243. What the Eucharist signifies
243. WHAT THE EUCHARIST SIGNIFIES
There are three properties of a sacrament according to the Church’s classic definition: a sacrament is “instituted by Christ”, “gives grace”, and “effects what it signifies”. What does the Eucharist signify?
In the Sacrament of the Altar, two things are signified, viz. Christ’s true Body and Christ’s mystical body. . . .
A sacrament properly speaking is that which is ordained to signify our sanctification.
In which three things may be considered, viz. the very cause of our sanctification, which is Christ’s passion; the form (essence) of our sanctification, which is grace and the virtues; and the ultimate end of our sanctification, which is eternal life. And all these are signified by the sacraments. Consequently a sacrament is a sign that is both (1) a reminder of the past, i.e., the passion of Christ; and (2) an indication of that which is effected in us by Christ’s passion, i.e., grace; and (3) a prognostic, that is, a foretelling of future glory (111,60,3).
As usual, St. Thomas’ answer is bigger than ours.
In modern Catholic theology there has been a dispute, or at least a tension, among sacramental theologians, between the “conservatives”, who emphasize St. Thomas’ first answer—that the Eucharist points to the Real Presence, to “Christ’s true (literal) Body”—and the “liberals”, who emphasize St. Thomas’ second answer—that the Eucharist points to the “Mystical Body”, the Church, “the People of God”. This tension is analogous to the one among Biblical scholars between the “conservatives”, who emphasize the literal, historical meaning of passages, especially those that narrate miracles, and the “liberals”, who emphasize symbolic or “spiritual” meanings. Just as St. Thomas’ answer to that hermeneutical question was a both / and rather than an either / or (ST I,1,10), so here.
St. Augustine says: “By receiving the (sacramental) Body of Christ, we become the (mystical) Body of Christ.” This is how we are saved: “He who eats this bread will live forever” (cf. Jn 6:51).
We are not saved by reading and trying to live the Sermon on the Mount, i.e., by imitation, as the Modernist moralists say. God gave us not just words but The Word; not just a philosopher but a martyr; not just His mind but His Body.
Nor did He save us by legal fiat, as Lutheran theology says (the “forensic” theory of justification). God is a Father, not a lawyer. He saved us by making us His children, by becoming our Father, by incorporating us into His family, the Mystical Body of Christ. And we enter that family by receiving Baptism and the Eucharist in faith. In other words, we enter into the Mystical Body by means of Christ’s true sacramental Body, the Body that died on the Cross for our salvation. That very Body enters into our bodies and our souls by our receiving the Eucharist in faith. (If we receive without faith, He does not enter into our souls, only our bodies; and that is sacrilege.) For the Eucharist not only symbolizes Christ, it is Christ.
Thus it fulfills the third part of the definition of a sacrament: it signifies what it does, namely sanctification, Christification, transformation into Christ.
St. Thomas then finds three inseparable but distinguishable aspects of this sanctification: its origin, or efficient cause (the passion and death of Christ), its essential nature, or formal cause (grace, the very life of God), and its end, or final cause (our eternal life). Thus what is signified is both past, present, and future.
(Incidentally, see how natural and necessary, how useful and commonsensical Aristotle’s “four causes” are.)