As you have heard so often, Eucharist means “thanksgiving.”  Hence, in this month when we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, that greatest of all American feasts, I have entitled this talk: “The Eucharist: a New and Eternal Thanksgiving.”

I.) Why did Jesus Give Thanks?

Eucharistein means “to give thanks.” It recalls the Jewish blessings that proclaim—especially during a meal—God’s works: creation, redemption, and sanctification. CCC 1328 And at the Last Supper, Jesus gave thanks. Jesus took the cup and gave thanks. He took the wine and gave thanks. To whom and for what did He give thanks? 

Quite simply, He gave thanks to His heavenly Father. The Mass, after all, is at its root Christ’s act of worship to the Father, to which we are joined--His act of continued thanksgiving for His vocation. That vocation, for which He eternally gives thanks, is the deepest desire of His heart -- to save us, a vocation of love, a vocation lived out in His dying and rising, a vocation in which we share  by virtue of our individual baptism. He gave us His life and left us the bread of life. “Truly, in the Eucharist, he shows us a love which goes ‘to the end’ (Jn 13:1),a love which knows no measure.” EDE 11 It is Jesus Himself thanking His Father for giving Him His vocation to redeem you and me. Stated differently, Hans Urs von Balthasar writes: “The Son thanks the Father for having allowed him to be so disposed of that there comes about, at one and the same time, the supreme revelation of the divine love (its glorification) and the salvation of humankind.” (Mysterium Paschale 99) St.Francis of Assisi writes, speaking of Jesus: ‘…he reposed his will in the will of his Father. The Father willed that his blessed and glorious Son, whom he gave to us and who born for us, should through his own blood offer himself as a sacrificial victim on the altar of the cross.” Jesus followed the will of the Father and thanked Him for it. Moreover, “in the Eucharistic sacrifice the whole of creation loved by God is presented to the Father through the death and the Resurrection of Christ.” CCC 1359

Linked to Him, through the person of the priest, each of us thanks the Father for the redeeming presence of Jesus in our lives. What more could Jesus have done for us?

At the Last Supper, Jesus exercised the creative power to change bread and wine into His body and blood and He exercised this power with an essential attitude of thanksgiving recognizing full well that He owed the Father the body and blood  which were going to be distributed as food and drink.

This fundamental attitude of thanksgiving which Jesus adopted during the Last Supper contributed to the effect of the rite. The sacrament, which resulted, flowed from what was deep in the soul of Jesus, His relationship as Son to the Father. It was because Christ’s heart was perfectly eucharistic that he gave birth to the Eucharist for the Church. How unique and novel a thanksgiving--a thanksgiving for the loving relationship which was from and for all times between Jesus and His Father.

Speaking of you and me, George Weigel perceptively wrote in one of his letters to young Catholics: “We don’t worship God because it makes us feel good, or relieved, or entertained. We worship God because God is to be worshiped—and in giving God the worship that is his due, we satisfy one of the deepest longings of the human spirit.” 147 Instinctively, we know of our indebtedness to the goodness of God. It is written on our human hearts.

The Mass, our thanksgiving,  is about sacrifice, presence and a banquet. You and I thank God for the unbloodly sacrifice of the Mass, His real presence, and the banquet which transforms us into His body and blood.

2.) The Mass as Sacrifice

When was the last time you heard of the holy sacrifice of the Mass? Since the Vatican Council there has been a different emphasis. We so often think of the Mass in our day as a meal. That it is. But it is also a sacrifice. It is the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary. His redeeming sacrifice, that sacrifice of love made for us once and for all by Jesus is made present anew on this altar, sacramentally perpetuated, in every corner of the world at ever moment by the hands of the consecrated priest. “The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: ‘This is my body which is given for you’ and This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.’ In the Eucharist, Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he ‘poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” CCC 1365 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist is one single sacrifice. By the power of the Holy Spirit and the words of consecration, bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ in a way that re-presents the sacrifice of Calvary long ago. It is His sacrificial gift of Himself to the Father out of love for each of us.

You and I are not passive observers either. The Eucharist is not a mere passion play, an empty drama, a concert. You have been challenged, as I have, by St. Paul to offer your (our) bodies as living sacrifice. Every time I lift the chalice and paten at Mass, our sacrifices--each of our sacrifices-- are there, our money, our labors, the work of human hands, our prayers, our needs, our very selves. Oh, how we wish to belong to God. To sacrifice is to give a gift to God as a sign of our belonging to Him. There is a transfer of ownership over the offerings being presented at the altar. The transfer takes place when our gifts, our sacrifice, are changed into His redeeming body and blood. We belong to God and wish to belong to Him ever more completely. There is a real contact, a transforming contact, between us and God.

The language of sacrifice is like two people in love--each giving each other gifts. We do that at Christmas, on birthdays, to those in need so very often. To belong to another by giving gifts means making that other person the center of the world. That is what is happening as we give ourselves sacrificially to God at holy Mass. Taking part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is the source and summit of our lives as Christians, means offering the Divine Victim to God and ourselves also. It is a holy exchange of gifts. We give ourselves sacramentally in sacrifice along with Christ and and the risen Christ is given back to us in holy communion.

3.) It is His Real Presence

More will be spoken about the real presence in another meditation. Presently, I wish to speak of it in the context of our cause for thanksgiving. How privileged we are to experience the presence of the Lord Jesus today in so many ways—in His living Word, where two or more are gathered in His name, in the poor, the sick and the imprisoned! “But ‘He is present…most especially in the Eucharistic species.’” CCC 1373 But what does this mean?

Two definitive statements about the “real presence” were set forth  from that great reforming Council of Trent (1545-63). This is the teaching of the Catholic Church to this day: “After the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the perceptible species of bread and wine.” And “If anyone denies that the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, the whole Christ, is truly, really and substantially contained present in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, but says that Christ is present in the Sacrament only as in a sign or figure, or by his power, let him be anathema.” This is a truth of faith taught by the Council of Trent and not a mere philosophical opinion.

In other words, the substance of bread and wine is completely annihilated; only the appearance of bread and wine remain. This change is called “transubstantiation”-- that which happens at the moment of the consecration of the bread and wine. In the Eucharist, a change occurs such that the reality of the bread gives place to the reality of the body of Christ. It is a matter of a conversion from one substance into another, with only the “species” of bread and wine remaining intact. Nothing subsists of the substance of the bread and wine, since only the substance of the body and blood of Christ is present. This is in sharp contrast to the view of Martin Luther called “consubstantiation” which means that while the substances of bread and wine remain, the body and blood of Christ do become present for the believers.

For Catholics, moreover, “the mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique.” CCC1374 “Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.” CCC 1356 The Council teaches also that “the whole Christ is contained under each species, and if these are divided, under each part of each species.” DS 1653 Where the body of Christ is found, there also will His blood be present.  Important also: the body given as Eucharistic food is the body in its glorious state, a state that reunited His body and soul at the moment of the Resurrection and that makes any separation in the future impossible. We thus receive the Risen Lord in holy communion.

Paul VI taught: “This presence is called ‘real’ –-by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” CCC 1374

4.) The Mass as Banquet

Inseparably, the Mass is the sacrificial memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ sacramentally re-presented on the altar AND the sacred banquet or meal or communion with the Lord’s living and risen body and blood. The altar is the altar of sacrifice AND the table of the Lord. The saving efficacy of the sacrifice is fully realized when the Lord’s body and blood are received in holy communion.

During the recent synod at Rome, Father Francis Moloney, former dean of religious studies at The Catholic University of America, stated on point that: “Jesus' meal is ‘not just another meal…It's a reading in Christological terms of the Passover,’” he said. "When he picks up the bread, instead of talking about the manna, he talks about his body broken for you. When he picks up the wine, instead of talking about the Red Sea, he talks about his blood. He's changing the ritual in a significant and profound way [from the Passover meal], from the presence of the God of Exodus to his ongoing presence through the resurrection."

To this end, we have been told by Jesus Himself urging us to receive Him in the Eucharist: “Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Jn 6:53 This is not a mere suggestion on the part of Jesus. He is speaking of the Eucharistic meal or banquet, that unique and eternal gift left for us.

“The Eucharist is a true banquet, in which Christ offers himself as our nourishment. …This is no metaphorical food: ‘My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.’” Jn 6:55  EDE 16 There is that old axiom that you are what you eat. We become Christ when we eat His body and drink His blood in holy communion. We are united with Him and united with each other at this sacrificial meal, this Eucharistic supper after the example of the Last Supper in the context of the Passover meal.

Moreover, there are effects of our reception of Holy Communion. “Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant’s union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.” CCC 1416

Finally, when we give thanks to God on Thanksgiving day this month, each of us should remember as well the great prayer of thanksgiving, our holy Mass, a thanksgiving celebration that we are privileged to share each time we share in the Eucharist. It is our new and eternal Thanksgiving for Christ lives at the right hand of the Father offering praise and thanksgiving to Him forever each and every time with celebrate the Eucharistic feast. Besides, “every time this mystery is celebrated, ‘the work of our redemption is carried on’ and we ‘break the one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ.” CCC 1405