The ritual known as the Holy Eucharist is to Christian religion practise, and held in the greatest reverence across the major traditional denominations like Roman Catholic, Orthodox, as well as many later denominatione like Lutherans and “high church” Anglicans. In this article we describe its meaning, significance, and scriptural underpinning.

The word “Eucharist” itself is taken from the Greek eucharisto which is simply to give thanks, taken from the Synoptic Last Supper Passages with Jesus “giving thanks” to Father prior to the meal. Thus in the Eucharist, Christians raise up their prayers of gratitude to the Father along with Jesus in this meal which is Jesus himself given to us as bread and wine. Alternatively it is “Holy Communion” from the Greek koinonia used with reference to this meal in 1 Corinthians 10, for a “partaking” in the Divine Life.

“At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke” (Isaiah 6:4)

“…and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God” (2 Chronicles 5:14)

“And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power” (Revelations 15:8)

The Place of Ritual in Religion

Were there a means at all of God communicating to man in a communal manner thereby to deliver a uniform and objective teaching, this means is what would be called religion. And although all the effort of religion originates in God, yet it would always look like a “human construct”, since the person significantly absent in terms of visible presence from it would be God himself. Religion is derived from “re-ligare”, ligare being the same as the Latin root for “ligature”. Thus etymologically religion can be seen as something that ties or binds to God.  Being that which binds man to God, religion must consists in man’s journey to God. Thus, transcending death, religion can be seen as man’s journey to immortality. Religion has two observable components: rules for everyday living, and ritual. Of these, “prayer” and “ritual” can be used synonymously in that they certainly are equally obscure to the unreligious. “Prayer” is a ritual in which man speaks to an invisible entity that in Faith he believes hears and replies. Let us look at each separately in order to understand the meaning of religion.

With respect to that which is called “ritual”, it can be said that the central ritual in any major world religion without any doubt, is the “sacrifice”. Etymologically sacrifice is “sacra” and “facere”, which is “to make sacred”. We can then examine how this can some about, and what it is that is being so made sacred: Sacrifice is the core of virtue. In a theistic sense, all things belong to God, you yourself are merely responsible for disposing of what property is in your care righteously and with justice. Earthly rights of possessions are the product of earthly circumstance and political and economic construct. In other words the virtue in earthly possession is only as great as the virtue in the world. The right by which you possess something is only right once the weight of all the wrongs ingrained in the economic system that enabled to you acquire those rights are accounted for. This is the difference between a religious socio-economic construct and a communist one, both of which are “utopian” in scope but take the concept of “possession to opposite extremes. In the latter, property is owned by the state with disastrous consequences, in the former it is owned by God leading to the attitude of sacrifice. This difference makes the two perpetually inimical to each other since the recipient of sacrifice is now is now competing with God.

The key to every injustice in the economic system is man’s inability to understand “possession”. Were every person to spend on themselves only what they needed to for sustenance, there would be no hunger nor poverty in the world, all the blame that is apportioned to religion as the cause for evil is dissipated by this single notion, evil is caused by love of selfish gain and nothing else. Religion though often misdirected, represents man’s effort to organise the forces of good in the world, for the good of the world. Consumerism has no redeeming factor, it is the rich man that feasts while the poor man seeks scraps from his table.

The central ritual of Christianity can all be called “covenant” or “covenant ritual”. Christianity is called as “covenant”. The Christian covenant, a gradual development of the Judeo-Abrahamic covenant, is an oath sworn not by man but by God, whereby man, should he adhere to it’s terms of that covenant, might gain God. Jesus announces his “New Covenant” at the Last Supper, in an act initiated not by man, but by Him as God, through the spilling of His own Blood. Jesus says: “everyone who loves his life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake will gain eternal life”. Man signifies by his ritual sacrifice that he/she gives their whole self to God. Ritual is a necessary visible signification of man’s commitment to God, as well as of God’s commitment to him.

The Role of the Priest

Just as man could not create himself, but had to be created “in his most intimate being” (Ps 139:14) by God, so does God also save man through acting directly within him. Man is simply not given the intrinsic means by which to perform such an act. Did he possess it, He would be God, for what He is being brought toward is perfection. Neither creation nor sanctification is the role of the creature, rather of the Creator. It will not be usurped by man.

The “priesthood”, or “priest” is primarily the notion that man cannot approach God in an unmediated fashion. (fn-Etymologically, it comes from the Greek “presbuteros” which is simply transliterated to “priest” in the English. The meaning in the Greek is “elder”, stemming from “presbus”, elderly. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word fro priest is “malak”, also meaning “elder). If God is God, then He is an invisible God, and also an unapproachable God, by virtue of that invisibility, for were God indeed God, and an omnipotent deity, then should he wish he would make himself both visible and approachable this would present no obstacle to Him. The fact that He does not, therefore seeming to indicate that He desired neither. The priestly office involves, by the dint of some external authority (eg a king’s anointing, traditional priestly family class, personal claim etc) the office of taking the suffering and toil of the people, and presenting it to God: there is a “taking” (from the people) and “giving” (to God) which really constitute the priestly action. This is what can be called “mediation”. His act, as can be seen, is external to what is being wrought in the people.

How is the suffering of another effective as an offering for ourselves? At Hindu/Jain weddings I have attended, the priest throws some rice into the fire. That rice represents the sacrifice of the persons’ toil, it does not come from the pocket of the priest, rather the priest is payed money for offering it. In the case of Jesus’ high priestly office, Jesus offers as one of those toiling. Consider the workers in a field, that have to pay the monthly tax to the king’s soldiers. I think of myself as a child in my school summer holidays working in the paddy fields along with my grandfather and uncles and the hired hands and my own mother. Suppose that one of those “hired hands” happened to be Jesus, and at the end of the month when each of us bring our sack of rice as a percentage of our labours, for some reason the whole group of 10 gets accepted, and we all know that it was because one of the workers did a stellar job. Jesus offers as one of those toiling.

The bravest person I have had the pleasure of knowing personally is a gentleman from my home parish given the name Kaliba, (was the name given him inspired by that of the deformed monster from Shakespeare’s “Tempest”?). Kaliba was an orphan, and the church grave-digger but even as a child, we’d pass by the shack where he lived on the way home from school, and he would call out a loud cheerful greeting, with a great big smile and booming voice. I never knew at that tender age quite what to make of him (he was unschooled and worked as our church’s gravedigger), but I don’t recall anyone having a negative word to say about him. Then many years later, in the Mumbai floods of 1995? He saved the lives of many persons in my native suburb of Chembur, eventually losing his own life too. Suppose that we were all called up to serve in battle because an enemy of our nation had attacked and I and my family, all the same person were in a battalion of 10 along with Kaliba. Say the battalion did a stellar job and won the battle for the nation, though at the same time, we all knew that it was due to the heroic role that Kaliba played. The entire battalion receives the highest military honour from the President. The reason that the sacrifice is saving and the reason that it is acceptable is the same. That person becomes their strength. The others in the group may not be even able to overcome their fear, they are paralysed by fear and need saving. Without that one person those people could not even fight their own battle. The victory is real, and there is no point of anyone bitterly sobbing to themselves, complaining that they deserved the glory, and why should Kaliba be given all the credit. This would be absird, for the benefits are available to all.

You will see in these verses how from the example of Kaliba, the “free from the fear of death” comes through quite strongly: “but we do see Jesus, (…) because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (9), “It was fitting that God(…) should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (10) (…) Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death (14,15)  “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters^[n] in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins;’ of the people. ¹⁸ Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” (17,18 ) (Hebrews 2)

For our sufferings to be made acceptable, our high priest is made perfect; his perfect endurance is offered up as our imperfect endurance, his faithfulness for ours. We see that Jesus fulfils this priestly office not externally, but in himself, as the one who suffers perfectly for all the imperfect offerings of the people. He can do this precisely because he is “one of the people”. The High Priest is being “made perfect” (v.10) which really means that Jesus suffered in the “manner of perfect humanity”. It is precisely the fact that one of us made the sacrifice is that saves us. Something was required to be done to save humanity, and that thing was done by Jesus. It is the work that a man needs to do as man, not the work that God need to do as God. What man needed to do was to make a perfect sacrifice, the sacrifice of his whole life to God. This is what Jesus does, because man is incapable of doing this perfectly. To ask for Heaven is to ask God for perfection, and this is what we receive in Jesus’ sacrifice: God gives us this perfection of God, as the perfection of Man. Jesus himself explains this to us in the parable of the winegrower who in order to recover his due from the tenants, initially sends servants. These represent the prophets of the OT who get dealt with harshly. Then He says of the landowner: “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ (Mark 12:6). The father has the power to destroy these tenants, but he appeals to their good instincts first, sacrificing everything in the hope that he can arouse these. The sacrifice of the son was a sacrifice for the father too, as it was with Abraham. God does not offer anything less than perfection to Man. Were He to, He would not be God.

Transubstantiation- Christ’s Body for our Salvation

Jesus died for our sins. But in the Gospels, Jesus seemingly goes one step further and says that he actually gives his Body and Blood for us as bread and wine. There are three stages of Jesus’ Life. The first is his earthly life from his birth up to the Crucifixion, the third and final is from the Resurrection onward- Jesus’ “glorified” in the Flesh. The second stage is one that is easily missed for it lasts less than three full days, and bodily, Jesus does nothing for the duration of it: Jesus in Death. This runs from Jesus’ death on the Cross, to being taken down and laid in the Tomb for the 36 or so hours up to his Resurrection.

What we receive in the Eucharist is the physical Body and Blood of Christ that has been perfectly obedient to the Father “to the end”. The Body that we receive is the Body of suffering that has endured in perfect humility and obedience the entire Passion. Once again, one must really step back a moment to consider the full import of this: What we receive in the Eucharist is that same Body of suffering of Christ that He has, “of his own accord” given to endure the cruel agony of the Passion for us, from the Scourging, to the Crowning with Thorns, to the Crucifixion and Death (and all the hidden sufferings that we will never know nor can comprehend), that is the Body that we receive: “eat it…my body broken for you…”. Whatever it be of blessing that is gained by the Christian, is gained from the power of the Passion and Death of Christ, the “Crucifixion” event. As is said in the words of the Angelus prayer, “Pour forth the we beseech thee O Lord, they grace into our hearts that we…may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection…”. The separated Body and Blood that we are given as they are separated in Christ’s death; This is why Jesus says that what He is giving us is his “broken” for and his Blood “poured out”. We the separated Body and Blood that we are given as they are separated in Christ’s death.

Through “concomitance”, the sacramental Jesus which is the Body of the Passion and Death, is also the glorified/ Jesus in Heaven. Through “concomitance”: “Since, however, to Christ’s body are united His Blood, His Soul, and His Divinity, all of these also must be found to coexist in the Sacrament; not, however, by virtue of the consecration, but by virtue of the union that subsists between them and His Body. All these are said to be in the Eucharist by virtue of concomitance. Hence it is clear that Christ, whole and entire, is contained in the Sacrament; for when two things are actually united, where one is, the other must also be. Hence it also follows that Christ is so contained, whole and entire, under either species, that, as under the species of bread are contained not only the body, but also the blood and Christ entire; so in like manner, under the species of wine are truly contained not only the blood, but also the body and Christ entire

“And this faith has ever been in the Church of God, that, immediately after the consecration, the veritable Body of our Lord, and His veritable Blood, together with His soul and divinity, are under the species of bread and wine; but the Body indeed under the species of bread, and the Blood under the species of wine, by the force of the words; but the body itself under the species of wine, and the blood under the species of bread, and the soul under both, by the force of that natural connexion and concomitancy whereby the parts of Christ our Lord, who hath now risen from the dead, to die no more, are united together; and the divinity, furthermore, on account of the admirable hypostatical union thereof with His body and soul. Wherefore it is most true, that as much is contained under either species as under both; for Christ whole and entire is under the species of bread, and under any part whatsoever of that species; likewise the whole (Christ) is under the species of wine, and under the parts thereof.” Council of Trent, On the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Ch III

Q79 Art 1 co. “Secondly, it is considered on the part of what is represented by this sacrament, which is Christ’s Passion, as stated above (III:74:1; III:76:2 ad 1). And therefore this sacrament works in man the effect which Christ’s Passion wrought in the world. Hence, Chrysostom says on the words, “Immediately there came out blood and water” (Jn 19:34): “Since the sacred mysteries derive their origin from thence, when you draw nigh to the awe-inspiring chalice, so approach as if you were going to drink from Christ’s own side…”

Thus it is that this second phase of the Life of Christ, this Body of the Passion and Death is the most meritorious for our Salvation and it is this which we receive at the Eucharist. So close your eyes and consider you are in the Tomb with Jesus. Let every other thought and memory be put aside and be aware of only yourself and who you are with, let the stone be rolled across the doorway, perhaps you can still see because a torch is lit on the wall. There is only one thing that is actually written in relation to the Body of Christ in the Tomb in Scripture. It is mentioned in the OT and then repeated in the New: “You did not let you Holy One see decay”. That Body you are with in death is more clean than you are in life. You are with the “Body…broken”, and the “Blood…poured out” (for the blood was still flowing from Christ’s wounds after His Death as can be seen from the stains on the Shroud) the same “Body…broken”, and “Blood…poured out” of the Last Supper. That whom you are with is the Living God, God Almighty, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity of God himself. Were you to be sat in the Tomb, or at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven, you are with the same person, for the Body and the Blood is in Hypostatic Union with Him. All that suffering that Christ endured is for us, for the good of us, there therefore it is to our good that we are given that Body of Suffering, which is our Salvations “broken for you”

This is why we can say that Calvary is present at the Mass. It is not because Christ is “re-sacrificed” at the Mass. It is because his Body of Sacrifice, that same Body which has undergone all the sufferings on the Cross, is “made present” through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, therefore it is entirely correct to say that “Calvary is made present” at the Mass. Our Saviour is here in His Body of Suffering.

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” (Romans 6:3-6)NRSV

Living is dying, and we all have to die. When we die “in Christ”, that is, into his Death, we rise to Eternal Life.

(STIII Q.76 Art.1): “I answer that, It is absolutely necessary to confess according to Catholic faith that the entire Christ is in this sacrament. Yet we must know that there is something of Christ in this sacrament in a twofold manner: first, as it were, by the power of the sacrament; secondly, from natural concomitance. By the power of the sacrament, there is under the species of this sacrament that into which the pre-existing substance of the bread and wine is changed, as expressed by the words of the form, which are effective in this as in the other sacraments; for instance, by the words: “This is My body,” or, “This is My blood.” But from natural concomitance there is also in this sacrament that which is really united with that thing wherein the aforesaid conversion is terminated. For if any two things be really united, then wherever the one is really, there must the other also be: since things really united together are only distinguished by an operation of the mind

Reply to Objection 1. Because the change of the bread and wine is not terminated at the Godhead or the soul of Christ, it follows as a consequence that the Godhead or the soul of Christ is in this sacrament not by the power of the sacrament, but from real concomitance. For since the Godhead never set aside the assumed body, wherever the body of Christ is, there, of necessity, must the Godhead be; and therefore it is necessary for the Godhead to be in this sacrament concomitantly with His body. Hence we read in the profession of faith at Ephesus (P. I., chap. xxvi): “We are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ, not as taking common flesh, nor as of a holy man united to the Word in dignity, but the truly life-giving flesh of the Word Himself.”

On the other hand, His soul was truly separated from His body, as stated above (III:50:5). And therefore had this sacrament been celebrated during those three days when He was dead, the soul of Christ would not have been there, neither by the power of the sacrament, nor from real concomitance. But since “Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more” (Romans 6:9), His soul is always really united with His body. And therefore in this sacrament the body indeed of Christ is present by the power of the sacrament, but His soul from real concomitance.

Reply to Objection 2. By the power of the sacrament there is contained under it, as to the species of the bread, not only the flesh, but the entire body of Christ, that is, the bones the nerves, and the like. And this is apparent from the form of this sacrament, wherein it is not said: “This is My flesh,” but “This is My body.” Accordingly, when our Lord said (John 6:56): “My flesh is meat indeed,” there the word flesh is put for the entire body, because according to human custom it seems to be more adapted for eating, as men commonly are fed on the flesh of animals, but not on the bones or the like.

Q.76 Art.2 “Reply to Objection 1. Although the whole Christ is under each species, yet it is so (that there is a sacramental separation of the Body and Blood- my addition) not without purpose. For in the first place this serves to represent Christ’s Passion, in which the blood was separated from the body; hence in the form for the consecration of the blood mention is made of its shedding….”

“The Mass has just the same value as Calvary.” (St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church)

“The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it.” (Pope John Paul II)

“In the Mass there is offered to God a true sacrifice, properly speaking, which is propitiatory for the living and the dead.” (Pope Pius IV)

“The Mass is not an imitation, or a memory of Calvary, it is identically the same sacrifice and differs only from Calvary in appearance.” (Fr. O’Sullivan)

“When you hear Mass, do you come in the same frame of mind as the Blessed Virgin at Calvary? Because it is the same God, and the same Sacrifice.” (St. John Vianney)

Christ “entire”, but not “local”?

Art. 7? And the Q.77 following (deals with breaking of the sacramental species of the Bread/wine being dispersed…):

“Now it is evident that the whole nature of a substance is under every part of the dimensions under which it is contained; just as the entire nature of air is under every part of air, and the entire nature of bread under every part of bread; and this indifferently, whether the dimensions be actually divided (as when the air is divided or the bread cut), or whether they be actually undivided, but potentially divisible. And therefore it is manifest that the entire Christ is under every part of the species of the bread, even while the host remains entire, and not merely when it is broken, as some say, giving the example of an image which appears in a mirror, which appears as one in the unbroken mirror, whereas when the mirror is broken, there is an image in each part of the broken mirror: for the comparison is not perfect, because the multiplying of such images results in the broken mirror on account of the various reflections in the various parts of the mirror; but here there is only one consecration, whereby Christ’s body is in this sacrament.

Art. 4: But the conversion which takes place in this sacrament is terminated directly at the substance of Christ’s body, and not at its dimensions; which is evident from the fact that the dimensive quantity of the bread remains after the consecration, while only the substance of the bread passes away.

Q:77 Art. 7 “But it cannot be said that Christ’s true body is broken. First of all, because it is incorruptible and impassible: secondly, because it is entire under every part, as was shown above (III:76:3), which is contrary to the nature of a thing broken. It remains, then, that the breaking is in the dimensive quantity of the bread, as in a subject, just as the other accidents. And as the sacramental species are the sacrament of Christ’s true body, so is the breaking of these species the sacrament of our Lord’s Passion, which was in Christ’s true body.
Reply to Objection 3. What is eaten under its own species, is also broken and masticated under its own species; but Christ’s body is eaten not under its proper, but under the sacramental species. Hence in explaining John 6:64, “The flesh profiteth nothing,” Augustine (Tract. xxvii in Joan.) says that this is to be taken as referring to those who understood carnally: “for they understood the flesh, thus, as it is divided piecemeal, in a dead body, or as sold in the shambles.” Consequently, Christ’s very body is not broken, except according to its sacramental species. And the confession made by Berengarius is to be understood in this sense, that the breaking and the crushing with the teeth is to be referred to the sacramental species, under which the body of Christ truly is.

The Eucharist is not a Second Incarnation!

We have discussed the Hypostatic Union in the section on the Incarnation. In the Eucharist, the miracle that occurs with the words of consecration: “transubstantiation” is a change of substance of the bread into the substance of Christ’s Body. It is “merely” the change from one physical substance to another, hence the name. In it, the bread is not primarily changed into divinity, rather into Christ’s Flesh, (and the Flesh and Blood of the Passion of Christ as we have seen). So it is a change of one physical substance into another. That Holy Flesh of Christ is hypostatically and irrevocably united to the Divinity. The Transubstantiation is not another Incarnation; bread is not hypostatically assumed to the Divinity through the priest’s words of consecration! The physical bread is changed to the physical Flesh, which is hypostatically united to the divinity at the Incarnation (not at the consecration). On the other hand in the Incarnation, there is no change from one physical substance to another; the Flesh remains as Flesh: that is why the Incarnation is not a Transubstantiation.

Eucharist as God indwelling us

God is able to be with His creature, not just as a companion alongside, but actually dwell within the creature. This indwelling of the creature is the manner of the greatest imaginable closeness that one being can have with another.and then, in each and every one of us, as in “make our home with them.” Jn 14:23 and again seen in multiple instances of the Holy Spirit descending upon the believers in the Acts of the Apostles.

Love by nature wants to communicate itself, it does not want to remain distant. Our participation in this love requires our assent. Like any human lover, once we give our assent, God does not wait, he hastens to us, he wants to get so close and He is so overjoyed at our “assent” (think of a young boy who a young girl has said “yes” to, he is hardly going to be content to hand about!) that he gets close, so close that He “dwells” in us. So this point of assent is transformational (somewhat as the life of that same young boy in love is changed when the relationship begins in earnest). In Surah 7:153 of the Qur’an, God (in contrast to the equivalent story in the Bible) turns down Moses’ request saying “never shall you see me”, and in showing Himself to a nearby mountain instead, razes the whole behemoth into dust. That is really the closest encounter anyone has with God in the Quran, with a deity that is seemingly corrosive to his creation.

Thus we approach the discussion of Christianity’s unique belief that God really and substantially inhabits his creature, man. There is only a foreshadowing of it in the Old Testament, where in an unprecedented manner God is “really dwelling” in the midst of the Israelites nation as confined within the Ark of the Covenant, but also references to the Holy Spirit “coming upon” various personages Joshua (Num. 27:18), Othniel (Judg. 3:10), Gideon (6:34), Samson (13:25; 14:6), and Saul (1 Sam. 10:9, 10), Ezek (2:2) (Jephthah, Josiah?).

It is with the Incarnation, the occurrence of what was never really imagined, God assuming human Flesh that the teaching of that which is also really never given given credence before, begins to be taught: God dwelling in man. And who else but Jesus to begin to teach it Himself in passages numerous passages especially in the Gospel of John, and continued into the Epistles of St Paul, as we shall see.

And indeed it is that in the Christian belief, God not only comes to Earth as man, He dwells in man’s being, He is present as individually to every Christian. This is the “radical proximity” of God to man. In His coming close to man, God breaks every barrier, even the bodily barrier, getting closer than a wife to a husband, He dwells inside. The Gospels replete with verses that attest to this Presence of God not “to”, but “in” the Christian believer, and the reason is not to give to the world one more myth to mark it out from other myths, but all that we have been saying: as a mother protects her baby who is threatened, holding it so close that were she able to do so, she would hide her baby within herself bodily.

I heard a preacher called Naeem Fazal speak of how as a Muslim he felt incredulous about the lengths to which Christians claimed that God went for us, to die for us and then to actually want to dwell inside us. “Come on!”, he found himself exclaiming, “surely that’s a bit narcissistic, I mean, we aren’t that good, are we?”

The visible presence of Israel’s monotheistic deity among the people had always been a feature of their religion. God’s visible Presence remained with them in the desert “by day going ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light” (Exodus 13:21-22) “Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people throughout the 40 years in the desert”. When Solomon built and consecrated the first Temple, once again God manifests his Presence visibly: (1 Kings 8 10-13,2, Chron 13:16). King Solomon himself expresses his amazement at the seeming impossibility of this saying: ‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!…’” (1 Kings 8:27). Even the Israelites are quite thrown by the manifestations of God’s Presence they are given to see upon Mt. Sinai, exclaiming in seeming terror:“don’t let God speak with us, lest we die.” (Ex.20:19)

Transubstantiation- The Appearance that Remains

The bread, the substance of bread, so long as it is bread, through the power of the sacrament, is Christ. How is this possible though we can investigate the atomic structure of the bread? The belief in the Incarnation presents the same problems: is a part of Jesus’ body God? Is a strand of hair, (“they pulled at my beard”), a piece of his skin/flesh separated from the Body (they ploughed my back)? Just like bread (gluten and starch) and wine (various tanins/acids and alcohol) have “compositions”, so also the human body is composite and not a simple homogenous substance. The composition of blood with the Haemoglobin molecule for eg, is different from the composition of bone, which is different from that of muscle which is different from the organs, which why bone can stand, muscles can pull, while the gut, liver and kidneys can process.

If anything, the transition from human to God in the Incarnation seems more implausible than that from the bread to Jesus. A 1^st Century Jew stood beside Jesus told that this was God, would have had a reaction not very far different from a 21^st Century Protestant told that the Bread was Jesus. The Eucharist is Jesus by virtue of the Transubstantiation, the Eucharist is God by virtue of the Incarnation.

The primary miracle is that the bread, and this means any bread, which we know now to be constituted of a certain molecular and atomic structure and at a quantum level of force fields that are collated in a certain way, is changed into the force field of the type and collation that go in to make up not just a human body but the particular Body of Christ. There is not only a chemical factor, but also the factor of time, the workings of which, just like space, are a mystery to us, and possibly linked in to obscure principles like entropy.

In the miracle of the Eucharist, all this is accomplished although there be no change in the outward appearance. Now we know that “outward appearance” is merely a physical property of physical nature/composition. Now we know that looks, smells and tastes like bread because it is made up differently from cake which looks smells tastes like cake. Yet in the Eucharist, although it is now Jesus, looks, tastes and feels like bread. The physical make-up of Jesus, although really, “substantially” and completely present, affords the sensual attributes (seeing,feeling,tasting etc) of bread. Not only that it also exhibits the spatial properties of bread, occupying no more space than the piece of bread it is given. It seems that the physical composition of Jesus does not afford to us the accustomed perceptions to our senses, nor that of space (and time). It is a physical body that is not really obeying physical laws in every sense, “disguised” from the physical laws as by a cloaking device.

The simplest terminology is the simplest English: the bread and wine is changed to the Body and Blood of Christ, while still appearing like bread. That is the accurate Eucharistic dogma of the Church in those few words, with no inaccuracies. Dealing with the issue in this simple fashion seemingly avoids any necessity for the average Christian to comprehend the intricacies of Aristotelian metaphysics with its’ “substance and accident”, which in any case is hard to reconcile to the current scientific theories.

(Footnote- The concept of appearance as separate from the substance is in medieval terms called “accident” in relation to that substance. For accidents to subsist without a substance is like for whiteness to exist without anything white, which is impossible even in medieval times. In modern philosophy these “accidents” of classical philosophy came to be known as secondary qualities as differentiated from primary qualities. St Thomas devotes a whole question in the Summa to this, Pars III, Q.77).

One sees that this fact was perhaps not lost on the father of the Council of Trent wherein the Eucharistic Dogma was pronounced:

“…The council did not make its doctrine dependent upon scholastic ontology. An article published in L’Osservatore Romano for the recent year of the Eucharist pointed out that the Council did not use the term ‘accidents’ – it preferred the term ‘species’. It used the word substantia “for two reasons: a) because it is present in the tradition of St. Ambrose and Faustus of Riez, passing through Councils such as the Fourth Lateran; b). because it was used well before the advent of hylomorphism in the scholastics.”. The use of the word ‘species’ refers to the appearance of bread and wine in the Eucharist. While Trent says “the true Body of our Lord and His true Blood together with His Soul and Divinity exist under the species of bread and wine“…The council emphasises the completeness of this change by affirming that Christ is present “whole and entire (totus et integer Christus)” under both species. This implies the ‘concomitance’ of the whole Christ…

Raniero Cantalamessa, recent preacher to the Papal Household, also took such a view, in his 2005 Good Friday homily at St. Peter’s, Rome:

“Theology in our day has recovered a more balanced vision of the identity between the historical body of Christ and his Eucharistic body. It places an emphasis on the sacramental character of Christ’s presence in the sacrament of the altar which, however real and substantial, is not material.(not Jesus in his “natural” state, but sacramental- my addition)

…in the light of our modern understanding of the intimate relationship between a physical thing’s relational properties and what it is, his approach does not provide the answer…the Greco-scholastic definition of substance there is a lack of the sense of the essential place of matter-energy relationships.  Holloway’s seminal development in this area is in Chapter 19 of his book Catholicism: A New Synthesis.  As Holloway says:

“When…Christ says ‘This is Me’ then the matter concerned is conjoined to the organic unity of the body of Christ, vivified by the same human soul, in the unity of the Person of God the Son. It is now Him, and we mean no qualification whatever of that literalness”.

Fr. Holloway summarizes what we have tried to outline thus:

“It is fair to ask – did the Apostles around the table of the Last Supper, when they heard the Master say, ‘this is my Body’, and ‘this is the chalice of my Blood’ think that what they saw were the accidents of bread and wine, held by miraculous power in metaphysical real existence, and upheld by the underlying substance of the Body and Blood of the Lord? Did they not think rather that in all simplicity, they saw what the Master named and promised – Himself, in all that they saw and touched and took? This is not a capricious point, for the development of the notion of a doctrine of Faith should not belie the first simple apprehension of its generalized meaning before development of the content of the doctrine. We are called to look back at the Last Supper, and acknowledge the true faith of the apostles, and thus keep our understanding of the Eucharist in relation to it.”

Rome, 19 April 2016 (ZENIT) Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy and dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university.

“…Our reader is not the first to struggle with the concepts of substance and accident …This difficulty stems in part because the concepts seem to derive from Aristotelian metaphysics (…) it is necessary to affirm that, in referring to the Eucharist, the Church does not use the terms substance and accident in their philosophical contexts but in the common and ordinary sense in which they were first used many centuries ago. The dogma of transubstantiation does not embrace any philosophical theory in particular.

The earliest uses of the term “substance” in referring to the Eucharist precede by several centuries the introduction of Aristotelian thought into theology in the 13th century. The earliest use of the term is from the fifth or sixth centuries. The words transubstantiate and transubstantiation are found in the 11th and 12th centuries in theological debate. Among the earliest use of these terms in the magisterium was the profession of faith regarding the Real Presence imposed by the Pope in 1078 on a theologian called Berengarius who held erroneous beliefs.

…..Indeed, the Council of Trent (1545-1563) did not use the word accident but “species” (appearances) when referring to the Eucharistic change. Substance is the basic reality of bread as opposed to the appearances. Trent’s doctrine is presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in No. 1376:

“The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: ‘Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.’”

Therefore, Trent defines that the bread and wine ceases to be bread and wine although what we directly perceive, the appearances, remain the same so that there is no perceptible change. When speaking of the, species (appearances), or accidents, the Church does not refer just to what is visible but to all that could in any way be experienced as external aspects of bread and wine such as touch, taste, size and smell. It also embraces the effects that bread and wine have on the body. Thus a priest who happens to use too much altar wine early in the morning is likely to feel a bit lightheaded, and the celiac could become ill by receiving the host.

In addressing our reader’s question we can say that we have seen that it is unnecessary to enter into a long discussion regarding what constitutes the substance and what the accidents of bread and wine, as these are philosophical questions. However, because the Church affirms that everything that goes into making bread and wine what they are is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ…”

“O most sweet Lord Jesus, how great is the happiness of the devout soul that feasts upon You at Your banquet, where there is set before her to be eaten no other food but Yourself alone, her only Lover, most desired of all that her heart can desire! To me it would be happiness, indeed, to shed tears in Your presence from the innermost depths of love, and like the pious Magdalen to wash Your feet with them. But where now is this devotion, this copious shedding of holy tears? Certainly in Your sight, before Your holy angels, my whole heart ought to be inflamed and weep for joy. For, hidden though You are beneath another form, I have You truly present in the Sacrament. My eyes could not bear to behold You in Your own divine brightness, nor could the whole world stand in the splendor of the glory of Your majesty. In veiling Yourself in the Sacrament, therefore, You have regard for my weakness.” Imitation of Christ: Book 4, Chapter 11.

I record here the most incontrovertible assertion of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. There are others which also seem to assert the same and not as directly, which I have left out for brevity. The first of these is St Ignatius, an early Church Father with unassailable credentials, martyr and saint who knew the apostle John. Notice he says “flesh which”, not “flesh who”:

Scripture is itself Eucharistic in Nature

“in a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me (19a)…those who love me will be loved by my Father and I will love them and reveal myself to them (John 14:20)

The Last Supper Meal is a Passover Meal

I sketch a brief outline of how the entire Holy Scripture is indeed Eucharistic in nature, the prefiguring and fulfilment of a Meal in which Man is given to partake of God. In all the three synoptic Gospels (Mt.16:17-19, Mk. 14:12, Lk:22:14-15), the Last Supper is identified as the Passover meal. In Jesus’ time at Passover each family would take their lamb up to the Temple to be slaughtered, and the meat would be brought home for the Meal. At the Meal itself, the head of the family would speak about and explain the meaning of Passover, and then the lamb would be eaten. A Passover meal is not finished unless the sacrifice is eaten. However in the Gospel narrative there is no Mention of a Passover lamb, but instead the Body and Blood of Jesus himself which is eaten. Thus Jesus gives us himself as the new Passover meal, under the New Covenant in his own Blood. That which Jesus was described in John 6: “the bread that I will give you is my flesh for the life of the world…” therefore could refer to nothing other than the Last Supper Meal, even Protestant scholars like Joaquim Jeremias, a Lutheran theologian. As the Catholic theologian Dr. Scott Hahn says, the Last Supper essentially explains the Crucifixion…without it Crucifixion by itself would be no more than a Roman execution. Jesus therefore incorporates the Passover Meal into the Crucifixion as he begins with: “I have a longed to eat this Passover meal with you…”

Levitical “Sin Offering” is “Holiest of Holy” & Suffering Servant of Isaiah

Consider the intensity of holiness that is associated with the “purification/sin offering”. It is v.25 translated as “most holy” is rendered in the Hebrew both times “קֹ֥דֶשׁ קָֽדָשִׁ֖ים הִֽוא׃” (kodesh kadashim hi). There could not be a more holier expression in Hebrew and this phrase is exactly the same as employed in the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of the Temple. V.27 goes so far as to state “whatever touches its flesh will become holy”. Even the blood that gets spattered on garments is “washed in a holy place” it is not permissible to simply walk around in neglect of it, nor wash it without the sentiment of the holiness of the entire ritual. This is reflective of the kind of reverence with which we would treat the consecrated utensils that contain the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: This is the rule of the purification offering. The purification offering shall be slaughtered before the Lord at the spot where the burnt offering is slaughtered; it is most holy. The priest who offers it as a purification offering shall eat of it; it shall be eaten in a holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. Whatever touches its flesh shall become holy, and when any of its blood is spattered on a garment, you shall wash the bespattered part in a holy place. A clay vessel in which it was boiled shall be broken, but if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, that shall be scoured and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests shall eat of it; it is most holy.” (Leviticus 6:24-19)

This is the same word used in relation to the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:

“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:10)

The word for “offering for sin” אָשָׁם֙ – asham, is the same as that used in all the Levitical texts throughout chapters 5,6,7,14 a total of 46 times with only one other usage in the Bible which is from Genesis in which it is used for “guilt” itself.

Finite Manifestations of the Infinite in the Old Testament

Again, this is a very strong prefiguring of the Incarnation and the Holy Eucharist (same with the Burning Bush). How is this? Well, critics of Christianity will state that the notion of God being both “transcendent” and “immanent”, meaning he is infinitely beyond our perception and at the same time really present to us and with us in a tangible form, like Jesus, is a contradiction. Well, that supposed contradiction is right here between verses 11 and 20 of the 33rd chapter of Exodus- God as both simultaneously immanent and transcendent, the very claim of the Incarnation and the Eucharist “this is my Body”. Jewish commentators struggled to make sense of the anthromorphic representations of God in the OT and the later rabbis in the Aramaic Targums had a term “Memra” to designate these. I discuss this here: Trinity in the Old Testament and Talmudic Judaism.

Eating and Drinking with God- a Eucharistic Meal in the OT

The summary of the Entire Old Testament is the Passover sacrifice, the passing over of the Israelites from slavery into freedom. God commanded three items in the tent of meeting: the Ark of the Covenant itself, the golden lampstand, and third, the golden table of the- lechem hapanim which in the Hebrew is literally “Bread of the Face” which can also be translated “Bread of the Presence”. The table itself was set with for the flagons and bowls which held bread and wine for the offerings. “The bread, is to be set out before the Lord, regularly, on behalf of the Israelites as a (ever)lasting covenant (berith olam)” (Lev.24:8).So also Jesus calls his Sacrifice the “new Covenant (or New Testament) in my Blood) Luke 22:20 or just “my Blood of the New Covenant” (Matthew 26:28).

This bread and wine is eaten and drunk only by the priests, and is called “most holy”. Thus this, like the Eucharist, is a meal that is eaten in the presence of God (Ex.24:11), and immediately following the covenant ritual performed by Moses where the blood of the sacrifice is sprinkled upon the people (Ex.24:8).

“Every sabbath day Aaron shall set them in order before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the people of Israel, as a covenant forever. They shall be for Aaron and his descendants, who shall eat them in a holy place, for they are most holy portions for him from the offerings by fire to the Lord, a perpetual due (Lev 24:8-10).

The instructions given in Exodus end with:

“…and you shall set the bread of the Presence (lechem panim) on the Table before me always” (Ex.26:30)

All of this is built and arranged based upon the pattern of the Temple seen by Moses and the elders on the Mountain when they saw God, and ate a meal in his Presence. This same pattern in preserved in our churches today, with the tabernacle, the flagons and bowls holding the wine and the bread, and the lamp stands. The lamp stand was meant to be kept continually burning, as is the sanctuary lamp in the Catholic Churches. Thus Brant Pitre can say:

“by means of his words and actions Jesus was indicating (…) the institution of the new bread and wine of the Presence, the Bread of Jesus’s own Presence. Thus we can see the Eucharistic layout of the holiest place in the Temple and the manner of the Festival itself” (JJE 143).

Thus it is that at Eucharistic Adoration Catholics are worshipping by gazing upon the Face of God. Indeed in the 33rd Chapter of Exodus, God spoke to Moses “face to face” פָּנִ֣ים אֶל־ פָּנִ֔ים panim el panim (v.11). This seemingly is almost immediately contradicted in v.20 itself “no one shall see my face and live”.

The layout of the altar in the Judaic Temple, which is quite like what is preserved in Catholic and Orthodox Eucharistic services already had “Bread of the Face of God”, that same “Bread which is Jesus”, the same he gave his apostles at the Last Supper “This is my Body/Presence”, and we meet the same God of Moses “Face to face” as he did “panim el panim”, and “as one speaks to a friend” (v.11), as Jesus said “I do not call you servants, but I call you friends” (Jn.15:15). That Bread of the Presence of the Old Covenant sat there in the Temple all those years in desert and in the Temple, prefigured the New Covenant, in Christ’s own Body and Blood, and his Own Presence. It is hard to see what else it could be for.

Indeed this “eating and drinking” is prefigured in the Old Covenant at Sinai: (Exodus 24:8-11) “Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel (…) But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.”

The Hebrew “they saw God and they ate and drank) as interpreted by the Jewish writers that the same verse can be interpreted as “They saw God and in this, they ate and drank” implying that the sight of the LORD was food and drink for the people.

Again we see it in Isaiah, in relation to covenant. I heard Michael Heiser make this reference in the 391th episode of his podcast. Let’s examine the passage:

“For your Maker is your husband;
    the Lord of hosts is his name;
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
    the God of the whole earth he is called.
…
⁷ For a brief moment I abandoned you,
    but with great compassion I will gather you.
⁸ In overflowing wrath for a moment
    I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,
    says the Lord, your Redeemer.

⁹ This is like the days of Noah to me:
    Just as I swore that the waters of Noah
    would never again go over the earth,
so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you
    and will not rebuke you.
¹⁰ For the mountains may depart
    and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
    and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

1Hear, everyone who thirsts;
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
    and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food.
³ Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.
⁴ See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander for the peoples.
⁵ Now you shall call nations that you do not know,
    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has glorified you.

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;

12 For you shall go out in joy
    and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall burst into song,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

How the Eucharist Prefigures Heaven

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
    of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain
    the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
    the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
    and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
    for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
    Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
    This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
    let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

(Isaiah 25:6-9)

“Ho, everyone who thirsts,
    come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,    and delight yourselves in rich food.
³ Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.”

(Isaiah 55:1-3)

Here we see “listen” and “eat”, the Table of the Word, and the Table of the Eucharist, a free meal, a covenant meal, just as was prophesied, just as we see at the Holy Mass.

“I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat (ἀνακλιθήσονται- will recline- ἀνακλίνω, 6 occ.) with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 8:11, Luke 13:29)

Jesus, Tree of Life

In the book of Revelations (2:7) it is written: “…To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.” And in his first letter (5:5) St John also tells us who it is that conquers is: “…the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God”. Once again let us see in even more depth how Scripture is “Eucharistic” and the motif of “eating” is present from the outset in the book of Genesis, that sets the theme for the whole of scripture. I heard this in talk by a wonderful priest Fr Regi Mani, MSFS, where he describes how in Genesis 2 we are told of two trees: ^“…the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat form the first but not from the second. They were to eat of the Tree of Life for it is said in 2:16”. Adam and Eve eat of the Tree that is forbidden to them, which is the latter of the two and consequently they are prevented from eating from either “Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”

When they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil it is said “death entered into them”, which is separation from God through disobedience to his Will, and if they eat of the Tree of Life in that state then it would be the state of separation that becomes eternal the state of the devil. In a sense let us say that to eat of the Tree that gives Eternal Life in a sate of separation from God would be to “formalize” that state of separation through the eating. The man and woman are sent out and a cherubim is appointed to guard the path to the tee of life, to prevent them from getting back and a flaming sword “flaming and turning”, which is God’s mercy and care for us, he prevents our descent into Hell.

Jesus hanging upon the “Tree of the Cross” is for us the fruit of the Tree of Life. “So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;” (John6).” The devil in offering us the fruit that is forbidden, snatches away from us the ability to eat from the Tree of Life, and thus eternal life from us.”

If Scripture is taken as true Word of God, then we can truly see that from the beginning how it is through eating we are condemned and how through eating we are saved. There is no getting away from the eucharistic nature of Scripture and to Truly in the matter of the eucharist, if there is aught that the Catholics are guilty of it is of following the word and context of Holy Scripture, and the practise of the early Church

“Participating in the Blood”

Threading together the salient verses in the 8^th and 9^th Chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews we can see the theology of the Roman Catholic belief in the Holy Eucharist clearly emerge: that Jesus is the mediator (μεσίτης – arbitrator, mediator) of a better covenant…” (8:1-5, also 9:15, 12:24 cf. 1Tim2:5).  ^“…He entered once for all (Gk word – ἐφάπαξ – “once for all”, or “once”, eg Jesus appeared “once” to the 500) as “eternal high priest…a minister” (9:24, 8:1,2), has now entered the Holy Place (9:12), “now appearing in God’s presence..”” (9:24), “it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.” (8:3) (clearly indicating that Jesus has a present sacrifice) “on our behalf” (9:24), “with his own Blood (9:14) (or “sprinkled Blood” (12:24, 10:22)), “at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty” (8:1) “in the heavens” (8:1, 10:24, 12:23) thus obtaining eternal redemption (9:14).

In simple terms, Jesus ministers for our salvation in Heaven before the Throne of God with His Blood. We avail of this when we worship in the Holy Eucharist. Indeed this is our “way into the sanctuary (that had) not yet been disclosed…” (9:8) The Sacrifice is ongoing as is seen in: “…he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them…” (7:24,25,28). Thus the “Blood of the Covenant” pronounced by Jesus at the Last Supper meal of the synoptic Gospels is none other than the Blood that He offers to the Father “in the Holy Place”, it would be absurd that Jesus be merely “representing” the Blood to the Father. Rather the one Sacrifice that Jesus presents to the Father is neither in the past, nor in the present, but an Eternal Sacrifice. This is Jesus’ ongoing act of mediation on our behalf in Heaven, and what the author of Hebrews asserts is “the main point…”in what is being said (8.1).

This quote from “On the Tree of the Cross: Georges Florovsky and the Patristic Doctrine of Atonement”, ed. M. Baker, S. Danckaert, N. Marinides

“The once for all offering of Christ on the Cross (because the letter of Hebrews says that it is once for all, not over and done with but once for all -added) the perfection and conclusion of all bloody sacrifices, cannot be seen as the key ingredient of what atonement means unless it is viewed as an integral part of the incarnational self-sacrifice of the Father-Son perfected only in the Eucharistic participation in His body and Blood. A statement such as “Christ atoned for our sins upon the Cross” is incomplete from the testimony of the Church’s liturgical practise until we see the work of the Cross as completed in the chalice where it began.

The atonement for sins did not happen at a moment in the past. It happens at the moment of man’s communion in the divine mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood when the joining together of God and man that took place in Bethlehem that reached throughout all of life and even death on the Cross that defeated death in the Resurrection is made real and present in the faithful communicant that who receives into his human body and is joined bodily and spiritually with the divine-human Person of the incarnate Son.”          

Let us further consider how it be possible that we “participate” in Jesus’ offering of himself to the Father in Heaven as is implied in the verse: “you have come…to the heavenly Jerusalem…²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks (a word)” (Heb. 12:23.24).

(God) raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” Ephesians 2:6

Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach the Throne of Grace with confidence”

Hebrews 10:22 (NRSV) 22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water

1Peter 1:2 2 who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood

1 Pet. 1:18-19 (NRSV) 18 You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.”

Let’s look at some quotes:

CCC 1326 “…In the Eucharist, we already unite ourselves with the Heavenly Liturgy

CCC 1352: The whole community thus joins in the unending praise that the Church in Heaven, the angels and all the saints, sing to the thrice Holy God….” (1354)”… in the intercessions, the Church indicates that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the whole church in Heaven and on Earth, the living and the dead, …the Pope, the bishops…the deacons…”(1370) ”…To the offering of Christ are united not only the members still here on Earth, all also those already in the glory of Heaven. In communion and commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the Church offers the Eucharistic sacrifice…”

“With his resurrection the new Temple will begin: the living Body of Jesus Christ, which will now stand in the sight of God and be the place of all worship. Into this body he incorporates all men. It is the tabernacle that no human hands have made, the place of true worship of God, which casts out the shadow and replaces it with reality” SoL, 43 Cardinal Ratzinger

“the new Temple already exists (Jesus’s resurrected Body), and so does the new, the definitive sacrifice: the humanity of Christ opened up in his Cross and Resurrection. The prayer of the man Jesus is now united with the dialogue of eternal love within the Trinity. Jesus draws men into this prayer through the Eucharist, which is thus the ever-open door of adoration and true Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the New Covenant, the “reasonable service of God”(…) this means that the universality is an essential feature of Christian worship. It is the worship of an open Heaven. It is never just an event in the life of a community that finds itself in a particular place. No, to celebrate the Eucharist means to enter into the openness of a glorification of God that embraces both Heaven and Earth…” SoL 49, Cardinal Ratzinger

“The Kingdom is the portion of the universe over which God reigns, where He is obeyed out of love, where His Will is accomplished “as it is in Heaven”. Without a doubt, the notion of Kingdom is eschatological; it concerns the end of time; but it is precisely with Christ that eschatology has entered into time. On one hand the kingdom exists already on earth; on the other it is already in heaven.”

-Cardinal Charles Journet Theology of the Church pg 6

“You have come,” says the letter to the Hebrews, “to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the Jerusalem above.” Our fathers believed these words and reflected on them. Thus, the Church that had given birth to them in the water of baptism—precisely this earthly, visible Church—was at the same time “the heavenly Church” for them, “the new Jerusalem above, our mother.” “Let us already now, in the Church, live in the Jerusalem above,” Augustine will say, “so that we may not perish for ever” (On the Psalms, 124, 4).”

-The Kingdom of God and the Heavenly-Earthly Church”, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, O.P in Letter and Spirit, Vol 2: The Authority of Majesty.

“let us first remain with this vision of the Church as a reality that is es­sentially heavenly…The Church is where Christ is. How then would it be possible for her not to be primarily in heaven, where Christ is?”: Cardinal Schonborn.

After you have professed your faith in the most blessed Trinity, you declare that you believe in the holy Catholic Church. What is the Church other than the gathering together of all the saints? For since the beginning of the world, the patriarchs. . .the proph­ets, the martyrs, and all the righteous. . .form one single Church, since they are sanctified through one and the same faith and one and the same life, and are marked with the sign of one and the same Spirit, and thus form one single body. As is stated above, Christ is termed the head of this body. But there is still more to be said. Even the angels, the heavenly dominations, and authori­ties are members of this one single Church. . . .Believe therefore that you are to attain to the fellowship of the saints in this one Church. Know that this Catholic Church is one, established over the whole face of the earth; you must cling decisively to her fellowship.”

-Nicetas of Remesiana Explanation of the Symbol, 10, in PL 52, 871B; see also P.-Y. Emery, “L’unité des croyants au ciel et sur la terre,” Verbum Caro 16 (1962), 1–240.

Who is the city of God, if not the holy Church?”16 (Augustine, On the Psalms, 92, 4; see also Augustine, The City of God, Bk. 16, chap. 2,) Is the Church identical with the kingdom of God? Augustine affirms this: “Thus, the Church is already now the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven…”

–The City of God, Bk. 20, chap. 9, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 429)

“The kingdom of God is spoken of by preference (as it were) in a double sense: first, as the group of those who walk in faith, and in this sense the Church militant is called the ‘kingdom of God’; but then also as the assembly of those who have already safely attained their goal, and in this sense the triumphant Church is called the ‘kingdom of God.’”

–St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Fourth Book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Dist. 49, q. 1, a. 2, quaest. 5, sol. 5.

“We do not believe that one can refuse to identify the Church and the kingdom. We have two concepts here, but only one single reality. The Church is the kingdom; the kingdom is the Church…”

–Cardinal Charles Journet, L’Eglise du Verbe Incarné, 2: 997, n. 1; compare 60–91and Nova et Vetera 38 (1963), 307–10.

If the Church is essentially heavenly, since she is “there where Christ is,” if she is his body, and it is “not only the believers who are alive today that belong” to this body “but also those who have lived before us, and those who will come after us until the end of time,”then it is not possible to grasp a reason not to identify the Church and the kingdom of God.”

-Augustine, On the Psalms, 62, 2.

“When you are before the altar where Christ reposes, you ought no longer to think that you are amongst men; but believe that there are troops of angels and archangels standing by you, and trembling with respect before the sovereign Master of Heaven and earth. Therefore, when you are in church, be there in silence, fear, and veneration.”

– St. John Chrysostom

“If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish”, commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors”. If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.”

-St. John Chrysostom (can’t find the citation)

“…since there are four things to be noted in every sacrifice—to wit, to whom it is offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, and for whom it is offered—that the same one true Mediator reconciling us with God through the peace-sacrifice might continue to be one with Him to whom He offered it, might be one with them for whom He offered it, and might Himself be the offeror and what He offered.” ad 1. “…And this is a most perfect sacrifice. first of all, since being flesh of human nature, it is fittingly offered for men, and is partaken of by them under the Sacrament. Secondly, because being passible and mortal, it was fit for immolation. Thirdly, because, being sinless, it had virtue to cleanse from sins. Fourthly, because, being the offeror’s own flesh, it was acceptable to God on account of His charity in offering up His own flesh. Hence it is that Augustine says (De Trin. iv): “What else could be so fittingly partaken of by men, or offered up for men, as human flesh? What else could be so appropriate for this immolation as mortal flesh? What else is there so clean for cleansing mortals as the flesh born in the womb without fleshly concupiscence, and coming from a virginal womb? What could be so favourably offered and accepted as the flesh of our sacrifice, which was made the body of our Priest?” STIII, Q. 48 Art. I

“in the holy tent I ministered before him” (Sir. 24:10)

The Eucharist in the New Testament

St Paul on the Real Presence in the Eucharist

Koinonia in Corinthians 10:16, 11:27-29

St Paul writes:

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy (ἀναξίως) manner  will be answerable (ἔνοχος- held in, bound by, liable to eg. a condition, penalty or imputation) for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves (dokimazeto), and only then (houtos- in this manner) eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning (διακρίνων- distinguish, judge) the body, eat and drink judgement (κρίμα- judgment, verdict; condemnation) against themselves.” (1Cor.11:27-29)

Consider that in the eating of food, if there is anything to discern, it is primarily related to what is being eaten- its taste/ texture, other qualities. Could Paul really be exhorting the believers to discern a culinary metaphor instead of the food itself, and holding them guilty for not doing so? We are become so used to this New Testament phraseology at this point, of eating and drinking Jesus, from the Gospels themselves that we forget that such usage is never found outside this context, and there is no metaphor we can even compare it to. Leave alone outside Christianity, this phraseology would seem wildly out of place even in the Bible itself! Metaphors are idiomatic in language, their meaning is implied from the manner of popular usage. Eating and drinking deity is hardly popular usage for Jews!

So at the very outset, the surface reading, just as in the Bread of Life and Last Supper narratives is understandably jarring, and this fact should be glossed over in any scriptural study. If all that is being implied is “God died for you”, then such usage would seem highly irresponsible. But just like Jesus did before him in John, Paul too seemingly doubles down on a literal implication. He first says that we must discern Christ in the meal and then says we must be worthy (axios) of it as well, furthermore saying that if not, it will judge us. First of all, how can anyone be unworthy of food in a monotheistic religion? This would be a bit too much to swallow (pun intended!). Yet the surface reading of the text is implying: “That which is receiving is condemned by that which it is receiving”.

Paul exhorts the believers to receive the food in a state of personal spiritual purity “receives unworthily”, “examine yourselves”, and then links that “worthiness” to a particular discernment in relation to the meal itself as body and blood “discerning the body and blood”. If this is not done, then the body and blood will judge them “eats or drinks down judgement on themselves”. Not particularly that Paul is not merely saying that the body and blood will judge them, rather that the body and blood that they are ingesting will judge them.

Now, I have in all this sought to steelman the case against a literal interpretation, in order to see if there is any means by which this might be made to work. And even here, where Paul triples down on a literal meaning, one might still seek to metaphorise and say that God is judging them for their lack of belief in Christ’s sacrifice. However I think that the metaphor is at this point stretched to breaking point, as is the interpretation. Why go to all these lengths, when it is in the first place blasphemous to a Jew and on top of that, it would have been far more straight forward to just state the literal case, as I have done. That’s quite inexplicable to me.

There’s just too many metaphors here for this to work as a theory- not only are the beilevers going to be metaphorically eating and drinking Jesus, but they will also be metaphorically judged by what they eat and drink. A culinary metaphor for accepting into oneself and believing in a real sacrifice and real indwelling is already a stretch, Paul nowehere by his language gives any indication of any intended use of metaphor, just like before Jesus also did not, but then when we finally get to the end, Paul rather than clarify the literal meaning, finishes with a judgement metaphor. Further, Paul in my opinion here is clearly referencing Jesus’ Last Supper quote “this is my body”, by saying “discern the body (it is what the Lord said)”. They are clearly being called to discern that they are drinking down the Body and Blood of Christ, which alone can judge. I myself do not see any way out of this interpretation.

Do we need to ask why St. Paul perhaps did not use an even more precise phrase like “discern that it is the body”? The reasons for this are non-trivial and perhaps similary to the reasons Jesus did not say something more emphatic like “this bread is itself (autos to soma mou) my body”. Consider what happened the first time Jesus spoke clearly when he spoke of his Body and Blood being eaten- his disciples left Him. All the doctrine of the Eucharist is present in these Biblical passages, however there is a sense in which it necessarily had to be broken to the Church gradually. Further consider that this sort of “relative obscurity” is hardly out of place in the Bible, where one can equally argue that such central teachings like the doctrine of the Trinity, Christ’s Divinity, interpretative methods, ecclesiology, free will itself are not declared in sufficiently precise language.

In the just the previous chapter Paul asserts: “this cup of blessing, is it not a sharing/ partaking/ communion (koinonia) in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a partaking in the body of Christ?” (1Cor.10:16). Right after this he warns against participating in sacrifices to idols: “consider the people of Israel (…) those who eat the sacrifices (are) partners in the altar (κοινωνοὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου)” (v.18) and that therefore: “You cannot partake of the table (τραπέζης) of the Lord and the table of demons…” (v.21). Here, in acknowledging the presence of a real altar, he once again implies the presence of a real sacrifice rather than a mere symbol.

A Study of “Koinonia”, our Partipation in God

In 2 Peter we see koinonia with reference to the intimacy of our relationship with God:

“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness (…) so that through (his promises) you may (…) become participants of the divine nature (θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως)” (2Pet.1:3,4). Such a “participation” implies an indwelling since it is the nature that is being participated in.

Trying to find the roots of koinonia

The word itself can be translated as “participation”, “sharing” or “communion” (in a French Bible I found “au benefice du/la communion”, and in Spanish “comunione”). I am not aware that there is an equivalent word in the Hebrew Bible. I found paras פָרַס (Is.58:7), which in every other instance is literally dividing (eg. the hoof), while in Proverb 14:10 we have עָרַב arab, 23 occ, which every other time is used for literally pledging.

The English “communion” as far as I can tell is simply a transliteration from Greek, a spiritual word not used in routine language, rather when it does get used it tends to have some quasi-spiritual context, to denote some ineffable dimension of a relationship, and in derived words like “commune” with similar implications. The Latin for communication is communicationem; and communion is communionem, roots of both being obscure, though we’d be tempted to see “con (together)” and “union (unos for one)”. Thus if anything, it is a “together union”, or a doubly emphatic union, even if that is not evident in the Greek root.

Gr. “koinos”, the closest word (14occ.) is used in the Bible either for unclean/defiled or for “common”, more or less the exact antonym to hagios or sacred. Strong’s 2839, notes with Thayer that koinonos is used for a partaker in the classical Gr. authors. “Partake” thus also seems an appropriate translation, with “part” and “taking” serving to imply give and take.

Koinonia in the NT

I put the total usage of “κοινωνοὶ (koinonoi)” in all its forms at 33 occ.: Koinonos- 10occ., koinonia- 9occ., koinonian- 7occ., koinonias- 3occ., koinonoi- 6occ, then kononeite, koinoneitw (imperatives), koinountes (prtcpl.), koinounikos, koinonon (1), koinonos (2).

Thus we see in Christianity, the use of a unique spiritual word to express the intimacy of relation of God and his creature, which simply does not appear in other religions because they are not focussed on relationship. Christianity in stark contrast to all other writing is so intimate in its relationshio that common language simply does not suffice. Christianity necessitates a doubly emphatic union, “con” “union”, which is an ontological sharing in the very substance, a reality of the metaphors used by lovers in a effort to describe an aspiration idealised perfection of an abstract concept, a desire “to be one”, “together forever”, “united to one’s lover”, made reality in Christianity.

Thus in Corinthians St Paul can say that beause Christ loved us “unto death”, that love being so great, literally is that idealised relationship, the sharing “koinonia” in that sacrificial Body and Blood of Christ. This for us is a participation in the divine nature itself (2Pet.1:3,4), in the glory that is to to be revealed (1Pet.5:1). We obtain this through “participation in (Christ’s) sufferings” (Phil. 3:10-11). In all of this we have communion with the Three Persons of God: “fellowship with the Father (1Jn1:3)/ with the Spirit (Phil.2:1)/ with the Son (1Cor.1:9). Further, we have fellowship in the Gospel/ in faith/ with light/ of the believers”. For the sake of completion we also note other usages of koinonia for sharing in general, for eg. of financial contributions/ ministering/ vocation/ crime etc. to make up a total of 33.

Finally we have a Eucharistic reference in the incident on the road to Emmaus the disciples “recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread”.

I wrote a rhyme:

Amongst us two or three,

He surely present must be.

Though where if not thereof did say

“This is my Body”!

“..For Protestants, the “Word of God” is a text written in a book that they pore over in their “devotions,” bring to church, listen to the reading of, hear preaching about, and carry home again, as if this book were the locus of God’s covenant. But that’s not what Jesus actually told us: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Lk 22:20, Matt 26:28, Mk 14:24). The new covenant is something that has its existence in the form of a sacrificial banquet. It is when we partake of His flesh and blood that we most perfectly meet Christ Himself, in the manner He left for us…”

-Dr Peter Kwasniewski, Lifesitenews website 2/9/19.

Do “This”?– the Last Supper passages Jesus

Q79 . But the form of this sacrament is pronounced as if Christ were speaking in person, so that it is given to be understood that the minister does nothing in perfecting this sacrament, except to pronounce the words of Christ.

The words of Jesus’ Last Supper monologue, when rearranged would read: “eat “this bread”…my body, drink “this wine”…my blood…in memory of me”. A simple linguistic analysis of the words of the Last Supper narrative would indicate their meaning to be the eating and drinking of Jesus’ own Body and Blood. (fn- The Protestant reformers like Zwingli and Luther realised this; Zwingli tried to get around the water-tight linguistic structure of Jesus’ words by an “appeal to metaphor”; that the “is” is metaphorical, or that instead of the “is” we must use “means”: “This “means” my Body”. Luther chose to accept the Real Presence of Jesus, but not the Transubstantiation. Modern-day Non-Catholics will employ the mental insertion of other words “this is like Body, or “a symbol of”)

“Toúto estin sóma mou”. No less than four of the New Testament authors have heave between them, a total of ten opportunities to say either of the words “represents” or “symbol/means”, (six in the synoptics, four in Corinthians which is two each in the 10^th and 11^th chapters)and had they taken even one of those opportunities, I would not be writing this article..

Most non-Eucharistic Christians appeal to the “do this in memory of me” that follows to and deny the reality of the Body and Blood. In any re-enactment of the Last Supper meal, as in any re-enactment at all, the person that raises the bread represents the historical character which I this case is Jesus, playing the role of Jesus so to speak. Let us put the re-enactment in the form of a script:

Jesus (raising the bread): “Do this: re-enact the scene of me directing the words “this is my body” at the bread”

Obviously the re-enactment of a historical event brings back the memory of that event which is represented.  Non-Eucharistic Christians see fit based on this to take the event as an “aide-memoire” to the Crucifixion with audio-visuals etc.

However, a true re-enactment is the event itself made present rather than a counterfeit (although most historical re-enactments are counterfeits for entertainment or to seek inspiration from history). A true re-enactment of a beheading then is a beheading, or a true re-enactment of a sexual event, is a sexual event, or that of a gun-battle is a gun-battle and only then are we able to say, “history repeats itself/ is re-enacted”. If it was the changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, then that is the basis for the Catholic belief in the reproduction of that exact same event in the re-enaction rather than a counterfeit, “do this- poiete eis”). That as the apostles ate, so also must we eat. The apostles could have been “merely remembering” Jesus, he was right there. So it is not the Jesus’ apostles who are remembering in the manner that we are to remember, rather it is us who will eat in the manner that the apostles ate! It is historical that cannot be replayed, as the phrase goes “no use crying over split milk, etc.” However in the case of signs and wonders from God, this presents no obstacle.

The good Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers relates how he was once speaking at a University in Adelaide, Australia on the topic of the existence of God and following the talk he got to talking quite cordially with an atheistic professor, who turned out to be a professor of Greek. To cut a logn story short, he showed him the words in the Gospel “touto estin soma mou” and asked what the meaning was linguistically, and the immediate reply was that the speaker of those words was asserting that that  which he was indicating was his body. The reason is this: touto is the demonstrative pronoun for the neuter noun soma, whereas artos, or bread is a masculine noun. If the speaker had wanted to assert that what he was holding he believed to be bread, he would have said houtos estin soma mou.

(fn- Were the event of the Last Supper to signify nothing beyond the help it provided us in remembering the Crucifixion, in such a theology, the act of God remains in God and we are saved by “remembering” it. Why does an action of God have anything to do with us, or is the event of “belief” sufficient or constitutive of “partaking” in God’s act? Most non-Catholics (or “non-Eucharistics”) subscribe to some sort of “imputational” concept, whereby the “good” of God’s act is added to our “bad”, thereby making up for it. In the English the meaning of “impute” is the common usage is to “ascribe” or to “represent”, while in finance, it is “to assign a value to something”. In the Latin is it in (into) and putare (to clear(an account), to settle etc). Thus this is to say that Jesus settles our account from his account. This transfer of “goods” occurs, in the non-Eucharistic version of Christianity at the event of our acceptance of him. This seems an attractive theology, it requires no peripherals and it is not in any other religion. Thus the entire evangelical effort in most non-Catholic practise is to being the penitent to the occasion of the event of acceptance, the “Sinner’s Prayer”. The problem with it is that the sacrifice of God remaining with God, and the sins of men remaining with men, there is no proffered mechanism whereby the one is exchanged for the other, rather the process merely being given the name: “imputation”. Further it makes no answer to the question: God already possessed in himself every goodness and in infinite measure. Were the notion of the Cross no more than a desire for “imputation”, a settling of accounts, then there was already a superabundance of goodness in that account. Were the non-Catholic version true, it is to place the entire economy of Salvation upon “remembrance”, i.e. as if to say “it is in remembering that by which we are saved that we are saved.”)

“When your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’ 27you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD…” (Exodus 12:26.27a)

Bread of Life

The Sixth chapter of the Gospel of John contains the incredible and lengthy “Bread of Life” passage; no less than 46 verses going from verse 25 to 71. Every moment of this passage is charged with the shocked reaction of Jesus’ listeners to the Eucharistic teaching. Brant Pitre really brings home the point of how this would have sounded to first century Jew:

“could he as a first-century Jew have ever commanded his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood? If he did, would this not entail explicitly breaking the Torah’s repeated commandments against consuming blood? It is precisely this tension between the Jewish Torah and the eucharistic words attributed to Jesus that leads Geza Vermes to contend:

“[T]he imagery of eating a man’s body and especially drinking his blood . . . , even after allowance is made for metaphorical language, strikes a totally foreign note in a Palestinian Jewish cultural setting (cf. John 6.52). With their profoundly rooted blood taboo, Jesus’ listeners would have been overcome with nausea at hearing such words.”

Along similar lines, another major Jewish scholar, Joseph Klausner, writes:

“[I]t is quite impossible to admit that Jesus would have said to his disciples that they should eat of his body and drink of his blood, “the blood of the new covenant which was shed for many.” The drinking of blood, even if it was meant symbolically, could only have aroused horror in the minds of such simple Galilean Jews.”

Note two points about the views of both Vermes and Klausner. First, both agree that there is simply no way to reconcile the Jewish taboo against blood consumption with Jesus’ command for his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood at the Last Supper. The words of institution are thus historically “impossible.” Second — and this is significant — both also agree that even if Jesus only meant these words metaphorically, as many Christian interpreters since the Protestant Reformation have contended, in an ancient Jewish context, such a command would have been completely repugnant. From this point of view, there is no way to reconcile the Jewish Jesus and the Jesus of the Last Supper accounts. Therefore, since the Jewishness of Jesus cannot be called into question, it is the words of institution that must be rejected as unhistorical.” (from Chapter 1, Kindle version, “Jesus and the Last Supper” by Brant Pitre) 

Let us just make a few broad observations from this truly remarkable passage of Scripture:

In verse 6:53 Jesus asserts: “Very, truly (Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν), I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (6:53). In propositional logic, this is a “bi-conditional” (“if and only if..”). It’s like saying “if and only if it rains will we be able to save our rice crop” which is the same as: “unless it rains, our rice crop is doomed”. There is no more exclusive way of laying down a condition upon the consequent, which is attaining eternal life. In response to the disciples’ shocked reaction, what does Jesus do, but everything possible to reinforce the sentiment. He goes on without hesitating or let up, that it is those who eat/drink his flesh/blood, that have eternal life, I will raise up on the last day, they will live forever”. He stresses that this is no metaphorical food: “For my flesh is true (ἀληθής- alethes) food and my blood is true drink” (55).

In the Greek, we see even more clearly the increasing intensity of Jesus’ assertion, when he Jesus initially uses “phago” a word which can be used as a metaphoric kind of eating as in “the guilt is really eating him”, or “this is eating into my budget”. However in response to his listener’s objections, Jesus uses the even more specific and literal “trogo” which in English is “chewing” or “mastication”. The word He uses for “flesh” is sarx (σάρξ) which typically denotes real, physical flesh. The word soma is used for body in the Synoptic Gospels at the Last Supper, as well as in 1 Cor 10, and this word is more given to possible metaphorical use as in “the body of evidence” and so on. The Jews exclaim, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (6:60). Imagine the absurdity of the situation of a Jewish Rabbi sitting in plain daylight and plainly telling his disciples that they must eat him. This is not lost on the commentators.

The “Bread of Life” passage itself is really a great watershed in world religious evolution, and philosophically it represents the brindging of the chasm between the material and the spiritual, a brindging that was commenced with the Incarnation itself. In the first, Flesh participates in God, as God, through teh Hypostatic Union. In the second, the Eucharist, God participates in us, as Flesh, because we are flesh. It is in effect the only answer to the oldest question of philosophy first asked by Plato, that of the participation of universals in particulars. Thus Christianity from its very inception, was going to be a “fleshy” religion, for it begins with the angel’s announcement to Mary that she will conceive God in the Flesh. Those listeners who could not accept they would consume the flesh of God in the Eucharist, would only join the ranks of those who could not worship the fleshy God of Christmas. The bridge between flesh and spirit, is a bridge of Flesh, that of Christ himself. In the words of Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges, O.P. The Church, p.140., “Every soul draws near to God through Him (Jesus Christ) as by a road of flesh.”, an echo of Tertulliam caro salutis cardo, “the flesh is the hinge of salvation”. The Eucharistic passages are the final revealing of the wisdom of God: that man who is a physical/material being, must be saved by God in a physical/fleshy manner.

Much of the import of the John 6 passage can be judged from the reactions of the listeners, as we shall see. For there is no question that Jesus’ twelve apostles themselves are completely bewildered by this teaching. In spite of this, they seem to stand behind Peter’s beautiful reply “…you have the words of eternal life”. “Indeed Lord”, Peter would seem to say, “I have found no other truth but you. Am now I to leave because I cannot comprehend how this teaching can come to be? I have watched as you raised the dead to life. I am just a fisherman, I catch fish. You are Lord, what you say, is.”

The Jerome (p.1407) comments on the eight verses which are the most explcitly “Eucharistic” and in the manner of speaking of the “sacrametal” reception of the Flesh and Blood of Christ himself. It notes that in v.53 Jesus declares “Note only must the person eat the flesh of Jesus but also drink his blood”, which is “clearly” a Eucharistic reference. The Jerome interestingly remarks that the occurrence of this passage in john which is the latest of the Gospels shows that such language must have been “acceptable to the comminuty that wrote it” and that “would understand that there was no indication of cannibalism in spite of the explicit language”, which is interesting and lends support for the practise of the receipt of the Eucharist in the earlist Christian communities.

The Lord’s Prayer

As much as it is true and as we have already seen that the Last Supper summarises Christianity notionally, the events around the Crucifixion summarise it historically, (the parables of the landowner and the Prodigal Son when taken together might summarise it parabolically), the Creed in terms of belief, so in terms of prayer, it is the Lord’s Prayer that is the summary of the Christian religion, the prayer that summarises the prayers of the Christian. In that quintessential prayer of the whole Church it is noteworthy that there exists only one petition, that for “our daily bread”.

The reader might then be surprised to learn that in the gospels of Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3 where the prayer is mentioned, the word “daily” ἐπιούσιος (epiousios) “occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, or anywhere else in the whole of ancient Greek Literature. All other New Testament passages with the translation “daily” use the word hemeran (ἡμέρᾱν, ‘day’). St. Jerome himself in the Vulgate translated epiousios in two different ways: by morphological analysis as ‘supersubstantial’ (supersubstantialem) in Matthew 6:11, but retaining ‘daily’ (quotidianum) in Luke 11:3. Pope St Benedict reiterates this (JoN,153). The CCC (2837) states:

“…taken in Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for subsistence. Taken literally (epi-ousios: “super-essential”), it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the “medicine of immortality,” without which we have no life within us. Finally in this connection, its heavenly meaning is evident: “this day” is the Day of the Lord, the day of the feast of the kingdom, anticipated in the Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come. For this reason it is fitting for the Eucharistic liturgy to be celebrated each day. The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food makes it a bond of union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his Body and made members of him, we may become what we receive (…) The Father in heaven urges us, as children of heaven, to ask for the bread of heaven. [Christ] himself is the bread who, sown in the Virgin, raised up in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, reserved in churches, brought to altars, furnishes the faithful each day with food from heaven…”

In this sense, the sense that the “super-substantial bread” that Jesus is referring to is none other than the Eucharist, and as the single petition in what enjoys unanimity as the greatest prayer of the Church, it is not difficult to relate this verse to the formula in John “Unless…you shall have no life”.

Participation in the Inner Life of the Holy Trinity of God

We’ve already seen in 2 Peter: “His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness (…) so that through (his promises) you may (…) become participants of the divine nature (θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως)” (2Pet.1:3,4).

In the Inner Life of the Holy Trinity of God, the three Person are always “given” to each other. God’s self-expression, His self-communication to us is Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity and the Eternal Logos, the Word of God who is completely open in obedience to the Will of the Father in the eternal Trinitarian communion of Love. In giving up our own lives to Christ, we too participate in this manner of “giving” in the Inner Life of the Trinity. Since it is in the mode of sonship that we participate, through the Son of God, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God (). The Sacrifice on the Cross is the fulfilment and the culmination of that sacrificial mission of the second Person of the Trinity in the temporal world. God admits us into His Divine Nature by lowering Himself to our lowly human nature. We participate in the Divine Nature through a participation in God’s Love thereby made possible through ongoing spiritual comprehension and conversion.

“The new Temple already exists (Jesus’s resurrected Body), and so does the new, the definitive sacrifice: the humanity of Christ opened up in his Cross and Resurrection. The prayer of the man Jesus is now united with the dialogue of eternal love within the Trinity. Jesus draws men into this prayer through the Eucharist, which is thus the ever-open door of adoration and true Sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the New Covenant, the “reasonable service of God” Spirit of the Liturgy, p.43.

“Only sanctifying grace is a real, physical, and formal participation in the Divine Nature as such . . . . For it disposes us to see Him as he sees Himself, to love Him as He loves Himself.”—Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., the Sense of Mystery: Clarity and Obscurity in the Intellectual Life, p. 189.

The Sacrament that Brings Grace

“Sacrament” has been defined as a visible sign that denotes invisible grace received. Every blessing that employs a physical sign, like the use of red powder among the Hindus, or the verses written into an amulet in Islam, each is a visible sign that purports to carry with it an invisible divine blessing. The Eucharist is the only sacramental sacrifice (or sacrificial sacrament). The entire work of the sacrifice being performed by Jesus, it is always perfect. All the power of the Christian life being drawn from it, this Sacrifice is the power of EVERY sacrament, although the other sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, Holy Confession). Thus it can be said all the grace of the Christian life is drawn from the One Great Sacrifice of the Cross. All the grace, which is the blessings that a Christian requires and receives for his spiritual journey to God is derived from Jesus’ “giving” of it on the Cross, and this grace flows into us through all the sacraments, but the Eucharist “is” the sacrifice of the Cross. Rather than see “sacrament” as an incomprehensible and cumbersome addition to religious teaching, it in fact merely significates what is quite incomprehensible already. Jesus never used the term, but merely stated the teaching. If we are ever to believe “this is my body”, then we are believing in the “sacramental presence” of the Body of Christ, as we shall next see.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says, “The curtain of the Temple has been torn. Heaven has been opened up by the union of the man Jesus, and thus of all Human existence, with the living God. But this new openness is only mediated by the signs of salvation. We need mediation. As yet we do not see the Lord “as He is (… ) we do indeed participate in the heavenly liturgy, but this participation is mediated to us through earthly signs, which the Redeemer has shown to us as the place where his reality is to be found.” SoL 60-61. We shall later come back to this quote once more later in the discussion

In order to get beyond anything more than a superficial understanding of the Bible, the word “sacrament” simply cannot be dispensed with. Christianity is unusual among religions in that the power of it in the present, is derived from a “historical” sacrifice. Thus all the power flows from a “past event”, yet in the present and in every time, and every instance of this “flow” can in a sense be called as “sacrament” for this precise reason that the source of the power is a “past” event. This is why the refrain repeated 8 times in the Bible, we are “saved by the Blood” (eg. Heb 13:12 “Jesus suffered…in order to sanctify the people by his own Blood”). Although the reality of Jesus’ humanity is eternal, that Blood was “poured out” in the past. We shall see that that that same Blood which was poured out in the past, is presented by Him to the Father in the present for us and for all times. This is the Body and Blood of Jesus in its “natural state”. That same Blood by which we are saved, is present as “that by which” we are saved, sacramentally.

Precisely because it is a sacrament, it is possible for it to make three realities present to us at once. The historic sacrifice on Calvary, the present offering of ourselves, and also the reality of where that which is being offered is indeed being offered. For what is a sign and a shadow on the Earth at present and a distant memory in history, is in its glorious state in Heaven.

Thus a “sacrament”, as is said by St Aquinas, is not a mode that is physical, nor is it spiritual,  by which we mean that it represents neither in their “natural” state, but rather it is an entirely new mode existence, a new mode that is made possible for him who is the author of existence itself, who makes possible physical as well as spiritual existence, and this in sacrament, there is nothing to prevent an entirely new mode. This mode, like the physical, is transitory, and is present only as long as the “appearance” of the bread is still present, so also there is no need for such a sacramental mode of existence in the definitive existence in Heaven. It purely a provision of God, out of love, to make himself substantially present to us, while we are here on Earth. But without this sacramental reality in the Eucharist, one can neither be in the past in Calvary, nor in the Heavenly Sacrifice for we are here on Earth and in the present, and nor is there a sacrifice in the present that we participate in. There is therefore no contact with the humanity of Jesus. The Human nature of God is not omnipresent, as Scott Hahn says in a talk, but it is now seated in Heaven at the right hand of God. It is only made present to us in the Eucharist in a sacrament. 

If God intended that we be united, then wherein more than in the very sacrifice of love? Is sacrifice itself not have a unitive intent at its very heart? Do lovers not wish more than anything to be together and especially in dying? In a relationship, the sacrifice is the most intimate moment of any relationship.

“by Mercy You wish to converse with Your creatures. Oh, Loving Madman! Was it not enough for You to become Incarnate, that You must also die? Was not death enough, that You must also descend into Limbo, taking thence the holy fathers to fulfill Your Mercy and Your Truth in them? Because Your goodness promises a reward to them that serve You in truth, You descended to Limbo, to withdraw from their pain Your servants, and give them the fruit of their labors. Your Mercy constrains You to give even more to man, namely, to leave Yourself to him in food, so that we, weak ones, should have comfort, and the ignorant commemorating You, should not lose the memory of Your benefits. Wherefore every day You give Yourself to man, representing Yourself in the Sacrament of the Altar, in the body of Your Holy Church. What has done this? Your Mercy. Oh, Divine Mercy! My heart suffocates in thinking of you, for on every side to which I turn my thought, I find nothing but mercy” (Algar Thorold translation, Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena)

Our Salvation in the Liturgy of the Church

Although we did say that man can do nothing to save himself per se, and the primary, effective and operative action must be that of God, yet faith being faith, and God being God, the application of this action must meet with voluntary acceptance from man. That acceptance is primarily the initial confession of Faith (Rom 10:9), and following that in the life of the penitent, it is the ongoing prayer of the Church to God. That prayer in essence, and according the Church dogma, is the Liturgy of the Eucharist. (footnote explanation of liturgy). Thus it is that the prayer of the man and the effective action that is his salvation are coincident. Man prays for that by which he is to be saved. This is the essence of the Christian faith, and it is expressed in Liturgy.

That sacrifice is the celebration in our physical existence of the Holy Mass. We are sacrificed by our High Priest (to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship- Romans 12:1) precisely at every Eucharist. If Jesus’ Sacrifice at Calvary cannot be present for us, then there is simply no way for us to be joined to His Sacrifice and so to be offered as a “pleasing sacrifice” to the Father.

Fr David Oakley relates at the Eucharistic Congress in Liverpool Sept 2018:

The words of Henri de Lubac “the mystery of the Trinity opened to us a completely new perspective- the ground of being is communio.” The Church is a sovereign work of God. It is not a work of human hands. Theological inquiry involves the relationship between biblical events in Revelation and the unfolding tradition: Theology is about event and action more than it is about words or intellectual ideas.  And in that sense When we think we think about the Church and when we think about the Eucharist the theology that joins them together must become truly orthodox…means “right praise”, therefore it belongs to liturgical celebration. The liturgical celebration of Eucharistic celebration then is therefore rightly called “primary theology”. It is when we come to celebrate Mass that we understand what the Church is all about. And so in many repects, all theological inquiry, including the theology of the Church is a reflection upon and a drawing out of what Is presented to us in the Eucharistic liturgy.

In all of this we are invited to keep in mind before the now familiar but still awe inspiring words at the beginning of Dei Verbum (Dei Verbum?) “ Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction…Pope Benedict XVI address to the Theological Commission in Dec 2010…”This should be the experience of the encounter with the love of Christ in which we are personally invited to experience the Paschal mystery ourselves. And we experience the Paschal mystery in an unmediated way….again Benedict XVI’s remarks, “whoever has discovered in Christ the love of God infused by the Holy Spirit in our hearts wishes to know better the one who loves him and whom he loves. Knowledge and love sustain in other in turn.

The Mass itself then a faithful representation, the right direction, the right intention of the entire Bible, and its message and its history. If one was asked “what is the meaning of the Bible, that 1,300 page book (my version) that took two hundred years to write? The answer is simply, “The Mass”.

The main “work” of Christianity, the activity of a Christian is the same as the activity of the Jews, it is the Passover sacrifice which is the Lord’s supper. Just as the Jews maintained a sacrifice that was a “shadow”, Christians practice the definitive Passover sacrifice, at which they pray the liturgy of the Holy Eucharist, the greatest and central prayer of the Christian religion, just as it was the greatest and central for the Israelites.

Church Fathers on the Eucharist

IRENAEUS, Bishop of Lyons

“He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood. He taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant, of which Malachi, one of the twelve [minor] prophets, had signified beforehand: ‘You do not do my will, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is my name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Almighty’ [Mal. 1:10–11]. By these words he makes it plain that the former people will cease to make offerings to God; but that in every place sacrifice will be offered to him, and indeed, a pure one, for his name is glorified among the Gentiles” (Against Heresies 4:17:5 [A.D. 189]).

“If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?” (ibid., 5:2).

“Again, giving directions to His disciples to offer to God the first-fruits of His own, created things — not as if He stood in need of them, but that they might be themselves neither unfruitful nor ungrateful — He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, and said, This is My body. Matthew 26:26, etc. And the cup likewise, which is part of that creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His blood, and taught the new oblation of the new covenant; which the Church receiving from the apostles, offers to God throughout all the world, to Him who gives us as the means of subsistence the first-fruits of His own gifts in the New Testament, concerning which Malachi, among the twelve prophets, thus spoke beforehand: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord Omnipotent, and I will not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun, unto the going down [of the same], My name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is My name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Omnipotent; Malachi 1:10-11 — indicating in the plainest manner, by these words, that the former people [the Jews] shall indeed cease to make offerings to God, but that in every place sacrifice shall be offered to Him, and that a pure one; and His name is glorified among the Gentiles.” (ibid. 4:17)

St. Ignatius of Antioch

“I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible” (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).

“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God (…) They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

“(the Docetics) abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again…” (Letter to Smyrnaeans, Chap.7)

Justin Martyr

“We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

“’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children” (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).

“And the blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is the blood of His flesh, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh. Accordingly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith; while the other, the Spirit, conducts to immortality.

And the mixture of both — of the water and of the Word — is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace; and they who by faith partake of it are sanctified both in body and soul. For the divine mixture, man, the Father’s will has mystically compounded by the Spirit and the Word. For, in truth, the spirit is joined to the soul, which is inspired by it; and the flesh, by reason of which the Word became flesh, to the Word.” Christ the Educator Book 2, Chap.2

Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen

“[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God” (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).

HIPPOLYTUS of Rome (A.D.170-235)

“‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e., the Last Supper]” (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).

ORIGEN

“Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]” (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).

“I wish to admonish you with examples from your religion. You are accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries, so you know how, when you have received the Body of the Lord, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish. You account yourselves guilty, and rightly do you so believe, if any of it be lost through negligence.” (Homilies on Exodus 13:3 [A.D. 244])

CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE

“He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord” (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).

“..since then he says that, if anyone eats of his bread, he lives forever, as it is manifest that they live who attainto his body and receive the Eucharist by right of communion (…) and so we petition that our bread, that is Christ, is given to us daily, so that we, who abide and live in Christ, may not withdraw from his sanctification and body” (the Lord’s Prayer, Chap.18)

“And that Melchizedek bore a type of Christ, the Holy Spirit declares in the Psalms, saying from the person of the Father to the Son: Before the morning star I begot You; You are a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek;  which order is assuredly this coming from that sacrifice and thence descending; that Melchizedek was a priest of the most high God; that he offered wine and bread; that he blessed Abraham. For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered a sacrifice to God the Father, and offered that very same thing which Melchizedek had offered, that is, bread and wine, to wit, His body and blood?” (Letters 62:4)

“For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to have offered.” (ibid 62:14)

Didache

The Didache does not contain a direct reference to the Real Presence, rather it does not address the issue at all. However it is worth quoting because of how early it is (possibly AD 95)

“Now concerning the Eucharist, give thanks this way. First, concerning the cup: “We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David Thy servant, which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever.. “And concerning the broken bread: “We thank Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You madest known to us through Jesus Thy Servant; to Thee be the glory for ever. Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom; for Thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever..”. But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs.”

Take a detailed look at the related topics of The Hypostatic Union- God become Man.

Epilogue

Scott Hahn’s first experience of the Holy Eucharist, in an Interview on the Pints with Aquinas Youtube channel:

“I went to Mass for the first time at the basement chapel on campus at Marquette. I remember hearing the words of consecration and realizing both head and heart- this isn’t bread anymore this is what I didn’t have the power to do even when we started celebrating the Eucharist every week. I was playing church this is the real thing. And by the time he consecrated the chalice I’m like “that’s His Precious Blood, what’s going on inside my head” you know and when they said the Lamb of God and the people came forward for Holy Communion I knew this wasn’t the same thing that we did when I was a Protestant when I was a Presbyterian pastor. For us it was so profound and sacred but it was like a handshake, it was like a hug, maybe even a kiss, but in reading the church fathers I realized why they would link it to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb cause it’s not just a Supper it really is a one flesh union. Eucharistic Communion is the bridegroom saying to the bride “this is my body” and so you’re entering into what is a sacramental analogy for marital intimacy and once you recognize that you know it makes total sense that if I’m ever going to identify myself radically with the bride of Christ as the Catholic Church then and only then would it really be fitting to share in this level of intimacy and at that moment suddenly I realized why my friends who were offended: “we have open communion, why is yours closed?” Well I would give a handshake to a stranger, I might even give a hug to a parishioner, I might even give a kiss to you know a close friend on the cheek. you know but that is reserved only for the covenant of marriage and this unique bond that Christ calls us to share by identifying ourselves with the Church as his bride and so I didn’t have that hang- up but only because I had already gotten the point where is the Eucharist is what they say it is it’s not the same thing as we’ve been doing all my life.”

Book References

JJE– Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Brant Pitre, Crown Publishing Group, Penguin Random House LLC, NY 2011