timeimmortal

I’m going to take a day’s break from all the brouhaha that normally percolates through the blog here. It’s Friday, and it’s a good time to turn my thoughts away from the matters that trouble the world which I inhabit, and the orbits I find myself in. It would be nice to start preparing myself for Sunday, for Mass, and for yet another encounter with the Lord.

I’m talking, of course, about Eucharist, the source and summit of Christian faith. And also, both inside and outside of Catholicism, one of the most misunderstood aspects of the faith.

Catholicism makes what seems, initially, to be a very bold claim: that Christ Jesus literally becomes present in the breaking of the bread at each and every Mass, that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine, retaining only the “accidental” (to use the Aristotelean term) of qualities of each — the bread and wine still look like bread and wine, and still taste like it. But, contrary to the “if it quacks like a duck” thinking of the rest of the world around us, Catholics nevertheless boldly assert that despite the fact that the bread and wine seem, by all appearances, to still be bread and wine, they are in fact anything but.

It’s a bold declaration of complete faith…faith not in the Church (as an institution), nor faith in the priest, nor faith in the wafer itself. No, it is a declaration of faith in Christ, an affirmation of the Catholic belief that Christ really is Lord and King of all creation, and the He does so love the world — and everyone in it — that He desires to draw to Him those who profess their need for Him.

Equally, it is a declaration of faith in a Christ whose love and desire to be in communion with those who profess their need for His promise of salvation and forgiveness of sin that He will make Himself present to them, in keeping with His promise that He would be in the midst of any number who gather in His name. We all must die in due course and will, in so doing, end up before the Lord. But prior to that, Christ — out of love — elects to come into our presence too. His love for humanity is so great, and His desire to be in communion with us so powerful, that He will step down, but for a moment, to be with us in our present-tense reality, appearing before us in a guise at once hidden and yet obvious, as surely as He appeared to the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus.

It’s a powerful belief. But then, Christ is Lord and King of all creation — it is proper that a teaching pertaining to the direct intersection of Christ and the world is powerful.

Within Scripture, the first hints of the Eucharist are presented in the Gospel of John, in chapter 6. The close association between the Eucharistic revelation and the Paschal Meal is at once obvious.

[4] Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.
[5] Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”
[6] This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
[7] Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
[8] One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,
[9] “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?”
[10] Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
[11] Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
[12] And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.”
[13] So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten.
[14] When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!”
[15]Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

These are not usually the verses cited in any apologetic concerning the Eucharist, but I would like to preface my analysis by noting the significance of the event within them. A large multitude has gathered to see and hear the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus — deeply moved — worries after the need of the people to eat. There is precious little food available to achieve that end, of course — to feed five thousand, two loaves and five fishes would amount to mere crumbs per person.

And so Jesus effects a miracle, both as a sign to the people and as a test of faith for the disciples. I’ve always thought the scene’s portrayal in Jesus of Nazareth captured the mood of the disciples perfectly, and I am still struck by the image of the apostle John holding forth an empty basket, apologizing that what little is in it is all he has. And yet, when the camera pans back to the basket, it is overflowing.

Jesus takes the small quantity of food and makes it into a bountiful quantity of food; five loaves and two fish feed thousands of people. This is an incredible miracle, but it also prefaces an even more important revelation with a vital truth: Christ can make that which is scarce plentiful, that which is one into many, and that which is little into much. And the people realize this — indeed, Christ withdraws from them, for the great revelation of his power had moved the crowd to entertain the thought of crowning him king (which would, of course, have likely caused a bloody revolution).

[16] When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea,
[17] got into a boat, and started across the sea to Caper’na-um. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
[18] The sea rose because a strong wind was blowing.
[19] When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened,
[20] but he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”
[21] Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.
[22]On the next day the people who remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.

John continues his account with another important testimony of Christ’s power, specifically a testament to His being master of all creation. The Lord is able to join his disciples in the boat after it had set out across the water, and all who observed the disciples in their boat from the shore saw only the one boat which held the disciples. Yet Christ, Lord and King even over the waters, is able to join them, walking out over the sea as though it were dry land.

All creation is bent to Christ’s will, and over every aspect of creation does Christ have power. This will be important to remember shortly.

[35]Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

[36] But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
[37] All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.
[38] For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me;
[39] and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day.
[40] For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
[41]The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”

[42] They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
[43] Jesus answered them, “Do not murmur among yourselves.
[44] No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
[45] It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
[46] Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father.
[47] Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
[48] I am the bread of life.
[49] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
[50] This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.
[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
[52]The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

[53] So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;
[54] he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
[55] For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
[56] He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
[57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.
[58] This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”

John then moves on in his testimony of Christ’s sayings to this all-important teaching. It is a hard teaching for the assembled crowd to hear, though. Observant Jews all, they would of course have been mindful of the teaching of Moses that we, today, recognize as Deuteronomy 12:23-24. Consumption of blood, especially, was strictly prohibited for the Jews, and consumption of any flesh along with the blood that had been in it doubly so (it is also prohibited in the Book of Leviticus). Then there was the whole suggestion of cannibalism, which would have been regarded as even more problematic. With the teaching above, Jesus is beyond saying radical things — He is saying impossible things…or, rather, impossible from within the context of only the Law.

And yet, he also speaks very plainly: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

I suspect that in this teaching, the true purpose behind God’s giving of the law concerning the non-consumption of blood is revealed: there is but one blood that it is fitting for man to consume, that which is the most precious and holy blood of the Son of Man, the Son of God.

And when people doubt, Jesus rebukes them — indeed, his words are almost defiantly challenging: “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? ” He escalates the situation at this point, saying that if the people find it impossible that He suggests they eat of His flesh, they will be wholly unable to comprehend his rising again in glory and ascension into Heaven. This is also a teaching for us, looking back: Christ is Lord and King over all creation, and even over life and death. If Christ is so powerful as to master even death, and in so doing rise again and ascend into Heaven, is he not powerful enough to divide himself for us, and give himself to us, just as surely as he divided the loaves and fishes and bade them be distributed to the thousands who had assembled?

The Jews doubt this teaching, and many turn and refuse to follow Christ any longer. Some ask directly: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus does not answer them directly in that moment, but His answer does come. Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22 all tell of the same essential teaching that Jesus gives in His last celebration of the Passover meal. Below is Matthew’s account of what transpired.

[26]Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

[27] And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you;
[28] for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
[29] I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Jesus is again direct; of the bread He says “this is my body”, while of the wine He says “this is my blood”. There is nothing in His recorded words to suggest that he is being in any metaphorical in giving these teachings; he directly equates the breaking of the bread to the coming breaking of his body.

It is here that an objection can emerge, a temporal objection. Christ celebrated The Last Supper prior to his Crucifixion, and so His body had not yet been broken in suffering. How, then, could He give His broken body in its full reality to those sitting with Him at the table?

The problem with this objection is that it fundamentally fails to understand who Christ is; it communicates an ignorance of Christ Himself. Christ is Lord and King of all creation, and as such is Lord and King of time as well. Christ’s Crucifixion happened only once, but its effects are eternal, stretching at once back to the dawn of time and forward to the end of time. All ages at once were incorporated into the one true sacrifice of Christ, and all ages participate in it — this must be true, because Christ died for the sins of all humanity, not just for the sins of those living in the day and age in which He walked the Earth.

Christ’s sacrifice was not only temporal; it was eternal. It is therefore not unreasonable in the least to suggest that He could share His own body, broken, with the gathered apostles at that Last Supper, even though the temporal event — the Aristotelean notion of “accidents” may be relevant here as well — of his suffering had not yet occurred.

One other objection is sometimes based on verse 29, above, but to this it serves to note that Christ Himself said that He “is the true vine” (John 15:1) — if the wine is the fruit of this vine that is Christ, then let it be His blood just as He said it was.

Christ’s true revelation in the breaking of the bread is later confirmed by His appearance to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, as chronicled in Luke, chapter 24.

[24] Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see.”
[25] And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
[26] Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
[27] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
[28]So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further,

[29] but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them.
[30] When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them.
[31] And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.

This account actually also lays out the basic structure of the Mass, which begins with an exploration and teaching not only of the Word of God, but of the unity therein; the readings from the Old and New Testaments are chosen specifically to demonstrate that the New fulfills the Old, and that the Old foretells the New.

And once the Scriptures are opened, the bread is broken, and Christ Himself is revealed.

Notice the structure of events here. The two disciples have no idea that it is Christ to whom they are speaking; they think him only an especially wise fellow-traveller. And out of politeness and concern, they invite Him in off of the road in the evening, lest He risk being set upon by bandits as He continues in His way. It is only at the exact moment that Christ breaks the bread — in a direct repetition of His action at the Last Supper — that His full nature is made known to them. They saw but a man, but in the breaking of the bread they saw Christ fully revealed, and (for an instant) fully present in their midst.

St. Paul takes all of this into account in his sharp rebuke to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11). There is a real problem in the Corinthian church, which Paul briefly details:

[20] When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.
[21] For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk.

Essentially, there was disunity in the Corinthian church, and (what is more) there was needfulness which was being ignored. Those who were wealthy and had food ate and feasted, while ignoring the needs of those who had little, and yet still came to remember in celebration the Last Supper; Paul tells them, essentially, that in coming together to receive Christ when they have been ignoring the needy, they essentially commit a wretched blasphemy.

[22] What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

He then goes on to correct them, continuing his rebuke now with an explanation of just why their actions and inattentions have the gravity that they do.

[23]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,

[24] and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
[25] 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.”
[26] For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
[27]Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.

[28] Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
[29] For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
[30] That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
[31] But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged.
[32] But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
[33]So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another –

[34] if any one is hungry, let him eat at home — lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

Paul pulls no punches here — he plainly says that if the Corinthians come together in remembrance of Christ’s Last Supper when some among them are hungry from lack of food, the whole assembly will be condemned by their act of remembrance. Verse 29 spells out the vector by which this condemnation arrives: ” any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.” And in Verse 27, Paul is again very plain in his meaning: “whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.”

How can one eat and drink judgement if one is eating mere bread and drinking mere wine? Do bread and wine have power to condemn a man? No! Only Christ has that power…and indeed, the bread and wine are Christ Himself. How else can one profane Christ by receiving the bread and wine in an unworthy manner? Christ must be really, truly, and materially present in the bread and wine for these verses to make one iota of sense. For how can bread alone condemn a man? Christ has power to condemn, bread does not. If in eating the bread, a man can be condemned by it, then the bread must be literally Christ.

And moreover, it is a participation in Christ, and in His one true sacrifice. A common canard one encounters is that Catholics “re-sacrifice” Christ. This is not the case; the Eucharist is a participation in the aspect of the one true sacrifice which is eternal, and which reverberates through all ages of history. It is like the loaves and the fishes — Christ gave his once-broken body to the disciples, and He gives it to us as well.

The Church uses the term “transubstantiation” to describe the moment at which the bread ceased to be bread and becomes the body of Christ, and the moment at which the wine ceases to be wine and becomes the blood of Christ. That is a term borrowed from Aristotelean philosophy, to describe a process by which something becomes something else save for its external attributes.

Many Christians object to this philosophy as an example of old paganism corrupting Christ’s truth. But that doesn’t make much sense when Christ Himself that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church, against His Bride. How can mere natural philosophy — which was not specifically related to pagan worship, but instead to how the Greek philosophers understood the world — corrupt something which Hell itself cannot prevail against?

The assertion is ludicrous on its face, and demonstrates again a fundamental misunderstanding of Christ. And funnily, it is on this specific objection to transubstantiation that I often find Christians and atheists in agreement.

What I find both ironic and tragically interesting about Christian and atheist objections to the reality of Christ in the Eucharist is how they often seem to be founded on the same core thesis: “that’s magic talk; it’s not real!” Oh, differences in approaches exist — the Christian objector will tend to follow up his declaration with a handful of verses of Scripture (often cited in a manner that is grossly out of context), while at the same time denouncing as pagan (and therefore necessarily incorrect) theological concepts like transubstantiation. The atheist objector, meanwhile, will attack the same theological concepts from an empirical standpoint.

And every once in a while, the two sides will switch it up — the atheist will be the one citing Scripture, the Christian the one citing empiricism. It’s a strange reversal, but it has happened. But the reversal is not the point, O Reader — the point, such as it is, is that Christian and atheist find common cause, and employ essentially common means, in pursuit of an unknowingly unified anti-Catholic goal.

What is even more tragic, in the case of Christian denunciations of the Eucharist, is that many of the same people who would denounce the rather literal Catholic interpretation of, especially, John 6:53-56, absolutely insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 through 9. Present them with Christ specifically commanding that His flesh be eaten and His blood consumed, though, and you will be greeted with a litany of hasty denials: Catholics are misinterpreting Scripture, Christ isn’t speaking literally, Catholics aren’t understanding Christ’s real meaning, and so forth.

It’s a strange dichotomy, that they are willing to place more faith in the literal meaning of the words of the author of Genesis than they are in the words of He who supposedly is their Lord.

In the end, Scripture itself is remarkably consistent on this matter: Jesus promised He would be present when we gather in His name, He commanded that we eat His flesh and drink His blood (which he will give), and He bade us to take that which was bread and that which was wine and consume them in a manner that was a fitting remembrance of Him. To counteract the despair and doubt of His disciples, He appeared again and was revealed to them in a repetition of His actions at the Last Supper — the eyes of the disciples perceived Christ, literally and truly present in their midst, in the moment the bread was broken. And St. Paul completes the teaching, warning that practicing the remembrance Christ commissioned in a manner that was disrespectful either of the bread and wine or of other members of the community would bring — in the act of consumption — condemnation.

And yet, in the end, it comes down to faith. We can have all the words in front of us and still not perceive the full truth of the matter, and faith must step in where understanding fails. When we come to Mass and step up to receive Christ, we receive what appears to be bread, and we drink what appears to be wine. Shape, taste, feeling, and scent all suggest bread, and the mind desires to label that which looks like a duck as a duck.

But the disciples on the road to Emmaus made that mistake too. They had seen Christ die, or had heard of His brutal death. They had seen Christ buried, or had heard that he had been placed in the tomb. And they had heard that His body had gone, and they thought Him stolen. They had concluded, at the end of all these events, that the Lord their God had been a great prophet, but ultimately just a man who had been murdered and who was gone now, forever.

And who could blame them for thinking so? They had seen Christ die, as surely as they had seen others die in the past.

And yet, they were wrong.

And so are we, if all we see is bread and wine.

In the end, it is a question of faith. Now, I can understand if people cannot, in their faith, accept that Catholics don’t receive mere bread and wine from the altar. It is, as the Jews noted too, a hard teaching to accept. And I respect that not all Christians can believe this hard teaching.

But some Christians go beyond that, and into formal denunciation of the teaching itself. Jack Chick’s famous “Death Cookie” tract stands out here as one of the best examples, although he and others have produced volumes of writings in an attempt to illustrate where Catholics have gone wrong. For these Christians, it would be easy to feel contempt, given how obviously and plainly their words and beliefs so obviously contradict the plain meaning both of St. Paul’s teachings and Christ’s own statements.

But for such Christians, I instead feel pity. For their issue is not that one of faith; it is one of fear. Let us be plain: Catholics encounter, in the Eucharistic meal, Christ…directly. He’s right there in front of us, right there with us, literally and truly present among us. We stand, but for a moment, in the ante-chamber of Heaven itself, and for a brief while are in the holiest place in all the Universe: we are at Christ’s very feet.

And some Christians seem to hate and fear that Catholics experience Christ that closely, that intimately. “It can’t be,” they say. “It’s a lie,” they insist. “It’s false teaching,” they exclaim. But their words are empty, and their thinking muddled by their own fear of such a close and personal encounter with Christ. They often talk of accepting Christ as one’s personal Lord and Saviour, and in that they do well. But Catholicism takes a person one step, or perhaps several steps, further than that. We do not just accept Christ…we see Him, greet Him, and are touched by Him.

Update: Welcome, WebElf readers!

~ by Kenneth on June 20, 2008.