273. The Eucharist and our future Heavenly glory
273. THE EUCHARIST AND OUR FUTURE HEAVENLY GLORY
If there are no sacraments in Heaven, what is the connection between the sacrament of the Eucharist on earth and our own Heavenly destiny?
Whether the attaining of glory is an effect of this sacrament?
It is written (Jn 6:51): If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever. But eternal life is the life of glory. Therefore the attaining of glory is an effect of this sacrament. . . .
The refreshment of spiritual food and the unity (with Christ) denoted by the species of the bread and wine are to be had in the present life, although imperfectly; but perfectly in the state of glory. . . .
As Christ’s Passion, in virtue whereof this sacrament is accomplished, is indeed the sufficient cause of glory, yet not so that we are thereby forthwith admitted to glory, but we must first suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified afterwards with Him (Rom 8:17), so this sacrament does not at once admit us to glory but bestows on us the power of coming into glory. And therefore it is called Viaticum, a figure whereof we read in III Kings 19:8: Elias ate and drank, and walked in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto the mount of God, Horeb (III,79,2).
The connection is causal. The Eucharist causes our eternal salvation, our Heavenly, eternal glory, because the Eucharist is Christ Himself. But what kind of cause is it? It is not a formal cause of our Heavenly glory, because the formal cause of anything is that thing’s very essence, which can never be distinct from the thing of which it is the form or essence. But in our Heavenly glory there will be no sacraments, so sacraments and this glory are distinct.
It is not a material cause, although sacraments are always material. For the matter of the Eucharist is the bread and the wine; and these substances do not remain, even on earth, in the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is not a final cause (purpose, or end) of Heaven, but Heaven is the final cause of it.
It is, however, an efficient cause, the real power that effects the change. As the Word of God in Heaven, the eternal Logos, the pre-incarnate Christ, was the means or efficient cause by which God the Father created the universe (“God said . . . and it was”), so this same Word of God in the flesh on the Cross effects our salvation.
He Himself clearly said that. “If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.” And He cannot lie because He is Truth Himself: “I am the Truth” (Jn 14:6). Thus St. Thomas writes in his “Adoro Te Devote”, “I believe all the Son of God has spoken / Than Truth’s own word there is no truer token.”
As St. Thomas points out in his third paragraph, this effect of the Eucharist, namely eternal life, begins not in Heaven but on earth. It is perfected in Heaven, but if the seed is not planted here, it cannot flower There.
Christ warns us to “count the cost” (Lk 14:28). The road to Heaven involves suffering. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For who—ever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?” (Mt 16:24-26). No man in history ever uttered a more practical sentence about the subject of practical economics (the science of profit and loss) than that one.