November 29, 2000
Keywords: transubstantiation, priest, Eucharist,
sacrifice, sacrament, communion, paschal, Host
The Eucharist is a sacrament of the Roman Catholic
Church, although it is also conducted in most other Christian traditions. Transbubstantiation is the most important
element of the Eucharist. This is the
idea that the bread and wine are transformed into the actual body and blood of
Christ during the Eucharist liturgy. By
participating in the Eucharist, the Christians believe they are freed from sin
and given everlasting life through Christ.
The Eucharist also creates a bond among Christians. By receiving the love of Christ through the
sacrifice of His body and blood, Christians are to in turn give that love to
others by living a life of charity. The
validity of the Eucharist is found in the Bible where Christ speaks at the Last
Supper of giving the bread and wine and calling it his true body and
blood. This belief in transubstantiation
has no scientific validity and is based entirely on faith. Through time, the Eucharist has moved away from its original goal of human
liberation and become highly ritualized and individualistic. It has also defeated its original purpose by
dividing, rather than uniting Christians.
Conflicting social classes and Christian traditions hold different
beliefs about the form of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist even though they
all derive their ideas from the same source, the word of God in the Bible.
II.
Scope and Purpose of the System
The Eucharist is at the center of the Christian’s
life and worship (Merton v). It is
conducted within most Christian denominations, but is best looked at through
Roman Catholicism. The claim of the
Eucharist is that those who eat Christ’s
body and drink his blood through the sacrament of the Eucharist receive
life in Him and from Him. What makes
this sacrament difficult for some to believe is that the bread and wine are
turned into the actual body and blood of Christ through
transubstantiation. Another effect of
the Eucharist is to create a sense of unity among Christians. The love of Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist
opens out into a deep sense of unity in Christ. According to theologians, this is the purpose for which the
sacrament was given to us by God (Merton xxvi). By partaking in the Eucharist, one is freed from sin and once
again pleasing to God. In order for the
Eucharist to reveal its deep significance, one must desire objective
reconciliation with God, and not merely wish to be freed from a sense of guilt
(Merton 36). It is above all necessary
to believe in Christ and be baptized in receiving the sacrament.
The Eucharist is a re-enactment of the most
important event in the history of mankind.
It is a prophetic sign of the Last Judgement and of the general
resurrection and of the Christian’s entrance into glory (Merton x). Christ gave us the Eucharist as a memorial
of his passion, death, and resurrection.
Through it, Christians believe He has made present for all time the love
with which he died for us. After
receiving this gift of the Eucharist, Christians are to live a life of charity
by loving others the way Christ loved them (Merton xii).
An important element of the Eucharist is the idea of
transubstantiation. Transubstantiation
is “that wonderful and unique change of the whole substance of the bread into
the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, only the
species of the bread and wine remaining unaffected” (O’Neill 83). The idea behind it is that the Eucharist is
not a wafer or unleavened bread which somehow contains the substance of the
body of Christ. Rather, it is no longer
bread and no longer has the being or nature of any material object. The Eucharist is not merely a sign or symbol
of the body of Christ, it is the body
of Christ (Merton 64). It is the
problem of the Eucharistic presence that within the symbol of himself, Christ
is truly and substantially made present.
We must say of this symbol what we cannot say of any other: this is his body (O’Neill 78). But if Christ is not sacramentally present
in the Eucharist, then the Mass is no longer anything but a ceremony in
commemoration of a past event. The real
presence of Christ in the Host is the necessary and immediate consequence of
transubstantiation (Merton 20).
III. Authority Structure
Since the Eucharist was given to us by God, the
source for its validity can be found in the Bible. The idea that when we eat the bread and wine we are actually
consuming the body and blood of Christ is founded in Matthew 26:26-29 when
Christ is feeding his disciples during the Last Supper.
“While 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.” Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
In
this passage, Jesus tells them that what he is feeding them is actually his
body. He also explains the purpose of
the body and blood, which is the forgiveness of sins.
In John 6:51-52, 54 Christ further
explains what the purpose of the bread is.
“I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eat of this bread, he shall live
forever…He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting and I
will raise him up on the last day.”
Christ is very straightforward here in saying that the body of Christ, in
the form of bread, will lead the Christian to redemption from sin and to
eternal life.
Through these Bible passages, the
sacrament of the Eucharist is grounded.
The actual words of Christ give a pretty strong validity to the
Eucharist. The controversy arises in
how these words of Christ are interpreted.
While the Roman Catholic Church still hold onto the notion that the
Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation,
many Protestant sects have chosen to believe that the bread and wine are
symbols of Christ’s body and blood, but the bread and wine does not actually
change during the sacrament (Osborne 190).
With a sacrament such as the
Eucharist, there is no way to prove that God’s words in the Bible are true when
he promised everlasting life to those that consume his body through the living
bread. Therefore, it is entirely based
on faith. Knowledge about the mystery
of the Eucharist is impossible to attain, even by studying scripture. Christ’s presence is essentially invisible
because it transcends all the powers of our interior and exterior senses. We know it is there only through our faith
(Merton 66). The fact of the real
presence, a fact which we have access to only in faith, is the central
eucharistic teaching in the church (Osborne 148). Since the real presence can only be understood through faith, the
Eucharist does not hold much ground as a scientific theory. There is no way to prove it fulfills
anything or that Christ is actually present in the form of the bread and
wine. The revelations of modern science
have raised serious doubts as to the legitimacy of applying to spiritual beings
the concept of substance (O’Neill 84).
The Eucharist is the source of all
the other sacraments and is viewed as the central event in the Church (Rahner
82). It takes place in the Roman
Catholic Church at Mass and is instituted by the Priest. The Eucharist is to be offered with use of
colorful and rich vestments, the accompaniment of beautiful music, and the
display of decorations (Balasuriya 21).
During the early centuries of Christianity, the Eucharist was a
corporate public worship of the whole community of believers. But by 1100, it took a completely different form and meaning. It became clericalized with the priest as
the all-important functionary of the Eucharist. He interceded on behalf of the sinful, unworthy people, and the
people no longer participated in the action of the Eucharist (Balasuriya
28). As a result of the individualistic
approach to religion and the Eucharist at this time, the Eucharist was not
regarded as the action of the people, but rather of God through the
intermediary of the Priest (Balasuriya 29).
It was the clergy alone who could bestow God’s grace. With this clearly individualistic approach,
the Eucharist was beginning to take on a meaning quite different from the
original purpose it had during Jesus’ life.
Back then, it was related to liberation and salvation of humanity.
Now eucharistic devotion has become extremely
ritualized, especially in the Catholic tradition. When the Eucharist ceases to relate to integral human liberation,
it ceases to be connected with Christ’s life sacrifice and it becomes a ritual
without life (Balasuriya 38). The
Eucharist will not be liberated to be true to its mission so long as the
churches are captive within the world’s power establishments. Today there is a tendency to return to the
importance of the active participation of all concerned and involved.
III.
History
Jesus instituted the Eucharist on the night of the
Jewish pasch. It was the national
feast, a celebration of their independence and liberation from slavery in Egypt
(Balasuriya 10). The liberation of the
Jews from Egypt prefigures the subsequent liberation of the whole humankind in
Christ. The Eucharist which Christians
participate in today goes back to this central event in the Old Testament,
which was the pledge of God’s concern for his chosen people. The institution of the Eucharist is thus
closely related to the struggle of the Jewish people for their liberation
(Balasuriya 12). Jesus wanted to leave
his people a sign, or symbol, of his life work and a way of being present with
them as they live their lives as Jesus did.
The cause of human liberation is the essential meaning of the Eucharist
(Balasuriya 16).
The Eucharist had an important place in the life of
the early Christians who had personal knowledge of Jesus. It had a close relation to their personal
and social lives, and it was an informal event. The understanding of the Eucharist has not always been the same
throughout the centuries, however. It
has different meanings in different lands and among conflicting social
classes. Its meaning has been altered
by social pressures (Balasuriya 2).
Christians have even divided themselves into different sects based on
their views concerning the Eucharist.
This topic will be addressed further in the next section.
The history of the Eucharist has gone through three
distinct stages. The first occurred in
the time of the Old Testament as a “type”.
It then became an event with the arrival of the Messiah. Finally, in today’s age of the Church, the
Eucharist is present as a sacrament (Seghers 1). In the time of the Old Testament, the great event of the Lord’s
Supper was anticipated through types.
Examples of these types are Isaac and Melchizedech who both resemble
Christ through their actions of representing the lamb as sacrifice and offering
bread and wine, respectively. The
primary figure of the Eucharist is the Passover. In Jesus’ time he instituted a new Passover, the Eucharist. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke
portray this transformation of the old Passover to the new. They also introduce the idea that Jesus’
death and resurrection are the events that institute the Eucharist. Today, the Eucharist is present to us sacramentally. This liturgy of the Eucharist renews the
historical events of the death and resurrection and keeps them from being
forgotten even though they will never again be repeated (Seghers 4).
V.
Representative Examples of Argumentation
The Roman Catholic claim that Christ is truly
present in the Host of the Eucharist has received much criticism. Although most Christian traditions teach
that Jesus is present in the Eucharist in some special way, they disagree about
the form of His presence (O’Neill 87).
This poses an interesting debate since all Christians derive their
beliefs from the same Bible scripture. It is difficult for the various
Christian traditions to defend their specific beliefs against other similar
ones since interpretation of God’s word is such a crucial aspect in doing
so.
VI.
Suggested Position in Comparative Scales
a.
Relative
emphasis on traditional authority vs. testimony of experience (1)
There is much more emphasis on traditional authority
with the Eucharist. People participate in
it because of the Biblical assertions through the words of Christ, not because
other people said it would lead to everlasting life.
b.
Relative
centralization of authority vs. decentralization (3)
Within the individual religious sects that celebrate
the sacrament of the Eucharist, there is a centralization of authority. For example, within the Roman Catholic
Church
c.
Relative
emphasis on invisible realities vs. material, earthly ones (1)
The Eucharist definitely emphasizes invisible
realities by calling upon Christians to have blind faith in the fact that the
bread and wine they partake of in the Eucharist is actually turned into the
body and blood of Christ.
d.
Mainly
spiritual or moral objectives vs. pragmatic aims (1)
The Eucharist has the spiritual objective of leading Christians to everlasting life.
e.
Most
power or agency reserved for a divine being vs. realizable in individuals (1)
The claims of the Eucharist are reserved for a
divine being. The claims are not even
rational to individuals and must be accepted based on faith alone.
The
Bible. [direct scripture quotations related to the
meaning of the Eucharist].
Merton,
Thomas. The Living Bread. New York:
Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1956. [description
of the Eucharist as a Roman Catholic sacrament from the point of view of a Roman Catholic].
Balasuriya,
Tissa. The Eucharist and Human
Liberation. New York: Orbis Books,
1977. [the Social implications of
the Eucharist. How it has changed over
time and how it affects different
people].
O’Neill,
Colman. New Approaches to the
Eucharist. New York: Society of St. Paul, 1967. [Roman Catholic view of the Eucharist with a concentration in
the role of the Mass].
Osborne,
Kenan B. The Christian Sacraments of
Initiation. New York: Paulist
Press, 1987. [the Eucharist’s history in
the Church. It also talks about other Roman Catholic
sacraments].
Rahner,
Karl. The Church and the Sacraments. London:
Burns and Oates, 1963. [The fundamental
structure of the Church in relation to the sacraments].
Seghers,
Jim. “For Christ Our Pascal Lamb Has
Been Sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7).” The Eucharist. October 1, 1996. http://www.totustuus.com/theology.htm. [a
view of the evolution of the
Eucharist through the times].