THE REAL PRESENCE OF THE GLORIFIED CHRIST

Memorial, sacrifice, banquet. This is the fullness and plenitude of the Eucharistic mystery. Or better still, we should speak of the banquet of the sacrificial memorial. We have already pointed out above that it would be an exercise in futility to try and establish an internal priority, a sort of 'hierarchy of truths' among these three aspects of the Eucharist, for all three are equally essential and none of them should be stressed at the expense of the other two. It is a harmonious blend of all three that will give us the heart of Eucharist. Maybe in the past, and probably as an unconscious anti-Protestant reaction, not only the average Catholic catechism, but even the official Catholic position emanating from the center tended to lay an exaggerated stress on the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, leaving the memorial dimension and to a minor extent even the meal aspect, somewhat in the shadows.

The realization of her own past mistakes often leads the Church to a certain pendulum reaction in the opposite direction, and this seems to have happened in the present case. For a few years after Vatican II the Church witnessed one such sudden swing from an over insistence on the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist to an almost obsessive preponderance of the banquet dimension. Some would even go to the extent of banning the sacrificial dimension altogether, to concentrate exclusively on the meal aspect. They would thus turn the Eucharist into a fraternal meal, a horizontal get together meant to foster unity and brotherhood, with the vertical, God-centered dimension practically forgotten and almost entirely neglected.

The remedy was even worse than the disease. The Eucharist can by no means be reduced to a sacrifice, a vertical self-offering to God, but much less can it be equated with a fraternal banquet. Extremes and exclusive positions are seldom correct. The Eucharist is certainly and most essentially - as we have seen above - a sacrificial memorial of Christ's death and resurrection. But it is also, and emphatically, a meal, a banquet, for it is a rather peculiar memorial which is celebrated under the form of bread and wine. It is plainly an edible and drinkable memorial and if this aspect of eventual consumption is left out, the memorial sacrifice is thereby crippled. This kind of edible sacrificial memorial leads necessarily to communion and communion is a consumption of the sacrificial victim previously offered to God. These three essential aspects - sacrifice, memorial, communion - are like three links in the same chain, closely intertwined and inseparable. Hence, the Eucharistic repast is by no means the passive reception of the sacrament, but rather the active participation of the faithful in the fullness of the sacrificial act.

The Eucharistic banquet is not the consumption of a symbol but rather the internal assimilation of divine life, imparted to the communicant by the transfigured Lord, Eucharistically present under bread and wine. The reality celebrated implies not only the sacramental presence of a past salvific event, but also the real, substantial presence of the very person whose salvific action is commemorated. The Jewish Passover brought home powerfully under the veil of sacramental symbols the past event of the Egyptian deliverance, making the celebrating Jewish community a sharer in the effects of that salvific act, but there was no real presence of any kind. Whereas now in the Eucharist the central mystery of our salvation is rendered symbolically present, and in addition to this the very person of Jesus, beyond the grasp of death and resplendent in his heavenly glory, becomes really present. It is a sacrificial memorial that is climaxed by a real, transfigured presence, a presence which is destined to act within the body of the communicant.

Until fairly recently, the common opinion held the sixth chapter of John's Gospel to be but a distant promise of the Eucharist by Jesus himself which would be fulfilled at the end of His life. It was said that John is the only evangelist that, surprisingly, does not breath a word on such a central event as the institution of the Eucharist. Jesus' so-called farewell discourse in the context of the Last Supper is certainly long, as long as it is profound and inspiring, but oddly enough, it does not contain one word of the Eucharist. The narrative of the 'washing of the feet' left out by the Synoptic and Paul is mentioned and given due emphasis by John; whereas the institution of the Eucharist, prominently mentioned by the other three evangelists, is apparently passed over in silence by John. Why this puzzling omission?

In reality there is neither omission nor promise. For John does speak of the Eucharist; in fact, he devotes to it one full. long chapter, which is a clear indication of the importance he attaches to it. The so-called 'promise' contained in John 6 is in reality not a promise at all but rather the fullness of the Eucharistic reality - only that John is not primarily a historian concerned above all with the accurate chronology of historical events. He does mention the institution of the Eucharist, but in 'the wrong place; as it were, not in the context of the Supper, shortly before the passion narrative, but rather and for reasons of his own, in the sixth chapter. This chapter, as we shall see presently, is not the faint glow of dawn - a promise - but rather the fullness of the midday sun. It is the presence of the bread of life that came down from heaven to instill divine life into the hearts of men, "that they may have life and have it abundantly." - John 10:10 -

John 6 is a most beautiful, profound chapter that contains an inexhaustible supply of spiritual nourishment. Fortunately gone is the time when such a jewel of spiritual literature used to be a bone of contention between Catholics and Protestants, the former emphasizing strongly the Eucharistic content of the passage and the latter denying it with equal vehemence. What is really John's own intention in this chapter? Is he laying stress on the reality of faith only, as some of the early Protestants contended, or is he giving us a full treasure on the Eucharist, as Catholics have traditionally maintained? Both sides were partly right and partly wrong. They were both right in what they affirmed and badly wrong in what they denied.

The "bread of life" theme which runs throughout the chapter does not refer to the Eucharist always and everywhere (that was a Catholic mistake, both exegetical and pastoral). But neither can John's emphatic statements be reduced to the sapiential theme of faith (and this was the Protestant error). A fuller, more objective study of the entire passage, in a calmer atmosphere and away from sterile polemics, has finally yielded a rich harvest of mutual understanding and peaceful agreement. The theme of faith is markedly present, and to this extent Protestants were undoubtedly right; the sacramental, Eucharistic meaning should also be given equal prominence, and to this extent the Catholic position was also correct. The danger arose when each side chose to insist exclusively either on faith or on the Eucharist, making a choice that was not John's. Why select arbitrarily only one of the two themes when in reality both are present?

BY REV. FR. LUIS M. BERMEJO S.J.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -