2008 Woodie Awards
Where is God When You Need Him?
Chris Sparks
Issue date: 5/1/07 Section: Faith
Since the dawn of time there has never been and never will be again so astounding a thing as the Eucharist. Catholics do not merely claim that it is a thing of power, that a god dwells therein, that there is strength in it. No-we claim that the One True God, the source of all that is, the Master of all things has humbled Himself to be present in inanimate matter, in bread and wine. He has made of Himself a meal. He has submitted to His creatures to such an extent that He could very easily be discarded casually or torn apart-indeed if we are to receive the Eucharist as He intended us to, we must physically eat the Body and drink the Blood. God has ordered us to digest Him. He has gone to lengths such that the angels may be shocked, demons may be astounded and humanity may ignore what the Lord of Hosts has done.
Christianity does not hold, as pantheism does, that God is "in" all things, in the sense that all things are God or manifestations of the Godhead. For the Christian, God is in all things in the sense that He supports and sustains them, maintaining their existence. Thus, when Christians claim that God is fully present in the Bread and Wine, that these are His Body and Blood re-presented to the Father by the priest (a man standing in persona Christi) and so by Christ Himself, it is a unique and staggering claim.
We do not make this claim without support from sacred Scripture. In each account of the Lord's Supper, we hear Christ proclaim "This is my Body…This is my Blood" (Matt. 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:17-20). In the Gospel of John, Christ delivers what is known as the Bread of Life discourse, where He very clearly and explicitly lays out the Real Presence and its necessity for the life of the Church (John 6:25-59). This is done in the context of the feeding of the five thousand with loaves and fishes (John 6:1-15) and Jesus walking on water (John 6:16-24). The feeding of the five thousand demonstrates that Jesus has the divine power required to feed not just the Twelve at the Last Supper, but also the Church down through the ages with His Body and Blood-the same Body and Blood that He possesses in heaven. As He multiplied the purely physical loaves and fishes, so He multiplies the bread from heaven on which the Church is sustained throughout Her earthly mission. His divinity was demonstrated by walking on water, presenting to the apostles clear proof of His command over nature and thus of His capacity to literally transform bread and wine into Himself.
Christianity does not hold, as pantheism does, that God is "in" all things, in the sense that all things are God or manifestations of the Godhead. For the Christian, God is in all things in the sense that He supports and sustains them, maintaining their existence. Thus, when Christians claim that God is fully present in the Bread and Wine, that these are His Body and Blood re-presented to the Father by the priest (a man standing in persona Christi) and so by Christ Himself, it is a unique and staggering claim.
We do not make this claim without support from sacred Scripture. In each account of the Lord's Supper, we hear Christ proclaim "This is my Body…This is my Blood" (Matt. 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:17-20). In the Gospel of John, Christ delivers what is known as the Bread of Life discourse, where He very clearly and explicitly lays out the Real Presence and its necessity for the life of the Church (John 6:25-59). This is done in the context of the feeding of the five thousand with loaves and fishes (John 6:1-15) and Jesus walking on water (John 6:16-24). The feeding of the five thousand demonstrates that Jesus has the divine power required to feed not just the Twelve at the Last Supper, but also the Church down through the ages with His Body and Blood-the same Body and Blood that He possesses in heaven. As He multiplied the purely physical loaves and fishes, so He multiplies the bread from heaven on which the Church is sustained throughout Her earthly mission. His divinity was demonstrated by walking on water, presenting to the apostles clear proof of His command over nature and thus of His capacity to literally transform bread and wine into Himself.
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