Anne Lastman
In his second-century writings, St. Justin Martyr provided one of the earliest defences of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Over the following centuries many other theologians, mystics et.al would reaffirm this core belief of Catholic teaching.
From the time of Jesus and throughout Church history up to the present, the doctrine that bread and wine are transformed (transubstantiation- change of substance) from the previous unleavened bread into the body of Christ and wine into the blood of Christ and this has been doubted, refused as a tenet as it was on the day that it was announced by Jesus ( Jn 6). As important as it is to announce to the world the reality of the Eucharist as the true body and blood of Christ, it is equally important that those who teach about Catholicism and its beliefs teach faithfully and with awe that the Eucharist is real food. Not a symbol but real food. The wine becomes real blood. A harvest. (Hosea 6:11).
“Oh Judah there is a harvest appointed for my people” (Hosea 6.11) What a promise of everlasting food and drink. The Samaritan Woman at the well “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks of you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you given you living water” ( Jn 4:10) and further, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirst again, but whoever drinks the water I will give them (body and blood) will never be thirsty again The water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
The preaching of Jesus in John’s gospel, provides his followers with much more than earthly food but bread from Heaven, his own flesh to eat and blood to drink. Life is in the blood (Lev. 17:14, Deut., 12:23, Jn14:6.) This is magnificent because here we see when Jesus speaks the words “ I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Here we see the three areas of original sin, sin from loss of direction and commands given by God to man and woman. (Way) The reversal of the lie “you shall surely not die.” (man did die, spiritually) . Jesus is (Truth), and (Life) and is reversal of that lie spoken by the enemy of man. In these three statements about himself, Jesus reveals the words found in Genesis 3:15 that he is the promised one fulfilling the requirements of the promised redeemer. Protoevangelium.
Spiritual hunger which is written about in scripture and is echoed in our being (spiritual hunger) is not a relic of days past, but a hunger which is unknowingly longed for today probably more than ever, the hunger remains, but it’s a more unrecognised hunger. Just as we, when very hungry, seek food to satisfy physical hunger, there is also a longing for a food which will satisfy the unknown longing. The soul’s longing for the healthiest of food from heaven and not the temporary distractions to fill the persistent unknown hunger.
We live in a time when we can see that a starving soul renders the body weakened. Both body and soul need sustenance, holy nutrition, but we have lost the ability to look for real food (“for my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink Jn 6.55) and instead feed on what we might call “junk food.” It’s a response to the need to find satisfying food for both the spiritual and physical that it’s longing for. The food of eternal life.
This doctrine is not merely a doctrine to be accepted, but a gift that is meant to sustain us throughout this life journey because Jesus chose to make himself living bread, sacramentally present as food that would satisfy the hunger of every human heart. This food is called “Living Bread. Eucharist. Food directly from heaven. The new and eternal manna.
At the Last Supper Jesus instituted the Eucharist, using the elements of bread and wine, elements found in the Passover meal. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his apostles said, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “This [Jesus] did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us‘” (CCC 1323).
However, the question is asked, “Why bread and wine? Couldn’t Jesus have used something else?” and why eating?
Indeed Jesus could have used something different to be perpetually present in the Church and it was possible for him to use other forms to feed and redeem and leave perpetually the divine food, including other foods. However, He chose to use unobtrusive daily fare. Unquestioned and needed daily sustenance.
The “why” God chose bread and wine was and is connected to salvation in his previous revelations in the Old Testament, and His preparation of his chosen people for this moment when in the “eating” of the flesh and blood of His Son Jesus, was to be the means used for the reversal of that original “eating” (Eden) and reversal of that original curse of death. Blood coursing through the body is spoken by God as having life in it.(Gen 4:10) His body and blood with life in it would accomplish the reversal of that curse of death and thus redemption. The reversal of the enemy’s greatest achievement the seducing and death of “man” the new creation of God.
In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful thanks and acknowledgment to the Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the unleavened bread that the Jewish people eat every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the escape that liberated them from Egypt; the remembrance of the “manna” in the desert which will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the Word of God; their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God’s faithfulness to his promises. The “cup of blessing” at the end of the Jewish Passover meal adds to the festive joy of wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic expectation of the rebuilding of the new temple in Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he gave a new and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread and the cup. (CCC 1334)
God always knew he would use bread and wine, so he began preparing His people over time for this revelation. The Old Testament scriptures are replete with symbolic precursors or types so that when Jesus came and fulfilled the reality his actions would not be too difficult to understand but a fulfillment of what had already taken place.
St. Augustine had this to say in Ad infantes, de Sacramento (sermon 272 on the Eucharist) which poses the symbolism of the preparation of the bread and how it expresses the “communion” we are called to prepare, participate in and celebrate. This;
In this loaf of bread, you are given clearly to understand how much you should love unity. I mean, was that loaf made from one grain? Weren’t there many grains of wheat? But before they came into the loaf, they were all separate; they were joined together by means of water after a certain amount of pounding and crushing. Unless wheat is ground, after all, and moistened with water, it can’t possibly get into this shape which is called bread. In the same way you too were being ground and pounded, as it were, by the humiliation of fasting and the sacrament of exorcism. Then came baptism, and you were, in a manner of speaking, moistened with water in order to be shaped into bread. But it’s not yet bread without fire to bake it. So, what does fire represent? That’s the chrism, the anointing. Oil, the fire-feeder, you see, is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit … You see, he breathes into us the charity which should set us on fire for God, and have us think lightly of the world, and burn up our straw, and purge and refine our hearts like gold. So, the Holy Spirit comes, fire after water, and you are baked into the bread which is the body of Christ. And that’s how unity is signified.
Further, St Paul, “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Corinthians 10:17).
St Augustine continued….But just as one loaf is made from single grains collected together and somehow mixed in with each other into dough, so in the same way the body of Christ is made one by the harmony of charity. And what grains are used for the body of Christ, grapes used for his blood; because wine too comes out from the press, and what was separated one by one in many grapes flows together into a unity and becomes wine. Thus, both in the bread and in the cup, there is the mystery, the sacrament, of unity. (Sermon 229A).
This is only a small sample of reflection and symbolic found in bread and wine that the Catholic Church has been able to ponder upon and make it its own on from the beginning.
However, all the above explains the symbolism, reflections, the understanding of the reason for the use of bread and wine and the call to eat of this to have life “in him.” But it does not explain why the call to eat of the flesh of the son of man “unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink of his blood you have no life in you” (Jn 6: 53) these are very definitive words of Jesus. No suggestion of symbolic flesh and blood but actually eating, chewing, enjoying and drinking, and to answer and understand these words we again need to go back to Genesis 3:6 “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and “ate” it. She also gave some to her husband, and he “ate” it.” It was because of the “eating” They chose to eat, enjoy, satisfy themselves with the promise from the enemy that God didn’t mean what he had said about “eating “of what was forbidden because if so life and death would result. Through the command not to eat which was forbidden and in the eating was the loss of friendship and life in God.
As Jesus came to reverse that sin, the new command was to “eat” of what was previously forbidden, that is flesh, his flesh, with blood in it (Gen 9:3-4). The sin of Adam and Eve was because they ate the forbidden fruit, the reversal by Jesus was to eat of forbidden fruit (flesh with blood in it) but now that flesh and blood was his own. This was to be the divine remedy using the same action of eating.
In his sensitivity and care for the creature the divine master found a way of eating flesh and blood without contradicting the injunction of Gen 9: 3-4 and causing scandal, by the miraculous transubstantiation (by the changing of the substance but not the appearance) which occurs during the sacred moments of the consecration when the substance or elements found in the bread and wine are changed by the action of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of our Lord ready for the eating and giving life. Unlike the eating of the “fruit” and inflicting death. This fulfills the words of Jesus “unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood you can have no part in me” (Jn 6:53) Fulfilling all requirements of redemption without offending the Word of God. Fulfilling all requirements for reversal of an original sin of disobedience.
Corpus Christii, when studied deeply elicits so many clues about Creator God, His love for his creation (human) His sorrow and regret at their rebellion (like the angels) and the Father’s lack of desire to destroy his own creation and perhaps as we in our day might say He had a plan B ready for when this happened. Not a destruction but a reversal of all the events which led to that outcome, that is, need for curses, suffering, long journey throughout time in preparation for the promised redeemer with whom a covenant would be made which would never be broken unlike like all other previous covenants made with weakened (through sin) man. The final and universal covenant would not fail because it was a covenant between Father and His son Jesus.
