During the Triduum, we meditated on the last supper and Holy Thursday During which Christ Institute of the Eucharist, and on our Lord suffering and death on the cross on Good Friday together these events constitute Christ one sacrifice.
not without reason then does the church put before us during the active and the rest of the Easter season readings concerning the beginning and growth of the church which alluded to the Eucharist.
We immediately hear about the Lord’s appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, while with them still unrecognized, he does what he did at the last supper. He took bread, blessed and broke it. It was then that he was finally recognized as St. Luke’s says in the breaking of the bread this phrase is according to the ancient tradition of the church taken to signify the Eucharist. Christ certainly did not come to just tell us to have table Fellowship during meals, that was already done all throughout history. This was something infinitely greater. He wanted the apostles to recognize that he will now be present with us in a different way after his Resurrection and Ascension. He will be present in all his reality in the Eucharist. It is said that once he was recognized by them, he vanished from their site not that he left, but his visible presence disappeared. He remained with them. The church has always taught that Christ promised to remain with us always even to the end of the age. This fulfilled in several ways, of course by his omnipresence as God, and his dwelling in us by Grace, and primarily in the Eucharist, where he is as truly present to us as he was present to the apostles after his resurrection, the only difference being that he has hidden from our sight.
This is beautifully described by St. Thomas Aquinas in a hymn when he says that all our senses are deceived in the Eucharist except our hearing because we believe Christ words this is my body and that while he was on the cross, his divinity was hidden from us and in the Eucharist, even his humanity is hidden from us, but we profess faith in both.
Naturally we come to objections raised by non-catholic Christians, most of whom hold that Christ word that the last supper and in the bread of life discourse in John chapter 6, are actually symbolic in someway. They say this is my body is no different from Christ other claims that he was the light of the world, the vine, and the sheep gate, and none of these are taken literally but symbolically.
We respond, Christ makes it clear in the way in which he speaks in those instances that he is making a comparison. He is light, in the sense that he gives us the light of life. He is the vine, in the sense that without him, we are lifeless and can do nothing. He is the gate because we must enter into life through him. But in the words, “this is my body” we don’t detect any of that symbolism. In John chapter 6, he said that the heavenly bread he will give is his flesh, that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. Then later he holds bread and says this is my body. Never does he point to a light or a gate or a vine and say this is me. But with the Eucharist, he says both that his flesh is food and that this particular food is his flesh.
Another objection is that eating bread is just symbolic of being nourished by faith. This may be true, but Christ didn’t tell us to eat bread he told us to eat his body which he likened unto bread. A symbol or metaphor is supposed to teach us something profound by giving us an image that is familiar to us, but how does the image of eating human flesh help us to understand being nourished by faith. How is this a helpful symbol at all? That’s the big question that has to be answered by those who deny the real presence. Why would Christ use the consuming of flesh as a symbol for faith if he merely intended a symbol for spiritual nourishment by faith. Why not stick with the image of bread. Listen again to Christ’s words in the bread of life discourse and John chapter 6 and see if this serves as a useful and enlightening metaphor or symbol of merely making an act of faith.
Whoever eats of this bread will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh, very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in yo. Those who eat my flesh and drink My blood have eternal life. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I am them. It has been noted by biblical scholars that the Greek words used here which are translated as eat are actually two different words the first of which merely means consumption, and the other means gnawing or chewing. John moves from the first word to the second when the Jews question Christ words, it intensifies the idea of actually consuming Christ flesh.
A further objection is made by pointing to Christ words towards the end of the discourse where he says the flesh is of no avail, It is the spirit that gives life. The words I have spoken are spirit and life. It is claimed that this shows that everything you said was symbolic. But if the flesh is of no avail, then we would conclude that Christ is saying his flesh is of no avail, which is obviously not true.
St. John all throughout his writings takes the flesh to be what is an opposition to the spirit, the worldly understanding versus the spiritual understanding. And Christ’s words about the Eucharist, are spiritual, Christ is present in a real and substantial spiritual manner. We are perfectly aware that we are not chewing on flesh in a physical way. That the earliest disciples believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist can be seen with overwhelming clarity by reading the writings of the apostolic father.
So one is left with a decision to make, either Catholics are blasphemers and idolaters who worship bread or they are obeying Christ’s words in the gospel. And that those who deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are like those of his disciples who left him because they found this to be a hard saying. Christ said that such people have no life in them. If Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, which we believe, then obviously this is the very heart of the church’s life. And this is why the church puts these particular readings before us as we follow the birth and growth of the church Christ is made known to us in the breaking of the bread.
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