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"Here is the genuine reality."
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Chapter Five of Pope Benedict's collection of sermons of the Eucharist, God is Near Us, concerns the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrament. Benedict begins with Jesus's “bread of life” discourse from the Gospel of John where Jesus announces that He is the bread of life.
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give is bread for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” - John 6:51-52
Benedict notes that the Eucharist is a cause for rejoicing and is at the same time a stumbling block, and was so from the beginning. Opposition and murmuring against the Eucharist occurred at the first and have continued through the centuries. Benedict says, “We do not want a God as near as that; we do not want him so small humbling himself; we want him to be great and far away.”
Benedict goes on to look at three questions that are opposed to the belief in the real presence of the Lord: First, Does the Bible say anything like that? Second, Is is truly possible for a body to share itself out into all places and all times? Third, Hasn't modern science rendered obsolete the dogmas of the Church concerning “substance” and material being?
First. Do Jesus's words, “This is my Body, this is my blood,” really signify bodily presence? Could He have meant instead, “This stands for my Body and my Blood.”? Benedict directs us to look at the context. Jesus has just said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you... My flesh is food indeed.”(6:53-55) When the murmuring began, Jesus did not reassure the Jews that he was only speaking metaphorically. Instead, Jesus renews the emphasis that the bread has to be literally, physically eaten. Benedict says, “Faith in the God who became man is believing in a God with a body and that this faith is real and fulfilled; it brings full union only if it itself corporeal, if it a sacramental event in which the corporeal Lord seizes hold of our bodily existence.”
Second. How can a body share itself out beyond the limits of time and place? Benedict says that this is hard to understand because we do not live in the sphere of Resurrection. We live on death's boundary. He explains, “'This is my Body'” does not mean just a body, in contradistinction to the spirit, it denotes the whole person, in whom body and spirit are indivisibly one. 'This my Body' means: This is my whole person, existent in bodily form. The nature of the person is: existing-for-others. It is in its most intimate being a sharing with others.” Because Jesus opens himself up as a self-giving person, He can be shared out.
Benedict further explains, “The body is not only a boundary of our personal selves, it is also a bridge that allows us to communicate in the common material of creation. Resurrection simply means that the body ceases to be a limit and that its capacity for communion remains.”
Third. Has the Real Presence in the eucharistic gifts been rendered obsolete by science? Is the Church's concept of “substance” and transubstantiation primitive and obsolete? Modern science regards only quantifiable entities as real. Benedict notes the insight of the Church regarding “substance” as a reality that is not measurable. Christ meets us as true being. This true being is what was expressed by the word “substance,” the profound and fundamental basis of being. The substance of bread and wine is transformed at its fundamental basis of its being.
Benedict goes on to say that what matters to the Church is that a real transformation takes place. The Lord takes possession of the bread and wine lifting them up and out of their normal existence into a new order; even if from a purely physical point of view they remain the same, they have become profoundly different.
Transubstantiation is the word the Church uses to say that a genuine transformation takes place.
The Eucharist transcends the realm of functionality. Benedict says, “The poverty of our age is that man thinks and lives in terms only of function, where being is denied. The significance of the Eucharist as a sacrament of faith consists in that it takes us out of functionality and reaches the basis of reality.”
Benedict concludes, “The Eucharist is more real than the things we have to do with every day. Here is the genuine reality. The Eucharist means God has answered: The Eucharist is God as an answering presence.” Author Helen Cross
