On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus broke bread and proclaimed it his body. He took the cup filled with wine and declared it his blood. Jesus entrusted the promise of eternal life to two of the essential and enjoyable human actions: eating and drinking. Jesus does not require special skills to attain eternal life. Rather he reveals the hope of everlasting joy in heaven from the ordinary fruits of the earth. Jesus' gifts of the bread and wine, his very body and blood, make the heavenly kingdom accessible to all who believe. Our regular partaking of the body and blood in the Eucharist strengthens us for the journey to heaven and draws us around a common table with others who believe in the power of Christ. The body and blood of Christ is entirely gift – a grace-filled meal. We cannot earn our place at the Eucharist table, nor can we lose our seat. Jesus sat among saints and sinners at the Last Supper and throughout his earthly ministry. He welcomed all to join in the feast and he continues that welcome to us today. We are invited to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation each week. Christ's body and blood serve as fuel so that we might go out and live into our God- given callings with energy and spirit. The grace broken and poured at the altar extends out into the world. Strengthened by Christ’s body and blood, we will enjoy the fullness of everlasting life with Christ. 

The Eucharist =The Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi is, in the Church in the United States, transferred to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday. Much of the rest of the world celebrated it last Thursday. The feast originated in the 13th century: St. Thomas Aquinas promoted it and Pope Urban IV promulgated it for the whole Church. 

Vatican II reminds us that the Holy Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen gentium, 11). St. Thomas, the “Angelic Doctor,” wanted to bolster faith in and gratitude for Jesus’ “Real Presence” — body and soul, humanity and divinity — in the Eucharist.

Are you surprised that St. Thomas wanted to stress Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist in the Middle Ages, a period many Catholics take as profusely religious and many non-Catholics still unjustly caricature as the epitome of superstition? 

Don’t be! The Eucharist has also been “the source and summit” of division even before it was instituted. When Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes, he does so not as part of “Jesus’ Plan for Food Relief” or even “Jesus’ Plan for Hospitality to Hungry People Without Access to Neighborhood Supermarkets.” Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes prefigures “the Bread that [he] will give you for the life of the world,” the segue into his Teaching on the Eucharist (John 6:25-70). “I am the living bread come down from heaven. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (6:51).

And what is the reaction to that teaching? It’s the first mass rejection of Jesus. “From this time on many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him” (6:66).

Does Jesus then “clarify” his Teaching? Does he propose a “dialogue” to “explain” himself? Does he suggest future potential communicants decide for themselves what they believe this “bread” to be? 

No. Without retracting a thing, Jesus simply asks the Apostles, his remaining disciples: “want to go, too?” Peter answers, “where to? You have the word of everlasting life” (6:68).

(We’ll revisit the Eucharist and especially John 6 later this summer, every Sunday from July 25 through Aug. 22.)

The Middle Ages had its Eucharistic heresies (e.g., Berengarius). The real division within Christianity occurred, however, in the Reformation. Against Catholic teaching, some Protestants (e.g., Luther) contended Jesus is “present” (whatever that meant for them) in the bread and wine (which rightly lead to Zwingli satirizing Luther’s “bread god”). 

Most Protestants insisted, contrary to John 6 (one of the few times they deny what Scripture plainly says), that the Eucharist is nothing more than bread and wine that reminds us of Jesus. For most Protestants, the Eucharist is not a change of the bread and wine (which are unchanged) but a change of me. Perhaps some Protestants also suggest there is some inchoate “spiritual change” in the bread and wine (whatever that means) but most do not even go that far. Anglicans generally are found somewhere along that sliding scale between some “spiritual change” and pure memorial.

I’ve previously written about the what and why of the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist (see here and here). I’ve also written about why our COVID-19 dispensation from the Sunday Mass obligation needs to end to defend the integrity of our Eucharistic theology. For those who would profit from a good but short book on the Eucharist, see here.

Suffice it to say, based on what has been written in this essay, that the Eucharist is the defining core of Catholic identity. To be a Catholic means to believe what the Church teaches and has consistently taught about the reality of the Eucharist. It’s not a “choice.” It’s not an “optional extra.” It’s an existential decision that defines one as a disciple of Jesus or not. There’s no fudge factor — just as there was not for Jesus himself.

The centrality of the Eucharist to what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a member of his Church is illustrated in today’s painting by Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish Baroque painter who lived at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. Rubens’ “Last Supper” captures the moment of Jesus’ institution of the sacrament. Jesus is at the center of the action. Holding the bread that will become his Body, he raises his eyes to heaven, gives thanks, and will give it to his disciples. The cup filled with wine awaits its turn at consecration. The centrality of the Eucharist is underscored by the table: it is the only element on and the only element visible on it, except for a candle. 

All 12 disciples are crowded around that table. The figures are typically Baroque: bold, colorful, virile, dynamic. They are also typically “Rubenesque,” i.e., big. Rubens’ body ideal was not lithe and willowy. The lightness of the Apostles’ faces and the color of their garments is contrasted to the otherwise dark surroundings, a typical Baroque device although not one perhaps purely coincidental to this scene, since John reminds us that when Judas left the gathering “it was night” (John 13:30), with all its physical and spiritual allusions. 

The most important feature of this painting for me are the eyes. Jesus raises his eyes to heaven, “to you, his almighty Father.” All the Apostles but two appear focused on Jesus, not each other. The eyes of the third Apostle on the left seem ambiguous: are they off somewhere in ecstatic mysticism, or are they looking towards us, drawing us into the picture? The eyes of the black-haired apostle immediately to Jesus’ left are looking at us. They draw us into the center of the picture, where the Eucharist is featured amid the bold primary colors of Jesus’ red and this Apostle’s blue and yellow clothing. 

I admit to a limited knowledge of art as to identify the Apostle. Since only Jesus has a halo, that route to identifying Judas is foreclosed. Is the disciple looking at me, his hand near his face, Judas wondering whether everybody is watching at him and asking “is it I?” Or is it Peter, leading us into Christ? Perhaps artistic commentaries and iconographic experts have an opinion: I prefer not to speculate.