One of the characteristics of Catholic theology on the Eucharist is its realism.
According to the Catholic faith, the consecrated bread and wine do not symbolize, represent or evoke the Body and Blood of Christ, but are the Body and Blood of Christ in a real, substantial and true way.
This sacramental realism has its principal foundation in the Gospel passage we have heard today.
Other New Testament passages hint at the realism of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, but the forcefulness and clarity with which Jesus expresses himself in the Gospel according to John is unique.
“The Word, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (Jn 1:14)
When Jesus declares that “the bread that I am going to give you is my flesh so that the world may have life,” his interlocutors react in scandal: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
John is the only New Testament writer who refers to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist with the word “flesh,” instead of the more usual word: “body.”
The word “flesh” designates his humanity.
The same evangelist describes the incarnation with the phrase: “The Word, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).
The evangelist uses this denser word to express the humanity of Jesus.
Of course, where Christ’s flesh is, there is also his divinity.
Jesus’ interlocutors are scandalized, for Jesus’ statement that he is going to give us his flesh to eat sounds so realistic that it looks like cannibalism.
Hence, the reaction, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Unfortunately, Jesus does not directly answer the question of his interlocutors.
We would have expected him to say that it was not cannibalism pure and simple, for he would give us his flesh under the appearance of bread and his blood under the appearance of wine; but that explanation does not appear.
We know that this is the faith and practice of the Church.
Jesus replies by affirming, even more vehemently, the peremptory necessity of eating it: “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you cannot have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day”.
The forcefulness of these words of Jesus is the foundation of the realism of the Catholic faith regarding the Eucharist.
However, this realism raises questions.
Fundamentally two.
The first question is: To whom has Jesus given the power so that, through the centuries, the bread and wine are transformed into his flesh and blood, so that his followers can eat it?
Under what conditions is the power capable of making Christ’s body and blood present realized?
The second question is: How is Christ present in the bread and wine?
The question arises because we do not see any transformation of the bread and wine.
But Jesus’ phrase “the bread that I will give you is my flesh so that the world may have life” implies that Jesus’ flesh is in what appears to be bread and his blood in what appears to be wine.
True Catholic faith has always upheld Eucharistic realism.
The true Catholic faith has always sustained Eucharistic realism, although it has not always had the necessary concepts to explain the realism of that presence.
Whoever departs from realism, departs from faith.
Because Christ is really present in the Eucharist, we adore the consecrated bread and wine on our knees; we keep them in vessels that are most worthy of God; and since distribution is part of the sacrament, it is reserved to ordained ministers to give communion.
It is true that lay people also distribute communion and bring it to the sick.
We call them extraordinary ministers to indicate that their ministry is to be considered exceptional because of the lack of ordained ministers and to prevent the distribution of communion from taking too long.
We must always avoid practices and manipulations of the Eucharist inconsistent with the divine dignity of the consecrated bread.
Our treatment of the Eucharist should reflect our faith.
But how is it possible for the bread and wine to be transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ?
Evidently, this is a kind of act of creation that only God can perform.
It is the faith of the Church that Christ has linked this creative power to the apostolic ministry of priests and bishops, so that God has committed himself to act with the power of his Holy Spirit whenever a validly ordained priest performs the rite of the Mass as prescribed in the sacred books so that the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ.
It is not that the priest has a personal power which he uses at his own discretion, but that God uses the priest who performs the rite as prescribed by the Church to accomplish, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the creative act which transforms the bread into the Body of Christ and the wine into his Blood.
It is the faith of the Church that the moment of transformation occurs when the priest says the words that Jesus pronounced over the bread and wine at the Last Supper.
That moment is therefore called “the consecration”.
But the bread still looks like bread and the wine still looks like wine.
The change is not seen, nor touched, nor smelled, nor tasted.
It can only be heard; and I will explain how.
What then is this change that is not perceived with the senses?
The Church teaches that the substance of the bread and wine changed, that it became the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, but the accidents or aspects of the bread and wine that are perceived with the senses remained.
The change is not perceived with the senses, but with the intelligence, with the mind, through the concept.
When we name the things of this world with words, we designate their identity and we perceive identity as something proper to things which, for that reason, are what they are.
In theology we call that identity which is grasped with the concept and expressed with names “the substance of things.”
In this sense, the change is heard: the new identity of the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ is named.
By the action of the Holy Spirit, the identity or substance of the bread becomes that of the Body of Christ and the identity or substance of the wine becomes that of the Blood of Christ.
Christ becomes neither bread nor wine; rather, the bread and wine become Christ.
That change is understood, grasped with the mind and expressed in words.
Thus justice is done to the realism with which Jesus speaks: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. He who eats me will live because of me.” Let us have this faith, and worthily eat the Body of Christ.