What
Do We Mean by ‘The Real Presence’?
By Dwight
Longenecker
"But I believe in the Real
Presence!" said Doug, my Bible Christian friend, "Why
do you Catholics refuse to admit me to communion?"
"Whoa!" I said, "I'm
delighted to hear that you believe in the Real Presence, but
what do you actually mean by the term?"
"Well, I prefer to remain vague
about the details," said Doug. "I would only want to
go as far as the Scriptures do, and St.Paul says in I Corinthians
that the communion is 'a sharing in the body of Christ.' I don't
think you have to go further than that."
We then sparred through John chapter
six and I Corinthians 11; but the conversation got me thinking
about the term 'Real Presence'. Doug was happy to use
the term to describe what he felt about the Lord's Supper at
his independent Bible Church. It was during my Anglican days
that I'd got used to the phrase 'real presence'. Anglo-Catholics
used the term all the time, and even many evangelical Anglicans
seem fairly happy to use 'real presence' to describe their view
of the Eucharist. But then I picked my brain a bit further and
remembered Methodists, Reformed ministers and other free evangelicals
using the term as well. When I became a Catholic I found lots
of Catholics also using the term 'real presence' to refer to
their Eucharistic beliefs.
But what did everyone mean by
the term? Could it be that God was using the term 'real presence'
as a kind of ecumenical bridge? Was it becoming a universally
accepted term which was bringing non-Catholics into the fold
of the true church? I didn't want to rule out this creative possibility,
but I had my suspicions that 'real presence' was in fact, an
elastic term which could mean almost anything, and was therefore
the enemy of true ecumenism.
So for
instance, a Bible Christian might mean by 'real presence'-- "I feel closer to Jesus
at the Lord's Supper." At the same time a Methodist might
mean, "When we gather together the presence of the Lord
is real among us."--referring simply to our Lord's promise
that "Where two or three are gathered together, there am
I in the midst." A Lutheran might mean Christ's risen presence
is 'with' or 'beside' the bread and wine. An Anglican evangelical
might say, "There is a real sense in which Christ is present
as the church gathers-- for the Church too is the Body of Christ." At
the same time an Anglo-Catholic would say there is a real, objective
abiding spiritual presence of Christ when the Eucharist is celebrated.
One of the reasons the term 'real
presence' has become a flexible friend is because it has been
lifted from its full context. Historically theologians spoke
of 'the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament
of the altar.' But now it has been shortened to 'the real presence'.
Reference to the body and blood has been quietly dropped and
even the name of Christ is omitted. As a result for some people
'real presence' has come to mean simply 'the idea of the risen
Lord' or 'the Spirit of Christ' or even just the 'fellowship
of the church.' In fact, the term 'the real presence' could mean
just about anything to anybody. There are probably even some
New Agers who talk about the 'real presence' of the Christ within.
Another reason why the term is so
conveniently vague is because 'real presence' in most usage focuses
on the abstract noun 'presence' and not on the body and blood
of Christ. This implies that the 'presence' is somehow separate
from the sacrament.
The widespread use of this term
is a sign that many non-Catholics are coming around to a higher
view of the sacrament. This is cause for rejoicing. But it is
also a cause for concern because alot of non-Catholics-- on hearing
Catholics use the term-- quite innocently assume that Catholics
believe the same thing they do. Thus a Bible Baptist might use
the term 'real presence' meaning he 'feels closer to Jesus at
communion' and hearing Catholics use the term concludes that
Catholics believe the same thing about the Eucharist as he does.
As a result--like my friend Doug-- he can't understand why he
is not welcome to receive communion at a Catholic Mass. So while
the widespread use of the term 'real presence' seems encouraging
it's really misleading. The ambiguous terminology causes confusion
and encourages false ecumenism. But so far my theory was only
a hunch.
I decided
to do a bit of research. I travelled to Downside Abbey--the
great Benedictine house in
the Southwest of England. After Mass, the librarian Fr. Daniel
ushered me from the neo-Gothic monastic buildings over to the
library which looks like a newly-landed flying saucer. I wanted
to discover more about this term 'real presence.' I wanted to
find out when the term was first used and why. I figured that
finding out the background of the term might explain why and
how it was being used today.
My first port of call was the Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church. They defined 'real presence'
as an especially Anglican term which "emphasized the
real presence of the body and blood of Christ at the Eucharist
as contrasted with others that maintain that the Body and Blood
are present only figuratively or symbolically." The
first edition of the dictionary quoted the sixteenth century
English reformer Latimer to show his use of the term, "this
same presence may be called most fitly a real presence, that
is, a presence not feigned, but a true and faithful presence."
That sounded pretty Catholic, but
then it became a bit more complicated because the second edition
of the same dictionary points out that the English Reformers
only ever used the phrase with other expressions which made it
a term for receptionism--that belief that the bread and wine
only become the body and blood of Christ to those who receive
it faithfully. So Latimer is quoted in the second edition more
fully, "that same presence may be called a real presence
because to the faithful believer there is a real or spiritual
body of Christ."
But Catholics believe in a corporeal,
substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The whole Christ
is present, body, blood soul and divinity. It is not just a spiritual
presence. Furthermore Catholics believe in an objective presence--not
one which is only available to those who receive in faith. Latimer's
colleague Ridley makes their position about the real presence
most clear. Writing in the Oxford Disputations of 1554 he says, "The
true Church doth acknowledge a presence of Christ's body in the
Lord's Supper to be communicated to the godly by grace... spiritually
and by a sacramental signification, but not as a corporeal presence
of the body of his flesh."
This seemed to be the root of the
term. It was a construction of the English Reformation. Latimer
and Ridley did their best to come up with a term for the Eucharist
which would please their Catholic persecutors and yet not compromise
their Protestant beliefs. But maybe there was more to it. What
if the term 'real presence' actually originated before the sixteenth
century?
Fr. Daniel brought me an excellent
two-volume work called, The History of the Doctrine of the
Holy Eucharist by an Oxford scholar called Darwell Stone.
In this wonderful book Stone traces the church's beliefs about
the Eucharist from New Testament times through the late nineteenth
century. The book is arranged chronologically with copious quotations
from the various theologians.
Debates over the body and blood
of Christ in the sacrament really blew up with the eleventh century
French theologian Berengar of Tours. Berengar denied that there
could be a material change at the consecration, and the controversy
which raged for the next two hundred years ended in the definition
of transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
It is interesting that during this controversy the orthodox terminology
is 'real body and real blood of Christ.' The term 'real presence'
doesn't occur.
I found the first reference to the
term 'real presence' in the fourteenth century theologian John
of Paris. He wrote, "I intend to defend the real and
actual presence of the body of Christ in the Sacrament of the
Altar, and that it is not there only as by way of a sign..." But
John of Paris was deprived of his professorship because his views
on the sacrament were considered unorthodox. It was in the same
century that the pre-cursor of Latimer and Ridley--John Wycliffe--also
used the term 'real presence'. Like Ridley and Latimer he used
'real presence' as an alternative to transubstantiation. In other
words, 'real presence' was a compromise term used to suggest
a high view of the sacrament while in fact denying the Catholic
doctrine of transubstantiation.
As I'd already suspected, the same
position was held by Ridley and Latimer who also searched for
a compromise term. They denied transubstantiation, and held a
merely symbolic and spiritual view of the sacrament, but they
wanted to avoid extreme Zwingli-ism and because of Catholic pressure
needed to express their beliefs in as high a way as possible.
Thus Ridley and Latimer said they believed in the real presence;
but this was simply their term for a kind of high receptionism.
So the term 'real presence' has--from
the start--been used as an alternative to the Catholic doctrine
of transubstantiation. Not only did Latimer and Ridley use 'real
presence' to deny transubstantiation, but so did the seventeenth
century 'high church' Anglican divine Jeremy Taylor who used
the term 'real presence' as a contrast to transubstantiation
in his treatise, The Real and Spiritual Presence of Christ
in the Blessed Sacrament proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation.
The second volume of Darwell Stone
shows how the great Anglican, E.B. Pusey, re-coined the phrase
'real presence' in the mid-nineteenth century and promoted it
most strongly. It is thanks to Pusey that the term entered common
usage within the Oxford movement and eventually made its way
through the Anglican and other non-Catholic churches to be used
so widely today.
But what did Pusey mean by 'the
real presence'? He was at pains to point out that he did not
hold to any corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist. "In
the communion there is a true, real actual though spiritual communication
of the body and blood of Christ to the believer through the holy
elements." In another place Pusey denies transubstantiation
explicitly and argues for a "mystical, sacramental and
spiritual presence of the body of our Lord." And most
explicitly, in 1857 Pusey says, "there is no physical
union of the body and blood of Christ with the bread and wine."
Pusey in the Oxford of the mid-1850s
was not at risk of being burned at the stake like Ridley and
Latimer. But in that same university city he felt a similar pressure
of trying to reconcile English reformation doctrines with the
beliefs of the Catholic church. Pusey was under pressure because
he sincerely wanted the Anglican church to be as Catholic as
possible, but as an Anglican clergyman he had to subscribe to
the Thirty-nine Articles of religion, and Article 28 specifically
repudiates transubstantiation. So Pusey couldn't hold to transubstantiation
even if he wanted to.
So--like Ridley and Latimer before
him-- he used the term 'real presence' to sound as close to Catholicism
as possible while in fact rejecting Catholic doctrine. Pusey
believed the 'real presence' of Christ in the sacrament was only
a spiritual and sacramental presence. In this way the Victorian
Anglo-Catholic actually agreed with the reformer Ridley who wrote, "The
blood of Christ is in the chalice... but by grace and in a sacrament...This
presence of Christ is wholly spiritual."
So why
does it matter if the presence is only spiritual and sacramental?
It matters because the whole
work of Christ is more than spiritual. It is physical. Ever
since Irenaeus the Catholic church has been insistent that the
incarnation really was a supernatural union of the spiritual
and the physical. As Darwell Stone writes, Irenaeus was countering
Gnosticism, "which interposed an insuperable barrier
between spiritual beings and material things; between the true
God of the universe and the universe of matter." And
it is one of the great heresies of our age that Christians attempt
to 'spirit away' the physical-ness of the gospel. So the resurrection,
the miracles and the incarnation itself become mere 'spiritual
events.'
So likewise
the church has always insisted--despite the difficulties--
that the presence of Christ
in the blessed sacrament is not simply spiritual and subjective.
It is objective and corporeal. In some way it is physical. At
the Fourth Lateran Council that explained that belief with the
term transubstantiation. As the Oxford Dominican, Fr.Herbert
McCabe has said, "Transubstantiation is not a complete explanation
of the mystery, but it is the best description of what we believe
happens at the consecration."
So what should Catholics do when
confronted with this confusing term 'real presence'? First of
all Catholics should realise that it is not a Catholic term at
all. It's history is mostly Anglican, and as such it was always
used as a way to adroitly sidestep the troublesome doctrine of
transubstantiation; and as such it is not an accurate term to
describe true Catholic Eucharistic doctrine.
Secondly, when non-Catholics say
they believe in the real presence Catholics should ask what they
mean by it. A non-Catholic will almost never mean transubstantiation.
By the term 'real presence' the non-Catholic most certainly does
not mean he believes the sacrament is the body, blood, soul and
divinity of our Lord. Asking what the non-Catholic means by the
term 'real presence' should be done in a positive and constructive
way. Their definition can open the way for an explanation of
what a Catholic means by 'real presence.' Clear definitions help
everybody.
In his 1965 encyclical Mysterium
Fidei, Pope Paul VI encourages the use of clear and unambiguous
language about the Eucharist. He says, "Having safeguarded
the integrity of the faith it is necessary to safeguard also
its proper mode of expression, lest by careless use of words
we occasion the rise of false opinions regarding faith in the
most sublime of mysteries."
In the same encyclical Pope Paul
actually uses the term 'Real Prsence' but he does so to outline
the ways in which Christ is present in his church. Interestingly,
Paul VI affirms all the ways non-Catholics might define 'the
real presence.' He says Christ is really present in the church
when she prays. He is also present when she performs acts of
mercy. Christ is present in the church as she struggles to perfection.
He is really present when the church governs the people of God.
Christ is present in the preaching of the gospel and he is present
as the church faithfully celebrates the Eucharist.
However Paul VI also makes it clear
that the Eucharistic presence of the body and blood of Christ
is different from these other forms of Christ's presence. It
is a unique presence. So he affirms, "This presence is
called 'real' by which it is not intended to exclude all 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 the God-Man is wholly and
entirely present. It would therefore be wrong to explain this
presence by taking resource to the 'spiritual' nature, as it
is called, of the glorified Body of Christ which is present everywhere,
or by reducing it to a kind of symbolism as if this most augusst
sacrament consisted of nothing else than an efficacious sign
of the spiritual presence of Christ and of his intimate union
with the Faithful members of his mystical body."
So as Catholics, we must use clear
language about the sacrament. We can affirm the 'real' presence
of Christ which non-Catholics affirm in the fellowship of the
church, in the preaching of the gospel and in the celebration
of the Eucharist, but we must also affirm that the fullest sense
of the 'real presence' is that which we worship in the Blessed
Sacrament of the altar.
Although Paul VI used the term 'real
presence' in Mysterium Fidei the whole thrust of the encyclical
is to support and recommend the continued use of the term 'transubstantiation'
as the Catholic terminology. With this in mind I suggest Catholics
should avoid the ambiguous term 'real presence' and speak boldly
of transubstantiation. Instead of 'real presence' we should also
use the terminology used in the twelfth century when the doctrine
of transubstantiation was being hammered out. Then there was
no talk of a vaguely spiritual 'real presence', instead they
referred to the 'real body and real blood of Christ.'
Mysterium Fidei encourages
those devotions which are implied by our belief in the 'real
body and real blood of Christ.' That such devotions are encouraged
as a support to transubstantiation is nothing new. It is no co-incidence
that just fifty years after the doctrine of transubstantiation
was promulgated by the Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Urban IV
decreed the Feast of Corpus Christi. The beliefs of the church
are always reflected in her devotions. So we should encourage
the devotions which accompany our belief in Christ's corporeal
presence in the sacrament of the altar. It is the practice of
benediction, prayer before the sacrament and veneration of the
blessed sacrament which make clear exactly what we do mean by
the term 'real presence' and that it is not the same thing that
non-Catholic Christians mean when they use the same term.
These
distinctions should not be emphasized in a spirit of division
and exclusion, but with the
true longing for Christ's body to be re-united. That true and
costly re-union will not come as long as we accept ambiguous
language which allows us to pretend that we all believe the same
thing. Instead it will come as we recognise the true divisions
which still exist, understand our differences and seek to resolve
them with patience, love and a good sense of humour.
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