By DON FIER
The first and most fundamental of the manifold effects of the Eucharist received worthily in Holy Communion, as we saw last week, is a deepening of our loving, mystical union with Jesus Christ. As portrayed by Sacred Scripture, the model for this union is that of the Son with the Father: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (John 6:57).
From this unity also flows a more profound and intimate union with all members of the faithful, all those who comprise the Mystical Body of Christ.
Another fruit of Holy Communion we observed last week is the preservation and growth of the supernatural life of grace in our souls. As expressed in the 1439 Council of Florence:
“Since it is by grace that persons are incorporated into Christ and united to his members, it follows that those who receive this sacrament worthily receive an increase of grace. And all the effects that material food and drink have on the life of the body — maintaining and increasing life, restoring health, and giving joy — all these effects this sacrament produces for the spiritual life….We are drawn away from evil, we are strengthened in what is good, and we advance and increase in virtue and in grace” (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1322).
In volume 3 of his Fundamentals of Catholicism, Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ, provides a succinct enumeration of the benefits received by the faithful through this effect:
“The Eucharist strengthens the power of the will so that it can withstand temptations to sin; it increases the life of grace already present, uniting the person ever more closely with Christ; it purges the soul of venial sins and the temporal punishments due to sin; it gives birth to spiritual joy and peace that enable the Christian to bear witness to Christ and to embrace joyfully the duties and sacrifices of the Christian life” (p. 249).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) also underscores that “the Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren” (n. 1397).
There is yet another marvelous effect of the Eucharist which the Catechism saves until last: It is “the pledge of glory to come,” the promise of everlasting happiness for those who die in the state of grace. To accentuate this wondrous pledge, a liturgical prayer written by St. Thomas Aquinas, O Sacrum Convivium (“O Sacred Banquet”), is recalled. It is the Magnificat antiphon for Evening Prayer II of the Liturgy of the Hours on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi:
“O Sacred Banquet, in which Christ is received as food, the memory of his Passion is renewed, the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge of the life to come is given to us” (as cited in CCC, n. 1402).
The hymn is cited by Pope St. John Paul II in his 2003 encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (EE) to express “the eschatological thrust which marks the celebration of the Eucharist (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26): ‘until you come in glory.’ The Eucharist,” John Paul II asserts, “is a straining towards the goal, a foretaste of the fullness of joy promised by Christ (cf. John 15:11); it is in some way the anticipation of heaven, the ‘pledge of future glory.’ In the Eucharist, everything speaks of confident waiting ‘in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ’” (EE, n. 18).
Moreover, the Holy Father goes on to say that the Eucharist not only anticipates future glory, but enables us to participate even now in the heavenly liturgy. “In celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly ‘liturgy’ and become part of that great multitude which cries out: ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Rev. 7:10). The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey” (EE, n. 19).
The Catechism echoes this teaching: “If the Eucharist is the memorial of the Passover of the Lord Jesus, if by our communion at the altar we are filled ‘with every heavenly blessing and grace,’ then the Eucharist is also an anticipation of the heavenly glory” (CCC, n. 1402).
In all the sacraments, but most especially in the Holy Eucharist — the sacrament toward which all the others are directed — “the Church already receives the guarantee of her inheritance and even now shares in everlasting life, while ‘awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus’ (Titus 2:13)” (CCC, n. 1130).
At the Last Supper, Jesus said to His apostles: “I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29; cf. Luke 22:18; Mark 14:25). Is this not our Lord’s promise that the Passover will ultimately be fulfilled at the heavenly banquet?
“The ultimate fulfillment of the Passover will take place in the glory of Heaven,” according to The Didache Bible: Ignatius Bible Edition, “the ultimate perfection of the Kingdom of God” (p. 1307).
The Church remembers this pledge whenever she celebrates the Eucharist and “turns her gaze ‘to him who is to come’” (CCC, n. 1403). To hasten His return, she cries out “Marana tha!” “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 1:4; 22:20; 1 Cor. 16:22).
In describing the Eucharist in his 2007 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (SCa), Pope Benedict XVI described the Eucharist as “a gift to men and women on their journey.” The Holy Father explains, “Man is created for that true and eternal happiness which only God’s love can give. But our wounded freedom would go astray were it not already able to experience something of that future fulfillment.”
The final goal, the Roman Pontiff goes on to say, is Christ Himself, present in a special way in the Eucharist. “The Eucharistic banquet, by disclosing its powerful eschatological dimension, comes to the aid of our freedom as we continue our journey” (SCa, n. 30). It is, at it were, our life raft on the tempestuous sea of life.
In exhorting the faithful to pray and offer Masses for the dead, Pope Benedict XVI describes the Eucharist as a great reason for hope.
“The Eucharistic celebration, in which we proclaim that Christ has died and risen, and will come again, is a pledge of the future glory in which our bodies too will be glorified. Celebrating the memorial of our salvation strengthens our hope in the resurrection of the body and in the possibility of meeting once again, face to face, those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith” (SCa, n. 32).
He goes on to say that “a rediscovery of the eschatological dimension inherent in the Eucharist, celebrated and adored, will help sustain us on our journey and comfort us in the hope of glory (cf. Romans 5:2; Titus 2:13).”
St. Cyprian of Carthage, bishop and martyr of the third-century Church, beautifully describes the future glory for which we hope:
“What will be the glory and how great the joy to be admitted to see God, to be honored to receive with Christ, thy Lord God, the joy of eternal salvation and light…to rejoice with the righteous and the friends of God in the kingdom of heaven, with the pleasure of immortality given to us — to receive there ‘what neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man’ (1 Cor. 2:9)” (Ep. 58, 10, 1).
In his work entitled The Basic Book of the Eucharist (BBE), Fr. Lawrence Lovasik describes the glory reserved for those who persevere as twofold: “the glory of the soul and the glory of the body.” The glory of the soul consists in the Beatific Vision: “God communicates to the soul a wondrous gift known as the light of glory, whereby His own splendor pervades the human mind and empowers it to see God as He sees Himself. . . . The soul is borne unto God by the irresistible impulse of beatific love, is thrilled with indescribable sweetness” (BBE, p. 137).
The Bread Of Life
But that is not all. At the Final Judgment, our resurrected bodies will be reunited with our souls, and “our frail bodies are rendered like the glorified body of our risen savior. On the last day, the bodies of the just will be brilliant like the sun, endowed with the power of angelic swiftness, spiritualized, and impassible. . . . Our bodies will be resplendent in eternity with the glory of the soul that will radiate through them” (BBE, p. 138).
Indeed, the Blessed Sacrament is the pledge of future glory for both the body and the soul.
The Catechism closes its exposition on the “Sacrament of sacraments” with a statement that should cause our hearts to resonate with joy-filled confidence: “There is no surer pledge or clearer sign of this great hope in the new heavens and new earth ‘in which righteousness dwells’ (2 Peter 3:13), than the Eucharist” (CCC, n. 1405).
As the early-second-century martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote, the Bread of Life “provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live forever in Jesus Christ” (Ad Eph. 20, 2).
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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