The Thomistic Notion of the Non-Local Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: Its Meaning and Place in Catholic Tradition

The Thomistic Notion of the Non-Local Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: Its Meaning and Place in Catholic Tradition Michael F. Brummond Introduction It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us “to the end,” even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love.1 How are we to conceive of this unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist? How are we to imagine what the universe cannot contain being present to us in the Eucharistic host behind the doors of the tabernacle? Surely the most readily available analog of Christ’s bodily presence for us would be our experience of the presence of other bodies. A body is present to us when it occupies an adjacent place, within spatial proximity and a defined locality. So, can we conceive of Christ as present “here in this place,” with us like any other object? If so, how would we explain in an intelligible manner the presence of Christ in each host in each tabernacle of the world? How can any body, even Christ’s risen body, be in so many locations at once? Furthermore, since Catholic teaching holds that the whole 1 Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition (Washington DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000) 1380. Antiphon 17.3 (2013): 247–275 248 Michael F. Brummond Christ is present in each host, are we to picture Christ “squished” into such a small place? In short, how can we reconcile belief in the Real Presence with any kind of natural philosophy? In his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas argues that “Christ’s body is not in this sacrament as in a place…,” and “in no way is Christ’s body locally present in this sacrament.”2 For Thomas, this is a corollary of the mode of the Eucharistic conversion described as transubstantiation. Under this framework, the “dimensive quantity” of Christ’s body is present “not according to its proper manner…but after the manner of substance….”3 Nearly three centuries later, the Roman Catechism (1566) frames this concept in an explicitly pastoral context: “The pastor should next teach that our Lord is not in the Sacrament as in a place”.4 In the twentieth century, Pope Paul VI’s Mysterium Fidei explicitly refers to “His physical ‘reality,’ corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.”5 Though endorsed by authorities such as these, this notion of the non-local mode of the Real Presence seems to have receded into oblivion in contemporary catechesis. For instance, the Roman Catechism’s contemporary counterpart, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is silent on the matter. This article examines the idea of the non-locality of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, primarily as it is formulated by the Angelic Doctor, along with its subsequent reception. Then a brief examination of some elements of contemporary sacramental theology offers an explanation for the decline of the idea’s popularity. The Non-Local Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in Thomas Aquinas While questions regarding what could generally be referred to as the physics of the Eucharist were already present to some degree 2 ST, III, q. 76, a. 5. All English quotations taken from Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster MD: Christian Classics, 1981). 3 ST, III, q.76, a. 4. 4 Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests, trans. John A. McHugh and Charles J. Callan (Rockford IL: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1982), 239. 5 Paul VI, Encyclical on the Holy Eucharist Mysterium Fidei (3 September 1965) 46. 249 The Thomistic Notion of the Non-Local...