Holy Eucharist?

[Holland]

Was the gift of the Holy Eucharist dependent on Christ dying?

 

[Franciscan]

Was the gift of the Holy Eucharist dependent on Christ dying?

Yes.
The Eucharist is consecrated through the re–presentation of the sacrifice of Christ.

At the Last Supper-which was truly a Eucharistic meal. The Eucharist pre–presented Christ’s sacrifice. But it still depended on that event.

 

[Church_Militant]

What did Christ Himself say?

Matthew 26:26 And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. 27 And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. 28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.
Pax tecum,

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Could you be a little more specific in your question?

 

[Holland]

I hope I can explain this. At the Last Supper the bread and wine became the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ? Right? So you go on to the agony in the garden and Jesus asks if maybe his death sentence might be lifted but only if it is God’s will. Well what would have happened if God had decided that Jesus did not have to die? Would we still have the Eucharist?

 

[kleary]

I hope I can explain this. At the Last Supper the bread and wine became the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ? Right? So you go on to the agony in the garden and Jesus asks if maybe his death sentence might be lifted but only if it is God’s will. Well what would have happened if God had decided that Jesus did not have to die? Would we still have the Eucharist?

If God let Jesus “off the hook” so to say, then there would be no Eucharist. In fact, YOU and I would not exist for the world would have come to an end right then and there, and everyone in all of creation would have gone to Hell including Jesus for the only way to repair the damage done in the Garden of Eden was for Jesus to die. God the Son KNEW it was a death sentence either way by becoming human.

Most likely Jesus saw you and I and everyone waiting to be born and waiting to be in heaven with God and that is what gave him courage to do what He had to do. Then again Jesus is God. I hope you know this. He could have just pricked his finger to pay for it all yet He chose that cross.

Ken

 

[Missa_Solemnis]

If God let Jesus “off the hook” so to say, then there would be no Eucharist. In fact, YOU and I would not exist for the world would have come to an end right then and there, and everyone in all of creation would have gone to Hell including Jesus for the only way to repair the damage done in the Garden of Eden was for Jesus to die. God the Son KNEW it was a death sentence either way by becoming human.

Most likely Jesus saw you and I and everyone waiting to be born and waiting to be in heaven with God and that is what gave him courage to do what He had to do. Then again Jesus is God. I hope you know this. He could have just pricked his finger to pay for it all yet He chose that cross.

Ken

Jesus would not go to hell. That is theologically incorrect.

As a distinct person of the Trinity, Jesus could refuse the pains of the Cross if he wanted to. That would however damn all of God’s children…and an all-loving God would never selfishly damn his children for his own sake.

However…the the theologically flawed hypothetical situation were Christ does refuse the cross…he himself would not go to Hell. Since Hell is the absence of God…bringing God into it would nullify the point of damnation anyway.

 

[Holland]

What I am trying to do in my own mind is to try and understand why some people view the Mass as mainly a “celebration”. The Last Supper is viewed as the first Mass which is an event independent of the death of Christ. Did the apostles receive the Eucharist as we know it or was it something else?

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Did the apostles receive the Eucharist as we know it or was it something else?

Hi Holland,

Good question.

It is clear that the apostles received the sacrament of the Eucharist, and as such they received, sacramentally, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.

In that sense, they received the same Eucharist that we receive. . . but with two differences:

1. As already previously noted, the received the Eucharist in anticipation of and in participation of Calvary, and we receive the Eucharist in participation of and in representation of Calvary.
2. They received Christ as he was then, and we receive Christ as He is now.

As for point #2, by way of explanation, since they received Christ sacramentally, they received His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. . . but before the resurrection His Body (and Blood) were passible (able to suffer) and mortal (able to die).

After the resurrection His Body is impassible and immortal.

So, the apostles received Christ’s mortal Body, mortal Blood, Soul and Divinity. Whereas we receive Christ’s glorified Body, glorified Blood, Soul and Divinity.

This distinction protects the reality of the Real Presence. . . that we both received Christ, as He really is.

God Bless you,
VC

 

[st_lucy]

The Early Church Fathers believed that the Eucharist, while retaining the appearance of bread and wine, was the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Ignatius of Antioch

Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2-7:1 [A.D. 110]).

. . . and are now ready to obey your bishop and clergy with undivided minds and to share in the one common breaking of bread – the medicine of immortality, and the sovereign remedy by which we escape death and live in Jesus Christ for evermore (Letter to the Ephesians 20 [A.D. 110]).

Justin Martyr

We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration * and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these, but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

Irenaeus

He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood) from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported) how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life — flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord and is in fact a member of him? (Against Heresies 5:2 [A.D. 189]).

Clement of Alexandria

“Eat my flesh)” [Jesus] says, “and drink my blood.” The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).

Hippolytus

“And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table” [Proverbs 9:1] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper * (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).**

continued

 

[Verbum_Caro]

What I am trying to do in my own mind is to try and understand why some people view the Mass as mainly a “celebration”.

Holland,
I’m sure we, and the other forum members, could come up with various reasons as to why “celebration” or “meal” is sometimes emphasized over “sacrifice.”

• Perhaps it is a modernist tendency to trumpet the “horizontal” or communal nature of liturgy in opposition to the “vertical” or Divine nature of liturgy.
• Perhaps it betrays a puritan or docetist aversion to the body, and to Christ’s incarnation and suffering.
• Perhaps it is the echo of those who passed by shaking their heads saying “if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” (Matt. 27:40)
• Perhaps it is the result of poor catechesis.
• Perhaps it is a combination of all of the above.

In any event, I think it is safe to say that all of us need a deeper understanding of Christ’s sacrifice, death, and ressurection in our lives.

What do you think?
VC

 

[st_lucy]

Aphraahat

After having spoken thus [at the Last Supper], the Lord rose up from the place where he had made the Passover and had given his body as food and his blood as drink, and he went with his disciples to the place where he was to be arrested. But he ate of his own body and drank of his own blood, while he was pondering on the dead. With His own hands the Lord presented his own body to be eaten, and before he was crucified he gave his blood as drink (Treatises 12:6 [A.D. 340]).

Cyril of Jerusalem

The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).

Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so. . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul (ibid„ 22:6,9).

Theodore

When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, “This is the symbol of my body” but, “This is my body.” In the same way when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say. “This is the symbol of my blood,” but, “This is my blood,” for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup) but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).

Ambrose of Milan

Perhaps you may be saying, “I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?” It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]).

Augustine

I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s table, which you now look upon and of which you last night were made participants. You ought to know that you have received what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That bread which you see on the altar having been sanctified by the word of God is the body of Christ, That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).

What you see is the bread and the chalice, that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith, yet faith does not desire instruction (ibid. 272)

 

[Verbum_Caro]

The Last Supper is viewed [by them] as the first Mass which is an event independent of the death of Christ.

Holland, here is part 3 of my three part response!

Those that view it that way are caught in a internal contradiction. Why? Because the Mass itself is the sacrifice of Christ. Because Christ suffered and died, offering Himself as a Holy Sacrifice, it is impossible for the Mass as a re-presentation of this sacrifice to ever be independent of the Christ’s death on the cross.

To hold their position they either have to hold that the Last Supper was not a Mass, or that the Mass is not a sacrifice.

Don’t let them.

What do you think?
God Bless,
VC

 

[FillTheVoid]

Hebrews 9:24 - 28

Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Could this be applied to the Eucharist also?

If man is destined to die once then face judgment, how can he go to Purgatory before being judged?

How does one die with a sin counted against him and go to Purgatory instead of Hell?

 

[Franciscan]

Hi Holland,

Good question.

It is clear that the apostles received the sacrament of the Eucharist, and as such they received, sacramentally, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.

In that sense, they received the same Eucharist that we receive. . . but with two differences:

1. As already previously noted, the received the Eucharist in anticipation of and in participation of Calvary, and we receive the Eucharist in participation of and in representation of Calvary.
2. They received Christ as he was then, and we receive Christ as He is now.

As for point #2, by way of explanation, since they received Christ sacramentally, they received His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. . . but before the resurrection His Body (and Blood) were passible (able to suffer) and mortal (able to die).

After the resurrection His Body is impassible and immortal.

So, the apostles received Christ’s mortal Body, mortal Blood, Soul and Divinity. Whereas we receive Christ’s glorified Body, glorified Blood, Soul and Divinity.
This distinction protects the reality of the Real Presence. . . that we both received Christ, as He really is.

God Bless you,
VC

Are you sure about this? If he pre-presented his death then it would follow that he also pre-presented his Resurrection. It sounds like you are saying that the Eucharist was somehow less for the Apostles then for us. Please clarify and if you could give sources. Thanks.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

It sounds like you are saying that the Eucharist was somehow less for the Apostles then for us. Please clarify and if you could give sources. Thanks.

Hi Franciscan,

I’d be happy to. But first, let me make my standard disclaimer. I believe that this is orthodox theology, in accord with the Magisterium and the mind of the Church. If anything I post is found to be at variance, please disregard it, as it would be an error due either to my lack of knowledge or my inability to communicate properly.

I think I understand how it could seem that the Eucharist is somehow less for the Apostles. . . but I actually hope to show that were the Apostles to have received the glorified Body of Christ at the Last Supper than that itself would have been a diminishment of Eucharistic doctrine.

Why? Because the sacrament of the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. The Real Presence of Christ is real precisely because it is the entire Christ, as He really is. Thus, when He is present sacramentally, He is present as He is: alive, and glorified, in Heaven.

So the sacramental Real Presence always communicates the actual Christ. At the Last Supper, Christ had a mortal and passible Body (since He was about to suffer and die). He communicated that mortal and passible Body to the apostles.

Were we to say that Christ gave His apostles a glorified, impassible Body in the Eucharist, then He manifestly did not give them the same Body that was at table with them, since that was certainly a passible, mortal body.

Please see St. Thomas on this precise point, from the Summa, III, 81, 3. .

Interestingly enough, in the following article (article 4, Reply to Objection 3) of the same question, St. Thomas points out that were the apostles to have consecrated a host while Christ was in the grave, then he would have been present Body, Blood, and Divinity . . . without a Soul! His Soul, at that time, had been separated from His Body, by His death on the cross. The Real Presence is very real, thanks be to God.

What do you think? I hope I have been helpful in clearing up my position. I greatly enjoy discussing the Eucharist, and I hope that as we learn more about Christ in His sacrament, we learn to love Him more.

God Bless,
VC

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Franciscan,

I should also note that the above has some other very interesting and beautiful implications regarding Eucharistic theology. I would be happy to discuss them further if you are interested. Please PM me if you would like to continue along those lines.

Thanks,
VC

 

[st_lucy]

What I am trying to do in my own mind is to try and understand why some people view the Mass as mainly a “celebration”. The Last Supper is viewed as the first Mass which is an event independent of the death of Christ. Did the apostles receive the Eucharist as we know it or was it something else?

The bible also talks about the Eucharist in the mass in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17.

 

[Ave_Maria_1]

Considering the primacy of Christ that was never dependent on the sin of man for Him to take on a human nature, I would think that yes, Our Lord could or would have still instituted the Holy Eucharist. We would not have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass had we not needed a Redeemer but Our Lord, in His love for us would have still come to us in this manner but not as the Sacrifice as we know it now.

But is it not really a moot point?

Ave Maria!

 

[kleary]

If man is destined to die once then face judgment, how can he go to Purgatory before being judged?

How does one die with a sin counted against him and go to Purgatory instead of Hell?

Because there are two judgements for man to face- once at the moment of death, called the particular judgement and the other at the General judgement of all mankind.

Those in Purgatory are already “saved”. They are there paying what is called “temporal punishment” due to sin.

Because Jesus paid the price for forgiveness of sin and we still have to pay the temporal punishment due to it. The sin is no longer unforgiven, but the effects are still there that we have to rectify either in this life or in the state of Purgatory.

Ken