Several years ago, a Pew research study revealed 69 percent of all self-identified Catholics said they believed the consecrated bread and wine used at Mass are not Jesus, but instead “symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” Although shocking, this probably does not come from a place of skepticism or malice, but more from a place not knowing how the Church arrived at the conclusion that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus in the form of bread and wine.
When we know how and why something works the way it does, we can embrace it more fully than if someone tells us. As Catholics we tend to start with the rules and work backwards. It was not until my last semester in the seminary that a course on the Eucharist was weaved into my schedule. To my chagrin, I was never fully taught the development and scriptural connections to the Eucharist. I would like to highlight three pivotal movements in Scripture that will help to solidify our understanding of the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
The first movement is “the Manna in the desert.” God provides real bread for the hungry Israelites as they journey through the desert after escaping captivity. The Lord says, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.” Every morning when the dew evaporated, on the surface of the desert were flakes of bread. Why do I believe this? Because if God did not intervene in the desert, the Israelites would have all died and the story would be over. God uses the very means of survival, food and drink, to nourish the Israelites, keep them alive, and inspire faith.
The Exodus narrative helps to provide religious context. God during this time was establishing his people. He was creating a community. The manna in the desert shows God’s saving power and binds the people together as the Israelites. The Israelites would eventually become the Jewish people, taking God’s law, rituals, and culture with them. Jesus, a devout Jew, clearly understood the significance of the manna in the desert. He uses the same symbol of divinity during the Last Supper.
The second movement is “the Last Supper.” This development is a renewal and intensification of God’s closeness to his people. Jesus, the Son of God, after immersing himself in the human experience leaves behind the entirety of himself in a very accessible way. When the ritual of the Mass is performed and the words of consecration are said by an ordained priest, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, just like Jesus said it would. Now, we get to live our lives with God in a much more integrated way. We no longer worship perishable bread once a year to commemorate the Exodus, we ingest divinity each weekend to heal and strengthen us as we live our lives.
The third movement is “the witness of the first Christians.” We rely on the first Christian communities to interpret the Last Supper, considering the Exodus and their understanding of who Jesus is. Summarizing John’s Gospel, we learn Jesus is the bread of life; those who believe in him will eat this bread and live forever. John’s Gospel was written toward the end of the first century or perhaps the very beginning of the second.
Early in the second century, the last living connection to the Apostles, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, preached this to his community: “Just as bread from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread but the Eucharist, made up of two elements, one earthly and one heavenly, so also our bodies, in receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, for they have the hope of resurrection.”
The tenets of our faith would be argued about through the first several centuries of Christianity; the teaching of the Church never officially taught that the Eucharist was purely symbolic. It is a symbol of God’s abiding presence for sure, but first and foremost it is the supernatural substance of God himself. We literally ingest divinity and God becomes united both physically and spiritually every time we receive the Eucharist.
Father Tom Lanza serves as diocesan director of the Office of Vocations.