Eucharist: June 2009 Archives

As a sacrament, the Eucharist has a double aspect: it is both a sign and the reality signified by it, both a remembering of the past and a making-really-present: "When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the Cross remains ever present" (Catechism of the Catholic Church,1364).

Here the three meanings of "present" come together: Christ in the Eucharist is 1) present, not absent, but really here; 2) present, not past, but happening now; and 3) presented as a gift (a "present"), really given; offered, not withheld. Christ is "present in many ways to his Church" (CCC, 1373) but "[t]he mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species [forms, appearances] is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as 'the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend' [St. Thomas Aquinas]. In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 'the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.' '...[I]t is presence in the fullest sense...Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present'" (CCC 1374). (from Peter J. Kreeft, Catholic Christianity, 2001)

The Church has been given the gift of the enduring Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. Last week celebrated Trinity Sunday and today Corpus Christi. This feast dates to when Pope Urban IV (1261-64) inaugurated the Feast of Corpus Christi and asked Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) to compose the the Liturgy for the Church. A striking feature of today's Liturgy is singing of a poetic called a sequence, one of four done in the current liturgical life of the Church, though historically there were poetics for all the major feast of the Lord and others for saints. Today's marvelous sequence Lauda Sion,is sung prior to the proclamation of the Gospel. As all sacred texts do, Lauda Sion expresses Catholic faith in the Body and Blood of Christ. The three verses of Lauda Sion are given here but you may pray the entire text by visiting here.

Words a nature's course derange,

that in Flesh the bread may change

and the wine in Christ's own Blood.

Does it pass thy comprehending?

Faith, the law of light transcending,

leaps to things not understood.

Hail! Bread of the Angels, broken,

for us pilgrims food, and token

of the promise by Christ spoken,

children's meat, to dogs denied!

Shown in Isaac's dedication,

in the Manna's preparation,

in the Paschal immolation,

in old types pre-signified.

Jesus, Shepherd mild and meek,

shield the poor, support the weak;

help all who Thy pardon sue,

placing all their trust in You:

fill them with Your healing grace!

Source of all we have or know,

feed and lead us here below.

grant that with Your Saints above,

sitting at the feast of love

we may see You face to face.

Amen. Alleluia.

The great feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and with that the opening of the Year of the Priest (June 19), ought to be a time for us to focus on our study and prayer on the mercy and medicine offered to us by the Lord. Why is this feast an apt time for us to focus our energies on the theology of the Sacred Heart? Because as the psalmist says, seek His face; it is a true school of the Lord's love. I believe, as you might, that the feast of the Sacred Heart is a propitious time to come to understand the wisdom and knowledge of the Divine Heart.