Real Presence

[Basilisa Marie]

Someone put this to me a few days ago and it got me stumped.

We know that Jesus is present in the Mass in four ways: In the Eucharist, in the Word, in the Presider, and in the People gathered. The person I was talking to was trying to argue that Jesus isn't more present in one form than any of the others - that is, Jesus isn't "more" present in the Eucharist than in the other three, because you're either present or you're not. 

Naturally I don't like this, because it feels like you're downplaying the Real Presence, but is this actually, technically wrong? What do you guys think? 

[CountrySteve21]

I know as Christians we all believe God is present everywhere always correct? But often times in Holy Writ God will manifest Himself in a more 'greater' way ( like the Burning Bush with Moses). Isn't that being "more present" in a sense? 

[Nihil Obstat]

Someone put this to me a few days ago and it got me stumped.

We know that Jesus is present in the Mass in four ways: In the Eucharist, in the Word, in the Presider, and in the People gathered. The person I was talking to was trying to argue that Jesus isn't more present in one form than any of the others - that is, Jesus isn't "more" present in the Eucharist than in the other three, because you're either present or you're not. 

Naturally I don't like this, because it feels like you're downplaying the Real Presence, but is this actually, technically wrong? What do you guys think? 

Yes, I think it is technically wrong. Jesus' substantial presence in the Eucharist is a far greater reality than His spiritual presence in the congregation. I think it would be something of a tendency towards pantheism if we treat Christ's presence in everything equally.

[Ash Wednesday]

I'm not an expert but I'm not sure how the other forms could surpass something being physically present. It's what sets the Catholic Mass apart from any other Christian form of worship.

[Not The Philosopher]

Others have kinda pre-empted me, but yeah, we actually worship the consecrated elements at Mass, something which would be idolatrous to do to, say, the priest. Which in turn implies that God is directly present in a manner which is unique to the Eucharist.

[Basilisa Marie]

Okay, great, so then how do the other forms of "presence" work by comparison? It's got to be more than a nice idea and has to be different from the physical presence in the Eucharist.  I want to say that the other forms are more spiritual, but that doesn't seem right. 

Or might we say that Jesus is totally present during the Mass, in four forms or modes? (Maybe modalism isn't a heresy when you aren't talking about the trinity? haha) Four aspects of his one presence? 

Maybe it is that you can be more fully present in some ways than others. I can attend a meeting through a chat room, through a phone call, through a video call, and by being physically there.  In all those ways I'm "present" at the meeting, but clearly some ways I'm more fully present than others. Is that a sound metaphor? 

[Seven77]

 In the case of Jesus we are talking about a Divine Person… God is present everywhere, he is present in the tree in my front yard, but I would not bow down before it and exclaim, “my Lord and my God!" I'm sure that Bl. Mother Teresa would not tell a poor person that "you are my Lord and God," and proceed to adore that person.

While I'm a human person, it's kind of like this... I send my guardian angel somewhere and my presence is felt there, but I am more present, substantially present when I walk ( or roll  ) into the room. 

[Nihil Obstat]

I want to say that the other forms are more spiritual, but that doesn't seem right. 

I think that is more or less the case. Jesus is spiritually present in us, the congregation. He is present in the Word more because He is the Word of God, so by proclaiming the Gospel we recognize His glory as He revealed Himself to us, and obviously he is present in the celebrant as alter Christus, but none of these are on the same level of His substantial presence in the Eucharist. 
God, being omnipotent and omnipresent, can choose to be present to a greater or lesser degree based on His divine will. He is present to someone in a state of sanctifying grace far more than He is to someone in a state of sin and impenitence. He is present in a Catholic Church to a far greater degree than a Buddhist temple or a Masonic hall, as is fitting. We set places and things aside as sacramentals and as holy for precisely this reason.
And he is far more present in the Eucharist than anywhere else in creation. As He willed it.

[MarysLittleFlower]

Someone put this to me a few days ago and it got me stumped.

We know that Jesus is present in the Mass in four ways: In the Eucharist, in the Word, in the Presider, and in the People gathered. The person I was talking to was trying to argue that Jesus isn't more present in one form than any of the others - that is, Jesus isn't "more" present in the Eucharist than in the other three, because you're either present or you're not. 

Naturally I don't like this, because it feels like you're downplaying the Real Presence, but is this actually, technically wrong? What do you guys think? 

I think - Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist and that's the difference. He's not physically present anywhere except Heaven, the Eucharist and us after Communion. :D God is omnipresent but in different ways. His presence in nature is different than in a just soul for instance. And His Body isn't substantially physically present everywhere. 

 

Think of it this way... God is present in nature. But a tree is not Him in substance. Its fully a tree. The Eucharist is Him in substance. If something doesn't have Him as the substance then its not physically Him  by the way it seems Jesus is in us substantially after Communion too but our own substance doesnt change. Am I right that He's present substantially at that time? So we are united to Him physically there. 

He is also present in other ways... There's even a difference it seems in His presence in a soul in grace and a soul in transforming union for instance.. Some Saints had some sort of special mystical indwelling. So it varies I think the idea that Jesus is physically in the Tabernacle and that this is greater, is often forgotten today and in thinking this way it gets easy to think He's present in the Eucharist just as during the Gospel reading. This view treats His presence as the same everywhere but logically this would eventually lead to a rejection of the Eucharist or a false idea that everything is substantially God. 

Edited August 3, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[Peace]

OK. Let me add an additional question on this topic if I will. Perhaps my understanding of this is pure heresy so feel free to pull out the rack after reading my post . . .

A few times I have heard Catholics say things like "the Eucharist is the very same flesh that was crucified on the cross."  Or I have heard Catholics say things like "when we participate in the sacrifice of the Mass we are transported back to the moment of Jesus's crucifixion."

I think that they might be misreading the Catechism, or might slightly misunderstand what the Church means when She says that the sacrifice on the cross and the sacrifice of the Mass are the same sacrifice.

They are the same in that the priest and the victim are the same. But my understanding is that they are not the same in the temporal aspect. We do not engage in any sort of time travel at Mass - rather, the sacrifice of the Mass is a present day sacrifice that that re-presents (or applies) the merits of the sacrifice of the cross to our present day sins (applied more directly through the Sacrament of Reconciliation).

As far as the "same flesh" business - I am not so sure about that either. The Eucharist is the body of our Lord, but it is not "meat" that has been given the appearance of bread, right? This is how I have thought about it - the Second Person of the Trinity can make Himself physically present in any manner that he wishes. At one point in time he became a man. At other points in time he makes Himself physically present in the Eucharist. Both are God - but present in different physical forms that are not the same.

But yeah - maybe some of that makes me a heretic. That has always been my understanding of it, but I have not really discussed it with anyone in depth to see if my understanding is correct or not. . .

At least one thing that would seemingly be wrong with my understanding is that we explicitly say that the bread is the body of the Lord and that the wine is the blood of the Lord. That obviously suggests that we are talking about literal blood and literal flesh, under the appearance of bread and wine. 

But what does it mean for there to be flesh under the appearance of bread, and blood under the appearance of wine?  Flesh, by the definition of it, is something that has a certain chemical composition that the host does not have. So when we say the body of the Lord - in what sense do we mean the body of the Lord?  Do we mean it in a very crude sense - like the priest literally turns the host into a piece of physical flesh that only looks like the host?

I guess the question is this - when we say "the body of the Lord" do we mean literal human flesh? If you look at most of John 6 it does seem that way. . . Or do we mean "the body of the Lord" in another way that need not necessarily mean "meat"?

OK. I still find it confusing. Obviously. And that is why it is a miracle, is it not? I want to meet the person who claims to fully understand all of this . . .

Another question.  Why is there a division between flesh and blood?  Why does Jesus offer us his body and his blood, separately?  I guess the question here is, what is the significance between offering one versus the other? Is there a difference between offering one's body and offering one's blood? I had read that the separation of the body and the blood is supposed to signify his death, but is there a deeper explanation than that?

Edited August 3, 2015 by Peace

[MarysLittleFlower]

Those are some really deep questions. I wish I could ask my priest. I think its like this... The Sacrifice at Calvary is an eternal thing. It was an event in time but it goes beyond that in a way. So in.the Mass, we participate in that somehow and Jesus is offered to the Father in an unbloody sacrifice and merits get applied... If you think of it as an eternal sort of thing that might make more sense than time travel. Am I correct?

As for the Eucharist... Its important to remember we can't separate Jesus. He is present in each particle fully: Body Blood Soul and Divinity. That's why we don't have to receive from the chalice - but the priest does. I'm sure there are really deep reasons for that but I can't articulate... The priest must receive both as he consecrates. How is Jesus present physically? Yes I think it's His same Body that He had on earth and now has in Heaven in a glorified way. But its not flesh ALONE as if something lifeless. Its the living Jesus so what I do is I talk to Him in the Eucharist. Like I address my prayers to the Host. Is that fine? Its Jesus and its fully present, alive listening to us and responding

so to answer your question yes its really Him physically but the difficult part to understand is the accidents part and spatial part. In.some way that's still a mystery to me. But He is not there in any merely spiritual way - or in some "representational" way. Its actually Him but substantially which is what something IS. The difficulty is that for us everything else looks just like what it is. The Eucharist is the only case where the substance is not like the accidents. That's what makes it hard to imagine. Sorry wish I could help more!

[julianneoflongbeach]

OK. Let me add an additional question on this topic if I will. Perhaps my understanding of this is pure heresy so feel free to pull out the rack after reading my post . . .

A few times I have heard Catholics say things like "the Eucharist is the very same flesh that was crucified on the cross."  Or I have heard Catholics say things like "when we participate in the sacrifice of the Mass we are transported back to the moment of Jesus's crucifixion."

I think that they might be misreading the Catechism, or might slightly misunderstand what the Church means when She says that the sacrifice on the cross and the sacrifice of the Mass are the same sacrifice.

They are the same in that the priest and the victim are the same. But my understanding is that they are not the same in the temporal aspect. We do not engage in any sort of time travel at Mass - rather, the sacrifice of the Mass is a present day sacrifice that that re-presents (or applies) the merits of the sacrifice of the cross to our present day sins (applied more directly through the Sacrament of Reconciliation).

As far as the "same flesh" business - I am not so sure about that either. The Eucharist is the body of our Lord, but it is not "meat" that has been given the appearance of bread, right? This is how I have thought about it - the Second Person of the Trinity can make Himself physically present in any manner that he wishes. At one point in time he became a man. At other points in time he makes Himself physically present in the Eucharist. Both are God - but present in different physical forms that are not the same.

But yeah - maybe some of that makes me a heretic. That has always been my understanding of it, but I have not really discussed it with anyone in depth to see if my understanding is correct or not. . .

At least one thing that would seemingly be wrong with my understanding is that we explicitly say that the bread is the body of the Lord and that the wine is the blood of the Lord. That obviously suggests that we are talking about literal blood and literal flesh, under the appearance of bread and wine. 

But what does it mean for there to be flesh under the appearance of bread, and blood under the appearance of wine?  Flesh, by the definition of it, is something that has a certain chemical composition that the host does not have. So when we say the body of the Lord - in what sense do we mean the body of the Lord?  Do we mean it in a very crude sense - like the priest literally turns the host into a piece of physical flesh that only looks like the host?

I guess the question is this - when we say "the body of the Lord" do we mean literal human flesh? If you look at most of John 6 it does seem that way. . . Or do we mean "the body of the Lord" in another way that need not necessarily mean "meat"?

OK. I still find it confusing. Obviously. And that is why it is a miracle, is it not? I want to meet the person who claims to fully understand all of this . . .

Another question.  Why is there a division between flesh and blood?  Why does Jesus offer us his body and his blood, separately?  I guess the question here is, what is the significance between offering one versus the other? Is there a difference between offering one's body and offering one's blood? I had read that the separation of the body and the blood is supposed to signify his death, but is there a deeper explanation than that?

The Eucharist is actually, physically, the real body and blood of Jesus. There have been Eucharistic miracles all over the world when people have doubted the real presence and the appearance of bread vanished to reveal flesh and blood. What's more some have been scientifically tested and they all are the same blood type as each other and the same as the blood from the Shroud of Turin. One in particular sent a piece of the flesh (from the Eucharistic miracle) to a lab in California to be tested blind, they didn't tell them what is was, just that it should be tested. They determined that it was a live piece of heart, same blood type as the others, and that they could tell from the stress done to the heart that the person it came from had undergone torture.

The Eucharist is living flesh of Jesus. It is the very same sacrifice that Jesus experienced at Calvary. The priest does not make a separate sacrifice, there is only the one for all time. I understand all the sacrifices of the mass as being both in one point of time and separate points of time in the same way that God exists both in time and outside of it at the same time.

Edited August 3, 2015 by julianneoflongbeach

[MarysLittleFlower]

Can we say that its the same eternal sacrifice and what the priest does is he offers Jesus to the Father while participating in the Sacrifice???

And yes its the literal flesh of Our Lord! Not "represented" as some think, but literally is. Not separate from His soul though! Its the entire Jesus  

[Guest]

[Basilisa Marie]

Thanks, this is helpful. It's important to me to get this right. The people I had this conversation with (irl) were also mentioning things like Jesus having an active presence during the Mass but a passive presence in the tabernacle... which also set off the baloney sensors. Sometimes you just have to check that you aren't nuts, ya know?  

Modern theology can be fun sometimes but it's also a massive pain in the butt.