The feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, which the Church celebrates today, makes me recall the wonderful verse from the letter to the Hebrews: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever” (Heb 13:8). The late Cardinal Archbishop of New York, John Joseph O’Connor, explained it so well in connection with the Eucharist: “The Christ of Bethlehem is the Christ of Galilee, is the Christ of the Crucifixion, is the Christ of the Resurrection, is the Christ of the Eucharist.”

While it is true that Christ’s presence is witnessed in many ways such as when two or three are gathered in His name He is in their midst; when God’s Word is proclaimed, or when the priest celebrates any sacrament “in persona Christi”; the full, intensive, substantive and abiding presence of Our Lord is deeply present whenever the Eucharistic sacrifice is celebrated. Thus, Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity become the source of the communicant’s spiritual life and holiness.

Adding to this, while the Eucharistic accidents of bread and wine remain intact, their essence is totally changed into the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The Church describes this supernatural process, thanks to which the gifts of bread and wine are entirely and intrinsically changed into the very presence of Christ, as Transubstantiation. In other words, while the appearance of bread and wine seems to be unchanged yet their substance has been totally and entirely changed into the true substance of Jesus Christ. This unexplainable action happens during the Eucharist liturgy, particularly during the priest’s consecratory prayer and immediately after the Epiclesis, when the priest invokes the Holy Spirit on the Eucharistic bread and wine.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers a succinctly neat explanation of Christ’s singularly total presence in the greatest sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. “The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as ‘the perfection of the spiritual life, and the end to which all sacraments tend’. In the most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ, is truly, really, and substantially contained’. This presence is called ‘real’– by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence, as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present” (§1374).

What are the wonderful consequences of the Eucharist when it is received in Holy Communion? The first consequence is the intimate union that it brings about with Jesus Christ. Furthermore, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, the Eucharist “preserves, increases and renews the life of grace received at Baptism” (§1391).

As our physical bodies need their food to be fed, fortified and renewed, likewise our souls crave for their Eucharistic spiritual food to be fed, fortified, restored and renewed by the divine life that they receive from this sublime sacrament.

Secondly, as the Catechism rightly observes, “the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without, at the same time, cleansing us from past sins, and preserving us from future sins” (§1393).  The reception of the Eucharist augments our capacity to love altruistically and forgives our venial sins. Besides renewing our charity the Eucharist intensifies our personal and ecclesial relationship with Jesus Christ.

When we receive it with a contrite heart Christ’s divine life becomes ours too. Also, the Eucharist offers us sound protection against mortal sin.

The Eucharist builds us up as Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church. It unites us through charity with Christ, the Head of the Body, and with the other members of his Body. As First Corinthians states: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:17).

What is keeping me away from receiving such a pre-eminent sacrament?

Can I dedicate sometime to adore the Eucharistic Jesus daily?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

SAN GWANN