Let's look at the building blocks and results
of the third sacrament of initiation, the Eucharist.
Some other aspects of the Eucharist will be treated by other classes.
The Eucharist was prefigured in various ways in the Old Testament.
In the book of Genesis, the priest Melchizedek offered bread and wine and sacrifice to God.
Later at the Exodus, a lamb was offered in sacrifice, the Pascal lamb.
More broadly, many sacrifices were instituted by God as part of his covenant with the Israelites.
A final prefiguration of the Eucharist was the bread like manna given miraculously each
day by God to the Israelites as they traveled for 40 years in the desert before reaching
the Promised Land.
This background informs what Jesus did when he instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper,
the night before he offered his life on the cross.
The Eucharist is the sacrifice of the new Pascal lamb, Jesus Christ, a sacrifice signified
by bread and wine, the sacrifice that gives us daily food for our journey to heaven.
The liturgical Rite of the Eucharist, the
sacramentum tantum, begins with bread and wine as the sacramental matter.
Bread signifies basic nutritional sustenance.
Hearty physical eating leads to physical strength.
The same occurs spiritually.
Think too about how bread is made.
Many grains of wheat are the base for one loaf of bread.
This signifies how the Eucharist helps to unite the Church.
And there's also wine.
The Scriptures speak about wine as, if used appropriately, a divine gift to gladden the heart.
The alcoholic joy and sweetness of wine signify the happiness and sweetness of the Lord's
Spirit in us.
And the same dynamic of the many and the one occurs with wine.
Many grapes are crushed to create one bottle of wine.
Many persons come together into Christ's one wine skin, the Church.
To this Sacramento matter, bread and wine, the sacramental formula is added.
This is the consecratory formulae spoken by
the priest at Mass.
If we take them in a shorthand way, they are the words, "This is my body" said in the presence
of the bread, and "This is the chalice of my blood" said in the presence of the wine.
Each word is really important.
These words signify a transformation of the bread into the true but sacramental substantial
presence of the Body of Christ and a transformation of the wine into the true but sacramental
substantial presence of the Blood of Christ.
This miraculous transformation is called transubstantiation and will be taught in the following Aquinas
101 class.
For our purposes, we will content ourselves with knowing that through the priest's consecration
of the bread and wine, we receive the substantial presence of Christ's Body and Blood, and therefore
everything connected now with Christ's Body and Blood, namely his Soul and Divinity.
The Eucharist is the whole Christ presented via the signs of what was bread and wine.
Only a bishop or priest can consecrate the
Eucharist because only they have been so closely configured to Christ as to work in his very
person.
By the power of Holy Orders, the priests and bishops say in Christ's name, "This is my
Body.
This is the chalice of my Blood."
The Eucharistic consecration, the sacramentum tantum, gives the real presence of Christ.
That real presence is the second stage of the sacramental structure, the res et sacramentum,
that boosts us to the third stage, the final grace, the res tantum.
This Eucharistic grace is spiritual strength through union with Christ and his Church.
This is the strengthening of charity.
Remember what bread and wine signify in nature and in the history of salvation?
The Eucharistic signs of and wine are changed in order to give us Christ's meal of himself,
food and drink for our journey.
Remember what Christ taught in John 6, "My
flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drinking indeed.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him."
From that supernatural sustenance, we can keep on our spiritual feet and continue with
the hard earthly journey toward heaven.
If we've been wavering through light sin, the Eucharist forgives those sins and gets
us back on the straight and narrow.
The Eucharist unites us with Christ's sacrificial love and obedience and enables us to offer
the spiritual sacrifice of our physical lives, to take up our crosses daily, and to serve
our neighbors daily.
The Eucharist unites us with Christ now sacramentally and is the sure promise that
we will be physically present with Christ in heaven.
St. Thomas beautifully describes the Eucharist
in terms of friendship.
He says that it is the special feature of friendship to live together with friends.
So even though Christ ascended to heaven 2000 years ago, he remains physically together
with us in the Eucharist.
Persons can receive grace from the Eucharist by being physically present and spiritually
cooperative at Mass.
They can also benefit if the Holy sacrifice of the Mass is offered for them.
The highest form of participation in the Eucharist is by physically receiving Holy Communion,
the consecrated species that look and taste like bread and wine, but which, in reality,
are the body and blood of Christ.
We need to be careful here.
As St. Paul teaches in First Corinthians, "Receiving the Eucharist physically is for
those baptized persons who are already spiritually united to Christ as Catholics in faith and
charity."
In contrast, to commit a grave sin, a mortal
sin, is to be unfaithful to our friend Jesus Christ.
So, to physically receive the Eucharist in the state of mortal sin is to do a further
grave sin, to make a mockery of our friend, to create a lie out of a sacrament of love.
That would not help the friendship but further hurt it.
So we don't do that.
If we commit a grave sin, we first ask for forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance.
But when all is good between Jesus and us, wow, what an awesome benefit that the Eucharist
gives us.
Jesus extends his incarnate presence to us beyond just walking in the Holy Land 2000
years ago.
Jesus, our friend, is present to us now in the Eucharist.
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