Season 2. Ep 36. Egyptians and the Eucharist

Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, and every piece of bread at every Mass that becomes God himself contains all of the power that created the universe. As Catholics, we receive it every Sunday, or even every day, yet how much is our life different after we receive? The episode of Physically Spiritual explores the Eucharist and how to receive it to become more like God.

Video Version

Audio Version

Timestamps

2:30 What is the Eucharist?

5:00 The Ingredients for the Eucharist

6:00 The Eucharist and Anthropology

27:00 What Happens on the Altar?

32:00 The Eucharist & The Church

36:00 Levels of Receiving the Eucharist

39:00 What Can the Eucharist Do?

40:45 Preparing to Receive the Eucharist

Notes

“The holy Eucharist completes Christian initiation. Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation participate with the whole community in the Lord's own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1322 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

Physically Spiritual S2E2 | Sacraments - https://www.becominggift.com/post/sacraments

Physically Spiritual S2E5 | Baptism - https://www.becominggift.com/post/baptism

Physically Spiritual S2E8 | Confirmation - https://www.becominggift.com/post/confirmation

“The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life."136 "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch." Ibid. 1324 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

Etymology of Eucharist - https://www.etymonline.com/word/Eucharist

Sacramentum Tantum

Aquinas 101 - Eucharist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD0PwPDGfZA

My favorite (although a bit dated) introduction to the history of humanity is in section 6 of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything - https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/076790818X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1618266774&sr=8-3  A more contemporary popularization but also unfortunately biased toward atheism see Yuval Noah Horari’s Sapiens - https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/

Egyptian Dental Health -  https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna34258529 & https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2009.309/ 

Historical Dental Health - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzYLSPY5yFw & https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221928541_Caries_Through_Time_An_Anthropological_Overview

“At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took bread. . . ." "He took the cup filled with wine. . . ." The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine, fruit of the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.” Ibid. 1333 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

“In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the departure that liberated them from Egypt; the remembrance of the manna in the desert will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the Word of God; their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of blessing" at the end of the Jewish Passover meal adds to the festive joy of wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic expectation of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he gave a new and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread and the cup.” Ibid. 1334 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

Res et Sacramentum

Aquinas 101 - Transsubstantiation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD0PwPDGfZA

“The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the 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, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” Ibid. 1374 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

“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:” Ibid. 1380 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

Rest Tantum

“Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me." Ibid. 1391 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

“What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit,"229 preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum.” Ibid. 1392 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

“Holy Communion separates us from sin. The body of Christ we receive in Holy Communion is "given up for us," and the blood we drink "shed for the many for the forgiveness of sins." For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins:” Ibid. 1393 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm

“As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins. 231 By giving himself to us Christ revives our love and enables us to break our disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in him:” Ibid. 1394 - http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm