The Holy Spirit and the Eucharist-2

Bulletin insert #11 from our parish's series of excerpts about Sacramentum Caritatis.

The Holy Spirit and the eucharistic celebration

13. Against this backdrop we can understand the decisive role played by the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic celebration, particularly with regard to transubstantiation. An awareness of this is clearly evident in the Fathers of the Church. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catecheses, states that we “call upon God in his mercy to send his Holy Spirit upon the offerings before us, to transform the bread into the body of Christ and the wine into the blood of Christ. Whatever the Holy Spirit touches is sanctified and completely transformed” (25). Saint John Chrysostom too notes that the priest invokes the Holy Spirit when he celebrates the sacrifice: (26) like Elijah, the minister calls down the Holy Spirit so that “as grace comes down upon the victim, the souls of all are thereby inflamed” (27). The spiritual life of the faithful can benefit greatly from a better appreciation of the richness of the anaphora*: along with the words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper, it contains the epiclesis**, the petition to the Father to send down the gift of the Spirit so that the bread and the wine will become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and that “the community as a whole will become ever more the body of Christ” (28). The Spirit invoked by the celebrant upon the gifts of bread and wine placed on the altar is the same Spirit who gathers the faithful “into one body” and makes of them a spiritual offering pleasing to the Father (29).

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With our understanding of the way the Holy Spirit has been moving in and through the world since Creation, it naturally follows that He would also be the chosen instrument for the creative act of the transformation of bread and wine into the Eucharist, the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

While Pope Benedict here traces the Holy Spirit’s involvement in this transformation, the Holy Spirit’s action does not stop here, although one would think that transubstantiation of bread and wine into the living Christ would be more than enough. Even more interesting and involving for us is the fact that, as St. John Chrysostom says, “as grace comes down upon the victim, the souls of all are thereby inflamed.” The Holy Spirit’s power comes upon us, transforms us in ways that are not visible to the eye but are substantial changes to our souls, and sends us forth into the world again to do the Father’s will. A careful reading of the Eucharistic prayers will find a kind of double epiclesis, the transformation not only of the bread and wine, but the transformation of ourselves into the Church, the body of Christ.

We can prepare ourselves for these changes, in part, by being open to doing the Father’s will and by recognizing the power of the Holy Spirit to make us into His gift to the world.

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(25) Cat. XXIII, 7: PG 33, 1114ff.
(26) Cf. De Sacerdotio, VI, 4: PG 48, 681.
(27) Ibid., III, 4: PG 48, 642.
(28) Propositio 22.
(29) Cf. Propositio 42: “This eucharistic encounter takes place in the Holy Spirit, who transforms and sanctifies us. He re- awakens in the disciple the firm desire to proclaim boldly to others all that he has heard and experienced, to bring them to the same encounter with Christ. Thus the disciple, sent forth by the Church, becomes open to a mission without frontiers.”
* Anaphora: (Greek, ànaphorá), offering, sacrifice, a word used commonly for the Eucharistic prayer.
** Epiclesis: The name of a prayer that occurs after the words of Institution, in which the celebrant prays that God may send down His Holy Spirit to change this bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son.
This is one of a weekly series of excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.