Is This His Body?
19th Sunday in Course
If you visit the ruins of the town of Capernaum–and I truly hope you bite the financial bullet and go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a Christian guide–you can see what is left of the synagogue built where Jesus preached the vital sermon on the Bread of Life. The feeding of perhaps 15,000 people and this sermon take up all of chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. The sermon is in two parts. The first comprises Jesus’ challenge to the Jews to believe in Him so they can gain the Resurrection, and their response of disbelief. (Remember that in Hebrew thought, believing in Him also means doing as He teaches.) After all, they reasoned, isn’t this just a local boy from a nothing town and a nothing family? What’s so great about this guy?
The second part of the sermon comprises Jesus’ claim that the real bread from heaven was not the manna their fathers ate in the wilderness, which simply postponed their eventual death. No, He claims, He himself is the bread of life come down from heaven, and therefore those who eat of His flesh and drink of His blood in this Eucharist and who believe in Him and do what He taught will live forever. Their response–by and large–was to disbelieve and abandon Jesus. “This is a hard sermon, who can listen to it?”
Let me share with you a reflection I have gleaned from the Holy Father’s writings. I think it is particularly appropriate for this community in this age, because what we do here today–rather, what the Blessed Trinity does for us today–has eternal and cosmic significance. In the fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalem tells catechumens what to do as they receive Holy Communion. We should make a throne of our two hands, laying the right hand upon the left to form a throne for the King. Try it right now. You are forming a cross, the cross that becomes a throne for the King of glory, who humbles Himself to become our spiritual food. We open our hands as a sign of our own offering ourselves to the Lord, opening our hands to him. Then, infused with the grace of His presence, our hands can become instruments of his presence and a throne of his mercies in this world. Whether we receive in our hand or on our tongue, we are declaring to all by our “Amen” that we are open to God’s will, just as Jesus was, and ready to do His will even unto the death.
But is it true? When we speak of receiving communion, should we truly ask “who is this?” instead of “what is this?” The murmurs of the Jews recorded in John’s Gospel have surfaced again and again through the centuries. Berengarius of Tours taught that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is “ideal,” not substantial. John Calvin taught that the doctrine of transubstantiation was the work of Satan. The Holy Father suggests that there are today three objections we should face and think through them with the Church. By doing so, we can learn the truth anew and give more profoundly and joyfully the “Amen” of faith as we take communion together.
First question: does the Bible really teach the true, real, substantial presence of Christ, not bread, in the Eucharist? Or is this just a naive misunderstanding of a later age, which transposes the exalted and spiritual reality down to a lesser ecclesiastical version? Second question: is it truly possible for a body to share itself out into all places and all times? Doesn’t this contradict the limitations that are essential in a body? Third, hasn’t modern science, with everything it says about “substance” and matter rendered obsolete those Church dogmas that relate to this? And, finally, what does this mean for you and me, today?
In Luther’s time, the very clear text from four sources, “This is my body; this is my blood” was disputed. What, the Protestants asked, does “is” mean? Does it convey the full force of bodily presence, or just an image? Arguments about one word–“is”–as President Clinton discovered, lead up a blind alley. We have to look at Scripture as a whole. When we do, we see that Jesus had a perfect opportunity here in John 6 to clarify His words, if all He meant was to symbolize His presence. He let most of his disciples leave rather than dilute His doctrine. Moreover, in 1 Corinthians, St. Paul compares what happens in Holy Communion with the physical union between husband and wife. To help us understand the Eucharist, he refers us to the words in the creation story–the two shall become one–and he adds, “he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” That is, he shares a single new existence in the Holy Spirit with Jesus.
The presence of Jesus Christ must be understood not as something at rest but as a power that catches us up and works to draw us into itself. St. Augustine had a vision in which he heard the voice of Christ saying “I am the bread of the strong, eat me! But you will not transform me and make me part of you. Rather I will transform you and make you part of me.” (Confessions 7:10:16) When we eat regular bread, we, the stronger, assimilate it and make it part of us. When we take communion, the stronger existence–Christ–takes us and makes us part of Him. That’s why we must examine our consciences and confess every serious sin that separates us from Christ before coming to communion. THIS IS HIS BODY. THIS IS HIS BLOOD.
Question two: can a body share itself out without the limits of time and space? Not my body. I can’t be here and somewhere else simultaneously. But that’s because I am on this side of the Resurrection. The Resurrection gave Jesus a brand new kind of body. The Gospel accounts of His appearances on Easter Sunday cause us to wonder less about the Eucharist. Jesus is in Emmaus with two disciples at the same time He is appearing to the Apostles in the upper room in Jerusalem. He comes and goes without coming and going. Space and time are irrelevant to His presence. So it is with the Eucharist. Jesus’ Body, His existence, His presence, is no longer bound by space and time. It no longer is a symbol of separation, but of communion. It means He can be in you and in me, binding us together, making us Church.
The final question about science is really the easiest. Science asks and answers questions about matter and energy, about the what and how of the universe. Our faith asks and answers the fundamental questions that transcend matter and energy–the Who and Why questions. What we take in communion, remember, is really Jesus, but He is the Risen Christ. The pagans of the first century accused Christians of cannibalism, because they misinterpreted the presence of Christ and our taking communion as an eating of physical flesh. But reality is not just what we can measure, something quantifiable. When we say that the substance of bread becomes substantially the Body of Christ, we mean that the fundamental basis of being is changed, transformed, transubstantiated. There is something new that was not there before. The Body of Christ, the risen and bodily Christ, comes and is greater than the bread. There is a real but immeasurable change, and that is what our senses cannot handle. The Lord takes possession of the Eucharistic elements and lifts them into a brand new order. Sensuum defectui–our senses are defective here. Because we cannot sense the change, comprehend the change, we must use the grace and gift of faith to believe in Him, and to be transformed ourselves by taking Him in faith.
What we take, we also worship. The monks of Cluny used to remove their sandals before coming to communion–like Moses, they knew they were on holy ground. The presence of Christ endures as long as the properties of bread and wine endure. That’s why we clergy take so much care to purify the vessels at the end of Mass. That’s why we bow before the Lord’s presence. That’s why we have a special chapel, open 24x7, so we can be in Christ’s special presence as we pray. This is what the prophets predicted and the people of God yearned for. It is our duty and privilege to act as if we believe that what we take is His Body, is His Blood.
