Is the Eucharist just a Re-Enactment?

by Michael Shackleton · September 9, 2014

“…The sacrament is therefore a memorial celebration of Calvary, so that each time we celebrate it we make Christ’s unique redemptive sacrifice really present in the here and now.”

As an Irish Catholic born 80 years ago, I have been brought up to believe that when we receive the Eucharist, we actually receive the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet your response to the question posed in the issue of May 14 suggests that the Eucharist is only a re-enactment of the Last Supper, and that it is done in memory of Christ. This confuses me. Desmond Foley

I am sorry if my response confused you. I did not deny that we actually receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

My words were: As a community we receive his body and blood, his real presence among us through what the Church calls transubstantiation, which occurs during the sacramental celebration.

We cannot deny, either, that the liturgy of the Eucharist is an action carried out in obedience to Jesus who said at the Last Supper: Do this in memory of me.

What we do in memory of Jesus is not a kind of ritual reminder of what he did at the Last Supper. We do not repeat empty words as if we were saying: Let’s remember what he said and did that night.

It would be a misunderstanding to think that, when we celebrate the Eucharist to recall what Jesus did at the Last Supper, we exclude its essential relevance to the sacrifice of his life for our sake on the Cross. The two are intimately linked together.

So, this is the substance of what we do: The priest repeats what Jesus solemnly said: This is my body which is given up for you; This is the chalice of my blood which is poured out for you.

These words immediately connect the Eucharist with Christ’s sacrificial death on Calvary. The sacrament is therefore a memorial celebration of Calvary, so that each time we celebrate it we make Christ’s unique redemptive sacrifice really present in the here and now.

The Eucharist does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. It cannot be understood as something separate or independent of the Cross. It is a sacramental rite in which Jesus Christ shares with us the fruit of his sacrifice to the Father, as we commemorate what he did and said at table with his disciples.

As a mature Catholic you will remember the prayer said at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament: O God, who under this wonderful sacrament left us a memorial of your passion, we ask that we may so revere the sacred mysteries of your body and blood, that we may ever feel within ourselves the fruit of your redemption.