The Real Presence

by Fr. Jess Ty  |  08/18/2024  |  Weekly Reflection

What does it really mean when they say “The Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist?

The Catechism says this: In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”

“This presence is called ‘real’—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God, and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (CCC 1374)

All those other presences are spiritual presences, but in the Eucharist, he is substantially present because his body, his blood, his soul, and divinity are all present under the appearance of bread and wine. In the Eucharist, Christ is not only present in spirit, but he is also present in his body. He's not just present in his divinity; his divinity is present everywhere. God is omnipresent, God is pure spirit, and the second person of the Trinity, the Son, is also pure spirit from all eternity, he’s omnipresent. But when he assumes a human nature, by definition that human nature is limited. And in his humanity, Christ is only present at the right hand of God, where he sits embodied on the throne of God after the Ascension and in the Eucharist in every tabernacle and on every altar.

According to Dr. Brant Pitre: “You can have a body and blood at the scene of a car accident but what you might have there is just a corpse. But if you have a body, blood, and a soul united to that body and blood, then what you have is a person. And if you also have body, blood, soul, and divinity, then you have a divine person, you have the God-man. You have the God who has become man for our sake, present under the Eucharistic species. In other words, the Eucharist is God. That's what we mean when we say Christ is really present in the Eucharist. You can be with the spirit of God anywhere, but if you want to be with the God-man, if you want to be with Christ in his body, you need to go to mass, you need to go to an adoration chapel, you need to go to the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. That's what lovers do. That's what people who are in love do. When we love someone, we don't just want to be with them in spirit, we want to be with them in the body. We want to be close to them and we miss them when we are apart from them. That's the great gift that Christ has given us in the Eucharist.”

Let us prove our love for Jesus by visiting Him often in the Blessed Sacrament or spending an hour a week with God in our Adoration Chapel.