Hoc est Corpus Meum
If you noticed a similarity between the graphic for today's blog and the Latin title ("This is my body"), it will come a no surprise that hocus pocus is derived from the Latin mass' words that the priest uses in the consecration of the bread into the body of Christ. Sacrament is often mistaken for magic.
Mistaking the rituals of Christian worship for magic goes back well over a thousand years to the Romans' misunderstanding as to the nature of the Eucharist, and how we can "eat" the body of Christ; Christians were, among other false charges, regarded by many as cannibals. Recently, I had a young man at my parish explain to me why he has a reluctance to attend Mass: "Its too magical; I can't relate to a magic Jesus". And herein lies the difficulty many have of understanding the nature of sacrament as distinct from magic.
When the Temple authorities argued about Jesus' proclamation that "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world", they encountered the seemingly impossible. Then it gets even stranger when Jesus says "...unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you . . . . Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." No wonder the many of those outside of Christianity regarded Christians with suspicion. What a doctrine!
But Jesus is calling us to be more than an agape-meal fellowship, more than simply a gathering of like-minded do-gooders who sit down and enjoy a common meal. While the sacrifice of the Mass is indeed symbolic, it is the symbol that brings the reality of what it symbolizes to life. Put another way, the bread and wine of the Mass are symbols that bring the reality they symbolize (body and blood of Christ) when taken in faith. Jesus is asking us, as a matter of faith, to enter into a new reality---a reality that makes communion with his sacrifice a present-day reality through this sacrament.
The "common meal" aspect of the Mass has enjoyed the emphasis for the past 40 years or so, but John's gospel reminds us that our Eucharistic sacrifice joins us, physically, with the reality of Christ's sacrifice. Christ's calls us to more than an important memory-meal by declaring "For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink"; he is calling us to a physical reality, not through a magical act, but an act grounded in faith. Magic needs no faith, but sacraments require it. As Catholics, any one of us may come to the Eucharist with insufficient faith, but it is the faith of the gathered assembly, indeed, the faith of the entire Church, which allows us to participate in this reality. The symbol becomes what it symbolizes even if we individually lack sufficient faith. Clearly this is not hocus pocus.
That is why we gather, and together participate in this sacrifice. The priest's sacrifice is the gathered sacrifice of the faithful. What is done at the altar does not begin and end with the priest, but begins with the faithful and ends with the faithful; the priest is called to mediate this reality sacramentally. The Eucharist celebration is presided over, and the elements consecrated by a priest, but he does so first and foremost as a member of the faithful gathered. The power to consecrate the elements is not his power, but the extension of the work of the Holy Spirit from the community of the faithful. As our Orthodox brothers and sisters experience in the words of the priest before receiving communion: " Holy Things for Holy People." Christ's body and blood belong to us, because we belong to Christ. Christ's one, physically real sacrifice becomes physically real in us when we receive as a member of the Church his "true flesh" and his "true blood".
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