# The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist - Bishop Barron Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 11 Aug 2026, 1 h 13 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73187222/the_real_presence_of_jesus_in_the_eucharist_bishop_barron_at_2020_religious_education_congress.mp3



## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Thanks very much. Thanks well, thank you very much for that,
[0:09] Speaker 1: and good morning to everybody. Always always a joy to
[0:13] Speaker 1: be here in the arena. I first started coming to
[0:16] Speaker 1: this Congress back in nineteen ninety seven. I'm becoming a
[0:19] Speaker 1: very old man, and it's always a joy to come back.
[0:23] Speaker 1: It's one of the great events, as you know, in
[0:24] Speaker 1: the whole year of the Catholic Church. So thanks for coming,
[0:28] Speaker 1: and thanks for coming for this specific talk. You know,
[0:34] Speaker 1: I wasn't intending to speak on my topic today, so
[0:37] Speaker 1: even a few months ago I had some other topic
[0:39] Speaker 1: of mind, which frankly I forget. And then that Pew
[0:43] Speaker 1: Forum study came out that told us that seventy percent
[0:48] Speaker 1: of Catholics don't believe in the real presence of Jesus
[0:52] Speaker 1: and the Eucharist. Seventy percent of Catholics, mind you, not
[0:56] Speaker 1: the general population, but Catholics say that Jesus is only
[1:00] Speaker 1: symbolically present in the bread and the wine. Well, when
[1:03] Speaker 1: I read that survey, I called my assistant and said,
[1:07] Speaker 1: call the Congress right away, tell them I'm changing my topic.
[1:11] Speaker 1: I'm speaking on the real presence. So thank you. See
[1:20] Speaker 1: here's the thing, everybody, one of the two or three
[1:24] Speaker 1: most famous one liners of Vatican two is that the
[1:28] Speaker 1: Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life, right,
[1:33] Speaker 1: I mean, one of the great lines of the Second
[1:35] Speaker 1: Vatican Council. It's the beginning and the end. There's a
[1:40] Speaker 1: be all and end all quality to the Eucharist. It's
[1:42] Speaker 1: where it all comes from, where it's all tending. And
[1:47] Speaker 1: if now, what fifty some years after the end of
[1:49] Speaker 1: the Council, seventy percent of our own people don't understand
[1:54] Speaker 1: the meaning of the Eucharist, well, Anaheim, we have a problem.
[2:00] Speaker 1: As I'm addressing this giant arena full of teachers and
[2:04] Speaker 1: preachers and evangelists and catochists. Something everybody has gone off
[2:09] Speaker 1: the rails here. So that's why I wanted to address
[2:13] Speaker 1: this issue today with you, and you know, just in
[2:15] Speaker 1: the brief time we have, I'll do a little sketch.
[2:19] Speaker 1: First of all, a couple of images for you. This
[2:22] Speaker 1: is all maybe ten years ago or so. I was
[2:24] Speaker 1: in Rome for Easter and I went down to Saint
[2:26] Speaker 1: Peter's to con celebrate the Great Papal Mass. Somehow I
[2:31] Speaker 1: thought this would be a little better organized. I was,
[2:34] Speaker 1: you know, distributing community to this huge crowd. I thought
[2:37] Speaker 1: they'd say, when you go, you know, right there and
[2:39] Speaker 1: you stand. I remember the I was sort of standing
[2:42] Speaker 1: with the ciborium, and the MC went like this, like
[2:47] Speaker 1: just go so off. I sort of waded into this
[2:51] Speaker 1: great crowd and I had the bus a sacrament, and
[2:55] Speaker 1: as I'm distributing, you know, body of Christ, I think
[2:57] Speaker 1: I was saying, Corpus Christie because all the different languge
[3:00] Speaker 1: Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi. The hands began to stretch out
[3:04] Speaker 1: to me and people began to shout, you know, patherre
[3:08] Speaker 1: pet favor, pet favor, pare please please. Now I'll grant you.
[3:14] Speaker 1: Some of this is Italian melodrama, you know. I mean,
[3:17] Speaker 1: it's no accident that the opera began in Italy, right,
[3:21] Speaker 1: But nevertheless, I was always struck that that gesture in
[3:27] Speaker 1: that style is entirely appropriate. If we're just dealing with
[3:32] Speaker 1: a bland symbol who cares. But somehow those good people
[3:38] Speaker 1: from all over the world sensed there's something here of
[3:43] Speaker 1: crucial significance. There is a food here that I can't
[3:47] Speaker 1: get anywhere else, and so please please, like a starving person.
[3:53] Speaker 1: Best strikes me as an appropriate reaction. To the Eucharist.
[3:58] Speaker 1: Here's a second image from Ronald Knox, the great twentieth
[4:02] Speaker 1: century of theologian an apologist. Knock said something which has
[4:07] Speaker 1: always struck me. He said, Let's face it, ninety nine
[4:11] Speaker 1: percent of Jesus' commands are obeyed at best, the in
[4:15] Speaker 1: the breach right. So love your neighbor, love your enemy,
[4:20] Speaker 1: pray for those who curse you, turn the other cheek.
[4:23] Speaker 1: I mean, let's face it, most of us disobey jesus
[4:26] Speaker 1: commands most of the time. But Ronald Knock said, strangely,
[4:32] Speaker 1: there is one command of Jesus that has been massively
[4:37] Speaker 1: followed up and down the centuries. Despite our sin, despite
[4:42] Speaker 1: our stupidity, despite all of our weakness and failure. Somehow
[4:46] Speaker 1: the command do this in memory of Me has been followed,
[4:52] Speaker 1: hasn't it. It's as though Christ himself realized that I
[4:56] Speaker 1: just have to intervene and make sure these people do this.
[4:58] Speaker 1: You know that this is so central to what it
[5:01] Speaker 1: means to be a disciple of mine. Do this in
[5:04] Speaker 1: memory of Me? Despite everything, we do it. And a
[5:09] Speaker 1: third little vignette or a little image, And I'm sure
[5:11] Speaker 1: by now everyone knows this story. One of my great
[5:15] Speaker 1: hero is Flannery O'Connor, I think the greatest Catholic fiction
[5:18] Speaker 1: writer of the last century. When she's a very young woman,
[5:22] Speaker 1: is out for dinner with Mary McCarthy and other big
[5:25] Speaker 1: time New York writers. And she was a young woman,
[5:29] Speaker 1: shy by nature, and she felt totally overwhelmed by this company.
[5:34] Speaker 1: She said, I felt like a dog who knows one
[5:37] Speaker 1: trick but had forgotten it. So the conversation is going on,
[5:41] Speaker 1: and Mary McCarthy, who was a lapsed Catholic, but she
[5:44] Speaker 1: was trying to draw O'Connor into the conversation. She knew
[5:47] Speaker 1: she was a Catholic. She said to her, you know,
[5:49] Speaker 1: I think the Eucharist is a wonderful symbol, to which
[5:55] Speaker 1: Flannerial O'Connor responded, as, you well know, if it's only
[5:58] Speaker 1: a symbol, to hell with it. And that qualifies her,
[6:04] Speaker 1: in my judgment, as one of the great eucharistic theologians
[6:07] Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Now, mind you, sometimes you'll hear
[6:12] Speaker 1: people say, oh, you know, people that say things like
[6:15] Speaker 1: that don't understand the power of symbolism. Not in her case,
[6:20] Speaker 1: are you kidding? Flanner O'Connor, one of the great symbolic
[6:23] Speaker 1: masters of the twentieth century. Read a good Man is
[6:26] Speaker 1: hard to find. Read Parker's back, Read Revelation, Read all
[6:30] Speaker 1: that rises, must converge all her great novels and stories.
[6:34] Speaker 1: She fully knows the power and import of symbolic language.
[6:39] Speaker 1: She knows how to create symbols, how to use them,
[6:41] Speaker 1: She knows the effects they have. She knew all about symbolism.
[6:48] Speaker 1: And yet she says, if that's all it is, to
[6:53] Speaker 1: hell with it. She gives voice there everybody to something
[6:57] Speaker 1: which is absolutely universal in our great tradition, across space
[7:04] Speaker 1: and across time. There's something more in the Eucharist than
[7:09] Speaker 1: the merely symbolic. And so the seventy percent of people
[7:14] Speaker 1: of Catholics in our pure Forum study, we got a
[7:18] Speaker 1: problem if we're not teaching this truth. Okay, So here's
[7:23] Speaker 1: what I propose to do in the brief time we have.
[7:26] Speaker 1: I want to kind of walk us. That'll be a
[7:28] Speaker 1: quick enough walk through some main points in our great
[7:32] Speaker 1: tradition to try to show you that there is a
[7:36] Speaker 1: golden thread that runs from the Bible up to our
[7:40] Speaker 1: time affirming the reality of Jesus' presence in the eucharst
[7:46] Speaker 1: I'm going to start, as I think all theology should start,
[7:49] Speaker 1: with the Bible, John chapter six. I'm then going to
[7:53] Speaker 1: move forward to a very brief look at some of
[7:56] Speaker 1: the Church fathers from the second to the fifth centuries.
[8:00] Speaker 1: Then I'm going to skip to the eleventh century and
[8:03] Speaker 1: the debate around Berengarius. I'll get there, it's very important
[8:07] Speaker 1: to understand our own time. Then I'll skip forward two
[8:10] Speaker 1: more centuries to Saint Thomas Aquinas and his account of
[8:14] Speaker 1: the Eucharist, then a brief look three centuries later at
[8:17] Speaker 1: the Council of Trends, and then finally I'll go to
[8:21] Speaker 1: the twentieth century to Saint Paul Paul six and his
[8:26] Speaker 1: ringing affirmation of the real presence that took place during
[8:30] Speaker 1: the last session of the Second Vatican Council. And then
[8:33] Speaker 1: at the very end, what I'll do, having seen the
[8:37] Speaker 1: steadiness of this teaching, try to give you a framework
[8:41] Speaker 1: for understanding it. Okay, Now, as you can sense from this,
[8:46] Speaker 1: we're going to do a little intellectual work this morning.
[8:48] Speaker 1: And you know what, catechists and teachers and preachers, we
[8:52] Speaker 1: need to do some intellectual work on this thing. There
[8:56] Speaker 1: are a lot of reasons for this seventy percent tragedy.
[9:00] Speaker 1: But at least one of them is we have not
[9:03] Speaker 1: been very effective at explaining laying out this great teaching.
[9:08] Speaker 1: So let's do a little work this morning. If there's water,
[9:12] Speaker 1: there is good. Okay. Let's start with the Bible. The
[9:22] Speaker 1: great text, it seems to me, in the New Testament
[9:24] Speaker 1: on our issue is John chapter six. John chapter six,
[9:28] Speaker 1: as you know, is a kind of masterpiece within the masterpiece,
[9:33] Speaker 1: just as for example, Luke twenty four I think, is
[9:36] Speaker 1: a little gem within the overall masterpiece of Luke's Gospel.
[9:41] Speaker 1: So the sixth chapter of John, I think has that quality.
[9:45] Speaker 1: What do we hear? First? We hear of the compelling
[9:51] Speaker 1: and magnetic power of the presence of Jesus. Listen, Jesus
[9:59] Speaker 1: went across this of Galilee. A large crowd followed him
[10:04] Speaker 1: because they saw the signs he was performing on the
[10:07] Speaker 1: sick padre per favorore, please please give me the body
[10:15] Speaker 1: and blood of Christ. There's something everybody always compelling about
[10:20] Speaker 1: the authentic Christ, and we see it here. What comes next.
[10:26] Speaker 1: Jesus goes up on a mountaintop. Now, any biblically alert
[10:30] Speaker 1: person knows when we're talking about mountains we're talking about
[10:34] Speaker 1: a place of intense encounter right where we go up
[10:38] Speaker 1: God comes down the mountains, the meeting place of divinity
[10:42] Speaker 1: and humanity what's being described here at the beginning of
[10:46] Speaker 1: John six. But the mass that place, the most intense
[10:51] Speaker 1: encounter between us and the Lord. Jesus on the Holy
[10:55] Speaker 1: Mountain sits down and his disciples gather round him. Sitting
[11:01] Speaker 1: in the ancient world was the posture of a teacher,
[11:04] Speaker 1: wasn't it. So we think of a teacher standing at
[11:06] Speaker 1: a podium like this, But in the ancient world, the
[11:09] Speaker 1: teacher would sit and the students would literally be at
[11:13] Speaker 1: his feet. That's where that comes from. So Jesus sitting
[11:17] Speaker 1: on the Holy Mountain. Is Jesus now teaching? When does
[11:22] Speaker 1: this happen every time we gather for the liturgy of
[11:27] Speaker 1: the Word. Is Jesus the teacher once again gathering his
[11:31] Speaker 1: disciples at his feet and teaching them? But what comes next?
[11:37] Speaker 1: We hear that Jesus looks up and he sees this great,
[11:42] Speaker 1: hungry crowd, And so we asked the disciples famously, you
[11:47] Speaker 1: know what do you have? And they bring this little
[11:49] Speaker 1: pittance forward, and then Jesus multiplies it unto the feeding
[11:53] Speaker 1: of that giant crowd. What's this but the liturgy of
[11:58] Speaker 1: the Eucharist. Jesus wants to teach us, yes, indeed, but
[12:02] Speaker 1: more profoundly, he wants to feed us. How's he do
[12:07] Speaker 1: it beautifully by taking a little pittance that we have.
[12:12] Speaker 1: Think of the gifts coming up at the offeratory, right,
[12:14] Speaker 1: his little tiny bit. If you set that in front
[12:17] Speaker 1: of someone as physical food, it would maybe be a
[12:20] Speaker 1: light meal for one person. But yet when that little
[12:24] Speaker 1: pittance is given to him, he can elevate it and
[12:29] Speaker 1: multiply it under the spiritual feeding of the world. There's
[12:33] Speaker 1: the liturgy of the Eucharist, Jesus feeding us with his
[12:37] Speaker 1: body and blood. And then, as we know beautifully, the
[12:40] Speaker 1: twelve baskets of fragments left over the twelve tribes of Israel,
[12:46] Speaker 1: the twelve months of the year twelve is a number
[12:49] Speaker 1: of fulfillment, of completion. This is the food that will
[12:53] Speaker 1: satisfy the hunger of the world. That's the point. And
[12:57] Speaker 1: also the gathering up of the fragments is reminiscent of
[13:00] Speaker 1: the liturgical celebration, so a beautifully laid out kind of
[13:05] Speaker 1: icon of the mass, the liturgy of the Word, the
[13:08] Speaker 1: liturgy of the Eucharist. Jesus then walks on the water.
[13:13] Speaker 1: We can say a lot more about that, But he
[13:16] Speaker 1: comes to the town of Capartum, enters the synagogue there,
[13:20] Speaker 1: and the people come after him because they're so taken
[13:22] Speaker 1: by the multiplication of the loaves. And then he begins
[13:27] Speaker 1: to teach again about the meaning of this spiritual food.
[13:36] Speaker 1: What do we find? He says, don't hunger for these
[13:43] Speaker 1: passing loaves of bread from yesterday, but rather hunger for
[13:48] Speaker 1: the food that lasts, for eternal life. It's John six
[13:52] Speaker 1: point twenty seven, echoing, of course, two chapters previous and
[13:57] Speaker 1: John four, the story of the woman at the well.
[14:00] Speaker 1: You come to this well every day you drink, and
[14:03] Speaker 1: you get thirsty. I want to give you water bubbling
[14:06] Speaker 1: up in you to eternal life. So it's echoed here
[14:09] Speaker 1: in John six hunger for the bread of eternal life,
[14:16] Speaker 1: than this John six thirty five. I am the bread
[14:20] Speaker 1: of life. Those who come to me will never be hungry.
[14:26] Speaker 1: Those who believe in me will never be thirsty. And
[14:30] Speaker 1: then making it even more explicit, listen now, everybody, I
[14:37] Speaker 1: am the living bread come down from heaven. If you
[14:41] Speaker 1: eat this bread, you will live forever. The bread that
[14:46] Speaker 1: I will give you is my flesh for the life
[14:52] Speaker 1: of the world. The bread that I will give you
[14:56] Speaker 1: is my flesh for the life of the world. Now, now,
[15:04] Speaker 1: lest you think controversy about the Eucharist is a new thing,
[15:08] Speaker 1: right away the crowd balks at this language. Listen, how
[15:14] Speaker 1: can this man give us his flesh to eat? Now,
[15:18] Speaker 1: mind you, there's good reason for balking at this teaching
[15:22] Speaker 1: if you're a first century Jew, because scattered throughout the
[15:26] Speaker 1: Old Testament, I can show you numerous texts are prohibitions
[15:32] Speaker 1: against the eating of an animal's flesh with blood. Right,
[15:36] Speaker 1: blood is life, and so you don't eat the flesh
[15:38] Speaker 1: with blood. It was strictly verboten, strictly forbidden. And this
[15:45] Speaker 1: man is saying, eat my flesh and my blood. And
[15:51] Speaker 1: this is not only gross, it's theologically objectionable to the
[15:55] Speaker 1: highest degree. And hence they balk. Given therefore every opportunity
[16:06] Speaker 1: to soften his teaching, to propose a more symbolic or
[16:11] Speaker 1: metaphorical reading. What does Jesus say, A man, amen, I
[16:19] Speaker 1: say to you. So, in other words, don't miss this,
[16:22] Speaker 1: a man, amen, I say to you. This is serious stuff.
[16:24] Speaker 1: Com up unless you eat the flesh of the son
[16:30] Speaker 1: of man and drink his blood. You have no life
[16:34] Speaker 1: in you, and then just to rub it in for
[16:38] Speaker 1: my flesh is real food, my blood is real drink. Now,
[16:48] Speaker 1: the scholars point out to us something really interesting about this.
[16:52] Speaker 1: The usual Greek word for the way human beings eat
[16:55] Speaker 1: is fog gain, means to eat, like the way you'd
[16:59] Speaker 1: gather around a table to eat. Jesus doesn't use that verb. Now,
[17:04] Speaker 1: remember he's been challenged people say this is gross. What
[17:07] Speaker 1: you're saying, it's objectionable. He's got every opportunity to soften
[17:12] Speaker 1: the language, but instead he turns up the heat unless
[17:19] Speaker 1: you and the verb he uses is trogain. You know,
[17:24] Speaker 1: trogane means in Greek naw. Trogun is the way an
[17:28] Speaker 1: animal eats naw on earth, to gnaw onrush a front
[17:33] Speaker 1: of man and drink his blood. You've got no life
[17:36] Speaker 1: in you, and my flesh is real food. My blood
[17:39] Speaker 1: is real drink. Ay yayay, there's serious stuff here. Huh.
[17:46] Speaker 1: This is something really strange going on. Now, you're a
[17:51] Speaker 1: first century Jew, you're aware of the great scriptural tradition.
[17:56] Speaker 1: What are you aware of? Symbolic talk symbolic talk all
[18:01] Speaker 1: through the scriptures, right in the Psalms and in the prophets.
[18:05] Speaker 1: Think even of the symbolic actions of the prophets, you know,
[18:09] Speaker 1: when God tells Ezekiel or Jseiah or Jeremiah to do
[18:12] Speaker 1: some funny thing, and then he then he explains the
[18:15] Speaker 1: spiritual meaning of it. Right, They knew all about symbolism.
[18:20] Speaker 1: So if all he's saying here is well, you know, yeah,
[18:24] Speaker 1: just that you take in bread and wine, so you
[18:26] Speaker 1: kind of take in my teaching, or you take in
[18:28] Speaker 1: my inspiration. It's like that, it's a symbol I mean,
[18:32] Speaker 1: who wouldn't get that? Who wouldn't find that? You know,
[18:36] Speaker 1: easy to understand. But when he lays this thing out
[18:41] Speaker 1: the way he does, what do we hear? Because of this,
[18:47] Speaker 1: many of Jesus' followers turned back and would not go
[18:52] Speaker 1: with him anymore. And then that moment. I think, it's
[18:57] Speaker 1: something almost frightening to me about this moment. So he
[19:00] Speaker 1: asked the twelve and you would you also like to leave?
[19:07] Speaker 1: This is a kind of standing and falling point, isn't it.
[19:11] Speaker 1: This teaching is like a watershed. It has been from
[19:16] Speaker 1: John six until the Pew Forum study a stumbling block,
[19:22] Speaker 1: a point of division, a kind of either you're with
[19:26] Speaker 1: me or against me moment, isn't it now? As many
[19:29] Speaker 1: point out, is this just a weird coincidence or a
[19:32] Speaker 1: strange bit of providence? What verse is that that I
[19:36] Speaker 1: just read? It's John six sixty six. It's John chapter six,
[19:43] Speaker 1: verse sixty six. Again, you know, we didn't have chapter
[19:46] Speaker 1: verse when this thing was written, but that's the way
[19:48] Speaker 1: it worked out. My point is, if this was just
[19:52] Speaker 1: symbol talk, I don't see why anybody would be all
[19:55] Speaker 1: that upset about it, why they'd storm away in protests.
[20:00] Speaker 1: But see, Jesus doesn't compromise or soften it or give in.
[20:05] Speaker 1: He says, yeah, okay, are you going to leave me too?
[20:10] Speaker 1: That's John six. I think everybody along the course with
[20:14] Speaker 1: the institution narratives, it's the great ground for the Catholic
[20:19] Speaker 1: insistence upon what we call the real presence of Jesus
[20:24] Speaker 1: in the Eucharist. This is not some later invention. The
[20:27] Speaker 1: roots of it are right here in the Gospel of John. Okay,
[20:33] Speaker 1: So from the first century, let's do a very very
[20:36] Speaker 1: rapid just a few minutes. I'm going to present to
[20:39] Speaker 1: you a little series of texts from the Church fathers.
[20:45] Speaker 1: Lest we're tempted to say, oh, you know this real
[20:48] Speaker 1: presence stuff that's later medieval, you know, theology, But the
[20:52] Speaker 1: early Church people didn't believe that. Take a look at
[20:55] Speaker 1: Saint Ignation of Antioch. Of course, very early figure worn
[21:00] Speaker 1: around theear thirty five, died in one oh eight. So
[21:03] Speaker 1: here's someone that knew the apostles the earliest level. Here's
[21:07] Speaker 1: what he says in this letter to the Simyrnians. The
[21:11] Speaker 1: doseids abstained from the Eucharist and from prayer because they
[21:15] Speaker 1: do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of
[21:20] Speaker 1: our savior, Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins,
[21:26] Speaker 1: and which the Father, in his graciousness, raised from the dead.
[21:30] Speaker 1: I don't know if you get any clearer than that.
[21:33] Speaker 1: How about Saint Justin the Martyr just a little bit later,
[21:36] Speaker 1: he dies in the year one sixty five, and I've
[21:39] Speaker 1: got kind of a longer quote. I'll just read a
[21:40] Speaker 1: little bit of it. Justin says, for not as common
[21:46] Speaker 1: bread nor common drink do we receive these the Eucharistic elements.
[21:52] Speaker 1: But since Jesus Christ, our Savior, was made incarnate by
[21:55] Speaker 1: the Word of God and had both flesh and blood
[21:58] Speaker 1: for our salvation, so that as we have been taught
[22:01] Speaker 1: the food which has been made into the Eucharist by
[22:04] Speaker 1: the eucharistic prayer, and by the change in which our
[22:08] Speaker 1: blood and flesh is nurtured, both the flesh and blood
[22:12] Speaker 1: of that incarnated Jesus are present. Now, I'll grant you
[22:17] Speaker 1: that's not a really elegantly formulated sentence, but you get
[22:20] Speaker 1: the idea of the dense reality of the eucharistic change.
[22:26] Speaker 1: Let me skip to origin of Alexandria. So we're now
[22:29] Speaker 1: in the early third century, and that lovely quote from
[22:32] Speaker 1: his homily on the Book of Exodus. He says, you're
[22:38] Speaker 1: accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries. So you
[22:41] Speaker 1: know how, when you've received the body of the Lord,
[22:44] Speaker 1: you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall,
[22:50] Speaker 1: and lest anything of this consecrated gift perish. I mean,
[22:54] Speaker 1: why would someone treat a mere symbol with that kind
[22:58] Speaker 1: of attention. Show respect to a symbolic object, but that
[23:04] Speaker 1: kind of almost obsessive care about the particular crumb falling
[23:10] Speaker 1: from the eucharistic species. That's someone that believes in the
[23:14] Speaker 1: reality of the presence. How about this now from the
[23:17] Speaker 1: Great Gregory of Nissa. The bread again is at first
[23:22] Speaker 1: common bread, but when the mystery sanctifies it, it is
[23:28] Speaker 1: called and actually becomes the body of Christ. How about
[23:36] Speaker 1: this from Saint John Christistom. What is the bread but
[23:42] Speaker 1: the body of Christ? What do they become who partake
[23:46] Speaker 1: of it? The body of Christ? Not many bodies, but
[23:51] Speaker 1: one body. Now that's a beautiful thing. Everybody in all
[23:54] Speaker 1: the church, fathers, you can see it. The Eucharist is
[23:57] Speaker 1: the means by which we are Christ. And they mean that.
[24:02] Speaker 1: Look in both a body and soul sense. I mean,
[24:07] Speaker 1: are our minds and hearts and souls christified? Yes, but
[24:11] Speaker 1: our bodies are christified. Our lowly bodies are prepared for
[24:17] Speaker 1: heaven by our contact with the reality of the body
[24:22] Speaker 1: and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Okay, that's just
[24:25] Speaker 1: a little little tiny glance at the church, fathers, to
[24:29] Speaker 1: show you that what commences in John's six is borne
[24:34] Speaker 1: by the early Church in an unambiguous way. Okay, with that,
[24:42] Speaker 1: I'm going to leap forward now a few more centuries
[24:47] Speaker 1: to the eleventh century. I'm now moving into France and
[24:53] Speaker 1: specifically the town of Tour, central France, is kind of
[24:57] Speaker 1: southwest of Paris. I want to look at this figure,
[25:02] Speaker 1: Baron Garius of Tour, now not a household name, but
[25:07] Speaker 1: yet trust me when I tell you seventy percent of
[25:10] Speaker 1: our own Catholic brothers and sisters interviewed by that Pew
[25:14] Speaker 1: Form study. We're basically hanging on to a Berengarian understanding
[25:20] Speaker 1: of the Eucharist. So it's important for us to go
[25:22] Speaker 1: back and take a look at this view. Berengarius was
[25:27] Speaker 1: the head of the Cathedral School of Tour, So the
[25:31] Speaker 1: great cathedral schools of Paris and Shars and Tour and
[25:35] Speaker 1: other places were the root of most of the medieval universities.
[25:40] Speaker 1: We're now in the early stage of the Middle Ages,
[25:43] Speaker 1: and Berengarius is the director of this prominent school of Tour.
[25:49] Speaker 1: Like a lot of his medieval colleagues, Berengarius is very
[25:52] Speaker 1: interested in questions of language and logic and rhetoric. So
[25:58] Speaker 1: you see this coming up through people like Thomas Aquinas
[26:00] Speaker 1: later is a hyper concern forgetting the language right. And
[26:06] Speaker 1: again we shouldn't despise that that's part of our great tradition.
[26:09] Speaker 1: As people are reflecting intellectually on the implications of faith.
[26:14] Speaker 1: They make these distinctions and clarification, so we shouldn't eschew
[26:18] Speaker 1: that as though that's something wrong. Berengarius is trying to
[26:22] Speaker 1: be clear about the Eucharist. So here's the position he
[26:27] Speaker 1: lays out. There is a difference, he says, between the
[26:34] Speaker 1: historical body of Jesus, born of the Virgin and now
[26:38] Speaker 1: reigning in heaven, and the body that appears sacramentally in
[26:44] Speaker 1: the Eucharist. The latter must be a sort of symbol
[26:49] Speaker 1: or figure of the former. Okay, pretty clear. Huh. There's
[26:55] Speaker 1: the body of Jesus born of Mary Crucifi died, is
[27:00] Speaker 1: it from the dead, ascended now in heaven. There's that body.
[27:04] Speaker 1: Then there's this body that appears eucharistically, and it's best
[27:11] Speaker 1: construed as a symbol, a sign, or a figure of
[27:16] Speaker 1: the heavenly body of Jesus. Yeah. Clear, that's there's something
[27:20] Speaker 1: always attractive about it, because it's it's kind of common
[27:24] Speaker 1: that experience. What's his scriptural warrant. It's Paul's claim in
[27:31] Speaker 1: Second Corinthians quote, even if we have known Christ according
[27:35] Speaker 1: to the flesh, henceforth we know him no more so?
[27:39] Speaker 1: All right, way back when people knew him in the
[27:41] Speaker 1: flesh and his body. And I guess now in heaven
[27:44] Speaker 1: maybe the angels know him in his body, but we
[27:46] Speaker 1: don't know him that way anymore. We have signs and
[27:49] Speaker 1: symbols of his presence. Hence Berengarius says, when the priest
[27:56] Speaker 1: says it mass hawk ast anem corpus mayhem, you know
[28:00] Speaker 1: this indeed is my body, the hawk in question. The
[28:05] Speaker 1: this remains the bread, and something is added to it,
[28:12] Speaker 1: namely a sort of spiritual or symbolic significance, making it
[28:18] Speaker 1: a sign of Jesus' body. Okay, yeah, clear, I get
[28:23] Speaker 1: that's that's clear symbolic sort of talk. One can say.
[28:29] Speaker 1: Berengarius goes on that Christ is really present, because I
[28:33] Speaker 1: just mean he's spiritually present. Now, this view was propagated
[28:42] Speaker 1: by Berengarius, it was much debated. Many people joined him,
[28:47] Speaker 1: but there was a fellow who opposed him. Again not
[28:50] Speaker 1: a household name. His name was nau Frment of Beck.
[28:54] Speaker 1: Now lau Frment was the teacher of someone who is
[28:57] Speaker 1: a household name, namely Saint Ensel. So you see the
[29:00] Speaker 1: period we're in. So Noaulfman was a teacher of Anselm.
[29:03] Speaker 1: Like Anselm, he was our specially of Canterbury at the
[29:06] Speaker 1: end of his life. Anyway, Loelfman listened to Berengarius and
[29:13] Speaker 1: he said, no, that's not enough. That's not a sufficient account,
[29:23] Speaker 1: grounded as he was of the fathers, grounded as he
[29:26] Speaker 1: was in John chapter six. Laulfman of Beck said no, no, no,
[29:31] Speaker 1: that's not an adequate account of the eucharistic presence. And
[29:36] Speaker 1: so there were a series of councils and gatherings. The
[29:39] Speaker 1: debate went on, and finally in ten fifty nine. By
[29:46] Speaker 1: the way, Berengarius is eleventh century, born about ten ten
[29:49] Speaker 1: Dies ten to eighty eight, just to give you the
[29:51] Speaker 1: time period. In ten fifty nine a council was held.
[29:56] Speaker 1: Berengarius's view is condemned, and he's made to swear this oath.
[30:02] Speaker 1: Here's part of it. The bread and wine which are
[30:07] Speaker 1: placed on the altar are after the consecration, not only
[30:13] Speaker 1: a sacrament, but the true body and blood of our
[30:18] Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ. So Berengarius himself is made to swear
[30:23] Speaker 1: that oath. This everybody is a neurologic point, and it's
[30:29] Speaker 1: a point of demarcation in this great debate. What are
[30:33] Speaker 1: we talking about after the consecration? As we look at
[30:39] Speaker 1: the elements on the altar, what are we talking about?
[30:43] Speaker 1: Do you ever this experience? You go to a parish
[30:45] Speaker 1: and the people are the ministers are taking the saboria
[30:48] Speaker 1: and saying, I'm going to go to bread station four.
[30:52] Speaker 1: I got wine station three. That's what Berengarius would have said.
[30:59] Speaker 1: This is bread, bread and wine, now with an added
[31:01] Speaker 1: symbolic significance. But listen again to the oath. The bread
[31:04] Speaker 1: and wine which are placed on the altar are, after
[31:08] Speaker 1: the consecration, not only a sacrament, but the true body
[31:12] Speaker 1: and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. There's something else.
[31:18] Speaker 1: They've changed, at a level so fundamental that it's no
[31:23] Speaker 1: longer proper to call them bread and wine. You know,
[31:27] Speaker 1: many years ago, when I was in the parish I
[31:31] Speaker 1: distributed communion. I was back in my chair, my eyes
[31:34] Speaker 1: piously closed in prayer, and I hear this voice. It
[31:38] Speaker 1: was the twelve year old server saying, father, there's a
[31:42] Speaker 1: lot of blood over there. And I'm what I thought
[31:48] Speaker 1: someone had been cut to someone. And what he meant
[31:51] Speaker 1: was there were a lot of chalices of consecrated wine,
[31:55] Speaker 1: and so after the mass, I congratulated him on his
[31:59] Speaker 1: very healthy Catholic sensibility. He was absolutely right. It's not
[32:03] Speaker 1: correct to refer to the consecrated species as wine. But indeed, Father,
[32:08] Speaker 1: there's a lot of blood over there that goes right
[32:10] Speaker 1: back to the Berengarius oath. Here's something else from Berengarius.
[32:18] Speaker 1: His opponents who won the day insisted there's something more
[32:23] Speaker 1: going on in the Eucharist than in the other sacraments.
[32:29] Speaker 1: And again, it's not to denigrate in any way the
[32:31] Speaker 1: other sacraments. But the claim here is that Bararius's account
[32:35] Speaker 1: might make sense of the other sacraments baptism, confirmation, and
[32:40] Speaker 1: so on when a spiritual virtuus or power is added
[32:44] Speaker 1: to material elements. But I don't say when I put
[32:47] Speaker 1: oil on the forehead of a kid at a confirmation,
[32:50] Speaker 1: I don't say this is no longer oil, right, Or
[32:53] Speaker 1: when I pour the water on a child that baptism,
[32:55] Speaker 1: I don't say afterwards, oh, this is no longer water.
[32:59] Speaker 1: But I do say that in regard to the eucharistic elements,
[33:04] Speaker 1: this is no longer bred, no longer wine. Something has changed. Okay,
[33:12] Speaker 1: So first century John six, second to fifth century those fathers.
[33:17] Speaker 1: I looked at eleventh century, the Church says no to
[33:21] Speaker 1: Berengaria's Now let's go two centuries after that, to the
[33:28] Speaker 1: thirteenth century and to my great intellectual hero, Saint Thomas Aquinas.
[33:34] Speaker 1: We can overstate Thomas's importance. He's one voice among many,
[33:38] Speaker 1: not more than that. Nevertheless, he's called by the Church
[33:41] Speaker 1: the doctor communus, the common doctor, like the doctor we
[33:46] Speaker 1: all have in common. Because there's something about the depth
[33:49] Speaker 1: and breath of Thomas's reflection that is of permanent importance
[33:54] Speaker 1: in the life of the Church. And so it's important
[33:56] Speaker 1: for us to pause and look at Thomas's text on
[33:59] Speaker 1: the Eucharist. First off, maybe a word about his personal
[34:04] Speaker 1: relationship to the Eucharist, which was profound and intense. They
[34:11] Speaker 1: say Thomas would typically celebrate two masses a day, so
[34:16] Speaker 1: the first one he preside at it, the second one
[34:19] Speaker 1: his assistant presided. Thomas assisted. But they say that he
[34:25] Speaker 1: hardly ever got through Mass without shedding copious tears. Now
[34:31] Speaker 1: you're not going to sense that from Thomas's text. That
[34:33] Speaker 1: can seem very dry and scholastic, right, but he had
[34:36] Speaker 1: this vividly personal relationship to the Eucharist. I've always loved this.
[34:43] Speaker 1: His assistant at his canonization proceedings some decades after his
[34:48] Speaker 1: death said that Thomas benefited far more from prayer than
[34:53] Speaker 1: from study when it came to writing his theology. And
[34:58] Speaker 1: he said that Thomas would frequently go into a chapel
[35:01] Speaker 1: and he would rest his head against the tabernacle, begging
[35:06] Speaker 1: for inspiration. And then, of course I took my motto
[35:12] Speaker 1: as a bishop from this the famous scene. Toward the
[35:15] Speaker 1: end of his life, Thomas had just written the Great
[35:18] Speaker 1: Treatise on the Eucharist from the Suma, and he felt,
[35:23] Speaker 1: even though it's a masterpiece, Thomas felt, it's not done
[35:26] Speaker 1: justice to this great sacrament, and so he dramatically places
[35:31] Speaker 1: that text, the text about the Eucharist, at the foot
[35:34] Speaker 1: of the cross. And if you go to Naples, they
[35:37] Speaker 1: have his cell still there, and they have the icon.
[35:40] Speaker 1: They think that he put the text in front of
[35:44] Speaker 1: And then the wonderful story is that a voice came
[35:48] Speaker 1: from the cross. Thoma bene scriptsty de mai Thomas, you've
[35:53] Speaker 1: written well of me, Jesus speaking Latin of course to
[35:56] Speaker 1: Thomas Aquinas Thomas, you've written well of me, what would
[36:02] Speaker 1: you have as a reward and then what he responded
[36:05] Speaker 1: to is what I took is my motto as a bishop,
[36:08] Speaker 1: non nisi te domine, I'll have nothing except you, Lord.
[36:14] Speaker 1: And that's Thomas's relationship to the Eucharistic Christ. Okay, if
[36:21] Speaker 1: you're looking for this treatise, it's questions seventy three through
[36:27] Speaker 1: eighty three of the third part of the Suma of Aquinas.
[36:32] Speaker 1: So you know, the first part of the Suma is
[36:34] Speaker 1: about God and creation, the second part is about the
[36:38] Speaker 1: human being and our moral life, and the third part
[36:42] Speaker 1: is about the incarnation Christ and the sacraments. So Thomas
[36:47] Speaker 1: never finished that third part. One of the last things
[36:50] Speaker 1: he wrote were these Questions on the Eucharist seventy three
[36:54] Speaker 1: through eighty three. I'm going to look just to two
[36:57] Speaker 1: places in it for our purposes, something from question seventy
[37:01] Speaker 1: three and something from question seventy five. Okay. In one
[37:10] Speaker 1: of the articles in question seventy three, Thomas s is
[37:14] Speaker 1: the Eucharist a sacrament, And in his development of his answer,
[37:19] Speaker 1: he says some wonderful things. First of all, he says
[37:23] Speaker 1: the Eucharist is best understood as alementum spirituale that means
[37:29] Speaker 1: spiritual food. Remember Father de pet Favode. Remember that iconic
[37:35] Speaker 1: photo of Bishop Cacans when the people are reaching through
[37:38] Speaker 1: the fence at the border at Master, reaching through like
[37:41] Speaker 1: they need this for life. So Thomas says, the Eucharist
[37:45] Speaker 1: is best understood is alimentum spirituality. It's spiritual food. And
[37:50] Speaker 1: he says this just as baptism is generazio, it's the
[37:56] Speaker 1: generation of spiritual life, as information is augmentum that means
[38:02] Speaker 1: growth in the spiritual life. So the Eucharist is a
[38:07] Speaker 1: lementum food for the journey necessary uh huh. Last time
[38:16] Speaker 1: I checked, food is necessary for physical life, so this
[38:21] Speaker 1: food necessary for the life of the soul. I had
[38:26] Speaker 1: the experienced many years ago with a friend. I did
[38:28] Speaker 1: a bike trip from Paris to Rome. I was younger
[38:32] Speaker 1: in those days, and we would do like seventy or
[38:36] Speaker 1: eighty miles a day, and on that trip I had
[38:39] Speaker 1: my first experience of what they call hitting the wall.
[38:42] Speaker 1: I'd read about it, but never experienced it. That's when
[38:45] Speaker 1: you're going and then it's not like you're just getting tired,
[38:49] Speaker 1: it's like you can't go on. You're so depleted that
[38:53] Speaker 1: you can't move. And that happened to me is somewhere
[38:57] Speaker 1: in the south of France, and I I just had
[39:00] Speaker 1: to stop until we always had these big French baguettes
[39:04] Speaker 1: in the back of the bike there, and I ate
[39:06] Speaker 1: one of those and drank water, and then was able
[39:08] Speaker 1: to go on. And that's always stayed vividly in my mind.
[39:13] Speaker 1: Alimentum food for the body necessary, So alimentum spirituality necessary,
[39:21] Speaker 1: padre per favore for the life of the soul. His
[39:26] Speaker 1: next observation, I think also good for catechists and for teachers.
[39:29] Speaker 1: As you present the Eucharist, he says, the Eucharist has
[39:33] Speaker 1: three names depending upon its relationship to the dimensions of time.
[39:39] Speaker 1: If we look back in time, the euchress is called
[39:43] Speaker 1: sacrificium sacrifice, because it embodies the sacrifice of the cross.
[39:52] Speaker 1: You look around in the present time, ucris is called
[39:55] Speaker 1: communio because right now it's a communion with Christ and
[40:00] Speaker 1: with each other members of the mystical body of Christ.
[40:04] Speaker 1: If we look to the future, the euchresus is called
[40:08] Speaker 1: viaticum because it's food that will take us on our
[40:11] Speaker 1: final journey into heaven. And then the great name, he says,
[40:16] Speaker 1: is indeed Eucharistea thanksgiving. Why because that's the whole life
[40:23] Speaker 1: of heaven. When we are totally christified in heaven, all
[40:27] Speaker 1: we will do is give thanks and praise. So sacrifice, communion, viaticum, Eucharist,
[40:34] Speaker 1: these great names, beautiful stuff. I love this? Is it? Convenians,
[40:43] Speaker 1: Thomas sked, It's a favorite word of his. By the way,
[40:46] Speaker 1: just means fitting. Is it fitting that Jesus established the Eucharist?
[40:53] Speaker 1: His answer courses yes, Just as the Emperor, he says,
[40:58] Speaker 1: leaves behind his in statues and on coins to remind
[41:04] Speaker 1: the people of his presence even when he's absent. So Jesus,
[41:09] Speaker 1: now in heaven, in a way absent from us, leaves
[41:13] Speaker 1: behind his great imago, his great image, this great sign
[41:17] Speaker 1: of his presence. I love this too, and I try
[41:23] Speaker 1: to think of it. Actually, whatever I say, mass Thomas says,
[41:29] Speaker 1: what someone says and does in the ultimate moments of
[41:34] Speaker 1: his or her life is of tremendous power and significance.
[41:40] Speaker 1: Let's say you're gathering with someone and they know they're
[41:42] Speaker 1: going to be executed the next day, and you're gathering
[41:46] Speaker 1: with this beloved friend who's facing death. Wouldn't you find
[41:52] Speaker 1: written in your heart whatever that friend did and said
[41:56] Speaker 1: that night? So Aquinas said, we attend to everything Jesus
[42:02] Speaker 1: said and did, but with a very special intense attention.
[42:09] Speaker 1: We watch what he did and said the night before
[42:11] Speaker 1: he died, leaving us this imago of himself. Beautiful stuff.
[42:19] Speaker 1: Now just a glance at question seventy five, and in
[42:22] Speaker 1: some ways here everybody, we're coming to the heart of
[42:25] Speaker 1: the manner John six through the fathers, the anti Berengarian position. Now,
[42:33] Speaker 1: Thomas Aquine is this great theological mind expressing the Church's
[42:38] Speaker 1: faith about the Eucharist. Here's the question he poses, whether
[42:45] Speaker 1: in this sacrament the body of Christ is according to
[42:51] Speaker 1: truth or only according to figure or as in a sign?
[42:58] Speaker 1: Very important? Now, I think Berengarius will go right back
[43:01] Speaker 1: to John six and look forward to Flannery O'Connor. If
[43:04] Speaker 1: it's only a symbol, I say, to hell with it.
[43:07] Speaker 1: Listen to Quenas again, Whether in this sacrament the body
[43:10] Speaker 1: of Christ is there? He says, segundem very tatum, according
[43:15] Speaker 1: to truth or only according to figure or as in
[43:20] Speaker 1: a sign. His answer, of course is he's there, segundem
[43:27] Speaker 1: very tatum, He's there according to truth. How do we
[43:35] Speaker 1: explain it? Well? Here Thomas uses language that I think
[43:40] Speaker 1: we shouldn't run from I think we should love and reverence.
[43:46] Speaker 1: He's borrowing it, but he's adapting it like crazy, but
[43:49] Speaker 1: borrowing it from the Aristotelian philosophy of his time. Thomas
[43:55] Speaker 1: speaks here of transsubstantiation. I don't know if you have
[44:01] Speaker 1: any of Simpsons fans here, there's a famous Simpsons episode
[44:04] Speaker 1: where Homer becomes a Catholic briefly, and remember he's in
[44:08] Speaker 1: he's in Catechism class, and he's written on his arm
[44:11] Speaker 1: like for the cheat sheet transsubstantiation. I've always appreciated that
[44:16] Speaker 1: he also wrote by the way, God good, Devil bad.
[44:19] Speaker 1: It's just he was clear on the basics, you know.
[44:23] Speaker 1: But he also has trans substantiation. Okay, what substance can
[44:31] Speaker 1: I just propose I think an altogether valid but maybe
[44:34] Speaker 1: somewhat easier way to understand this distinction. Substance is the
[44:40] Speaker 1: deepest and core reality of something. When I speak of substance,
[44:47] Speaker 1: I mean the deepest and core reality of something. What
[44:53] Speaker 1: something is, that's the substantia, right, what stands under? Now?
[45:00] Speaker 1: What does it stand under? It stands under what Aristotle
[45:04] Speaker 1: and Thomas Aquine is called accidents just a fancy way
[45:08] Speaker 1: of saying appearances. That's why later we'll speak of the species.
[45:15] Speaker 1: Same thing, right. Species is like the word spectacle. It
[45:19] Speaker 1: means what you see. So Thomas says, in the Great
[45:28] Speaker 1: Act of Consecration, the substance of the bread and wine,
[45:33] Speaker 1: that is to say, their deepest and core reality change
[45:40] Speaker 1: into the body and the blood of Jesus even as
[45:45] Speaker 1: the appearances, accidents species of the bread and wine remain.
[45:53] Speaker 1: So what are we talking about after the consecration, not
[45:57] Speaker 1: of bread and wine. They made a grammatical error, a
[46:01] Speaker 1: logical error if we refer to them that way, because
[46:05] Speaker 1: their core reality has changed even as their appearances remain unchanged.
[46:13] Speaker 1: That's trans substantiation. What I'm hoping we can all see
[46:19] Speaker 1: here is that this is not some alien imposition, but
[46:23] Speaker 1: rather it's an attempt to articulate what was sensed from
[46:28] Speaker 1: John six on the density and reality of what we're
[46:34] Speaker 1: talking about. Here's a quick thing I'm going to add here.
[46:39] Speaker 1: Thomas asked the question, well, isn't there deception involved in
[46:44] Speaker 1: the Eucharist? And it wouldn't this be unworthy of God
[46:46] Speaker 1: to be deceiving us? You say, well, heck, it looks
[46:50] Speaker 1: like bread and wine. It tastes like bread and wine
[46:52] Speaker 1: and reacts like bread and wine. So isn't God deceiving
[46:55] Speaker 1: us here? His answer is no, there's no deception whatsoever,
[47:01] Speaker 1: because the senses indeed take in what's there, the accidents,
[47:06] Speaker 1: the species. The senses are seeing correctly what's there. But
[47:11] Speaker 1: the senses have to be informed by a judgment shaped
[47:16] Speaker 1: by faith. Now I'll get to some of this at
[47:18] Speaker 1: the very end of my talk. I'll try to explain
[47:20] Speaker 1: how we can make sense of this. But the point is,
[47:23] Speaker 1: the senses aren't deceived. Sometimes in my Internet ministry, when
[47:27] Speaker 1: this issue comes up, skeptics of a Catholic position will say, look,
[47:31] Speaker 1: just take the eucharistic take the host and put it
[47:34] Speaker 1: under a microscope and see what you find out. I mean,
[47:37] Speaker 1: has it changed into the flesh of a human being. Well,
[47:42] Speaker 1: anything that can be observed empirically is not what we're
[47:45] Speaker 1: talking about here. Best the level of the accidental or
[47:49] Speaker 1: of the appearance level. The changes happen at the level
[47:53] Speaker 1: of substance transsubstantiation. You know, here's another image. Maybe think
[48:01] Speaker 1: of the disciples in the road to a man's seeing
[48:06] Speaker 1: the risen Jesus taking him in, listening to him indeed
[48:13] Speaker 1: led by him revealing they know all the data about him.
[48:17] Speaker 1: Always a prophet, mighty word, indeed, and loved by the people.
[48:20] Speaker 1: The elders turned against him. He was crucified. Some say
[48:23] Speaker 1: he rose from the dead. They're seeing everything, but they're
[48:27] Speaker 1: not getting it. They're seeing what's there to be seen,
[48:30] Speaker 1: but they're not getting to the core reality of who
[48:34] Speaker 1: he is. It's only and of course, how wonderful, how wonderful,
[48:37] Speaker 1: that it's in the breaking of the bread that they
[48:40] Speaker 1: get they see who he is. I can't want to
[48:46] Speaker 1: talk go by without quoting Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan said,
[48:51] Speaker 1: all he believes are his eyes, and his eyes they
[48:54] Speaker 1: just tell him lies true. Sometimes if all we believe
[49:00] Speaker 1: our eyes, that's all we take in of reality, the species,
[49:03] Speaker 1: the appearance level. Often we don't get the core reality
[49:09] Speaker 1: the Euchrist operates there. Here's one two of many Bob
[49:12] Speaker 1: Dylan fans. It's a super obscure song by Bob Dylan,
[49:16] Speaker 1: but contains this little line, I never could learn to
[49:20] Speaker 1: drink that blood and call it wine. Think about that
[49:24] Speaker 1: one for a second. Okay, John six church fathers, the
[49:34] Speaker 1: church saying no to Berengarius. Thomas Aquine is giving a
[49:37] Speaker 1: kind of magisterial expression with his language of transubstantiation. Now
[49:44] Speaker 1: go forward three more centuries to the sixteenth century, the
[49:50] Speaker 1: Great century, now of the Protestant Catholic debates. Right Martin
[49:57] Speaker 1: Luther never liked the doctrine of transubstantiation, didn't like Thomas
[50:03] Speaker 1: Aquinas's approach to it. Luther said, the bread and wine
[50:08] Speaker 1: are bread and wine after the consecration, but the presence
[50:13] Speaker 1: of Christ has been somehow added to them. This is
[50:17] Speaker 1: called more technically the impanation or companation theory. This means
[50:23] Speaker 1: in the bread or with the bread, right that somehow,
[50:27] Speaker 1: along with the bread has come the presence of Jesus.
[50:30] Speaker 1: That's why more conservative Lutherans to this day will say, oh, no,
[50:34] Speaker 1: we believe in the real presence. They don't believe in transubstantiation.
[50:39] Speaker 1: Do you know In the song it's not one of
[50:41] Speaker 1: my favorite songs, but gather us in there's a perfectly
[50:45] Speaker 1: Lutheran of eucharistic theology when the lion says the bread
[50:50] Speaker 1: that is you. Remember that line. We're addressing the Lord
[50:53] Speaker 1: and we say the bread that is you. But see
[50:56] Speaker 1: that's a Lutheran sensibility. I mean, Catholics no, no, we
[51:02] Speaker 1: balk at that. It's not bread. It's changed. It's not
[51:07] Speaker 1: bread to which something has been added, a significance has
[51:11] Speaker 1: been added. There's been a change at the most fundamental level.
[51:16] Speaker 1: I think here, along with Luther of Orlick Zwingli, one
[51:19] Speaker 1: of the great reforming figures, Zvingli goes right back to Berengary.
[51:24] Speaker 1: As it seems to me. Vingli says, look, we're dealing
[51:28] Speaker 1: with bread and wine, which take on a symbolic significance.
[51:32] Speaker 1: And I think if you look at many of the
[51:34] Speaker 1: Protestant churches to this day, they'd follow more of that
[51:37] Speaker 1: Zwinglian Berengarian approach to it. So the Council of Trent
[51:43] Speaker 1: gathers to address the issues raised by the reformers. And
[51:47] Speaker 1: can I make a little fervorino in favor of the
[51:50] Speaker 1: Council of Trent. When I was coming of age, you know,
[51:54] Speaker 1: Vatican two was the cool council and Trent was kind
[51:56] Speaker 1: of the uncool council. That's not how I spent many
[52:01] Speaker 1: years teaching the Council Trent when I was in the
[52:04] Speaker 1: seminary work. And it is this marvelous texts on original
[52:08] Speaker 1: sin justification, the Sacraments the Eucharists, and these are people
[52:12] Speaker 1: who read the reformers very carefully. They knew Lutheran Calvin
[52:17] Speaker 1: and Zmingli and the other reformers, and they really engage
[52:20] Speaker 1: them creatively. So don't turn away from Trent. Well, Trent
[52:25] Speaker 1: gives us a very appointed teaching on the Eucharist, and
[52:29] Speaker 1: it summed up in what they call eleven canons. I'm
[52:34] Speaker 1: just gonna look at two of them with you. So
[52:37] Speaker 1: these canons are kind of summary statements of the teaching
[52:41] Speaker 1: of Trent on the Eucharist. Here's Canon one. If anyone
[52:47] Speaker 1: were to deny that the body, blood, soul, and divinity
[52:53] Speaker 1: of our Lord Jesus Christ is contained very reality, tear
[52:59] Speaker 1: at salitaire, truly, really and substantially in the sacrament of
[53:06] Speaker 1: the Most Holy Eucharist, But is there only in sign
[53:11] Speaker 1: or figure let him be condemned. Now, I know we're
[53:16] Speaker 1: Cavatican too, we don't do things like let him be condemned.
[53:18] Speaker 1: But get to the heart of the teaching. I'll put
[53:23] Speaker 1: it in positive terms. We are to say, as Catholics
[53:27] Speaker 1: that the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord
[53:30] Speaker 1: Jesus Christ is contained, truly, very really reality taar at
[53:39] Speaker 1: substantially substantialittair in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist,
[53:45] Speaker 1: and is not only in sign or figure. Now, Flannery
[53:50] Speaker 1: O'Connor was saying exactly that, right. If it's only a
[53:54] Speaker 1: sign or figure, that's not what we're talking about, real, true,
[53:58] Speaker 1: and substantial. Here's Canon two. If anyone were to say
[54:07] Speaker 1: that in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the
[54:09] Speaker 1: substance of the bread and wine remains with the body
[54:13] Speaker 1: and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and would deny
[54:17] Speaker 1: the marvelous and unique conversion of the entire substance of
[54:21] Speaker 1: the bread into the body, and of the entire substance
[54:24] Speaker 1: of the wine into the blood, the species of bread
[54:28] Speaker 1: and wine, nevertheless remaining a conversion that the Catholic Church
[54:32] Speaker 1: most aptly calls transubstantiation anophimis sif let him be condemned.
[54:39] Speaker 1: So again, this should be familiar from Thomas Aquinas. I'll
[54:43] Speaker 1: state it positively. Catholics must hold that the entire substance
[54:51] Speaker 1: of the bread and wine are changed. They don't remain.
[54:55] Speaker 1: You see, what are they going after here but Luther's
[54:57] Speaker 1: impanation or compannation theory, As though something is added to
[55:02] Speaker 1: the bread and wine. No, the bread and wine are
[55:04] Speaker 1: no longer there. Substantially, they've been changed. And it's Trent
[55:10] Speaker 1: says Opticimey, it's most aptly called transubstantiation. This change. Now, mind,
[55:20] Speaker 1: you can we come up with another word for it. Yeah, sure,
[55:23] Speaker 1: if some very clever theologian can find a way to
[55:26] Speaker 1: express this idea. Okay, but Trent says opticime. Most aptly,
[55:32] Speaker 1: it's called transubstantiation. Okay. Now one more step in this
[55:40] Speaker 1: little historical survey, and then I'll get to just an
[55:43] Speaker 1: attempt to understand what this is about. First century John
[55:50] Speaker 1: sixth two to five, the Fathers, eleventh, Berengarius thirteenth, Thomas Aquinas, sixteenth,
[55:56] Speaker 1: Council of Trent, now twentieth, and Saint Paul six I
[56:04] Speaker 1: think great privileged by the way, during the Youth Senate,
[56:06] Speaker 1: I was over there for that. The canonization of Paul
[56:09] Speaker 1: the sixth was a great thrill to be part of.
[56:14] Speaker 1: Remember now we're in the middle of the twentieth century.
[56:17] Speaker 1: We're actually during Vatican Council too. There was a very
[56:22] Speaker 1: prominent theory at the time that was trying to explain
[56:25] Speaker 1: the Eucharist in a way that was more accessible to
[56:28] Speaker 1: modern people. Theologians began to speak of trans signification and
[56:36] Speaker 1: trans finalization rather than transsubstantiation. What do I mean trans
[56:45] Speaker 1: signification The significance of the bread and wine change. So
[56:53] Speaker 1: now they come to signify the body of blood of Jesus.
[56:59] Speaker 1: Trans finalis means their purpose changes. Their purpose is not
[57:04] Speaker 1: now just to nourish the body. Their purpose is to
[57:09] Speaker 1: show forth the presence of Jesus. Trans finalization trans signification
[57:16] Speaker 1: two very prominent theories. In the nineteen fifties and sixties.
[57:21] Speaker 1: Paul the sixth Right during the Vatican Council, said I
[57:26] Speaker 1: gotta say something about the Eucharist, and he writes a
[57:31] Speaker 1: letter called Mysterium Fida comes out by the way in
[57:35] Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen sixty five. So just as the
[57:38] Speaker 1: final Session of Vatican two is underway, somehow the great
[57:42] Speaker 1: Pope of Vatican two felt reaffirming the great teaching of
[57:46] Speaker 1: the Church on this score was of great importance. Let
[57:50] Speaker 1: me give you just one little insight from this letter.
[57:55] Speaker 1: Pope Paul talks about the various modes of Christ presence
[58:01] Speaker 1: to the Church. So first of all, nodding vigorously toward
[58:07] Speaker 1: the conciliar documents themselves. Paul says, quote, Christ is present
[58:13] Speaker 1: in his church when she prays, since it is He
[58:16] Speaker 1: who prays for us and prays in us, and to
[58:20] Speaker 1: whom we pray as our God, beautiful, whenever we gather
[58:23] Speaker 1: to pray, Christ is among us. Christ is present to us.
[58:27] Speaker 1: Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there
[58:30] Speaker 1: am I in the midst of them. Right, So, beautiful,
[58:33] Speaker 1: Christ is present to the church when it prays. Secondly,
[58:39] Speaker 1: he's present in the church as she performs her works
[58:42] Speaker 1: of mercy, because it's Christ performing those works through the church.
[58:48] Speaker 1: Terrific when the church does this great work with the poor,
[58:51] Speaker 1: it's Christ who's present, Christ who's active. Yes, indeed, more
[58:58] Speaker 1: to it, he's present in the church as she preaches.
[59:02] Speaker 1: Since the Gospel is preached through the authority of Christ.
[59:06] Speaker 1: I used to tell my students at Mondolane. The preacher
[59:09] Speaker 1: is not someone talking about Christ as a teacher maybe professor.
[59:16] Speaker 1: The preacher is someone who's become so conformed to Christ
[59:20] Speaker 1: that Christ can now preach through him, right right, Authentic
[59:25] Speaker 1: preaching is Christ himself addressing his people. Quoting again in
[59:33] Speaker 1: a manner still more sublime, Christ is present in his
[59:36] Speaker 1: church as she offers in His name the sacrifice of
[59:40] Speaker 1: the Mass, and as she administers the sacraments. Right when
[59:44] Speaker 1: the priest baptizes or the minister baptizes, it's Christ to baptizes.
[59:51] Speaker 1: When the bishop confirms, is Christ confirming the anointing of
[59:55] Speaker 1: the sake, it's Christ who heals, quite right, and the
[59:59] Speaker 1: mass Mass Christ acting Christ speaking, Christ sharing his life. Good.
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: But now listen to pot Paul. However, there is a
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: still higher, more sublime, and indeed unsurpassable manner in which
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: Christ is present to his church. And this is the
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: eucharistic presence. Listener, This presence is called real right, the
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: real presence, by which it is not intended to exclude
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: all other types of presence, as if they could not
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: be real too, But because it is presence in the
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: fullest sense, that is to say, it is a substantial
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: presence by which Christ the god Man is holy an
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: entirely present. Thank you on behalf of the Lord Jesus Good.
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: Now think about us for a second, everybody, This is
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: I think a very helpful framework. Think of someone maybe
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: who has read an article that I wrote twenty years ago.
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: That person is gonna sense my presence, but in a
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: very sort of mitigated way. Right, they'll sense something of
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: what I was thinking about twenty years ago. Now, think
[1:01:27] Speaker 1: of someone who's listened to an audio of me giving
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: a talk. Well, that's a more intense sense of my presence.
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: Now someone watches a video and they see an image
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: of me as I talk. That's an even more intense
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: And then there's someone that comes in person and sees
[1:01:45] Speaker 1: me talk. Now they're sensing the real presence of me.
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: Right there, I am. Well, so Pop Paul is saying,
[1:01:53] Speaker 1: we have these levels of intensity of Christ's presence, but
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: the unsurpassable one is the eucharistic presence, really truly and
[1:02:05] Speaker 1: substantially present. Okay, now I'm going to close, but you know,
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: I see everybody I wanted to lead us, and I
[1:02:14] Speaker 1: hope it wasn't too tedious a journey. But my purpose
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: in that was to show the consistency of this teaching
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: from John six to Paul six, right from the first
[1:02:27] Speaker 1: century to the twentieth century. The consistency of this teaching
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: of the real presence. Okay, how can we begin to
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: make sense of it? And again I'll keep this brief,
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: I promise Here's a line from the Council of Trent
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: that I've always loved. How does Christ become really present? How?
[1:02:50] Speaker 1: The answer v verborum trends Latin for by the power
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: of the word, By the power of the words. Words,
[1:03:11] Speaker 1: they can be descriptive. So someone says to me tomorrow, Hey,
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: what was it like at at the LA Congress. Oh
[1:03:16] Speaker 1: it was great. I give a talk in the arena.
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: There were you know, I don't five thousand people there,
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: and this happened, that happened. My words there are just
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: describing reality. Right. Reality is out there and it's impressing
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: itself on me, and now I'm describing it with my language. However,
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: language can also be active and transformative. Right, You're in
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: a baseball game and the runner comes around second base
[1:03:47] Speaker 1: and slides headfirst into third and you're in the stands
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: and you go safe. Well, that's just you expressing your
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: point of view, right, But there's an umpire in front
[1:03:57] Speaker 1: of you on the field, deputy by the National League,
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: who says you're out. Well, like it or not, that
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: runner is out. Right, that language you're out was not
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: just expressive or descriptive. It was transformative. It changed reality.
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: Think of a parent who when you were a little kid,
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: said something that was so encouraging that it changed your
[1:04:33] Speaker 1: whole life, That reached into your heart in such a
[1:04:37] Speaker 1: way that you started living your life differently because of
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: that language. That was not just descriptive language, that was
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: creative and transformative language. Right, it changed your being. Or
[1:04:52] Speaker 1: flip it around. We've all had this, someone said something
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: so cruel to you, so hurtful, it changed you in
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: a negative way for years. Am I Right? That's not
[1:05:05] Speaker 1: just descriptive, that's deeply transformative language. Okay, So our little language,
[1:05:13] Speaker 1: our little words can change reality. They really can. But
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: now think of God's word and vi their boring by
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: the power of the words, How does God make the world?
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: In the great symbolic language of the Book of Genesis,
[1:05:32] Speaker 1: God makes the world through an act of speech. Let
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: there be light, and there was light. Let the earth
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: come forth, and so it happened. Let the let the
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: land appear, and so on and so forth. Let that
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: let a team with living things, and so it happened.
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: God's word is not descriptive, it's creative. God speaks the
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: world into being. Now you want to get a little
[1:06:00] Speaker 1: more theologically exact about that. It means that God imbuse
[1:06:04] Speaker 1: all of things with their intelligible structure. God speaks them
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: into being. How's the prophet Isaiah express this as the
[1:06:16] Speaker 1: rain and the snow come down from heaven and do
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: not return without watering the earth. So my word goes
[1:06:25] Speaker 1: forth from me and is not returned in vain. God's
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: word changes, it affects, it makes happen. Now, Who's Jesus?
[1:06:40] Speaker 1: How important everybody to go back not to John six,
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: but John chapter one in the beginning was the word,
[1:06:51] Speaker 1: the word, the word by which God makes all reality,
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: and that word becomes flesh. Therefore, are we surprised that
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: Jesus' word has a transformative power? How beautiful that story
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: of you, the little girl get up, the daughter of Gyrus,
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: and that they keep the aramaic of Jesus. I love
[1:07:17] Speaker 1: that because they clearly remembered that so vividly. Talita Kumi,
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: Talita Kumi, little girl get up and she got up? Why?
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: Why because what God says is Lazarus come out and
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: the dead man came out. Why because what God says
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: is my son, your sins are forgiving you. How scandalous
[1:07:45] Speaker 1: that was, by the way, right, whose men thic he
[1:07:47] Speaker 1: is what God says is pick up your maden, walk
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: and sew it happened? See everybody, If Jesus is just
[1:07:57] Speaker 1: one spiritual teacher among many, he's one great religious figure. Okay, fine, fine,
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: but there's a thousand of those. The claim of the
[1:08:08] Speaker 1: Church is he's not just one human figure among many.
[1:08:11] Speaker 1: But is the word made flesh the very embodiment of
[1:08:17] Speaker 1: God's transformative and creative word. Okay, the night before he dies,
[1:08:25] Speaker 1: that Jesus took bread, the passover bread, and said this
[1:08:32] Speaker 1: is my body. Taking the cup later in the meal,
[1:08:37] Speaker 1: this is the chalice of my blood. If that's a
[1:08:43] Speaker 1: human being, a great hero, a philosopher, or a social
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: reformer saying it, he saying, all right, great, he's using
[1:08:49] Speaker 1: symbolic talk. But who's saying that. The word made flesh?
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: The word whose speech listen out constitutes reality at the
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: deepest level. Just as God spoke you into being, so
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: Jesus speaks his presence into being under the appearances of
[1:09:22] Speaker 1: bread and wine. Joseph Rossinger put it this way. The
[1:09:26] Speaker 1: word seizes the bread and wine at the very root
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: and core of their being and changes them into his
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: body and blood. Here's an interesting moment. Now, priests in
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: the room. You know, we can get to routine about
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: the Mass. Sometimes it's a very interesting thing that happens
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: in the institution narratives. The night before he died, Jesus
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: took bread, etc. Right, Notice how we're in the third person.
[1:09:57] Speaker 1: We're describing what happened. But then a transition takes place.
[1:10:04] Speaker 1: Jesus took brad broke it, gave it to his disciples, saying,
[1:10:09] Speaker 1: Priest Snell, listen, we move in to his very identity.
[1:10:16] Speaker 1: At that point, we now commenced to speak in the
[1:10:19] Speaker 1: first person, saying, take this all of you and eat
[1:10:23] Speaker 1: of it, for this is my body given for you.
[1:10:27] Speaker 1: We speak in persona christie. We speak in the very
[1:10:33] Speaker 1: words of Jesus, which is why they have the transformative
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: power that they have. If it's just you know, I
[1:10:41] Speaker 1: mean Robert Baron telling the story of Jesus from long ago,
[1:10:44] Speaker 1: who cares? I mean, who cares? But now speaking the
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: very words of Jesus as someone ordained to operate in
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: persona Christie. That's why the church claims those words have
[1:10:59] Speaker 1: the trans formative power that they do. Okay, I'm gonna
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: bring it to a clothes. There's obviously, you know, an infinity.
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: More we could say about this great sacrament, the chief
[1:11:13] Speaker 1: of the sacraments. But maybe I'll give a final word
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: to a philosopher I don't like. But he said something
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: kind of cool, namely Ludwig Feuerbach, the founder of modern atheism.
[1:11:26] Speaker 1: But Feuerbach said, you are what you eat. They're mentioned
[1:11:30] Speaker 1: east East. It's a little pun in German to him,
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: the man is what he eats. Well, that's true, isn't it.
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: And the church fathers got this, the church fathers that
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: I mentioned got this in their bones. If we are
[1:11:46] Speaker 1: what we eat, then as we eat and drink the
[1:11:50] Speaker 1: body and blood of Jesus, not just vague symbols of
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: our own concoction. If it's only that, to hell with it.
[1:11:58] Speaker 1: But if we eat and drink the very body and
[1:12:00] Speaker 1: blood of Jesus, we become what we eat. We become
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: conform to Him, we become cristified. And that's why the
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: doctrine of the real presence matters so much, and why
[1:12:19] Speaker 1: especially people in this room should make it a very
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: high priority to teach it, and teach it and teach
[1:12:27] Speaker 1: it to the next generation. Listen, God bless everybody, thanks
[1:12:31] Speaker 1: for listening today,

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