Seeing Cana through Eucharistic eyes

In common with many first-millennium Christian writers, St Peter Chrysologus (c. 380-450), Archbishop of Ravenna and Doctor of the Church, did not leave a systematic treatise on the Eucharist in the way later theologians would. Nevertheless, his sermons contain significant Eucharistic teaching. He belongs to the great patristic era often described as the ‘Golden Age of the Fathers’ (fourth and fifth centuries). Like his contemporary St Leo the Great, Chrysologus understood the Eucharist as a true sacramental participation in Christ's Body and Blood.

One of his most striking Eucharistic passages comes from a sermon reflecting on the Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord, and the wedding feast at Cana:

More than a symbol

St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310-367), best known as a defender of the divinity of Christ against Arianism, also left an important witness to the Eucharist. He belongs to the generation of Nicene Fathers who defended the orthodox faith in the decades following the first Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.).  St Hilary’s most famous Eucharistic text appears in De Trinitate (On the Trinity), Book VIII. One of his strongest statements reads:

For if in truth the Word has been made flesh and we in very truth receive the Word made flesh as food from the Lord, are we not bound to believe that He abides in us naturally, Who, born as a man, has assumed the nature of our flesh now inseparable from Himself, and has conjoined the nature of His own flesh to the nature of the eternal Godhead in the sacrament by which His flesh is communicated to us?  (De Trinitate, VIII, 13).  

Praying for the faithful departed at Mass

 

Today, across the Roman Catholic Church, the memorial of ‘All Souls’ – or Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed - is commemorated.  

Early roots
Although some have suggested that Christians built on earlier, pagan, rites of prayer for the dead, the practice of prayers and special masses for the dead developed independently of those practices and should not be confused with them.

Although the theology and liturgical shape of the day have developed over the centuries, there is evidence of prayer for the dead and of offering the Eucharistic sacrifice for them, from the fourth century, if not earlier. Their inclusion within the Eucharistic liturgy itself probably dates to the fourth century. In a work attributed to St Cyril of Jerusalem (Mystagogical Catechesis 5.9), we read:

The saints and the Eucharist

Something that strikes me again and again is the witness of the Saints from the earliest times. Their lives were what might be termed ‘eucharistic’; they lived the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection.  They managed, by grace, to turn their lives around and remain anchored in Christ.  In recent centuries, there are hundreds of officially canonised saints and unknown numbers of others who found their daily or weekly sustenance in the Eucharist.  Their approach and thinking was informed by scripture and tradition.  They accepted in trust what was given and received about the Eucharist.  For some, the Eucharist was a particularly emphasised practice or focus of devotion as we see with the many ‘Apostles of the Eucharist’ such as St Peter Julian Eymard, founder the Blessed Sacrament congregation.

Reverencing the body

The Executive Office of the President of the United States
 (Wikimedia Commons) 

I was at a funeral in my local parish church earlier in the week.  Funerals are very special moments in the life of any Irish community. This seems to transcend the rural/urban as well as social class divides.  People from all walks of life turn up – family, extended family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and more besides.  ‘Paying our respects’ are deeply imbedded in Irish culture so much so that if is sometimes said ‘here in Ireland we do death well’. It is true.  The sense of solidarity, companionship and support at times of bereavement are strong. 

Eucharist: believing in order to understand

Living during the period immediately preceding the great scholastic works of Aquinas, Bonaventure and others, St Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109), helped defend and deepen the Church's understanding of the Eucharist at a crucial moment in history. Yet, he lived after the controversy surrounding a certain Berengar of Tours (c. 999-1088) whose teachings raised serious questions about how Christ is present in the Eucharist and prompted the Church to articulate its doctrine with greater precision. 

For Anselm, faith receives what reason can never fully understand.  His distinctive contribution was not a detailed Eucharistic treatise but the theological method encapsulated in his famous phrase fides quaerens intellectum ‘faith seeking understanding’.  Though he did not in a specific reference to the Eucharist, his famous phrase from the Proslogium is worth repeating:

A disciple's charter

Sunday 1 November 2026

Lectio Divina:*

Revelation 7:2-4 Psalm 24 (23) 1 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12

(See also Luke 6:20-23)

Meditatio:

‘Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’ (Matthew 5:12)

Commentary:

Religion often gets a bad name. It is accused of spreading gloom, fear or a spirit of killjoy, and many today contrast religion with spirituality as if they were opposites—religion = bad, spirituality = good. The phrase ‘I’m not religious but I am spiritual’ is now commonplace, sometimes spoken with a hint of self‑protection, as if being ‘religious’ were old‑fashioned, reactionary or faintly embarrassing.