What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

The Eucharist: Body and Blood of Christ

The Eucharist – Body and Blood of Christ

            “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” (John 6:53-54 NABRE) 

            This is a really hard thing for a lot of people to grasp.  Even in Jesus’ day it was hard to grasp.  In fact Scripture tells us “Then many of his disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’…As a result of this many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” (John 6:60, 66 NABRE)  It is a hard saying.  But for Catholics, it’s one of those non-negotiable Truths.  In the Eucharist the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ.

            How does this happen?  There are a lot of writings by a lot of great saints on the subject, all full of technical terms on the subject, but…I’m not going to dig those out.  For one thing, like a lot of things God does, our language doesn’t come close to explaining things.  The simple answer as to how the host (bread) and wine become the body and blood is because the priest prays the epiclesis and says the institution narrative.  The epiclesis is the prayer in which “the Church asks the Father to send his Holy Spirit (or the power of his blessing) on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

            In the institution narrative, the power of the words and the action of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, make sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine Christ’s body and blood, his sacrifice offered on the cross once for all.” (CCC 1353)

            In case you are wondering, the institution narrative is part of the Eucharistic Prayer, which also contains the epiclesis.  There are several different Eucharistic Prayers the priest can choose from, but they all will contain the same words, first said over the host: “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you.”  Then said over the chalice:  “Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in memory of me.”  This is the moment of consecration.  The moment of transubstantiation. In that instant, what was common and ordinary becomes holy and most sacred. 

This is where things get a little hard for some people.  You see the consecrated host and the wine in the chalice still look like bread and wine.  They still taste like bread and wine.  But they are not bread and wine.  The Holy Spirit has come upon them.  He has changed them. 

“Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated.  The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed…Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before?  It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.” (St. Ambrose, De myst. 9, 50, 52: PL 16, 405-407; CCC 1375)