The Fullness of the Real Presence

Written for Dr. Roger Nutt's Sacraments class, June 15, 2021

In Summa theologiae, III, Question 76, Aquinas discusses the manner in which Christ is present in the sacrament of Eucharist. Article 1 asks “Whether the whole Christ is contained under this sacrament?” Aquinas, of course, answers in the affirmative. His instructive answer is longer than can be adequately addressed in a paper of this length, which concentrates on the first Objection to Article 1, which asks “Whether the whole Christ is contained under this sacrament?” That Objection states:

It seems that the whole Christ is not contained under this sacrament, because Christ begins to be in this sacrament by conversion of the bread and wine. But it is evident that the bread and wine cannot be changed either into the Godhead or into the soul of Christ. Since therefore Christ exists in three substances, namely, the Godhead, soul and body, as shown above (2, 5; 5, 1,3), it seems that the entire Christ is not under this sacrament.[1]

In a recent Augustine Conference on the Eucharist, Dr. Brent Petrie discussed the connected between Eucharist and manna in the desert. In this conference, he points out that the miracle of the manna lasted the entire time of the journey in the desert, calling it “a forty-year-long miracle.”[2] He reminds us that Exodus tells us that both bread and flesh were rained down upon the Israelites in the desert, as manna in the morning dew and flocks of quails in the evening.[3] Yet, even those pious Jews, who well knew and believed the details of Exodus, including the miracle of the manna, were not able to comprehend Jesus’s statement that “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”[4]

That lack of comprehension of the miracle of the manna informs the instant objection. This paper seeks to make us comprehend that which we cannot fully understand, so that we may appreciate the gift of Eucharist. I address two issues that this Objection raises: “the entire Christ is not under this sacrament,”[5] and “it is evident that the bread and wine cannot be changed either into the Godhead or into the soul of Christ.”[6]

Claiming “it is evident” that there is anything God cannot do is folly. To say that “it is evident that the bread and wine cannot be changed either into the Godhead or into the soul of Christ”[7] is to suggest that we are, in some way, able to determine what God can or cannot do. We cannot claim to know that something is impossible for God on the basis that we cannot imagine how it could be done. We cannot predict what is possible for God. We cannot even accurately predict what is possible for man, nor accurately predict the properties of the world around us. Less than five hundred years ago, in 1540, mankind held it evident that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun revolved around the earth. One hundred fifty years ago, it was evident that travel to the moon was only possible in science fiction. What is evident to man changes with time; what is possible for God is unchanging and without limit.

Scripture states “you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust and to dust you shall return.”[8] Are we to believe that “it is evident” that God, who made the world and everything in it from nothing, cannot cause that which he made to change from one thing to another? Since everything in the world comes from God, is it not rather evident that anything in the world can thus be changed by God, even to be changed from bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Christ?

To suggest “the entire Christ is not under this sacrament”[9] also raises the question of size. The Host is not meant to be a physical reflection of the human body of Christ. Therefore, although hosts are made in a variety of sizes, none of them are the size of an adult human body; in fact, they are generally small enough to be held in hand. Christ had a full-grown human body, likely at least five feet tall. How can he then be in such a smaller space? It is simply that Christ's body is not in the bread in the same form as his body had had when he was alive. Aquinas states “One should say without doubt that the whole body of Christ and his whole quantity is contained under the species of the bread.”[10] As he further explains:

“What is contained in the sacrament by the power of the sacrament [e.g., the body or blood of Christ] is that which is the terminus of transubstantiation. For this reason the soul and divinity [of Christ] is not contained in the sacrament by the power of the sacrament since the bread and wine is not changed into the soul and divinity, but the soul and divinity [is in the sacrament] from the natural concomitance by which the soul is in separably united to that body and the divinity to the humanity [in Christ].”[11]

Christ’s soul and divinity are contained in the sacrament by virtue of their being part of the body of Christ, just as much as the organs of his body are part of his body. Would we say that Christ’s soul and divinity are smaller than his body and blood? Any place that can contain his divinity must be able to contain his body. Size may be something that limits man, but it does not limit God. For example, we hold that life begins at conception. For there to be life, there must be a soul. If, at the moment of conception, the fertilized egg contains a living human being with a soul, how can we say that the Host, which is much larger than a newly fertilized egg, cannot contain Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity?

The Objection also states that “Christ begins to be in this sacrament by conversion of the bread and wine.”[12]There is certainly a time when Christ becomes present in the sacrament. The Catechism states

The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.[13]

Aquinas, however, would likely take issue with the use of the word “begins.” As Aquinas explains in ST III, Q. 75, A.3, it would be unseemly for the host to be at any time partially bread and partially Christ. Therefore, the conversion does not have a beginning nor an ending, in the usual sense, because it is instantaneous, or rather, happens in a unit of time smaller than man can record; smaller than a zeptosecond (that is, a trillionth of a billionth of a second). Perhaps we could say that there is a zeptosecond when the bread is not still bread but not yet Christ, but there is never a zeptosecond (or less) when it is both.

We accept in faith that Christ is present in his Church and its works, particularly in the Eucharist. “The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique.”[14] Christ himself stated “this is my body” and that the cup contained his blood.[15] If we now say that the bread and wine do not change into the body and blood of Christ, then we must be saying that Christ was, at best, wrong, and at worst, lying. Christ, fully human and fully divine, whose will was in perfect agreement with the will of the Father, could not have lied to us, nor mislead us, nor been mistaken about what he had done, nor have misspoke. Both Scripture and the Catechism are clear on this. “The three synoptic Gospels and St. Paul have handed on to us the account of the institution of the Eucharist; St. John, for his part, reports the words of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum that prepare for the institution of the Eucharist.”[16] Further, Christ instituted the Eucharist for all time, and not as an event solely for the Apostles at the Last Supper:

The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words "until he comes" does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his intercession in the presence of the Father.[17]

Indeed, we know what Eucharist is: “It is what the priest says it is: lying on the altar is the body of Christ; in the chalice is the blood of Christ; and one looks like bread, the other looks like wine.”[18] The fullness of the mystery is, “[i]t still remains that all that Christ himself said was: ‘This is my body. This is my blood.’ And he instructed his disciples to eat and drink what looked like bread and wine.”[19]

If, as the objection states, “the entire Christ is not under this sacrament,”[20] then we can trust neither Christ nor Scripture. The institution narratives clearly tell us that Christ is indeed in this sacrament. In addition, we have Christ’s own words in John 6, where there is no suggestion that this bread that we must eat is less than all of Christ. Jesus gives clear indication in John 6 that he will institute the sacrament. He explicitly states “the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”[21] John tells us that “After this many of his disciples drew back and would no longer walk with him.”[22] If Jesus did not truly mean that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,”[23] surely he would have explained what he actually meant rather than have his followers desert him.

The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the announcement of the Passion scandalized them: ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ (John 6:60) The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. ‘Will you also go away?’ (John 6:67): the Lord's question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has ‘the words of eternal life’ (John 6:68) and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.[24]

When the Jews first heard Christ speaking of the Eucharist, “[t]hey were repelled by what they took to be cannibalism proposed by an unbalanced preacher.”[25] We believe that in the institution of the Eucharist, done before he died, Christ gave us his body under the form of bread and wine, as nourishment. “His body is the foundational sacrament of the mystery of redemption.”[26]

As Kimberly Hahn has pointed out,

in his humanity alone, Jesus could not have separated his body and blood in the Upper Room to offer it to the disciples, he never was only human. Since Jesus was fully divine as well as fully human, he could have sat there in his body and blood and at the same time turned the bread and wine into his body and blood.[27]

Her point is supported by Aquinas’ reply to Objection 1, set forth in full below. Since Christ is united, body and blood, soul and divinity, his presence in the consecrated Host

We may rightly call Eucharist the greatest of the sacraments. As Nutt reminds us, the spiritual life of the church is centered on Eucharist. “It is theologically accurate to affirm the superiority of the Eucharist in the life of the church, and the reasons for making this affirmation more important.”[28] Aquinas states:

“Absolutely speaking, the sacrament of the Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments: and this may be shown in three ways. First of all because it contains Christ Himself substantially: whereas the other sacraments contain a certain instrumental power which is a share of Christ's power, as we have shown above (62, 4, ad 3, 5). Now that which is essentially such is always of more account than that which is such by participation.”[29]

Augustine rightly rejects the argument made in the Objection, with these words:

Because the change of the bread and wine is not terminated at the Godhead or the soul of Christ, it follows as a consequence that the Godhead or the soul of Christ is in this sacrament not by the power of the sacrament, but from real concomitance. For since the Godhead never set aside the assumed body, wherever the body of Christ is, there, of necessity, must the Godhead be; and therefore it is necessary for the Godhead to be in this sacrament concomitantly with His body. Hence we read in the profession of faith at Ephesus (P. I., chap. xxvi): "We are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ, not as taking common flesh, nor as of a holy man united to the Word in dignity, but the truly life-giving flesh of the Word Himself."

On the other hand, His soul was truly separated from His body, as stated above (Q. 50, A. 5). And therefore had this sacrament been celebrated during those three days when He was dead, the soul of Christ would not have been there, neither by the power of the sacrament, nor from real concomitance. But since "Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more" (Rom. 6:9), His soul is always really united with His body. And therefore in this sacrament the body indeed of Christ is present by the power of the sacrament, but His soul from real concomitance.[30]

The Real Presence is still denied by Protestants. Many Catholics either also deny it or misunderstand it. A recent survey showed that perhaps only a third of Catholics believe in the Real Presence.[31] Some consider the survey to be flawed, but it is still a very sad statistic. The Church, her theologians, her clergy, and her catechists have an uphill battle in educating the laity, especially in view of the popular culture that seems to seek to reject all that is of God.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition.

Nutt, Roger W. "Faith, Metaphysics, and the Contemplation of Christ’s Corporeal Presence in the Eucharist: A Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Seventh Quodlibetal Dispute, Q. 4, A. 1 with an Introductory Essay." Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal 15, no. 2 (2011): 151-171. muse.jhu.edu/article/750860.

Nutt, Roger W. General Principles Of Sacramental Theology. Reprint, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017.

O'Neill, Colman E, and Romanus Cessario. Meeting Christ In The Sacraments. Reprint, Staten Island: Fathers and Brothers of the Society of St. Paul, 1991.

Pitre, Brant. "The Bread Of Life: Jesus And John 6 By Dr. Brant Pitre - Augustine Institute Bible Conference - Source And Summit - FORMED". FORMED, 2021. https://watch.formed.org/source-and-summit/videos/the-bread-of-life-jesus-and-john-6-by-dr-brant-pitre.

Schlumpf, Heidi. "Do Catholics 'Actually' Believe In The Real Presence?". National Catholic Reporter, 2019. https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/do-catholics-actually-believe-real-presence.

The Holy Bible, Translated From The Original Tongues Being The First Version Set Forth A.D. 1611 ; Old And New Testaments Revised A.D. 1881-1885 And A.D. 1901. 2nd ed. Reprint, San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius Press, 2006.

[1] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III Q. 76 A. 1 Obj. 1

[2] Brant Pitre, "The Bread Of Life: Jesus And John 6 By Dr. Brant Pitre - Augustine Institute Bible Conference - Source And Summit - FORMED", FORMED, 2021, https://watch.formed.org/source-and-summit/videos/the-bread-of-life-jesus-and-john-6-by-dr-brant-pitre.

[3] Brant Pitre, "The Bread Of Life: Jesus And John 6 By Dr. Brant Pitre - Augustine Institute Bible Conference - Source And Summit - FORMED", FORMED, 2021, https://watch.formed.org/source-and-summit/videos/the-bread-of-life-jesus-and-john-6-by-dr-brant-pitre.

[4] The Holy Bible, Translated From The Original Tongues Being The First Version Set Forth A.D. 1611 ; Old And New Testaments Revised A.D. 1881-1885 And A.D. 1901, 2nd ed. (repr., San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius Press, 2006). John 6:51

[5] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III Q. 76 A. 1 Obj. 1

[6] Ibid

[7] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III Q. 76 A. 1 Obj. 1

[8] Genesis 3:19

[9] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III Q. 76 A. 1 Obj. 1

[10] Nutt, Roger W. "Faith, Metaphysics, and the Contemplation of Christ’s Corporeal Presence in the Eucharist: A Translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Seventh Quodlibetal Dispute, Q. 4, A. 1 with an Introductory Essay." Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal 15, no. 2 (2011): 151-171. muse.jhu.edu/article/750860. Page 170. Quoting Aquinas, Quodlibet 7, Q. IV, Answer

[11] Ibid.

[12] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III Q. 76 A. 1 Obj. 1

[13] Catechism Of The Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (repr., Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 2000). #1377

[14] Ibid, #1374

[15] Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:24

[16] Catechism Of The Catholic Church, # 1338

[17] Ibid, #1341

[18] Colman E O'Neill and Romanus Cessario, Meeting Christ In The Sacraments (repr., Staten Island: Fathers and Brothers of the Society of St. Paul, 1991). 161

[19] Ibid, 162

[20] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III Q. 76 A. 1 Obj. 1

[21] John 6:51

[22] John 6:66

[23] John 6:53

[24] Catechism Of The Catholic Church, #1336

[25] O’Neill 162

[26] O’Neill 163

[27] Hahn, Scott; Hahn, Kimberly. Rome Sweet Home (Kindle Locations 1684-1688). Ignatius Press.

[28] Roger W Nutt, General Principles Of Sacramental Theology (repr., Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017), 190

[29] ST III, Q65, A3.

[30] Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Complete & Unabridged) . Coyote Canyon Press. Kindle Edition. ST III, Q756, A. 1, Reply to Objection 1.