Fr. John Hardon on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

 

The following is a reflection of Fr. John Hardon, SJ:

 

In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus offers Himself to His heavenly Father just as truly as He offered Himself on the Cross. On Calvary, He offered Himself by shedding His blood and thus merited the salvation of the world. In the Mass, He continues to offer Himself just as truly as He did on the first Good Friday. But now, He confers the graces that He won for us on Calvary. What are these graces? In one sentence, they are the graces we need to surrender ourselves to the will of God.

The Church defines sacrifice as the voluntary surrender of something precious to God. That is why Christ continues to sacrifice Himself to His heavenly Father in every Mass that has been offered for the twenty centuries of Christianity. In every Mass, Jesus Christ is present in the fullness of His human nature and therefore with His human will. That is what the double consecration at Mass is all about. It signifies that Jesus is just as willing to shed His blood for our salvation as He willingly and actually shed His blood on Calvary. As the glorified Redeemer, He can no longer die. But He is willing to die.

It is from the Sacrifice of the Mass offered throughout the world that we obtain the strength we need to surrender ourselves to the divine will in this valley of tears.

As we all know from personal experience, God can make heavy demands on our generosity. He will send us trials and difficulties and sufferings. Why? In order that we may prove our submission to His divine will. God will take away so many things, dare I say everything that we consider precious in this world. Again why? In order that we may recognize Him as our Lord and ourselves as His servants.

No words can describe the depth of this necessity to surrender our created wills to the divine will of the Creator. Where, where can we obtain the courage we need to make this self-surrender? Where, except from the God who died on the Cross for our salvation and continues to offer Himself in every Mass.

The lesson this should teach us is obvious. We must assist at Mass as often as we can. We must learn to live the Mass by putting into practice the graces which the Savior gives us through the Holy Sacrifice.

One more observation, in the form of a long quotation from Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei, which is the foundation of the true spirit of the Second Vatican Council.

It is desirable that all the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity, and that not in an inert and negligent fashion, giving way to distractions and day-dreaming, but with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the High Priest, according to the apostle, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2, 5). And together with Him and through Him let them make their oblation, and in union with Him let them offer up themselves.

I do not think I need apologize for this long quotation. The widespread liturgical abuses in the offering of Mass should only inspire us to participate in the Holy Sacrifice as often and as fervently as possible. Saints like Leonard of Port Maurice do not hesitate to say that the world would long ago have been destroyed for its sins except for the Sacrifice of the Mass.

It is through the Mass we are able to imitate Jesus Christ in living lives of total self-surrender to the will of God.

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Fr. John Hardon on the Holy Eucharist (Part 1)

The Church was blessed to have the witness and teaching of Fr. John Hardon.  He was a man of tremendous faith.  This is part of his teaching on what we Catholics believe on the Eucharist:

The simplest way to express what Christ asks us to believe about the Real Presence is that the Eucharist is really He. The Real Presence is the real Jesus. We are to believe that the Eucharist began in the womb of the Virgin Mary; that the flesh which the Son of God received from His Mother at the Incarnation is the same flesh into which He changed bread at the Last Supper; that the blood He received from His Mother is the same blood into which He changed wine at the Last Supper. Had she not given Him His flesh and blood there could not be a Eucharist.

We are to believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ – simply, without qualification. It is God become man in the fullness of His divine nature, in the fullness of His human nature, in the fullness of His body and soul, in the fullness of everything that makes Jesus Jesus. He is in the Eucharist with His human mind and will united with the Divinity, with His hands and feet, His face and features, with His eyes and lips and ears and nostrils, with His affections and emotions and, with emphasis, with His living, pulsating, physical Sacred Heart. That is what our Catholic Faith demands of us that we believe. If we believe this, we are Catholic. If we do not, we are not, no matter what people may think we are.

Our faith is belief because we do not see what we believe. We accept on Christ's words that all of this is there, or rather, here in the Holy Eucharist. Faith must supply what, as the Tantum Ergo sings, "the senses do not perceive." And faith must reveal what the mind by itself cannot see. Let us never forget this phrase, first in Latin, lumen fidei, the light of faith. Faith reveals, faith discloses, faith enlightens, faith empowers the mind to see what the mind without faith cannot see.

Strange as it may sound, when we believe in the Real Presence, we believe in things twice unseen. We see only what looks like bread and wine, tastes and smells like bread and wine, and yet we are to believe that behind these physical appearances is a man. Faith number one. And we are further to believe that behind the unseen man is God. Faith number two.

Is it any wonder the Church calls the Eucharist, Mysterium Fidei, the Mystery of Faith? Those who accept the Real Presence accept by implication all the cardinal mysteries of Christianity. They believe in the Trinity, in the Father who sent the Son and in the Son who sent the Holy Spirit. They believe in the Incarnation, that the Son of God became man like one of us. They believe in Christ's divinity since no one but God could change bread and wine into His own body and blood. They believe in the Holy Catholic Church which Christ founded and in which through successive generations is communicated to bishops and priests the incredible power of making Christ continually present among us in the Blessed Sacrament. They believe, against all the betrayals by the Judases of history and all the skepticism of Christ's first disciples, in an unbroken chain of faith ever since Peter replied to Christ's question whether he and his companions also wanted to leave the Master. What a chance Christ took. "Lord," Peter looked around, "whom shall we go to?" (And he spoke for all of us.)" You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know, that you are the holy one of God."

There is a prayer in the Coptic Liturgy that I think perfectly answers the first question we are asking. "What do I believe when I believe in the Real Presence?" The prayer goes as follows, a little long, but worth it:

"I believe and I will confess to my last breath that this is the living bread which Your only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, took from our Lady and the Queen of Mankind, the holy, sinless Virgin Mary, Mother of God. He made it one with His Godhead without confusion or change. He witnessed before Pontius Pilate and was of His own free will condemned in our place to the holy tree. Truly I believe that His Godhead was not separated from His manhood for a moment, not even for the twinkle of an eye. He gave His body for the remission of our sins and for eternal life to those who partake of this body. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is in very truth that body. Amen."

That is your faith and mine.

Read more on the Holy Eucharist at
Real Presence.