in the Eucharist, the Word of God, the congregation and in the priest. Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is a very deep, substantial presence. One can use an analogy of being in the room of your best friend. Even though you aren’t talking there is a presence there. But when you are communicating, there is a deeper presence; and when you are laughing and smiling the presence is even fuller. So in a way, we believe that God is laughing and smiling with us through the Eucharist. To put it even more profoundly, God is loving us through the Eucharist as we are united with Him through His total gift of self.
Pope John Paul II says in Ecclesia De Eucharistia,28 that the Eucharist is the sacramental re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice which involves a presence which Pope Paul VI called real as it is a ‘presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present’.29 That is what is meant by the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.
We can now explore further evidence from the Church Fathers and Sacred Scripture regarding the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. St Ephraim, a Syrian, was born about AD 306 and lived until AD 373. He was consecrated a deacon before AD 338 and was never ordained to the priesthood. He recounts the Last Supper with Christ giving Himself and thus His Real Presence:
Our Lord Jesus took in His hands what in the beginning was only bread; and He blessed it, and signed it, and made it holy in the name of the Father and in the name of the Spirit; and He broke it and in His gracious kindness He distributed it to all His disciples one by one. He called the bread His living Body, and di
d Himself fill it with himself and the Spirit.30
He then reveals how sacred and sanctifying the Eucharist is, even down to its very crumbs: And extending His hand, He gave them the Bread which His right hand had made holy: “Take, all of you eat of this, which My word has made holy. Do not now regard as bread that which I have given you; but take, eat this Bread, and do not scatter the crumbs; for what I have called My Body, that it is indeed. One particle from its crumbs is able to sanctify thousands and thousands, and is sufficient to afford life to those who eat of it.”31
St Ephraim uses a powerful metaphor to illustrate the nature of the Eucharist as sanctifying: ‘Take, eat, entertaining no doubt of faith, because this is My Body, and whoever eats it in belief eats in it Fire and Spirit.’32 I love this depiction of the Eucharist. Fire is something which can be purifying, warming, consuming and contagious as it spreads. It is also something which can inspire us to pause in our busyness to spend time together or snuggle up with a loved one.
One flame may not give much light in the darkness but when you hold many flames in the same vicinity then the light is strong. Meanwhile one flame is powerful for it can start small and turn into a small log-fire or a blazing bonfire. And Spirit is something which represents life itself; it is the essence of living things. It is also unifying, especially when we receive the life of Christ through the Eucharist. So it has the power to transform us as we open our hearts to receive this life, the Real Presence of Christ.
St Ephraim then relates the effect for those who eat of it with belief or sadly with shame: But if any doubter eat of it, for him it will be only bread. And whoever eats in belief the Bread made holy in My name, if he be pure, he will be preserved in his purity; and if he be a sinner, he will be forgiven.” But if anyone despise it or reject it or treat it with ignominy [shame], it may be taken as a certainty that he treats with ignominy the Son, who called it and actually made it to be His Body.33
The Gospel of Luke refers to the cup as the new covenant. Therefore the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Eucharist, including the Real Presence is the new covenant:
Then he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ He did the same with the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you (Luke 22:19-20).’
As God’s presence dwelled in the Ark of the Covenant during the Old Testament times (the old covenant), the Last Supper has Christ’s fullest presence dwelling through the consecration of bread and wine (the new covenant). During the old covenant only the High Priest could come into God’s presence, while in the new covenant the door was opened for all who chose to follow Christ (‘repent and be baptised’), to receive the presence of Jesus. It is the closest intimacy with God that Christians can have on earth. The next verse is very striking as it reveals the sacredness of the
Eucharist. One should be very careful of mistreating this wonderful gift; St Paul says, ‘Therefore anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.’34 He goes further in saying that we have to be very careful of our attitude towards the Body and Blood of the Lord. If they were merely symbolic as claimed by some Christians, then Paul would not have written so strongly. He says, ‘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 recognizing the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation.’35
People have actually mistreated the Eucharist; one rogue scientist, Professor PZ Myers calls it a ‘fracken cracker’ and even blatantly a ‘goddamned cracker’ in his blog. But his abuse of the Catholic faith and thus Catholics did not stop there as he also called for people to send him consecrated communion wafers so he could film what he termed as sacrilege ‘with much fanfare’ and to ‘treat it with profound disrespect’. On an interview with Father Thomas Loya, a priest of the Byzantine Catholic Rite the professor claimed that it was OK for him to do this as some Catholics don’t believe in its sacredness when receiving it and nothing happens to them. But here is where he is blatantly wrong. It is the teaching of the Church that those Catholics who blatantly mistreat the Eucharist, which is what Myers was threatening, are automatically excommunicated and can only be restored to the Church through the Holy See, the Vatican.
As mentioned previously the blood of the covenant refers to the Eucharist and hence the Real Presence. Paul gives us a startling warning if one dares to mistreat the Eucharist:
Anyone who disregards the Law of Moses is ruthlessly put to death on the word of two witnesses or three; and you may be sure that anyone who tramples on the Son of God, and who treats the blood of the covenant which sanctified him as if it were not holy, and who insults the Spirit of grace, will be condemned to a far severer punishment (Hebrews 10:28-29).
The author of Hebrews links the blood of the covenant with the Spirit of grace. As mentioned regarding the teaching of St Cyril, we receive graces through the Eucharist. It is so sad that many Christians have lost this sense of the Eucharist, and yet it is plainly in Sacred Scripture.
Other Christian denominations celebrate the Eucharist, Holy
Communion, with reverence. However it is mainly the Orthodox Church and Catholic Church that hold the Eucharist to be the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Sadly many Catholics are ignorant of the fullness of Christ in Eucharist. But the Catholic and Orthodox Churches teach that we can receive the fullness of Christ and thus grace through the fullness of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. It is phenomenal that many of the healings which occurred at such places as Lourdes happened when the people were blessed by the priest holding up the Eucharist and making the sign of the Cross with the Body of the Lord; and healings have occurred after sick people have consumed the Eucharist.
Jesus came to fulfill the law. Therefore it is not surprising that there are links between the old and new covenants. Are we to deny that God’s presence dwelled in the Ark of the Covenant? Are we to deny that God’s presence was in the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple? The Holy of Holies was like one big tabernacle. Therefore if God’s presence could be there in a special way then could not God’s presence be manifested uniquely in what was once only a piece of bread?
Eternal Life One of the greatest displays of God’s loving and sanctifying power since the Last Supper is the Eucharist. This gift was given to all Christendom. Firstly let’s explore how Sacred Scripture reveals that eternal life is offered through the Eucharist. In the Gospel of John, Jesus foreshadows the institution of the Eucharist, with the miracle of the multiplication of loaves. Then in His discourse with the crowd in John 6 He implores His followers to work for food that endures for eternal life which the Son of man will give them.
The crowd asked what they had to do to carry out God’s work and Jesus replies that He is the bread of life, the living bread of which anyone who eats will live forever.
Jesus then clearly relates His flesh and blood to life itself. The Jews viewed blood as representing life and very sacred to them. Jesus says that if one does not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, then that person has no life within them (v 53). This means that those who do eat His Body and drink His Blood have His life within them in such a way that others do not. Then Jesus goes a step further; He links eating and drinking His Blood with eternal life. He says ‘Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood, has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day (v 54)’. He equates His Flesh as “real food” and His Blood as “real drink”. Then He reveals the intimate unity of the one who eats His Body and drinks His Blood, ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person (v 56)’. The one who eats His Body will draw life from Him and will live forever (v 57-58).
At this point, sadly, many of Jesus’s own followers said this was ‘intolerable language’ and left Him. Jesus didn’t call them back and say, ‘H
ey I was joking! I really meant it this way.’ Jesus knew that they found this teaching tough and throughout this discourse He says repeatedly, ‘In truth I tell you’ which is like us saying today, ‘Listen I have something really important to tell you’ or ‘I really mean what I’m saying’. He tries to drum it into them; He repeats the phrase, ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’. It is fascinating that this discourse follows on from the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, which itself is a prefiguration of the Eucharist. Jesus does not reveal any other meaning to the twelve, His closest friends, following their confusion as He does elsewhere. This is not a parable, but Jesus reveals how His Body, the Eucharist is connected with Him and eternal life.
In the Gospels Jesus reveals Himself as the tree of life as well as the bread of life. In the book of Revelation Christians are invited to eat from the tree of life:
‘Let anyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: those who prove victorious I will feed from the tree of life set in God’s paradise (Revelation 2:7).’
‘Blessed are those who will have washed their robes clean, so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into the city (Revelation 22:14).’
The Greek theologian St Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) emphasises the Eucharist as sharing in Christ’s immortality. I believe this needs to be taken in conjunction with other Sacred Scripture in which Jesus reveals what one must do to inherit eternal life (such as repent, be baptised and believe in the Good News). Clement says:
God: Fact or Fiction?: Exploring the Relationship Between Science Religion and the Origin of Life Page 27
