The sacrament of the Eucharist
Jesus said to them: Believe me when I tell you this; you can have no life in yourselves, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood. The man who eats my flesh and drinks my blood enjoys eternal life (Jn 6:53‑54).
***
A sacrament is a sensible or material sign instituted by Christ, by which invisible grace is communicated to the soul. The Eucharist is the greatest of all sacraments. The reason is simple: The very author of grace is present in it and gives himself to us in this sacrament as spiritual food (Holy Communion). However, this truth does not exhaust the richness of content of the Eucharist. The essential elements of the Eucharist are summarized by Pope John Paul II when he writes, “It is at one and at the same time a Sacrifice‑Sacrament, a Communion‑Sacrament, and a Presence‑Sacrament.”[1] In this chapter, we will go deeper into the last two points.
Christ is present
All the formularies of the Creed or symbols of faith confess that Jesus Christ our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary in a specific historical time. After his resurrection, he went to heaven, but he remains in the Church in a mysterious, hidden manner that is visible only with the eyes of faith.
Jesus promised the apostles, “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world” (Mt 28:20), and fulfilled that promise. The disciples loved being with Jesus, talking to him, enjoying his presence. Consider, for instance, what happened one morning after the Lord’s resurrection. The disciples had returned to their usual occupations, and that morning they were on Lake Tiberias. After a whole night of fishing, they were coming back empty‑handed. Jesus was standing on the shore, though the disciples did not realize that it was him. A short while later, at the bidding of Jesus, they turned their boat around, threw out their nets again and caught so many fish that they could not haul them in. Then, immediately, the disciples recognized Jesus.
We can see in this miraculous draught of fish an allusion to the Church. She is compared to an unbreakable fishing net that becomes a divine and most effective instrument when she obeys Christ’s words.
Upon reaching the shore, the disciples found Jesus beside a charcoal fire with fish cooking on it. Jesus invited them, “Come and have breakfast!” He then took the bread and gave it to them, and the same with the fish.
That was not a Eucharistic celebration, of course, but it was a moment of intimacy for the Lord and his friends. That moment somehow reminds us of the Eucharist. There, Christ makes us feel his presence in an ineffable way: His love becomes especially evident. The risen Christ is present among us, fishers of men, offering us his friendship, his abiding love. This love sustains our fraternity and makes us apostolically fruitful.
* * *
As Pope Paul VI points out in his encyclical Mysterium Fidei[2], Christ is present in the Church in several ways:
• Christ is present in his Church when she prays, since he is the one who “prays for us and prays in us and to whom we pray: He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, he is prayed to by us as our God;”[3] and he is the one who has promised, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).
• He is present in the Church as she performs her works of mercy, not just because whatever good we do to one of his least brethren we do to Christ himself,[4] but also because Christ is the one who performs these works through the Church and who continually helps men with his divine love.
• He is present in the Church as she moves along on her pilgrimage with a longing to reach the portals of eternal life, for he is the one who dwells in our hearts through faith,[5] and who instills charity in them through the Holy Spirit whom he gives to us.[6]
• In still another genuine way, he is present in the Church as she preaches, since the Gospel which she proclaims is the word of God, and it is only in the name of Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, and by his authority and with his help that it is preached.
• He is present in the Church as she rules and governs the people of God, since her sacred power comes from Christ and since Christ, the “Shepherd of Shepherds,”[7] is present in the bishops who exercise that power, in keeping with the promise he made to the apostles.
• He is present in the Church as she administers the sacraments.
• Moreover, Christ is present in his Church in a still more sublime manner as she offers the sacrifice of the Mass in his name.
The divine Founder of the Church is present in the Mass both in the person of his minister and above all under the Eucharistic species.
The transubstantiation
Whatever our senses perceive in the consecrated host, even with the help of scientific instruments, is always of the same sort –a quality: the whiteness of the bread, its softness, its roundness, its smell, etc. These are attributes. We call them, in the language of metaphysics, accidents. These are all our senses perceive. But from them, our mind discerns a deeper reality, something that underlies these qualities or accidents as their subject: the thing itself, which we call the substance.
We know, through Christ’s words, that in the Eucharistic species, none of the substance of the bread and wine remains. Their accidents or sensible qualities –as bread and wine– remain, though not, of course, as accidents of Christ’s body and blood. They are held up solely by the will of God, who keeps them in existence, without inhering to any subject.
True, before the Consecration what we have on the altar are bread and wine; but as soon as the words of the Consecration are pronounced, the whole substance of the bread and that of the wine disappear, and they become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This change is called transubstantiation. Just as the words that God spoke in the Upper Room are the same as those that the priest now pronounces, so, too, the host is the same. Christ is really present.
Real, not symbolic presence
During our Lord’s ministry at Galilee a woman with a chronic hemorrhage came from behind him stealthily and timidly, but with a great faith, to touch his cloak. She wanted to avoid embarrassing notice, for her sickness implied a legal impurity. She just touched the fringe of Jesus’ outer garment and was immediately cured. Jesus turned around and looking at her said, “Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you” (cf. Mt 9:20‑22). Jesus granted the miracle not only because of the mere physical contact, but in answer to her faith of which she had given such striking proof. The presence of the Lord and the faith of the woman performed the miracle.
Do you see now how our faith must be? It must be humble. Who are you, and who am I, to deserve to be called in this way by Christ? Who are we, to be so close to him? As with that poor woman in the crowd, Christ has given us an opportunity. And not just to touch his garment a little, to feel for a moment the fringe, the hem of his cloak. We actually have Christ himself. He gives himself to us totally, with his body, his blood, his soul and his divinity. We eat him each day. We speak to him intimately as one does to a father, as one speaks to Love itself. And all this is true. It is no fantasy.[8]
Our Lord’s presence in the sacrament is called “real” not to exclude the idea that the others are “real,” too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because this presence is substantial, and through it Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man. Thus, this presence is not merely intentional (i.e., in the mind only) or virtual (i.e., by power). And so it would be wrong for anyone to limit it to symbolism, as if this most sacred sacrament were to consist in nothing more than an efficacious sign “of the spiritual presence of Christ and of his intimate union with the faithful, the members of his Mystical Body.”[9]
Therefore, it is not permissible:
To concentrate on the notion of the sacramental sign as if the symbolism ‑which no one will deny is certainly present in the most blessed Eucharist‑ fully expressed and exhausted the manner of Christ’s presence in this sacrament.
To discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body and the whole substance of the wine into the blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than “transignification” or “transfinalization,” as some call it.
To propose and act upon the opinion that Christ our Lord is no longer present in the consecrated hosts that remain once the celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass has been completed.[10]
The Lord did not say, “This is symbol of my body, and this is a symbol of my blood,” but rather: “This is my body and my blood.”[11] “For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different, and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species ‑beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in his physical ‘reality,’ corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.”[12]
Obviously, this is not something that the Church has invented.
We should examine in detail the words our Lord pronounced, “This is my body.” The word is needs not detain us. There are those who, bent upon escaping the plain meaning of the words used, say that the phrase really means “This represents my body.” It sounds very close to desperation! No competent speaker would ever talk like that, least of all our Lord, least of all then. The word this deserves a closer look. Had he said, “Here is my body,” he might have meant that, in some mysterious way, his body was there, along with the bread, which seemed so plainly to be there. But since he said, “This is my body” –this which I am holding, this which looks like bread but is not, this which was bread before I blessed it‑ this is then his body. Similarly this, which was wine, which still looks like wine, is not wine. It is now his blood.
Of course, if any man had said these same words before a piece of bread, that bread would have continued being so; but it was not any man who said these words. It was God who uttered these words and explicitly commanded the apostles to repeat that action for ever.[13]
Christ becomes our spiritual food
The Old Testament tells us of Elijah the prophet. As such, he was a source of discomfort for those who would not do God’s will. The Queen of Israel, Jezebel, did not recognize the true God. She followed Baal, a false and nonexistent god, and his crowd of pseudo‑prophets. The Israelites soon became unfaithful to the Covenant, turning away from God’s friendship, demolishing his altars, and putting his prophets to the sword. Jezebel then threatened Elijah, who alone remained faithful to God and who denounced the sinful worshipping of Baal. Frightened, Elijah fled to save his life. He ran into the wilderness toward Mount Horeb. After a day’s journey, he sat under a furze bush. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said, “take my life; I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19:4). Then he fell exhausted and went to sleep.
In the same way that God did not abandon his people while they crossed the Sinai desert, neither did God forsake his prophet Elijah. An angel touched Elijah in his sleep and said, “Get up and eat.” Elijah looked round, and there at his head was a bread baked in hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank. His exhaustion was such that he lay down again. But the angel of the Lord came back a second time and invited him to eat again for “the journey will be too long for you.” Strengthened by the food he walked for forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There, at the entrance of a cave, Elijah heard the voice of God as the sound of a gentle breeze. The prophet covered his face with his cloak, out of reverence.
God spoke to Elijah, comforted him, and sent him back on his mission. The whisper of a light breeze signifies that God is a spirit, who brings us peace and whose attributes are wise counsel and calm constancy. God converses intimately with us.
The food that sustained Elijah is a figure of the Eucharist, “strengthened by whose vigor,” says the Council of Trent, “Christians are enabled to travel this pilgrimage of misery, and come at last to their heavenly fatherland.” God gives us food and drink more precious than bread and a jar of water: his body and blood. As in the Last Supper and on Calvary, these are prepared in the sacrifice of the altar, and given to us.
* * *
The Holy Eucharist acts in the soul in the same way that ordinary food nourishes the body. Life in the body begins with generation, and then our body grows to full maturity while we keep receiving food for our sustenance. Similarly, there is a spiritual generation into the life of grace: the sacrament of baptism. There is growth in that life: the sacrament of confirmation. All the while, however, we need spiritual food. In this case, our food is the Eucharist.
The external form of food is most appropriate to signify the union with Christ that is effected in this sacrament. However, there is a discrepancy in the comparison of the Eucharist with food. Whereas food is assimilated by the person fed, in the case of the Eucharist the person receiving it becomes assimilated into Christ.
***
The Eucharist directs also our eyes towards our last destination. The fullness of the New Covenant will reach its culmination in the new and everlasting Jerusalem, in heavens, where all the chosen ones shall be gathered in the eternal banquet.
To communicate with the body and blood of our Lord is, in a certain sense, like loosening the bonds of earth and time, in order to be already with God in heaven, where Christ himself will wipe the tears from our eyes and where there will be no more death, nor mourning, nor cries of distress, because the old world will have passed away (cf Rev 21:4).”[14]
Mary, the first tabernacle
This same Christ present on the altar started to exist as man by being born of a woman. “When the Divine Child was conceived, Mary’s humanity gave him hands and feet, eyes and ears, and a body with which to suffer. Just as the petals of a rose after a dew close on the dew as if to absorb its energies, so too, Mary as the Mystical Rose closed upon him whom the Old Testament had described as a dew descending upon the earth.”[15] For nine months, he was cloistered in the virginal womb of Mary; and she passed into him everything that human nature demands for its growth.
The God whom earth and sea and sky
Adore and laud and magnify,
Whose might they own, whose praise they tell,
In Mary’s body deigned to dwell.
O Mother blest! the chosen shrine
Wherein the Architect divine,
Whose hand contains the earth and sky,
Vouchsafed in hidden guise to lie:
Blest in the message Gabriel brought;
Blest in the work the Spirit wrought;
Most blest, to bring to human birth
The long desired of all the earth.[16]
Since the flesh and bones of Mary were not different from those of Jesus, how can the royal dignity of the Son be denied to the Mother? When David was planning the Temple of Jerusalem on a scale of magnificence becoming a God, he said, “This palace is not for man but for Yahweh God” (1 Chr 29:1). How much more reasonable, then, that God adorns Mary with all precious gifts so that she may be a worthy dwelling of his Son: the first tabernacle of Jesus Christ, God and Man.
When finally she did give him birth, it was as if a great ciborium had opened, and she was holding in her hands the Guest who was also the host of the world, as if to say, “Behold, this is the lamb of God; behold, this is he who takes away the sins of the world.”
Mary is the creature closest to Jesus. “The piety of the Christian people has always very rightly sensed a profound link between devotion to the Blessed Virgin and worship of the Eucharist. Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist.”[17] She teaches us how to deal with her Son when we receive him in Holy Communion.
Footnotes:
[1]John Paul II, Enc. Redemptor Hominis, 4 March 1979, no. 20.
[2]MF, nos. 35 ‑ 38.
[3]St Augustine, On Psalm 85.1, PL 37:1081.
[4]Cf. Mt 25:40.
[5]Cf. Eph 3:17.
[6]Cf. Rom 5:5.
[7]St Augustine, On Psalm 86.3, PL 37:1102.
[8]St J. Escrivá, Friends of God (London: Scepter, 1981), no. 199.
[9]Pius XII, Enc. Humani Generis, 12 August 1950.
[10]MF, no. 11.
[11]Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on Matthew, c. 26; PG 66:714.
[12]MF, no. 46.
[13]Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1981), p. 154.
[14]St Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations (Princeton: Scepter, 1993), no. 113.
[15]Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ (New York: McGraw‑Hill, 1958), p. 18.
[16]Venantius Fortunatus (530 ‑ 609); trans. J.M. Neale; from The Liturgy of the Hours, ICEL.
[17]John Paul II, Enc. Redemptoris Mater, 25 March 1987, no. 44.
***
A sacrament is a sensible or material sign instituted by Christ, by which invisible grace is communicated to the soul. The Eucharist is the greatest of all sacraments. The reason is simple: The very author of grace is present in it and gives himself to us in this sacrament as spiritual food (Holy Communion). However, this truth does not exhaust the richness of content of the Eucharist. The essential elements of the Eucharist are summarized by Pope John Paul II when he writes, “It is at one and at the same time a Sacrifice‑Sacrament, a Communion‑Sacrament, and a Presence‑Sacrament.”[1] In this chapter, we will go deeper into the last two points.
Christ is present
All the formularies of the Creed or symbols of faith confess that Jesus Christ our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary in a specific historical time. After his resurrection, he went to heaven, but he remains in the Church in a mysterious, hidden manner that is visible only with the eyes of faith.
Jesus promised the apostles, “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world” (Mt 28:20), and fulfilled that promise. The disciples loved being with Jesus, talking to him, enjoying his presence. Consider, for instance, what happened one morning after the Lord’s resurrection. The disciples had returned to their usual occupations, and that morning they were on Lake Tiberias. After a whole night of fishing, they were coming back empty‑handed. Jesus was standing on the shore, though the disciples did not realize that it was him. A short while later, at the bidding of Jesus, they turned their boat around, threw out their nets again and caught so many fish that they could not haul them in. Then, immediately, the disciples recognized Jesus.
We can see in this miraculous draught of fish an allusion to the Church. She is compared to an unbreakable fishing net that becomes a divine and most effective instrument when she obeys Christ’s words.
Upon reaching the shore, the disciples found Jesus beside a charcoal fire with fish cooking on it. Jesus invited them, “Come and have breakfast!” He then took the bread and gave it to them, and the same with the fish.
That was not a Eucharistic celebration, of course, but it was a moment of intimacy for the Lord and his friends. That moment somehow reminds us of the Eucharist. There, Christ makes us feel his presence in an ineffable way: His love becomes especially evident. The risen Christ is present among us, fishers of men, offering us his friendship, his abiding love. This love sustains our fraternity and makes us apostolically fruitful.
* * *
As Pope Paul VI points out in his encyclical Mysterium Fidei[2], Christ is present in the Church in several ways:
• Christ is present in his Church when she prays, since he is the one who “prays for us and prays in us and to whom we pray: He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head, he is prayed to by us as our God;”[3] and he is the one who has promised, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).
• He is present in the Church as she performs her works of mercy, not just because whatever good we do to one of his least brethren we do to Christ himself,[4] but also because Christ is the one who performs these works through the Church and who continually helps men with his divine love.
• He is present in the Church as she moves along on her pilgrimage with a longing to reach the portals of eternal life, for he is the one who dwells in our hearts through faith,[5] and who instills charity in them through the Holy Spirit whom he gives to us.[6]
• In still another genuine way, he is present in the Church as she preaches, since the Gospel which she proclaims is the word of God, and it is only in the name of Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, and by his authority and with his help that it is preached.
• He is present in the Church as she rules and governs the people of God, since her sacred power comes from Christ and since Christ, the “Shepherd of Shepherds,”[7] is present in the bishops who exercise that power, in keeping with the promise he made to the apostles.
• He is present in the Church as she administers the sacraments.
• Moreover, Christ is present in his Church in a still more sublime manner as she offers the sacrifice of the Mass in his name.
The divine Founder of the Church is present in the Mass both in the person of his minister and above all under the Eucharistic species.
The transubstantiation
Whatever our senses perceive in the consecrated host, even with the help of scientific instruments, is always of the same sort –a quality: the whiteness of the bread, its softness, its roundness, its smell, etc. These are attributes. We call them, in the language of metaphysics, accidents. These are all our senses perceive. But from them, our mind discerns a deeper reality, something that underlies these qualities or accidents as their subject: the thing itself, which we call the substance.
We know, through Christ’s words, that in the Eucharistic species, none of the substance of the bread and wine remains. Their accidents or sensible qualities –as bread and wine– remain, though not, of course, as accidents of Christ’s body and blood. They are held up solely by the will of God, who keeps them in existence, without inhering to any subject.
True, before the Consecration what we have on the altar are bread and wine; but as soon as the words of the Consecration are pronounced, the whole substance of the bread and that of the wine disappear, and they become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This change is called transubstantiation. Just as the words that God spoke in the Upper Room are the same as those that the priest now pronounces, so, too, the host is the same. Christ is really present.
Real, not symbolic presence
During our Lord’s ministry at Galilee a woman with a chronic hemorrhage came from behind him stealthily and timidly, but with a great faith, to touch his cloak. She wanted to avoid embarrassing notice, for her sickness implied a legal impurity. She just touched the fringe of Jesus’ outer garment and was immediately cured. Jesus turned around and looking at her said, “Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you” (cf. Mt 9:20‑22). Jesus granted the miracle not only because of the mere physical contact, but in answer to her faith of which she had given such striking proof. The presence of the Lord and the faith of the woman performed the miracle.
Do you see now how our faith must be? It must be humble. Who are you, and who am I, to deserve to be called in this way by Christ? Who are we, to be so close to him? As with that poor woman in the crowd, Christ has given us an opportunity. And not just to touch his garment a little, to feel for a moment the fringe, the hem of his cloak. We actually have Christ himself. He gives himself to us totally, with his body, his blood, his soul and his divinity. We eat him each day. We speak to him intimately as one does to a father, as one speaks to Love itself. And all this is true. It is no fantasy.[8]
Our Lord’s presence in the sacrament is called “real” not to exclude the idea that the others are “real,” too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because this presence is substantial, and through it Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man. Thus, this presence is not merely intentional (i.e., in the mind only) or virtual (i.e., by power). And so it would be wrong for anyone to limit it to symbolism, as if this most sacred sacrament were to consist in nothing more than an efficacious sign “of the spiritual presence of Christ and of his intimate union with the faithful, the members of his Mystical Body.”[9]
Therefore, it is not permissible:
To concentrate on the notion of the sacramental sign as if the symbolism ‑which no one will deny is certainly present in the most blessed Eucharist‑ fully expressed and exhausted the manner of Christ’s presence in this sacrament.
To discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body and the whole substance of the wine into the blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than “transignification” or “transfinalization,” as some call it.
To propose and act upon the opinion that Christ our Lord is no longer present in the consecrated hosts that remain once the celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass has been completed.[10]
The Lord did not say, “This is symbol of my body, and this is a symbol of my blood,” but rather: “This is my body and my blood.”[11] “For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different, and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species ‑beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in his physical ‘reality,’ corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.”[12]
Obviously, this is not something that the Church has invented.
We should examine in detail the words our Lord pronounced, “This is my body.” The word is needs not detain us. There are those who, bent upon escaping the plain meaning of the words used, say that the phrase really means “This represents my body.” It sounds very close to desperation! No competent speaker would ever talk like that, least of all our Lord, least of all then. The word this deserves a closer look. Had he said, “Here is my body,” he might have meant that, in some mysterious way, his body was there, along with the bread, which seemed so plainly to be there. But since he said, “This is my body” –this which I am holding, this which looks like bread but is not, this which was bread before I blessed it‑ this is then his body. Similarly this, which was wine, which still looks like wine, is not wine. It is now his blood.
Of course, if any man had said these same words before a piece of bread, that bread would have continued being so; but it was not any man who said these words. It was God who uttered these words and explicitly commanded the apostles to repeat that action for ever.[13]
Christ becomes our spiritual food
The Old Testament tells us of Elijah the prophet. As such, he was a source of discomfort for those who would not do God’s will. The Queen of Israel, Jezebel, did not recognize the true God. She followed Baal, a false and nonexistent god, and his crowd of pseudo‑prophets. The Israelites soon became unfaithful to the Covenant, turning away from God’s friendship, demolishing his altars, and putting his prophets to the sword. Jezebel then threatened Elijah, who alone remained faithful to God and who denounced the sinful worshipping of Baal. Frightened, Elijah fled to save his life. He ran into the wilderness toward Mount Horeb. After a day’s journey, he sat under a furze bush. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said, “take my life; I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19:4). Then he fell exhausted and went to sleep.
In the same way that God did not abandon his people while they crossed the Sinai desert, neither did God forsake his prophet Elijah. An angel touched Elijah in his sleep and said, “Get up and eat.” Elijah looked round, and there at his head was a bread baked in hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank. His exhaustion was such that he lay down again. But the angel of the Lord came back a second time and invited him to eat again for “the journey will be too long for you.” Strengthened by the food he walked for forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There, at the entrance of a cave, Elijah heard the voice of God as the sound of a gentle breeze. The prophet covered his face with his cloak, out of reverence.
God spoke to Elijah, comforted him, and sent him back on his mission. The whisper of a light breeze signifies that God is a spirit, who brings us peace and whose attributes are wise counsel and calm constancy. God converses intimately with us.
The food that sustained Elijah is a figure of the Eucharist, “strengthened by whose vigor,” says the Council of Trent, “Christians are enabled to travel this pilgrimage of misery, and come at last to their heavenly fatherland.” God gives us food and drink more precious than bread and a jar of water: his body and blood. As in the Last Supper and on Calvary, these are prepared in the sacrifice of the altar, and given to us.
* * *
The Holy Eucharist acts in the soul in the same way that ordinary food nourishes the body. Life in the body begins with generation, and then our body grows to full maturity while we keep receiving food for our sustenance. Similarly, there is a spiritual generation into the life of grace: the sacrament of baptism. There is growth in that life: the sacrament of confirmation. All the while, however, we need spiritual food. In this case, our food is the Eucharist.
The external form of food is most appropriate to signify the union with Christ that is effected in this sacrament. However, there is a discrepancy in the comparison of the Eucharist with food. Whereas food is assimilated by the person fed, in the case of the Eucharist the person receiving it becomes assimilated into Christ.
***
The Eucharist directs also our eyes towards our last destination. The fullness of the New Covenant will reach its culmination in the new and everlasting Jerusalem, in heavens, where all the chosen ones shall be gathered in the eternal banquet.
To communicate with the body and blood of our Lord is, in a certain sense, like loosening the bonds of earth and time, in order to be already with God in heaven, where Christ himself will wipe the tears from our eyes and where there will be no more death, nor mourning, nor cries of distress, because the old world will have passed away (cf Rev 21:4).”[14]
Mary, the first tabernacle
This same Christ present on the altar started to exist as man by being born of a woman. “When the Divine Child was conceived, Mary’s humanity gave him hands and feet, eyes and ears, and a body with which to suffer. Just as the petals of a rose after a dew close on the dew as if to absorb its energies, so too, Mary as the Mystical Rose closed upon him whom the Old Testament had described as a dew descending upon the earth.”[15] For nine months, he was cloistered in the virginal womb of Mary; and she passed into him everything that human nature demands for its growth.
The God whom earth and sea and sky
Adore and laud and magnify,
Whose might they own, whose praise they tell,
In Mary’s body deigned to dwell.
O Mother blest! the chosen shrine
Wherein the Architect divine,
Whose hand contains the earth and sky,
Vouchsafed in hidden guise to lie:
Blest in the message Gabriel brought;
Blest in the work the Spirit wrought;
Most blest, to bring to human birth
The long desired of all the earth.[16]
Since the flesh and bones of Mary were not different from those of Jesus, how can the royal dignity of the Son be denied to the Mother? When David was planning the Temple of Jerusalem on a scale of magnificence becoming a God, he said, “This palace is not for man but for Yahweh God” (1 Chr 29:1). How much more reasonable, then, that God adorns Mary with all precious gifts so that she may be a worthy dwelling of his Son: the first tabernacle of Jesus Christ, God and Man.
When finally she did give him birth, it was as if a great ciborium had opened, and she was holding in her hands the Guest who was also the host of the world, as if to say, “Behold, this is the lamb of God; behold, this is he who takes away the sins of the world.”
Mary is the creature closest to Jesus. “The piety of the Christian people has always very rightly sensed a profound link between devotion to the Blessed Virgin and worship of the Eucharist. Mary guides the faithful to the Eucharist.”[17] She teaches us how to deal with her Son when we receive him in Holy Communion.
Footnotes:
[1]John Paul II, Enc. Redemptor Hominis, 4 March 1979, no. 20.
[2]MF, nos. 35 ‑ 38.
[3]St Augustine, On Psalm 85.1, PL 37:1081.
[4]Cf. Mt 25:40.
[5]Cf. Eph 3:17.
[6]Cf. Rom 5:5.
[7]St Augustine, On Psalm 86.3, PL 37:1102.
[8]St J. Escrivá, Friends of God (London: Scepter, 1981), no. 199.
[9]Pius XII, Enc. Humani Generis, 12 August 1950.
[10]MF, no. 11.
[11]Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on Matthew, c. 26; PG 66:714.
[12]MF, no. 46.
[13]Frank Sheed, Theology for Beginners (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1981), p. 154.
[14]St Josemaría Escrivá, Conversations (Princeton: Scepter, 1993), no. 113.
[15]Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ (New York: McGraw‑Hill, 1958), p. 18.
[16]Venantius Fortunatus (530 ‑ 609); trans. J.M. Neale; from The Liturgy of the Hours, ICEL.
[17]John Paul II, Enc. Redemptoris Mater, 25 March 1987, no. 44.