What Kind of Body Do We Receive In the Eucharist? The Body of Christ the Church

Here we come to a most wonderful teaching of our Catholic Faith. I’m speaking about the Church as the Body of Christ, or more formally known as the Mystical Body of Christ. If you haven’t read the previous two blog entries about the Body of Christ in it’s three states, then I invite you to do so. To sum it up again, there is the "historical" or what I often refer to as the earthly body of Christ. This is the body conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit when the Son of God took flesh and dwelt among us (the Incarnation).

 

This earthly body was transformed after the death of Jesus in his Resurrection. It is now a glorified Body not limited by space or time nor subject to pain or death anymore. It is a transformed Body, so much so that Christ is called "the man of heaven" now. (See Catechism #646 HERE)

 

There is one more dimension of Christ’s body since his Resurrection: Christ no longer exists as an individual as we think of this reality on earth, but he is a person in Communion with others. His Communion first has always been as the Second Person of the Trinity, along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit; we cannot understand the Son of God apart from the Communion and Union of the Trinity. But in his risen humanity he is also united to his Body the Church in a real spiritual (i.e., Based in the Holy Spirit) union. The sacrament of married union is a sacrament of the relationship and union of Christ with his Bride the Church.

 

Orthodox Bishop John Zizioulas writes: "Christ, although a particular person, cannot be conceived in Himself as an individual...In other words, when we now say "Christ" we mean a person and not an individual; we mean ...Christ’s personal existence as a body or community." (Being As Communion, pp.110-111)

 

This is none other than the teaching of the New Testament, particularly when St. Paul teaches that through the Holy Spirit (thus in a spiritual way) we are united to the Body of Christ, his Church. St. Paul makes a further distinction when he says Christ is the Head of the Body the Church. So just as in marriage, the two become one, yet remain two, so Christ unites himself to his Body the Church without sacrificing his unique being or the unique being of each of his members. (Go HERE for a comparison of the Scripture texts on this subject)

 

St. Augustine and many early Church Fathers referred to this union of Christ as Head and his Body the Church as "the Whole Christ’ (in Latin Totus Christus; see, for example Catechism #795 HERE). So Christ has his earthly human body which is now transformed into his Risen Body; and to his Risen Body he unites us, baptized into his Body the Church, the Whole Christ.

 

Catholics (and the Orthodox Church) have always held onto this communal or communion view of Christ and his Church. In the Catholic world view one cannot have only Christ and not his Body the Church. There are a lot of Catholics that try to live that way ("not practicing"), but it is like they live a handicapped life, apart from the life-giving sacramental life Christ gives us in the Church, especially in the Eucharist.

 

It is the Whole Christ, then that we receive in the Eucharist. Or to put it another way, when we receive Christ in the Eucharist, truly and really, we also receive one another. Not in the same way as Christ  Present substantially or in his essence, but rather we receive his relationship with each of his members and so we receive this relationship also with one another as one in Christ.

 

 

I could be misunderstand as reducing the Eucharist to just a social bonding with one another, little different from a fraternity or club. That is not at all what I mean. I follow the Catholic teaching , articulated by St. Augustine:

 

"If, therefore, you are the Body of Christ and His members, your mystery is presented at the table of the Lord, you receive your mystery. To that which you are, you answer: `Amen’…Be a member of Christ’s Body, so that your `Amen’ may be the truth." (Sermon 272)

 

"There you are on the table [the altar], there you are in the cup." (Sermon 229)

 

"If you receive them well, you are that which you receive."(Sermon 227)

 

　

 

 

 

At every turn the Christ we receive in the Eucharist and all his benefits and reality become ever more wondrous and awesome to think about!

 

Return to Home Page

What Kind of Body Do We Receive In the Eucharist? It Is the Risen Body of Christ

 

In my last entry I pointed out that it is not Christ’s mortal flesh and blood we receive in the Eucharist; he does not exist in our earthly state anymore. We receive his spiritualized Risen Body. So when we say we eat his Body and drink his Blood, we are not cannibals eating mortal flesh (the definition of cannibalism), but communicants, receiving in Eucharistic Communion the Risen Body of Christ into our lives.

 

What is a Risen Body Like?

 

Now what has fascinated me for many years is what a Risen body is like. We have no way of scientifically investigating this because we are dealing with a reality that goes beyond our earthly knowledge. The First Letter of John captures this mystery by saying; "Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known [manifested]. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)

 

Still, by looking at the New Testament teaching on the subject, especially based in the Resurrection Accounts about Jesus in the Gospel, we have some idea of what a Risen body is like. The Catechism conveniently sums up this teaching under the heading "The Condition of Christ’s Risen Humanity":

 

Catechism #645 [Citation] states that the Risen body of Christ is the same body in which he was crucified, but it now possesses "the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills." It says the Risen body of Christ is no longer confined to this earth but belongs "to the Father’s divine realm."

 

 

Catechism #646 [Citation] states "Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life...In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus' Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is ‘the man of heaven’."

 

The Isenheim Altarpiece  by  Matthias Grunewald
The artist shows the Risen Christ's Body to be similar
yet different from an earthly body

St. Paul wrote about the Risen body being "a spiritual body" (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-56 HERE and my last blog entry  HERE paragraphs 6&7). He did not mean that the Risen Body of Christ wasn’t still a body. As cited above, it is the same body of Jesus that suffered and died on the Cross, yet it is in a different state of being now. His body doesn’t return to an earthly life. His spiritual body means a Spirit-filled body, a real body but transcending time and space.

 

That’s about all we can say with certainty. The rest is speculative. What I wonder about is the material component of the Risen body. The human person is a union of matter and spirit (soul):

 

Catechism #365: "The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature."

 

In the Resurrection we are talking about the human person not ultimately losing this unity of body and soul. Our destiny is not to be only souls in heaven. In the Resurrection there will be a transformation of both soul and matter, retaining the essential unity of the human person as spirit and matter.

 

But what does this matter become in the Resurrection? It seems that in the Risen state we are talking about a body that consists of "Risen matter." His Risen body is physical, but as I keep repeating, not of earthly physicality. We need a new kind of word for this and what some have proposed is the term "transphysical." The prefix "trans-" in this term would mean "transcending" or beyond" the physical of this life. Even Pope Benedict XVI used this term in one case I know of, in speaking about the Resurrection.

 

 

I have also researched the term "spiritualized matter" and need to read more about this from a Catholic and Christian perspective. There are lots of New Age and nonChristian claims for "spiritualized matter," but they don’t concern me. A spiritualized matter in the Christian sense means a Spirit-filled matter, a matter totally under the influence of the Holy Spirit in a way that our mortal bodies are not. The Holy Spirit will somehow, in a manner that is mystery here on earth, transform our flesh, our material bodies, to not be limited by space and time or mortality. "As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power" (Catechism #1127).

 

Such musings help us, I think, to avoid the crude misconception that we are eating Christ’s mortal or pre-Resurrection flesh and blood in the Eucharist. It also reminds us that the Resurrection and the things of God incorporate the realities of this life and yet transcend these same realities because we are talking about a different dimension of reality.

 

I am reminded of an episode from the original Star Trek TV series called "In the Wink of an Eye." In it the crew of the Enterprise keep hearing this buzzing sound around them after visiting a certain planet. We eventually come to learn that what they are hearing is a group of aliens who live at a much higher acceleration in time than humans do. The crew cannot see these aliens. But Captain Kirk, through the action of these aliens, becomes accelerated also. Now from his perspective, the Enterprise crew members are moving so slowly that they seem to be at a standstill, and now Kirk can see the aliens, who move so quickly that the human eye cannot perceive them. Eventually all things are made right.

 

This episode stays with me all these years because it opens the imagination to think about possible realities we would not be able to see in our limited human state. I’m not saying that the Risen life is an accelerated existence, but for us it is real and it exists in a state that far surpasses our perception. Nevertheless, it is in the Eucharist that we receive this divine reality in Communion with the Risen Body and Blood, of the entire Christ.

 

There is still more to consider about the Body we receive in the Eucharist, which I will share next week.

 

 

Return to Home Page

What Kind of Body of Christ Do We Receive in the Eucharist?

 

This upcoming Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi). This celebrates our Catholic Faith that Christ is "really real" in the Eucharist, referring to his Real Presence under the appearances of the Consecrated Bread and Wine. In this Sunday’s bulletin I briefly write about this and the subject of transubstantiation.

 

What I am interested in exploring here is the question "what kind of Body of Christ do we receive in the Eucharist?" (I am assuming that when we speak of his Body, we usually mean also his Blood). It helps me to list the ways "the Body of Christ" are used in the New Testament and by the Catholic Church:

 

First, there is the body which the Son of God took in the womb of the Virgin Mary as Christ Jesus, who is fully human and fully God. This body was like ours in that it grew in maturity and thus was changeable, had an earthly life needing food and water, and was limited by time and space, as well as being mortal: capable of suffering and dying. Let’s call this Jesus’ "earthly body or flesh and blood."

 

Second, there is the Risen Body of Christ. On the future day of Resurrection our bodies will be like his: a body which is ours, yet which is radically transformed from this earthly life. The Risen Body of Jesus is the Body he has now and forever. It does not change in any way as a Risen Body. It does not have an earthly life needing food or water. It is not limited by time and space, nor is it mortal: there is no physical suffering in the Risen body, neither death. This Risen Body would not bleed.

 

It is important to remember that the risen Body of Christ (or ours) is not a resuscitated body; it’s not like Jesus died and then came back to an earthly life. A Risen Body is transformed into a reality that transcends this earthly reality of ours. So neither is the Resurrection just a "reassembling" of all the material of our body, even after it has turned to dust. It is, again, a different reality.

 

St. Paul describes it this way: "[Our body is first] sown [i.e., born] a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one." (1 Corinthians 15:44) But certainly Paul doesn’t mean that we will have no material body or only one of pure spirit (such as God is Spirit and not matter). No he says that we will be like Christ (verse 49) and of course Christ bodily rose from the dead. But the point is that this Risen Body is not like our natural and earthly bodies in certain ways. The commentary in the Revised New American Bible observes:

 

"[1 Corinthians 15:42-44 shows] "The principles of qualitative difference before and after death [15:36-38] and of diversity on different levels of creation [15;39-41] are now applied to the human body. Before [the Resurrection of the dead]: a body animated by a lower, natural life-principle (psyche) and endowed with the properties of natural existence (corruptibility, lack of glory, weakness). After [the Resurrection of the dead]: a body animated by a higher life-principle (pneuma; cf 1 Cor. 15:49) and endowed with other qualities (incorruptibility, glory, power, spirituality), which are properties of God himself."

 

Now I have spent more time describing how a Risen Body differs from our natural body because we really don’t know in this life, and have no way of knowing scientifically, exactly what a Risen body is. It doesn’t belong to this world, but to "the life of the world to come." But also, it is the Risen Body of Christ that we receive in the Eucharist.

 

There is one final way that the term "Body of Christ" is used: we speak of the "Mystical" or "Ecclesial" Body of Christ, i.e. the Church united to the risen Christ. This refers to the union of the Risen Christ with the members of his Church, which is called his Mystical Body. The word "mystical" is used with a number of nuances: "it is called mystical body, because it is neither a purely physical nor a purely spiritual unity, but supernatural...The relation of the faithful with Christ is mystical, not physical." (See more here) It also refers to a union which is sacramental and involves the sacraments, also called "the mysteries":

 

"Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments - "the holy mysteries" - and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all." (Catechism # 2014)

 

I don’t want to make this entry too long or who will read what I write? So I am going to comment more on these matters in the next several weeks; the subjects of the Risen Christ in the Eucharist and the Mystical Body of Christ are very inspiring to me, stimulating a number of ideas, and subjects I have spent a lot of time researching and thinking about. So you also come to know me better by what moves me.

 

Return to HomePage

The Eucharist: Door to Heaven

I shall share some thoughts about the Ascension as it relates to the Eucharist which also may speak to your faith, as it does to mine.
 

When Jesus ascends into heaven, he enters heaven as our Great High Priest. In the Jewish worship offered in the Temple, the High Priest would enter annually into the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies, on the Day of Atonement to offer blood sacrifice for the sins of the People. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews compares Jesus’ entry into heaven to this entry of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies. The Ascended Christ brings his own Sacrifice on the Cross for our sins before God and opens the way for us to follow him to heaven. (See Hebrews 4:14; 9:11; 10:19,20)
 

In heaven Christ is our Priest. He presides over the Heavenly Liturgy which includes the angels and saints and all the blessed of heaven. As Priest he offers his One Sacrifice, once offered on the Cross, i.e. himself in his Body and Blood. The Catechism (#1187) says about this Heavenly Liturgy:
 

"The liturgy is the work of the whole Christ, head and body. Our high priest celebrates it unceasingly in the heavenly liturgy, with the holy Mother of God, the apostles, all the saints, and the multitude of those who have already entered the kingdom."
 

Christ also makes intercession for us in heaven. (See Hebrews 7:25) This is why at our Sunday Mass, at the time of the Intercessions, we say we are joining our Intercessions with those of Christ.
 

When we celebrate our Eucharist on earth, we spiritually ascend to heaven, to participate by faith in the Heavenly Liturgy with Christ. I have learned a great deal about this "ascension in the liturgy" from an Orthodox Priest and Liturgical scholar, Fr. Alexander Schmemann. He writes:
 

"But the liturgy of the Church is always...a lifting up, an ascension. The Church fulfills itself in heaven in that new eon which Christ has inaugurated in His death, resurrection and ascension, and which was given to the Church on the day of Pentecost as its life..." (For the Life of the World, p.42)
 

The U.S. Bishops say much the same thing about Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist:
 

"Christ does not have to leave where he is in heaven to be with us. Rather, we partake of the heavenly liturgy where Christ eternally intercedes for us and presents his sacrifice to the Father and where the angels and saints constantly glorify God and give thanks for all his gifts." ( "The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist: Basic Questions and Answers," USCCB, June 2001)
 

In the oldest Roman Eucharistic Prayer (Now called Eucharistic Prayer I), after the Consecration, the Priest prays:
 

"In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God:

command that these gifts be borne
by the hands of your holy Angel                                                                       

to your altar on high

in the sight of your divine majesty,

so that all of us, who though this participation

at the altar

receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son,

may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing."
 

This prayer refers to the altar in heaven mentioned in several places in the Book of Revelation (). Christ is Present at that altar. As one commentator says: "The community in the church on earth is mystically gathered at God’s altar on high." (Paul Turner, The Supper of the Lamb, p.89)  Our altar  on earth participates in the Heavenly Altar.


 

The question as to how Christ is now in heaven (after his Ascension), yet Really Present in the earthly Eucharist, "under" the appearance of the Consecrated Bread and Wine, was the subject of some debate in the Middle Ages. Does he "come down" from heaven to be Present in the earthly Eucharist? The Bishops answer he does not; and yet he is truly Present to us at the Eucharist.
 

For myself, I understand this matter in this way: first, when we speak of Christ’s being in heaven, we cannot really say "he is up in heaven" or that "he comes down from heaven" (i.e. after his Ascension). Heaven is not a location like a geographical location on earth. The Catechism (#2794) says: "[Heaven] does not mean a place (‘space’), but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our Father is not ‘elsewhere’: he transcends everything we can conceive of his holiness."
 

I am able to understand this by imaging heaven as a "dimension," so to speak, that transcends our world of time and space. Perhaps I first thought this from a passage (again) from Fr. Alexander Schmemann. He speaks of the Liturgy of the Eucharist as a "journey into the dimension of the Kingdom [of God]":
 

"We use this word ‘dimension’ because it seems the best way to indicate the manner of our sacramental entrance into the risen life of Christ. Color transparencies ‘come alive’ when viewed in three dimensions instead of two. The presence of the added dimension allows us to see much better the actual reality of what has been photographed. In very much the same way, though of course any analogy is condemned to fail, our entrance into the presence of Christ is an entrance into a fourth dimension which allows us to see the ultimate reality of life." (For the Life of the World, p.26-27)
 

(Because of Einstein, we often call time the fourth dimension, but Schmemann is not referring to that description; indeed, his fourth dimension would be eternity)
 

As a "fourth dimension," paradoxically heaven is nowhere and everywhere. It is like the Ultimate Reality "behind" our earthly reality. (We have to keep using spatial language for a reality that is not spatial) I can image the Eucharist, then, as opening, a portal, so to speak, to heaven: "the gates of heaven."
 

The Psalmist says: "I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let's go to the Lord's house!’ Now our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem." (Psalm 122:1-2)
 

The Psalmist was speaking of the earthly Jerusalem. With the Eucharist, I am thinking of the heavenly Jerusalem, about which I have written quite a bit lately. What I am saying is that in the Eucharist we are standing spiritually within the heavenly gates of the New Jerusalem.
 

When I think this way, I think of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where four children discover in a closet wardrobe a doorway to a magical country called Narnia. (Narnia also is not on the same time as our world).
 

Another way of seeing this is that heaven and earth join in the Eucharistic celebration. Christ does not leave heaven, nor do we literally leave earth, but we meet and receive the Risen Christ in heaven in the Eucharist, the "meeting place" at "the gates." Again the Psalmist says: "Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter. I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation." (Psalm 118.19-21)
 

 

 

Listen HERE to Handel's  "Lift up your heads, O ye gates" sung by  the Brandemburg Consort and the Choir of King's College Cambridge
 

Return to Homepage

The Meanings of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist

The Church has the Gospel of Mark read every three years (it is called Year B; Year A is the year for Matthew and Year C for Luke). We are in this time of the proclamation of Mark and because Mark is the shortest of the Gospels, the Church includes several weeks of reading John, Chapter 6. We have been hearing how Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life.

All Scripture Scholars agree that this discourse by Jesus in John 6 is about the Eucharist. The central material elements in the Eucharist are bread and wine. Bread and wine "speak" to our imaginations on many levels. Bread and wine are more than food and drink; they also have a number of symbolic meanings. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago writes:

"We take two material gifts, bread and wine and, through the power of the Spirit, we ask that they may become ‘the bread of life’ and ‘our spiritual drink.’ [from the Offertory Prayers at Mass]

"On the one hand, these gifts represent ourselves, as we long for ever greater Eucharistic transformation. The bread represents all our united human efforts that contribute to the building up of a civilization of love on this earth. The wine represents all the pain, suffering and death involved in the discharge of this holy task---all once again embraced by the Eucharistic Body of the Lord.

"On the other hand, the bread and wine represent material creation itself, which awaits its own Eucharistic transformation, ‘a share in the glorious freedom of the children of God’ (Rm. 8:19-23). The Spirit's presence in this moment of offering is often made explicit in the Prayer over the Gifts, which concludes our preparation of the altar and the gifts."

I love to think about the symbolic meanings of the bread and wine. Cardinal George expresses it rather elegantly, but what he is saying is that bread is the use of a God-created reality, i.e. wheat, that is changed into bread by human labor. So it can very well stand for "our united human efforts to the building up of a civilization."

Wine is also the combination of created reality and human art. But also, wine is pressed and so "suffers" and is often red like blood poured forth. So as the Cardinal says, it can represent "all the pain, suffering, and death in life..."

Paradoxically, wine in the Scriptures is more often associated with festivity and joy (as any party-goer knows). Bread is more associated with the necessities of life. We speak of earning the bread we eat.

And yet another meaning of bread and wine is that each involves bringing together many grains and many grapes to make one loaf and one cup. The early Church saw this as very significant because we are made one in the Eucharist. (1 Corinthians 10:17: "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.")

Perhaps you may want to think about bread and wine ands other meanings they have which might be brought to the Eucharistic celebration and understanding.

Return to Home Page

Emmaus and Eucharist

Last Sunday, we heard a detail from the "Emmaus Story," the account given in the Gospel of Luke, about two disciples who were on a journey from Jerusalem to a small town named Emmaus. They encounter the Risen Jesus but they don’t recognize him. Several accounts about the Risen Jesus in the Scriptures have this same, mysterious detail: he is changed in appearance after the Resurrection.

It was not until he is at table with them and breaks the bread, that their eyes were opened and they recognized him. We heard that part of the story in last Sunday’s Gospel (on April 22): "The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread." (Luke 24:35) The "Breaking of the Bread" is one of the ancient Christian names for the Eucharist.

I was recently re-reading another blogger’s writing about what he called "The Emmaus Problem": "In the Gospel, when Jesus joined the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they didn’t know who He was until the breaking of the bread. Then ‘their eyes were opened and they recognized him’ (Lk 24:16, 31). This ‘Emmaus Problem’ is still with us. When the priest elevates the Host, many people still see only bread. Even those of us who believe that Christ is truly present need to grow in our ability to recognize who Christ is for us in the Eucharist and thus enter into fuller, more personal communion with Him."

To gaze on the face of Christ is first to keep "studying" him in the Gospels. The Gospels "illustrate" for us the personal life of Jesus (his "face"). He is also present to us in the Eucharist, as the Emmaus disciples experienced. Yet he still "hides" himself beneath the appearance of bread and wine. Our eyes must be enlightened by faith to be able to recognize him, as St. Faustina writes:

"Although You have hidden Yourself, my eye, enlightened by faith, reaches You, … my soul recognizes its Creator, … and my heart is completely immersed in prayer of adoration" (Diary, 1692).

Jacopo Pontormo painted the Supper at Emmaus (pictured below) for the Carthusian monastery of Galluzzo sometime between 1523 and 1527. He has painted into the scene some Carthusian monks, who of course were not present in first century Palestine. As one commentator notes: "[The artist] brings ‘a once and for all’ event of the past into the present; something wonderfully effected in every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."

The "Eye of God" above the head of the Risen Christ is later addition by some other painter. But it brings to my mind’s eye the need to see with faith the Risen Christ in every Eucharist, in every Breaking of the Bread.