Why insist on two Christian truths we already know well? Because there are Christians who do not believe that Mary is the Mother of God or that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist—and because delving into these sacred mysteries fills us with ineffable gratitude.
Mary is the Mother of God
For those who say that Mary is only the mother of her son, Jesus the man, but not the Mother of God, it suffices to recall the words of the Apostle St. Paul: “In him, in bodily form, lives divinity in all its fullness” (Col. 2:9). The body of Jesus cannot be separated from His Divinity. He is truly God and human at the same time; therefore, Mary is the Mother of God. This truth is exclaimed by her relative Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, when Mary, pregnant, greets her: “Why should I be honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord?” (Lk. 1:43).
The Divinity of Christ was Veiled from His Contemporaries
In the Incarnation of God the Son—in the Great Miracle—the one eternal, almighty, glorious God, transcendent to creation, creator of all that is visible and invisible, out of love, voluntarily condescends to time, space, and the human frailty of the unborn, to accomplish our salvation through His obedience unto death on the cross (Lk. 1:35-38).
This incarnation is something utterly unthinkable, something only God could accomplish, and a mystery we can only enter through faith. Let us rediscover our wonder at this mystery, allowing ourselves to be enveloped by the grandeur of this event. The God-Man was incarnated in the womb of Mary, full of grace, the only one overshadowed by the Holy Spirit when she willingly accepted the conception of the Son of the Most High within her, who is the Ark of the New Covenant.
Eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood
Jesus Christ gives an unequivocal command to have life in us, to abide in Him and He in us, and to live forever through Him—that is, to eat His flesh and drink His blood:
“I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus replied to them: “In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. As the living Father sent me and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me. This is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.” (Jn. 6:51-58)
Jesus Christ is the life-giving flesh and blood, which, when eaten and drunk with the faith of our hearts, our own mortal flesh receives the seed of the future resurrection, transforming us by assimilating the incorruptibility of the Risen One.
This command seemed impossible for His listeners to fulfill, although He had already given a clue: Jesus Christ is the living bread, come down from heaven, which can be eaten, although how is not yet specified.
The Institution of the Eucharist
At His Last Supper, on the eve of His Passion, when Christ Himself would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world with His paschal sacrifice, He made it clear to us that the bread and wine blessed by Christ are His selfsame body given up and His selfsame blood poured out for us in His Passion, to be eaten and drunk by His disciples:
Then he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” He did the same with the cup after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you.” (Lk. 22:19-20)
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples. “Take it and eat,” he said, “this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he handed it to them saying, “Drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mt. 26:26-28)
And as they were eating he took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them. “Take it,” he said, “this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he handed it to them, and all drank from it, and he said to them, “This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many.” (Mk. 14:22-24)
The living Christ is truly present in the bread and wine shared with His disciples, but in that bread and wine—in the ultimate degree of annihilation—not only is His divinity veiled, but also His humanity. His disciples, in that primary and constitutive liturgy, eating that bread and drinking that wine blessed and given by Christ, entered for the first time into sacramental communion with the Son of God, a communion that is an eschatological mystery and a pledge of eternal life.
The Command to Eat His Flesh and Drink His Blood Remains
For us, who were not at that Paschal Last Supper, the command to eat His flesh and drink His blood remains. That is why the first Christians “remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers” (Acts 2:42). (See also Acts 2:46; 20:7; 20:11; 27:35.)
St. Paul also fulfilled the command: “The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? And as there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we all share in the one loaf” (1 Cor. 10:16-17). He explains:
For the tradition I received from the Lord and also handed on to you is that on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and after he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” And in the same way, with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.” Whenever you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Cor. 11:23-26)
Today, when we visibly and regularly eat the consecrated bread and drink the consecrated wine, we eat His flesh and drink His blood, the greatest miracle of His Love. For the priest (1 Tim. 4:14) who presides at Mass, invoking the Holy Spirit upon the offerings and acting in persona Christi, by pronouncing the words “This is my body” and “This is the chalice of my blood,” consecrates the substances of bread and wine, which truly become the Body and Blood of Christ.
This is the invisible and effective Mystery of God in the Eucharist, the Sacrament of filial Love and Unity, which acts directly in our souls so that we may have life in Him, abide in Him and He in us, and live forever through Him. This Eucharistic sacrifice is offered today as it was then by Him, being the same and only sacrifice.
The Eucharist, the source and summit of all Christian life, satisfies the hunger for hope, the hunger for truth, and the hunger for salvation that we all feel, not in our stomachs, but in our human hearts. Likewise, it increases in us the awareness of the infinite dignity of every human as a beloved child of God.
From that last Passover Supper until the end of time, the Church is built up through this same communion with the Son of God, who is the pledge of eternal Easter. Blessed are those called to the Lord’s Supper.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
