Homilies on Sacraments [series 7]
Eucharist [part 2]: The Mystery of Faith/New Covenant

During Mass, after consecration of bread and wine, it is proclaimed, ‘mystery of faith’.
A sacrament is called a mystery because of what is hidden in it that physical eye
cannot see but only the eyes of faith can behold. Hebrew 11: 1 says that ‘faith is the
conviction of things not seen’. In the Eucharist what we see is bread and wine but faith
assures us that this is body and blood of Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas in his hymn to the
Eucharist wrote: ‘our senses fail to fathom this mystery of the Eucharist. What God’s
Son has told me, take for truth I do; truth himself speaks truly, or there is nothing true’!
• In our celebration of the Eucharist, the action of Christ completely changes the
normal meaning of bread and wine into eternal meaning, the presence of Christ. The
council of Trent used the word transubstantiation to explain that the reality of
consecrated bread and wine is Christ himself: ‘by the consecration of bread and
wine, there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the
substance of the body of Christ our Lord, substance of wine into the substance of
his blood’. It means, during consecration, bread from its normal human use is
completely removed and changed by Christ into the bread which Christ is for us,
given by the Father from heaven! We can say that something like incarnation
happens in Eucharist. John says: the word became flesh. People saw the human
Jesus but he is also Son of God. In his resurrection, the disciples recognized Jesus
as eternal Christ. We see bread and wine but they are Christ himself. Human words
cannot exhaust the mystery.
• Eucharist is the mystery of Christ giving himself to the church, the sacrifice of Christ
for the church that professes faith in Christ. Prayers of Eucharist proclaim the
sacrifice of Christ, his death and resurrection. Sacrifice means self-giving. John 3;16
says: God so loved the world that he gave his Son to us, not to condemn the world
but that the world might be saved through him. Eucharist is called a sacrifice
because of this self gift of God to us, a celebration of God’s love, supremely
manifested on the cross. Eucharist means thanksgiving; we say thank you Eternal
Father, for your Son’s sacrifice of love, self-gift to us! Paul writes in Philippians 2:7,
Christ, though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself, being born in the
likeness of men’. Eucharist is the self-emptying/sacrifice [giving] of Christ for our
sake in the consecrated bread and wine.
• Eucharist is the passover sacrifice of the new covenant. At the Last Supper Jesus
said: this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Eucharist is the new covenant sacrifice through which Christ keeps giving himself to
the church and the new creation is in the making. 2Corinthians 5:17, ‘if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation’. Our participation in Christ’s passover [Eucharist] helps
experience our own passover or transformation into a new creation in Christ! this is
a life-long spiritual process!