Fullness of the Eucharist

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Friar_David_O.Carm

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I know that the Church teaches that the fullness of the Eucharist is found in the Body or the Blood. That one does not need to recieve both forms to recieve the fullness of the Eucharist.

But in the Eastern Churches, mainly the Byzantine rite, we have always recieved both the Body and the Blood though intinction.

I know that there was a heresy in the West that said you had to recieve both and to fight this they start to just give the Body to the laity. After Vatican II this changed.

My question is how does the Church explain this?

Especially in light of Matthew 26:26-29

Matthew 26
26While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
27Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.
28This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
29I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
 
David,

Once again the issue revolves around a heresy that developed in the West but not the East. Perhaps, if the East and West had still been united, this solution would not have been the one that was chosen. However, the West countered the heresy of an incomplete Eucharist (Jesus split, body and blood) by both teaching that the Eucharist was complete under either species, but continued to reserve the cup to the priest.

Intinction, the form of communion used in the East, whether with or without spoon, never became popular in the West. Because of the problem of giving communion to hundreds of communicants, and because of the possiblity of abuse, the cup was restricted to the priest.

As you noted, Vatican II offered the cup on a more regular basis to communicants, but even then there were restrictions. It is only in the last 10 years that communion under both species has become relatively common in the Western Church.

Deacon Ed
 
Thank you Deacon Ed, but I was looking for more of an explaination on how the heresy was wrong.

With Matthew 26, I can see how the heresy would develope as Jesus says to eat and drink.

I am trying to understand how the Church teaches that Christ is fully present in both forms.

Let me add that I do not deny this, I truely believe that Christ is fully present in both forms, I just want to understand the Teaching more fully myself.
 
It is because we receive the living Christ. Where His body is, so also is his blood, soul, and divinity. And the same with the blood. Where his blood is, so also is his body, soul, and divinity.

JimG
 
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ByzCath:
I am trying to understand how the Church teaches that Christ is fully present in both forms.
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The Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinty of Our Risen Lord.

All are present in each form, as to seperate the Blood from the Body is to cause Death. Christ has conqured Death and cannot die again.

The two forms are in fact concecrated in seperate vessells in remembrence of His Sacriice, but each become the full Body and Blood, as that is the Nature of the Ressurected Body.

Remeber that the Eucharist is a great Mystery. To our human eyes, it appears as plain bread and wine.

But they are well and truly Our Risen Lord and equally so, they differ only in how they appear to our eyes, touch and taste.

The priest might correctly hold up the consecrated bread and declare " The Blood of Christ", for it is well and truly so.

The deacon might hold up the Cup and declare “The Body of Christ”, for that is equally true.

The are One in Body and Blood, only apprearing to our frail human eyes as different things.
 
Thank you JimG and Brendan but…

All you have done is state what the Church teaches. I wish to understand how the Church developed this. Where it comes from.
 
Hello,

I, too, had questions about this topic. I truly believe the Church’s teaching on the matter of the whole Christ being present under both kinds, but I wondered where the teaching derived its orgins.

A friend of mine told me that because Christ dies no more, He is the “living bread which comes down from heaven.” Because the Host is truly the body of Christ, It contains everything the Body has, including bones, nerves, etc. (Council of Trent) Also, because Christ is alive, the Body must contain the Blood (a body w/o the blood is dead). The Soul must also be present, because a body w/o a soul is merely a corpse (in the Epistle of James, he comments on how a body w/o a spirit is dead, so too is faith w/o works). Likewise, because of the mystery of the Incarnation, the Body of Christ, his humanity, is inseperable from his divinity. When my friend told me all of this, I thought it was silly, but actually, it makes sense theologically.

Christ could have actally given only the bread to his apostles at the Last Supper for it to be valid. In fact, in the Gospel of Luke and in Acts of the Apostles, it mentions the “breaking of bread,” but remains silent on the drinking of the chalice. Of course, to express the memorial aspect of the Holy Eucharist, it is necessary to have the bread and the wine available, since the separation expresses symbolically the death of Christ (Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians how we “proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” through the celebration of the Eucharist).

Another interesting note is that in John 6, Christ refers Himself as the “Bread which comes down from Heaven” and that “He who eats this bread shall live forever.” He’s silent, however, on the addition of the wine or the chalice. Drinking His Blood, then, can be experienced by eating the Bread. And in 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions how the “loaf that we break” is one body, Christ, although “we are many.”

If this is true about the bread, we can infer that by drinking from the chalice, we obtain the same grace from receiving the Host alone. Therefore, no matter which kind we take, we can be sure we’re receiving Jesus, whole and entire, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

I hope I could be of some help.

-Peter
 
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ByzCath:
Thank you JimG and Brendan but…

All you have done is state what the Church teaches. I wish to understand how the Church developed this. Where it comes from.
Click to expand...
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread OR drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
1 Cor 11:27 (RSV)

God bless
 
Shakespeare’s pappy was a persecuted Catholic who paid fines for not towing the Anglican line. So no surprise that there are cryptic theological expositions in his works. “The Merchant of Venice” has the punchline of the inseparability of flesh and blood. Shylock has won his pound of flesh, but is unable to collect because if that would entail spilling even a drop of blood, he would be taking more than his due. No go, because flesh and blood are unitive just as the Body and Blood are unitive.
 
David,

Okay, I understand your question. Th early Church didn’t directly address the issue, although there are hints here and there. For the Latin Church the defining theology comes from Aquinas and a theological concept known as “concomitance.” The basic understanding is this: what the nature of a thing is reflects the entirity of the thing. Here’s what he says:
It is absolutely necessary to confess according to Catholic faith that the entire Christ is in this sacrament. Yet we must know that there is something of Christ in this sacrament in a twofold manner: first, as it were, by the power of the sacrament; secondly, from natural concomitance. By the power of the sacrament, there is under the species of this sacrament that into which the pre-existing substance of the bread and wine is changed, as expressed by the words of the form, which are effective in this as in the other sacraments; for instance, by the words: “This is My body,” or, “This is My blood.” But from natural concomitance there is also in this sacrament that which is really united with that thing wherein the aforesaid conversion is terminated. For if any two things be really united, then wherever the one is really, there must the other also be: since things really united together are only distinguished by an operation of the mind.
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To put this in practice we can say that in a living being the body cannot exist without the blood. Jesus is a “living being” and, therefore, all of him is present. Because his height, weight, skin tone, eye color, etc. are not visible (being accidents) they are still there by concomitance.

At least, this is how the Latin Church explains it. The Eastern Church also teaches the same thing, but does not depend on Scholastic theology.

Deacon Ed
 
Hi,
For a fantastic teaching on The Blessed Sacrament, try to order the 12 tape set by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. from Eternal Life, Bardstown, KY 40004-0787, Ph 1-800-842-2871. I have never before heard such an indebth study of “what” we believe which, of course, in this day and age, is the most important. I saw on another thread a long discussion pertaining to what the biggest danger to the Church is - Fr. Hardon says it is “the loss of faith in The Holy Eucharist” and that is easy to believe given the lack of reverence in “most” of the Churches today.
Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Peace on earth to men of good will.
LaVada
 
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