Christ Receives Himself in the Eucharist?!

Aquinas makes an observation in his commentary on Hebrews which made me sit up and take notice, (probably because I tend to not notice what he, Thomas Aquinas, notices!)  He is speaking of Christ as a partaker of the same flesh and blood we are, and exploring what that means. 

He says: It included the possibility of suffering, because he assumed our nature capable of suffering. Because we are persons, then, we suffer. Suffering is built into our human nature as part of what we in substance are.  It is built into the flesh and blood of Christ too, since he shares our human nature. 

 So far so good, I found all of that logical and consistent. Christ, in his person, is the Word made flesh. So suffering is built into his nature. Fine. But then Thomas goes a step further. He says there is another way to understand how Christ is flesh and blood:

“By flesh and blood can also be understood the flesh and blood of Christ according to the statement:  he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood (John6:55)…of which the apostles partook at the Last Supper, and of which Christ partook, as Chrysostom expressly says about Matthew 26: he drank his own blood. Hence, with desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer." (Luke 22: 15) There is is. Chrysostom saw it, Matthew saw it. Luke saw it. Aquinas saw it. John saw it. How come I had read it a thousand times and I had never seen it? He  drank his own blood ! How can Aquinas toss off a gem like that so casually?

The two Scriptural quotations from Matthew and Luke amazed me. I had never thought about it that way. Christ went to communion along with his disciples at the Last Supper!  When he did that, he was eating his own flesh and blood, his humanity and divinity, in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But what did that mean? Why did he do that? What was the significance of the act for him?

(Questions suggest themselves once Thomas makes me sit up and take note. But answers never come as easily as questions. Even when they do come, they are not always right.)

I always thought the quote from Luke 22:15 cited by Thomas (with desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer) simply meant that Christ was eager to get into his suffering and death, perhaps eager to get it over with, or simply anxious to start things moving, for the sake of our redemption. Now it seemed to mean more.

How do Luke’s words help us understand why Christ would receive his own flesh and blood in Holy Communion? Our Lord does nothing without a purpose, we know that. The complete depths of his actions are beyond our limited understanding; we know that too.  He, the person, as well as his words and his acts, measure us: we don’t measure them. But we try to dig into them for all we can get, and beg that his grace stretch our minds and hearts so we can begin to receive what he is offering us.

What is he doing when he goes to communion with the disciples? We are what we eat, the truism says.  It looks like he is taking his sacrificial act, his outpouring of his life on the cross, and by eating it,  is accepting it, embracing it,  and surrendering to it. By consuming it, he makes it part of who he is, part of his human nature.  He is embedding it in his human nature so that when we and the disciples receive him in the Eucharistic Bread, he can embed his capacity of loving self sacrifice in us. Our Lord knows that being self-gift may come to him naturally because it is who he is supernaturally,  but self-giving is not something I am inclined to do by  my nature! 

Divine/human self-gift is how he is embodied in the Bread of Life. Certainly, he could not be giving himself in sacrifice without pouring out all that he is as the Father’s gift to us. But it is new for me to think of him receiving communion so he can embed that self giving act into his human flesh/bread, as a way of communicating it to us, and make us capable of living his sacrifice in our flesh. Yet it makes sense to me, because that is the only way I could ever even consider obeying his next, outrageously  impossible command at the Last Supper: ” Love one another as I have loved you.” 

Part Two: The Power of Prepositions

Prepositions are usually quiet, gentle, and unobtrusive. They slip by our eyes as easily as the breath from our mouths. That is why prepositions are a wonderful image of Grace in its many forms.  True, every once in a while, God’s Grace may illuminate us with the brilliance of a lightning bolt, or stun us like a brick striking our forehead, but in general the stirrings and promptings of grace are such gentle nudges  that we shrug them off as if they were distracting thoughts. Prepositions have that same quality of being able to light up our minds and knocking us off balance. But they do so only rarely.  If they did it all the time, they would no longer be the humble parts of speech that they are. They would morph into energetic verbs. 

 Take, for example, the prepositions “towards”, “away from”, and “against”.  Watch what happens if we emphasize them as verbs:  “I TOWARDS you”.  It is as if my whole being is impelling itself in your direction.  But the purpose is not specified. My motive could be to take you over or to unite with you. “I  AGAINST  you”.  It is as if I am opposing you with everything that is in me. “I AWAY FROM you”. I am absolutely shutting you out of my life. 

If we move on to use “through”, “with” and “in” as verbs, their pervasive power becomes even more penetrating.  “I THROUGH  you” implies that I penetrate and permeate you completely. “I WITH you” connotes a unity (perhaps even a fusion) that is an inseparable bonding. “I IN you” has the same intensity of oneness about it. Think of the force of the prepositions in the conclusion of the Eucharistic Prayer: “Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever.” A depth of meaning is contained in through, with and in.

Consider two connotations of through in relation to Christ: by way of, and during. By way of means our life here is a journey and Christ is the way through life, really the Thruway. As we get on a thruway at one end, and come out at the other, He is the only Way through to eternal Life. During means that for the entire duration of our lives on earth and in eternity where there is no duration. It is through Christ we are and endure, in Time and Eternity.  

With also carries various implications. Often “with” means nearness. It can be the nearness of associates who form a self-serving group, as the crowds that went with Our Lord because they wanted more food from him.  But it can also be the closeness of opposition, as when Christ struggles with temptation and fights with Satan during his time in the desert. In that context, with means against, and the closeness shows how far apart the antagonists are.

It is not hard to assert that “with” is the most humble of prepositions, and, because of that, the most exalted.  “With” is the preposition of the Incarnation: “Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means ‘God-is-with-us’.” (Matthew 1:23) What could be a more simple way of naming the infinite humility in God than by saying He became one of his own creatures? What author would jump into his book, or artist into his picture? “With” is also the preposition of the Eucharist and the Church, Christ’s way of continuing his humble presence with us until the end of the world.  

Since humility is the way to glory, it is no wonder that with is meant to express our union in God’s divine Life. Our Lord says to the penitent thief, “…today you will be with me in Paradise”. (John 23:43)  The God who suffers with us in our flesh, calls us to be with Him as his new creation in heaven. Speaking of the heavenly Jerusalem, Scripture says, “Behold the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.”  (Revelations 21:2-3) The triple with in that passage means God holds his people in the closest embrace and fills them with his very self. Those three withs encapsulate what it means for God “to be all in all”. “With” is the preposition of all the happiness, harmony, friendship,  interdependence, and fulfillment that heaven implies.

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