By John Fencik

On June 26 the Church will celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is traced to the 13th century and commemorates the Lord’s institution of this great gift at the Last Supper. By the late Middle Ages, devotion and respect for the Eucharist had dwindled among the faithful. St. Juliana of Liege (Belgium), with great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, led a movement to restore the beauty and power of the eucharistic gift of the Lord’s real presence. In 1246, Bishop Robert de Thorete of Liege instituted a feast that honored the presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. In 1263, Pope Urban IV placed the feast on the universal calendar for the Latin Rite. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote many of the prayers and hymns for this feast, including the beautiful “Pange Lingua.”

This feast speaks to the very heart of our Catholic faith. Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium stated, “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life.’” In other words, our Christian life is foremost sustained by the celebration of the Eucharist and it is the supreme act by which the saving grace (love) of Christ continues to flow into the hearts of the faithful.

Yet we see a decline in the number of Catholics who attend Mass, and we see others who may not fully understand the beauty and power of this sacrificial banquet. Even more alarming are those who do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In February 2008, Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate surveyed Catholics on a number of topics. On the question of the Real Presence, 43 percent believed that Jesus was symbolically there, but not really present. Thus, we are presented with a major task of evangelization of our people.

In turning to the early Christians and Church Fathers, it is interesting to note that for many centuries, there was no apparent dissension on the real presence and the meaning of the Eucharist—everyone believed it. St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (11:23-27) contains our earliest reference to the Eucharist and he makes clear that this ritual meal is a proclamation of the death of Christ, indeed, of the entire paschal mystery. Thus, altar/table or meal/sacrifice is a non-debate, since all of these elements (to the exclusion of none) are present in this central, sacramental act of the Church.

St. Paul, the Didache and St. Clement of Rome all speak about the importance of this gift and how it always should be approached worthily and prayerfully. Here are a few other examples for your reflection on this wonderful feast:

St. Ignatius of Antioch: “…some abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not believe that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His love, raised from the dead.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans) St. Justin Martyr: “For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.” (First Apology)

St. Irenaeus: Christ “has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he gives increase to our bodies.” (Against Heresies)

“The stem of the vine takes root in the earth and soon bears fruit, and ‘the grain of wheat falls to the earth’ (John 12:24), dies, rises again…finally after human work, is put to our use. These two then receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ.” (Five Books)

May the Body and Blood of Christ preserve us unto eternal life.


John Fencik is the diocesan director of Catholic Formation Services. He may be reached at jfencik@diocesehelena.org.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 27, No. 6, June 17, 2011.