The Eucharist and the Trinity

[Exsultet]

Is the following sentence theologically accurate?

“When I, as a priest, confect the Eucharist, I am holding the Blessed Trinity in my hands.”

(Please note, while I did once hear a priest say this, I’m not at all trying to pick on him. I just wonder if his statement is true for my own education.)

 

[po18guy]

The Son does not come without the Father and the Holy Spirit.

 

[thistle]

Is the following sentence theologically accurate?

“When I, as a priest, confect the Eucharist, I am holding the Blessed Trinity in my hands.”

(Please note, while I did once hear a priest say this, I’m not at all trying to pick on him. I just wonder if his statement is true for my own education.)

Yes. There is only one God.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

A fair question, but Jesus said “This is my body.” Neither the Father nor the Spirit are enfleshed as Christ was. While we do hold that the Eucharist is Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity, at communion the directive of the church is to say “The body of Christ” - not “The Trinity.” I would think a Trinitarian emphasis would detract from the focus Jesus intended regarding his atoning sacrifice with his “body broken for us.”

 

[Vico]

Is the following sentence theologically accurate?

“When I, as a priest, confect the Eucharist, I am holding the Blessed Trinity in my hands.”

(Please note, while I did once hear a priest say this, I’m not at all trying to pick on him. I just wonder if his statement is true for my own education.)

it is called perichoresis and circumincession, from Modern Catholic Dictionary:

Perichoresis, Definition

The penetration and indwelling of the three divine persons reciprocally in one another. In the Greek conception of the Trinity there is an emphasis on the mutual penetration of the three persons, thus bringing out the unity of the divine essence. In the Latin idea called circumincession the stress is more on the internal processions of the three divine persons. In both traditions, however, the fundamental basis of the Trinitarian perichoresis is the one essence of the three persons in God. The term is also applied to the close union of the two natures in Christ. Although the power that unites the two natures proceeds exclusively from Christ’s divinity, the result is a most intimate coalescence. The Godhead, which itself is impenetrable, penetrates the humanity, which is thereby deified without ceasing to be perfectly human.

Circuminsession, Definition

The mutual immanence of the three distinct persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father is entirely in the Son, likewise in the Holy Spirit; and so is the Son in the Father and the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit in the Father and the Son. Circuminsession also identifies the mutual immanence of the two distinct natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

In in this scenario, you’re dealing with at least three of the most profound mysteries of our faith at the same time – the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Eucharist, not to mention the Mystical Body and the Priesthood. A simple, brief statement touching on all of these at once probably isn’t going to be adequate, let alone exact, without pages of qualifying statements – and even then it would fall short.

 

[thistle]

A fair question, but Jesus said “This is my body.” Neither the Father nor the Spirit are enfleshed as Christ was. While we do hold that the Eucharist is Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity, at communion the directive of the church is to say “The body of Christ” - not “The Trinity.” I would think a Trinitarian emphasis would detract from the focus Jesus intended regarding his atoning sacrifice with his “body broken for us.”

The Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus and the divinity of the Father and Holy Spirit.

There is only one God. The divinity is one and cannot be separated.

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

It seems that the priest was correct. At first I didn’t think so, but after reading some of the responses and looking it up in my Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma book, I found this:

The Three Divine Persons are in One Another. (De fide.)
The Council of Florence, in the Decretum pro Jacobis (1441), declared with St. Fulgentius (De fide ad Petrum I, 4): Propter hanc unitatem Pater est totus in Filio, totus in Spiritu Sancto: Filius totus in Patre, totus in Spiritu Sancto: Spiritus Sanctus totus est in Patre, totus in Filio. (Because of this unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Ghost, the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son). D 704. Christ testifies that the Father is in Him, and that He is in the Father. John 10, 30: “I and the Father are one.” 10, 38: “Believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in the Father.” Cf. John 14, 9 et seq.: 17, 21. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Father and in the Son is indicated in I Cor. 2, 10 et seq.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

The Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus and the divinity of the Father and Holy Spirit.

There is only one God. The divinity is one and cannot be separated.

But Divinity is immaterial. In the Eucharist we receive something material. Inseparable is one thing, but if in the Eucharist we receive the Trinity, then it must hold that the Father and the Spirit reside in Christ’s body, not just in his divinity? So should the Church require that Communion be distributed with the phrase “This is the Trinity,” instead of “The body of Christ?”

 

[Vico]

A fair question, but Jesus said “This is my body.” Neither the Father nor the Spirit are enfleshed as Christ was. While we do hold that the Eucharist is Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity, at communion the directive of the church is to say “The body of Christ” - not “The Trinity.” I would think a Trinitarian emphasis would detract from the focus Jesus intended regarding his atoning sacrifice with his “body broken for us.”

The person of the Son is never* limited *to a body.

It is the Son that assumed the incarnation. The Son is the person replacing the usual human person: there is in addition to the divinity the human immaterial rational soul and the material body.

Catechism
645 By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion. Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ’s humanity can no longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the Father’s divine realm. For this reason too the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to awaken their faith.

 

[Exsultet]

Thank you all so much for the wonderful information.

 

[Katherine438]

It seems that the priest was correct. At first I didn’t think so, but after reading some of the responses and looking it up in my Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma book, I found this:

Thank you … I have been looking for this answer … I hope you don’t mind that I am going to copy your quote into another thread to answer my own question. Thank you so much for posting this. I made sure to copy the entire post, this way I was able to thank you in the other thread for your enlightenment. My sincere thanks.

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

Thank you … I have been looking for this answer … I hope you don’t mind that I am going to copy your quote into another thread to answer my own question. Thank you so much for posting this. I made sure to copy the entire post, this way I was able to thank you in the other thread for your enlightenment. My sincere thanks.

You’re welcome.

 

[Aaron_I]

It seems that the priest was correct. At first I didn’t think so, but after reading some of the responses and looking it up in my Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma book, I found this:

Very interesting stuff…

If this is true, then theologically it would be correct that the TRINITY died on the cross for our sins…