A Roman Catholic Theology Of The Lord's Supper

The application of modern methods of biblical scholarship by Roman Catholic scholars since 1943 has been credited with renewing Catholic theology of the Eucharist. Although some early twentieth-century explanations of the meaning of the Eucharist were rejected by papal encyclicals as spiritualizing abandonments of historic belief in Christ's Real Presence, no consensus has emerged regarding language that would offer an alternative to the scholastic terminology of transubstantiation (material, substance, accidents), yet remain entirely faithful to the Roman Catholic tradition of Christ's Real Presence. Some have applied Pauline language about insertion into Christ's saving activity to both baptism and the Eucharist.

The Impact of the Biblical Movement Twentieth-century Catholic theologians have continued to address traditional topics pertaining to the celebration of the Eucharist, especially: the sacramental presence of Christ; the representation of the sacrifice of Christ; and the role of the ordained minister (presbyter) in relation to the universal priesthood of all believers. Their work has been influenced by developments in philosophy and the human sciences, but especially by the biblical movement. For centuries prior to the biblical movement, Catholic theologians followed the method of first establishing the official teaching of the church on the Eucharist and then searching the Scriptures for support of the teaching. The purpose of this method was to show how a respective teaching related to all other teachings of faith in a harmonious whole. Even though pastoral application was a genuine concern, it was not in the forefront of the theological account. While this approach clearly provided insight into the development of doctrine (teaching), it tended to give the impression that dogmatic formulations, and even lesser statements by the Pope, were somehow immune to the passing of time and to different historical situations. The biblical movement, which had begun many years earlier among the Reformation churches, enhanced Catholic theology and led to the publication of the encyclical Divino afflante spiritu by Pope Pius XII in 1943. This circular letter to the church affirmed the importance and use of the historical-critical method in the study of the Scriptures, and of their centrality in making an account of the convictions of faith and the practices of the church. This new method recognizes the Scriptures as expression of the faith of the church and, in turn, as the norm for evaluation of all subsequent theological discourse. The following questions guide this new method. In responding to the pastoral needs in a given cultural-historical setting, as well as to the needs of sound reason, how well does a given teaching serve the Word of God in Scripture? In view of both the lived tradition of the past, as well as the data of Scripture, does a teaching need reassessment in order to respond to valid current needs? This more recent method in making an account of the faith and practice of the church has the advantage of making the original revelation more intelligible, as well as of paying due attention to Christian life itself as a source of insight. Theological Reevaluations By the 1930s, theologians had begun a critical study of the dogma of Christ's presence under the forms of bread and wine, in such a way as to be faithful to the witness of Scripture, as well as to respond to recent philosophical questions. Eucharistic doctrine up until that time had been shaped by the questions and philosophy of the ninth-through-eleventh-century eucharistic controversies. In those centuries, some theologians had seemed to reduce the consecrated bread and wine to mere signs or symbols which, for the eyes of faith, only pointed to the presence of Christ in heaven. By the thirteenth century, theologians conceptually secured the Real Presence of Christ on the basis of the analogy with substantial changes in material beings, but with the following difference. Whereas material beings undergo changes in substantial form, the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ by a complete change of being. Only the outward appearances remain. It must be noted that the desire was to defend the biblically grounded faith-conviction of the church: Christ is really present, and this implies real change. Any explanation is by way of analogy. Some early twentieth-century theologians wanted to respond to the pastoral questions regarding the meaning of eucharistic food—the sacramental presence of Christ inviting the believer to faith. They reasoned that, if God changes the meaning of bread and wine, this entails a change of being. Therefore, the eucharistic bread and wine only have the meaning-for-us of Christ's saving presence. Papal Responses In the encyclical Humani generis (1951), Pope Pius XII rejected this approach because it seemed to spiritualize Christ's eucharistic presence (i.e., reduce it to only subjective meaning for the believer) and to set aside the scholastic theology of substantial change—thus, the Real Presence. In response, literature appeared which continued to depart from scholastic philosophical language, but instead considered a theology of conversion of elements. In the encyclical Mysterium Fidei (1965), Pope Paul VI asserted that any change of meaning for the believer is grounded on a change in the being of the elements of bread and wine. In so doing, the Pope implicitly acknowledged the inadequacies of the explanation grounded in scholastic philosophical language and opened the door to further theological development in making an account of the faith of the church. Since 1965, no common approach to the dogma of transubstantiation, i.e., the real transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ has emerged. However, theologians have compared the eucharistic conversion to the Incarnation; just as the logos took flesh by the power of the Spirit, so the risen Lord takes up the bread and wine in the power of the Spirit as a corporeal means of saving presence. At the same time, Catholic theologians stress that the presence of Christ in the believer by faith is the necessary condition for a fruitful reception of the sacrament of faith. Insertion into Christ's Saving Activity To the extent that Catholic theology has retrieved the Pauline understanding of baptism (see especially Rom. 6) as insertion by the Spirit into the death of the Lord to the glory of the Father with all others who are baptized, it has been able to more profoundly make an account for the Eucharist as the offering of the one-for-all sacrifice of Christ by the church, i.e., Christ and his members. This retrieval of the New Testament theology of the church not only enables a richer appreciation of the presence in the Christian of the gift of the participation in the Spirit of Christ's faith, but also of the Spirit as the condition for the possibility of the active, trusting faith of Christians. Hence, it is recognized that the presence in the believer of faith comes about by the gift of insertion into Christ's saving activity on the cross by the power of the Spirit to the glory of God with all other baptized members. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the baptized offer to the Father not another sacrifice, but the one eternal sacrifice of Christ, into which they have been baptized by the power of the Spirit. Priest and Presider: Liturgical Reform This understanding of the origin of the church situates the role of the ordained minister at the Eucharist in radical baptismal relationship to all others who share in the universal priesthood of all believers. The ordained minister fulfills the valid need for leadership in the most important act of worship of the church. By convening the church, proclaiming the Scriptures and the eucharistic prayer (prayer of praise and thanksgiving), the presider serves the crucial role of calling the church to its origin, the cross of Christ; to its present situation, being in Christ for the peace and salvation of all the world; and to its hope, the recapitulation of all things in Christ. The presider acts in the name of the church in that the church deputes the ordained minister to act in the person of Christ, the one head of the church. As such, the presider can be said to be a sacrament of the church—Christ and his members. From this perspective, the ordained minister has the responsibility to reconcile the members of the body to themselves, i.e., to be the body of Christ in history. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963) issued by the Second Vatican Council mandated the reform of the liturgy, the public worship of the church. The fruits of the biblical movement and the liturgical movement have yielded benefit for all the churches of the Western Christian tradition in the reforms of orders of worship. The tremendous consensus on the topics of sacramental presence, the representation of the sacrifice of Christ, and the meaning of ordained ministry in relation to the celebration of the Eucharist are obvious in the Lima Document of the World Council of Churches in 1982. Such a consensus is the work of the Spirit enabling the churches to recognize and overcome those issues which have divided them since the sixteenth century.