I grew up on white bread. The “classic white” variety — sweet and delicious. Today, I imagine these pieces of sliced bread being churned out in some factory with a manufacturing process designed to strip away all the nutritional value and bleach any imperfections, as the pure white pieces of softened sugar move down an assembly line to a powdering room where each one is spritzed with calcium and supposedly become enriched and fortified and nutritious. Thus, with some of its nutritional value restored, white bread slices must then be stacked together, bagged up, and shipped out to be layered with bologna and waxy American cheese singles and slathered in Miracle Whip — and washed down with Kool Aid. This was the sugar-coated lunch of my childhood, anyhow. It was a delightful dish that provided about enough of the fast carbs and protein I needed for about 20 minutes, because that’s about how long I felt satisfied. So, I’d show up in the kitchen while my mom was cleaning up and complain about being hungry while fingering a bag of chips in the pantry.
As human beings, we are designed to eat, to sustain our lives by taking in parts of God’s creation and making it part of our being. In many ways, we are what we eat. And, in truth, we ingest dead things — plants and animals. We eat to live and we are eating ourselves to death. (See above paragraph.) With the Eucharist, all of this gets turned on its head.
Ratzinger frequently references St. Augustine on the topic of Eucharistic transformation. Augustine imagines the Lord speaking with him about the Eucharist as an altogether different kind of food. “Eat the bread of the strong, and yet you will not change me into yourself; rather, I will change you into me.” Rather than receiving the Eucharist and assuming it into our bodies, the Eucharist works in the opposite way. The Eucharist is the true superfood, wonder bread, that is not dead and weaker than us, but alive and stronger. The Eucharist is Jesus’ singularly miraculous flesh to eat and blood to drink, the only food on the face of the earth able to satisfy our spiritual hunger and slake our spiritual thirst. We are what we eat, so when we take and eat the Eucharist, Jesus Christ is actually receiving us and assuming us into him.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described Augustine’s reflection in a 2002 address:
"In other words, the bodily nourishment that we [ordinarily] consume is assimilated by the body and itself becomes a structural component of our body. But this [Eucharistic] bread is of another sort. It is greater and more substantial than we are. We do not assimilate it into ourselves, but rather it assimilates us to itself, so that we are conformed to Christ."[1]
Ratzinger goes on to explain this assimilation and conformation in further detail by noting that the celebration of the Eucharist is a series of transformations. First, he notes the transformation from bread to body. Jesus says, “This [bread] is my body.” Body includes the whole of Christ’s Person, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. So Jesus is saying, “This bread is me, my person.” As Ratzinger says, “Bread becomes body, his body. The bread of the earth becomes the bread of God, the ‘manna’ from heaven… which prepares for the Resurrection, indeed, initiates it.”[2]
But, the bread is not only Jesus’ body. It is his body given. “This is my body, which is given up for you.” “This is my blood, which will be shed for you.” The second transformation is the movement from body to divine gift. This is a deeper expression of Jesus’ identity. He is the Son, the one sent by the Father, wholly given to the Father and, on behalf of the Father, to all of humanity. He gives his life of his own accord; it is not taken from him. He anticipates this gift at the Last Supper, and fulfills it in the crucifixion. On the Cross, he willingly allows the act of violence committed against him. In so doing, he turns their act of violence into an act of love—a gift. He gives himself despite being rejected. Ratzinger says:
"This is the fundamental transformation upon which all the rest is based… Because Christ from within transforms violence into an act of love and thus conquers it, death itself is transformed: love is stronger than death. It lasts."[3]
The transformation of death into life by divine gift, by Love itself, is the Resurrection. And the Resurrection, Christ’s living body, makes the Eucharistic gift possible. Christ is alive. He is present. He is here. He is given for the sake of communion.
This said, we have already anticipated the third transformation, the movement from divine gift to communion. Here, the Body given to us establishes unity. We become one bread with him and one Body with him, and through him, with each other. We receive this gift, this supersubstantial food that is stronger than we are, and Jesus takes us into himself. The Eucharist transforms us into him; it transforms us from the inside out. We become his Body.
Finally, we see a movement from communion to mission. This is the final transformation: As Christ was sent, so are we. The Eucharist is Jesus’ Body given; so are we. We are given to God and given to our neighbor—indeed, to the whole of creation, on behalf of it all. Wholly given. Totally sent. We are sent on a mission to draw all God’s creatures back to God by offering ourselves, with Christ, on their behalf. Pope St. John Paul II explains it this way:
"At this point communion begets communion: essentially it is likened to a mission on behalf of communion…. Communion and mission are profoundly connected with each other, they interpenetrate and mutually imply each other to the point that communion represents both the source and the fruit of mission: communion gives rise to mission and mission is accomplished in communion."[4]
By receiving the supersubstantial miracle bread that is the Eucharist, individuals and communities become what they eat by gradually being transformed by and conformed into Christ. Ultimately, to live Eucharistically, then, means to live out Christ’s ongoing mission today. We cooperate with and participate in his mission. And what is his Eucharistic mission? Well, we already addressed it above — it’s to be transformed by grace and given, in charity, for the sake of communion. The Church and her mission isn’t something we make up for ourselves or make happen for ourselves. The mission of the Church isn’t dictated by our preferences, fancies, or prerogatives. No, the Church and her mission are God’s, and we participate in it. The Eucharist initiates us into this missional movement and makes us capable of participating in it.
Brad Bursa is director of evangelization for the Stella Maris Family of Parishes in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the father of eight children and the author of Surviving Catholic Ministry.
[1] Ratzinger, “Eucharist—Communio—Solidarity,” in Joseph Ratzinger Collected Works: Theology of the Liturgy, vol. 11 (San Francisco: Ignatius, 362). See also Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §70.
[2] Ratzinger, “Eucharist—Communio—Solidarity,” 368.
[3] Ratzinger, “Eucharist—Communio—Solidarity,” 369.
[4] John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, §32.
