Q: When we receive Communion, the minister on offering the host says “The Body of Christ”, and on offering the chalice “The Blood of Christ”. I like to think that I am receiving more than just the Body or the Blood when I receive Communion. Am I wrong in this view?
You are not wrong. In fact, you are very right, possibly even more right than you realise. As I explained in an earlier column on “Communion under both kinds”, it has always been the understanding of the Church that under each species, of bread or of wine, we receive not only the Body or the Blood, but the whole Christ.
This is the doctrine of what is traditionally called concomitance. Since Christ cannot be divided, He is present, whole and entire, in the smallest particle of the host and in the tiniest drop of the Precious Blood.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it: “Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ” (CCC 1377).
Even though the minister may say “The Body of Christ”, what we are receiving is not just the Body, but the Body and the Blood, the whole Christ.
The words “Body” and “Blood” can easily mislead us. They can suggest that we are receiving the parts of Christ, as if the Eucharist were just a “thing” or at best the dead Christ.
But we are not receiving a “thing”, we are receiving a person – the living, risen person of Jesus. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: “ Under the consecrated species of bread and wine, Christ Himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner” (CCC 1415).
It is as if, on walking down the aisle to receive Him, we meet the living Jesus coming out to embrace us and give Himself to us. With what faith and love we would receive Him!
But in Communion we not only receive Him, we become intimately united with Him. As He said in the synagogue of Capernaum, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Jn 6:56).
He gives Himself to us in a nuptial covenant relationship – we become “one flesh” with Him. How true are the words of St Paul when applied to Communion: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20)!
The Eucharist is truly an awesome gift. There is no more intimate union with Christ on earth than holy Communion. After becoming one with Christ in this way, we cannot go back to our daily routine as if nothing special had happened.
Yet St Faustina records these words of Jesus: “When I come to a human heart in holy Communion, my hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul, but souls do not even pay attention. They leave me to myself and busy themselves with other things … They treat me as a dead object” (Diary, n 1447).
No, the Eucharist is not a dead object. It is a person – the living, loving person of Jesus, who offers Himself to us so as to become one with us.
But there is still more. Jesus does not come alone. He is always united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who come with Him. From all eternity, the three divine Persons are one God. They cannot be separated. Jesus says: “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (Jn 14:10). So when we receive Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, we are receiving the whole Trinity. We become truly temples of the Blessed Trinity. It is as if the whole of heaven were present in our soul.
St Therese of Lisieux experienced this when she made her first Communion some time after her mother had died. She was moved to tears but not, as some thought, because her mother was not there. She writes: “As if the absence of my mother could make me unhappy on the day of my first Communion! As all of heaven entered my soul when I received Jesus, my mother came to me as well” (The Story of a Soul).