Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 10

Lesson 10 - The Holy Eucharist

A very wise politician having spent some time as the king’s representative in a Catholic country summed up his estimate of the Catholic religion in the words:

"It is the Mass that matters."

He was wise because he saw that the central point of the Catholic religion is the act of worship that we call the Mass. In fact more often than not a Catholic does not speak of "going to church", He says:

"I’m going to Mass."

This lesson and the next will be concerned with the Mass.

What Happens At Mass?

When the priest says Mass he does what Christ did at His Last Supper. He takes bread and wine. He says:

"This is my body. This is my blood."

At that moment by the power of God the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ becomes really present on the altar and offers Himself to God through the ministry of the priest for the living and the dead.

When the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ we call them the Blessed Sacrament. They are a Sacrament because they are an outward sign of inward grace. But when we receive this Sacrament we receive Jesus Christ Himself, the author and source of grace. Therefore we call this the Blessed Sacrament because it is the holiest of all.

The Mass is the whole service at which the Blessed Sacrament is made and the sacrifice is offered to God, (See Lesson II).

The Holy Eucharist is the ancient name for the Mass. It comes from the Greek word meaning thanksgiving because this sacrifice or offering is the greatest thanks we can give to God.

In this first lesson we shall be concerned to show what we mean when we say Christ is really present under the appearances of bread and wine. We shall ask ourselves three questions. First of all, is it a fact? Secondly, how is it possible? Thirdly, why does Christ choose this way to be present — under the appearances of food?

The Real Presence – Is It A Fact?

1. Our Lord Promises the Holy Eucharist

Did Christ mean that the bread and wine are really changed into His Body and Blood or did He mean that they remained bread and wine but were simply to be a reminder of Himself?

To understand what He meant we have to go back to the first time that He spoke about this. You will find the occasion described in the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel. He was speaking to a crowd of people in Capharnaum by the Sea of Galilee. The day before He had worked a miracle by feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes. He had blessed this food, the Apostles had distributed it to the multitude, everybody had their fill and then twelve baskets of fragments had been collected. The next day in Capharnaum when the crowds followed Christ He began to speak of what He called the true bread from heaven.

"You are following Me," He said, "because you were fed with the loaves and had your fill. Work to earn food which affords continual eternal life, such food as the Son of Man will give you." And when they asked Him: "Give us this bread", Christ replied: "It is I Who am the Bread of Life".

Immediately there were murmurs from the crowd: "What does He mean", they said in anger, "by saying I have come down from heaven?" Christ repeated His words: "I am the Living Bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread He shall live forever. And now what is this bread that I am to give? It is My Flesh given for the Life of the world." The murmurs grew louder. "How can this man give us His Flesh to eat?" Christ did not explain it any further. He simply said it once more. "You can have no life in yourselves unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood. . . My Flesh is real food, My Blood is real drink. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood lives continually in Me and I in him."

At this the majority of the crowd frankly threw up their hands. This is strange talk, they said, Who can be expected to listen to it? And St. John goes on to tell us after this many of His disciples went back to their old ways and walked no more in His company.

Now the important thing to notice is that Christ let them go away. He didn't call them back and say: "You’re making a mistake. I'm not really going to give you My Flesh and Blood. I'm only going to give you bread and wine to remind you of My Flesh and Blood." He let them go away and asked His Apostles: "Would you, too, go away?" But the Apostles remained loyal to Him. They didn't understand any more than the crowd. But they trusted Him; and with good ground. And not the least of the reasons for which they had trusted Him was the miracle they had seen Him work the day before. If He could feed five thousand with a few loaves and fishes they saw no reason why they shouldn't take His word for something which they did not as yet understand.

2. Our Lord fulfils His Promise at His Last Supper

All this background has to be borne in mind when we come to that crucial moment of His life, His Last Supper with the Apostles the night before He was crucified. It is the end of the meal. The traitor Judas has gone. There only remain the eleven. Christ takes bread in His hands, He blesses and breaks it.

Take ye and eat. This is My Body. And He takes the Chalice: Drink ye all of this. This is My Blood of the New Testament which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. (Matthew26: 26 and 27).

The Catholic Church teaches that He meant what He said.

It was the most solemn moment of His life.

It was His last meal with His disciples before He died.

He used words of which the obvious and simple meaning was plain.

He knew they would remember how he had let the crowd go away when they wouldn’t believe Him on this very subject months before.

He knew what the Apostles would take Him to mean.

He knew what His whole Church would take Him to mean without question for nearly fifteen hundred years. (Until the rise of Protestantism the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was never called into doubt except by isolated individuals.)

And with all that in mind He uses those simple words:

This is My Body, This is My Blood.

We therefore hold it as true that when the priest repeats those words in obedience to Christ's command: Do this for a Commemoration of Me: what was bread is now no longer bread, what was wine is no longer wine. It is the Body and Blood of Christ. How it can be we do not know. We only know that it happens by the power of God Who can do all things. We accept it as true on His word.

How Is It Possible?

Once we know it as a fact we can see how it is possible. What happens? The appearances of bread and wine remain. The colour, the shape, the taste, are unchanged. But the thing itself is changed.

We are familiar enough with cases when the opposite happens. We have seen a poker, black, cold, hard, thrust into the fire and become red, hot and soft. The appearance is changed. But the thing itself remains the same — iron.

In the Mass by the power of God the opposite happens. The appearances remain. But the thing itself is changed.

To understand how it can be, imagine six apples. One is red, one is green. One is large, one is small. One is sweet, one is sour.

But the green one is not more an apple than the red one.

What makes it an apple has nothing to do with colour.

The large one is not more an apple than the small one.

What makes it an apple has nothing to do with size.

The sweet one is not more an apple than the sour one.

What makes it an apple has nothing to do with taste.

An apple on a tree is not more an apple than an apple on the table.

What makes it an apple has nothing to do with place.

And so in the Mass it is this essential nature of the bread and wine ("what makes it bread", "what makes it wine") which is changed though all that we can reach by our five senses is unchanged.¹

Notice once again that we could never know that this is a fact: or how it can possibly happen except on the word of God. It is a mystery, a truth which is above our reason, but still a truth, because God says so.

We shall not be surprised to find things that we do not understand here. When God acts directly in the world we shall expect to find many things we do not understand at the point of intersection.

¹ Sometimes a Catholic is challenged to submit the Blessed Sacrament to chemical analysis. The challenge is futile. The essential nature of the Blessed Sacrament cannot be reached by chemistry because it is not subject to our senses.
The change which takes place is quite outside the natural order. It is entirely supernatural and cannot be discerned by any natural means. That is why the Church has made a special word to describe it – Transubstantiation.

Why As Food?

Why does Christ give Himself to us precisely in the form of food and drink? He tells us Himself, because this food is meant to nourish our spiritual life.

The food we eat sustains us; it repairs the wear and tear of everyday life: it gives us new energy: it gives us delight.

The spiritual food of the Holy Eucharist sustains our supernatural life: it repairs the damage caused by sin; it gives us new spiritual energy; it gives us delight — the delight of an intimate personal union with Our Lord. For above all the Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament of Union.

This food is to unite us more intimately to Him now, and prepare us for that most intimate union of all, which is in heaven.

The Sacrament Of Union With God

The one thing that every man is seeking from start to finish of his life is union with God. Every man, pagan or Christian, whether he realises it or not, is looking for that. He is looking for the satisfaction, the fulfilment when he can be at rest at the storm’s still centre. We can never reach it fully in this life. We must wait for heaven.

But in the Catholic Church in Holy Communion we have the beginning of it. There is a touching poem which pictures the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as they sped from Herod into Egypt. It speaks of St. Joseph lonely and sorrowful as he left his home for exile. But it goes on:

"Hard though it was all your loneliness went and your sorrow was done,

When Mary leant down from the hurrying ass and said 'Carry my Son'.

You carried Him Joseph with grandeur and peace like a man that is blest,

Like a man who walks down from the altar of God with the Host in his breast."

When we receive Christ in Holy Communion we carry Him with us as surely and as certainly as Joseph or Mary carried the Child in their arms. We can speak to Him in the silence of our hearts as really as they spoke to Him in their home at Nazareth. He is there with us as surely as He sat at supper with His twelve Apostles on Maundy Thursday.

But there is more than that. We do not simply carry Christ. In a true though mysterious sense we are united to Him and draw life from Him.

"The Host" — from the Latin word Hostia meaning a victim offered in sacrifice. The round wafer of bread which becomes the Body of Christ at Mass is called a host.
The poem is by Maura Laverty in Never No More.

Christ said we must he born again — we must come to life in a new way. It is true that we are re-born in Baptism: but it is the Blessed Sacrament that is the food of that life.

Abide in life and I in you, said Christ. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine so neither can you unless you abide in Me. (John 15: 4). And how do we abide in Christ?

He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me and I in him. (John 6: 56.)

The Sacrament Of Union With One Another

Not only is this Sacrament the Sacrament of union with Christ. It is the Sacrament of union with one another. It is the Sacrament which binds us all into one body with Him.

For we being many, are one bread, one body: all that partake of one bread, says St. Paul (1 Cor.10).

So we must all be bound together in love, in unity, in mutual help and charity to make one body in Jesus Christ.

It will be understood now why the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament are the centre of Catholic worship. If you go into a Catholic church you will see a small lamp burning before the main altar, That is to show that Christ is present there in what is called the tabernacle. The word means tent. It is the safe in the middle of the altar covered by the curtain.

But God is everywhere.

How can He be said to be present here rather than elsewhere?

The answer is that Christ as God is present everywhere, but in the Blessed Sacrament He is present both as God and as Man. He is present in a different way. Just as when He was a baby in the stable at Bethlehem or as a man on the roads of Palestine.

The Abiding Presence of Christ

A person who became a Catholic after twenty years as a Methodist minister wrote this:

"Before I became a Catholic I often went to a Catholic church to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament for private prayer. It was an interesting experience. There seemed to be so many people who used the building at any odd time and their conduct was a strange mixture of reverence and freedom. Everybody seemed at home."

He puts his finger on the spot. Everybody is at home.

Catholics make a habit of calling into the church in this way to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. As they kneel in silence before the altar they realise they are in the presence of Christ Our Lord. They draw peace and strength and delight from that contact. The world for a moment is shut out. They are at home.

End of Lesson 10

Supplement A

Appendix: "Christ In The Blessed Sacrament"

Appendix: "Visiting Jesus In The Blessed Sacrament"

Supplement B: "Feeding the Five Thousand"

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