Monday, October 3, 2011

How Can Man See Christ in the Eucharist?

How Can Man See Christ in the Eucharist? This may seem like a "loaded" question. The short answer is "faith." The long answer, though, requires some explanation.

The Sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Holy Orders, Marriage, Penance, Anointing of the Sick) were instituted by Christ in a way that man is able to have an encounter with the Divine through signs and symbols which are perceptible and understandable to man. What does this mean?

In Baptism, water is no longer just water; it is a symbol of death and new life, a new life in Christ. Water's sacramental purpose is to take something that may seem ordinary for man and transform it into something that is truly mysterious. In this case, water makes one die to oneself and be born into Christ and His Church. In the Eucharist, the "source and summit of the Christian life," bread and wine are no longer merely bread and wine; they become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

But how do we see Christ in the bread and the wine. After all, it looks like simple bread and wine on the altar, it feels like bread and wine, and it tastes like bread and wine. What gives, you ask? Well, part of approaching the Sacraments is that we, as Catholics, need to understand is that we need to see with eyes of faith. If we put our faith glasses on, we will no longer see JUST bread and wine, but bread and wine that is truly the Body and Blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine.

How do we acquire faith? That's simple: Surrendering your will to God and believing in Him. (Okay, easier said than done.) But the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, is where we can be filled with grace to have faith. By partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ from the altar, we allow Jesus to become one with us, one with us in our daily struggles and He will give us the strength to proceed throughout the day. We don't just eat bread and wine to remember Jesus' Sacrifice on the Cross; we eat the Flesh and Blood of our Lord and Savior so we can be one with Him and Him us.

Though the bread and wine look like they are bread and wine, they symbolize, or make present a reality, that is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains the change as Transubstantiation: The accidents of the bread and wine, their external appearance, remains, but their substance is transformed into Christ's Body and Blood with the Words of Institution ("This is my body," "This is the chalice of my blood"). Though this is a very rationalistic and Aristotelian way of explaining Transubstantiation, Platonism holds a cosmic way of looking at this most beautiful change; it is simply a mystery of God.

Next time you are at Mass, look at the bread and wine on the altar, not as twenty-first century students of science and doubt, but look at the bread and wine and see Jesus Christ's Body and Blood with the sacramental eyes looking through faith glasses.

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