Mystical Supper

As I thought about the Easter mystery and our Divine Liturgy, it dawned on me that each Divine Liturgy is truly an experience of the Risen Christ since He literally comes into our presence in the mystery of the Eucharist – He is truly spiritually present in a very unique way. This is in fulfillment of His promise to us to be with us until the end of time.

This, of course, is one of the reasons why one the Church’s main teachings is the real presence of Christ, body and soul, in the Eucharist. It should be noted that many Christians find it impossible to believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. The idea of the real presence of Christ is held as orthodox or true faith by both Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

The Church truly understands that the idea of the real presence is difficult to understand. This is probably why the Western Church has used philosophical terms to explain the real presence. The Eastern Church, of course, accepts the real presence as a profound mystery and only calls us to believe in it and forego any attempt to explain it.

In the Divine Liturgies that we use wherein bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ (i.e., those of Basil the Great and John Chrysostom), our Church uses a very special sequence of prayers to indicate that it is through the power of the Holy Trinity that this miracle happens. The sequence is this: (1) offering the Father praise; (2) remembering the Son’s words; and (3) invoke invoking the Holy Spirit. We believe that sometime during this sequence of prayers God actually transforms the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Eastern Church we don’t even dare to speculate when exactly this happens. We only   believe that it happens because God, in the Person of Jesus, promised that each time we do this in the name of the   Trinity, it happens – the Risen Christ IS with us in a real way. While our God is   always with us since we share in His divine life, He knows that we humans need concrete experiences of this presence. The Holy Eucharist IS this concrete experience of God’s presence.

I think that it become very obvious, when we think about this, why many people find it difficult to believe in the real presence. It is beyond our human understanding. All we can say is that we believe it is not beyond the power of our God. Just as we believe that God became a human, so we believe that He transforms bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood.