eucharist + catholicism

context for the eucharist

• sacrament that remembers the last supper, the final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion when he gave them bread saying ‘this is my body’ and wine saying ‘this is my blood’

• in 1 corinthians 11 paul speaks of ‘lord’s supper’ + states that part of the ritual is to repeat words of JC night he was betrayed

• word eucharist comes from greek eucharista → meaning thanksgiving

catholic eucharist

• The ordained priest takes the Eucharist service and he serves to represent Christ and acts in his name before God

• The Eucharist is not just one of the seven but is considered the blessed sacrament.

• It does not recall the events it celebrates but makes them present, so that it serves as an actual participation in Jesus’s sacrifice that takes place in a very real way, but without the blood of the crucifixion being actually shed

• The only people who can officiate at the eucharist and consecrate the sacrament are ordained priests acting in the person of Christ (‘in persona Christi’). I

• n other words, the priest represents Jesus himself, who is the Head of the Church, and acts before God the Father in the name of the Catholic Church

transubstantiation

• Catholicism

• When the bread and wine are consecrated in the Eucharist they cease to be bread and wine and become instead the body and blood of Christ. The empirical appearances are not changed, but the reality is

• This means that one the priest has blessed the bread and wine, despite retaining the physical appearance of bread and wine they are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ

• Catholics argue this doctrine is supported by John 6:55 ‘For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink and Matthew 26:26 ‘Take and eat; this my body’

• This position of transubstantiation was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in 1551 and again in 1965 by Pope Paul VI

• The consecration of the bread and wine represents the separation of Jesus’ body from his blood on the cross, now united in the bread and wine

diversity of eucharist

• Roman Catholic and Anglican churches usually offer the body in the form of a tasteless white wafer, but many churches will vary the form the bread takes to include the literal sharing of one loaf, from which each participant tears off a fragment. This heightens the symbolism of sharing in Christ’s body.

• Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions see the Eucharist as an expression of the fulfilment of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity from sin, a commemoration of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the means for Christians to unite with God and with each other, and a means of giving thanks for all these things

• There is a range of diverse practice of the Eucharist because of the way Christians have interpreted Jesus’ command ‘to do this in remembrance of me’

transignification

• Transignification is a theory put forward by Edward Schillebeeckx (1914–2009).

• It proposes that when the priest consecrates the bread and wine of the Eucharist they take on the real significance of Christ’s body and blood, but are not chemically changed.

• Christ is therefore sacramentally, but not physically, present. The theory draws on two concepts which have to do with psychological reality

• That all effective signs consist of two parts – ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’.

• In the Eucharist, the ‘signifier’ is the substance of the bread and the wine, while the ‘signified’ is the substance of Christ’s body and blood.

• That there are two kinds of presence, local and personal. Pupils may be ‘locally present’ in a class, but if their thoughts are far away, then they are not ‘personally present’. In the Eucharist Jesus is personally, but not locally present.

transfinalisation

• Transfinalization is a theory put forward by the German Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner (1904–1984).

• It proposes that when the priest consecrates the bread and wine of the Eucharist their purpose and finality are changed, but not their substance.

• They do not become Christ’s body and blood, but serve a new function, which is to stir up faith in the mystery of Christ’s redemptive love.

• Both theories are concerned more with the meaning of the Eucharist than with its substance, and both were condemned by Pope Paul VI in the encyclical Mysterium Fidei (1965), because they can be understood as denying transubstantiation.