Recognizing Christ’s real and actual presence has been the cause of Christian joy from the beginning of creation-“as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.” Revealing to the Church this presence was also what Christ’s Resurrection was all about: revealing that Christ is present among us, that, because of His presence, He hears us, that because of His presence, He knows us. His presence is why S. Mary and S. Elisabeth were danced and embraced in joy at the Visitation, and that same joy through Christ’s presence is available to us in worship through the Liturgy, and the Christian life that flows personally from the Liturgy. By His presence we are able to put off our old nature that is corrupt through deceitful lusts (according to S. Paul). By His presence we are able to be renewed in our minds, and thus able to put on the new nature. Christ’s presence transforms those who conceive Him in their heart and bear Him in their mind. Conceiving Christ in our heart and bearing Him in our mind is what S. Paul means by “learning Christ.”
I spoke last Sunday about the five ways Christ taught the Church to know His presence among them. First, in every baptized Christian (by virtue of their Baptism); second, in Scripture opened and proclaimed in worship; third, through His apostles, which was transferred to Bishops, Priests, and Deacons following in the apostolic tradition; fourth, in the Eucharist; (which means that there is a fifth way, in the Tabernacle in a church sanctuary). Therefore we can see that the Mass is a true abundance of Christ’s presence, which is why there is nothing else like the Mass in all human existence. The Mass is a banquet of Christ’s presence; Christ’s presence is a heavenly presence amid the conditions of time and space; thus to speak truly, the Mass is a heavenly banquet, a foretaste of heaven, a foretaste of life eternal.
The joy of the Gospel is recognizing Christ’s presence. And so that we could share this joy throughout our life, in a way that is communal, within a Christian community, shared by all who are baptized, young and old: Christ gave us the Eucharist, which He instituted when He chose bread and wine to be the means by which through divine consecration, which happens during every valid Mass, these simple offerings of bread and wine become the Precious Body and Blood of Christ. These are changed and transformed by the Holy Ghost during the Mass, because the bread and wine on the Altar are taken up into God, taken up into the heavenly realm. The very nature of the bread and wine are taken into God, and that which is taken into God is transformed into His nature. That which is taken into God becomes, in the words of Jesus, “the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man gives to us.” He gives it to us, because the Father gives us the true bread from heaven, the bread that gives life to the world. The bread and wine become His Body and Blood because Jesus said so.
For good reason did those who remained with Christ say, “Lord, give us this bread always.” For good reason, indeed! This bread gives life to the world. And it is not life of a mortal, changing, temporal kind. Rather, it is eternal life. Nothing but eternal life can come from the true bread from heaven. Nothing but eternal life can come from receiving the Eucharist. This is why the Eucharist is important; this is why the Eucharist is vital and a necessity to Christian life: it is the food which endures to eternal life.
Because of the importance and necessity of the Eucharist to Christian life, the Eucharist was one of the first things Christ revealed in His Resurrection. As His presence was known to the two disciples at Emmaus, He revealed Himself in the breaking of bread. The Church has always seen the importance, centrality, and necessity of the Eucharist since then, for why else would Christ choose to reveal the Eucharist at Emmaus on the first day of His resurrection unless it is basic and fundamental to living the resurrected life within the Church; basic and fundamental to perceiving His presence? His choice to reveal the Eucharist on the Day of His Resurrection itself shows the Church without question that the Eucharist is a requirement to attain eternal life. Christ is the Bread of Life, He tells us; He who comes to Christ shall not hunger, and He who believes in Christ shall never thirst; for Christ is the Bread of Life, Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
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