By the mid-20th century, when someone spoke of the "presence of Christ in the Eucharist" the sole image that came to mind was "the real presence of Christ" in the sacred species reserved in the tabernacle. This understanding of presence dominated both the imagination and the liturgical practice of most Catholics. The attention of the faithful was attracted by the elevation at Mass, highlighted by the use of bells and sometimes incense. Devotional life almost always included benediction with the Blessed Sacrament, whether it was Sunday night vespers, the Stations of the Cross, or various Marian devotions (for example, Our Mother of Perpetual Help or Our Lady of Sorrows). The holy hour to the Sacred Heart on first Fridays was also popular.3 This limited understanding of Christ's presence does not reflect the church's teaching.

Nineteenth-century information age

In the 19th century many works of the patristic period, lost or forgotten, were published. The great work of Abbe J.P. Migne united all the writings of the Latin and Greek fathers of the church from the beginning to the year 1100 into one collection. For the first time scholars could comb this material on specific topics. This growth in the information available from the early days of the church led to a significant change in our understanding of the history of the church, whether it be of the institution itself, its theology or its liturgy. The ensuing biblical movement, the patristic movement and the liturgical movement enriched our understanding of many issues, not least of which was our understanding of the "presence of Christ in the Eucharist."

Liturgical movement grows

Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical on the liturgy in 1947. Mediator Dei has been called the Magna Carta of the liturgical movement. The pope recognized the great gift that the renewed study of liturgy was to the church. He offered his own systematic reflections on those contributions. Regarding the idea of Christ's presence, he said: 

Along with the Church, therefore, her Divine Founder is present at every liturgical function: Christ is present at the August sacrifice of the altar both in the person of his minister and above all under the eucharistic species. He is present in the sacraments, infusing into them the power which makes them ready instruments of sanctification. He is present, finally, in the prayer of praise and petition we direct to God, as it is written, "Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).4

This is quite a shift from the reductionistic idea that "presence" is limited to "real presence in the tabernacle." Pius XII followed up his encyclical by establishing a commission for the reform of the liturgy. The group was led by Vincentian father Annibale Bugnini. Among the commission's first items of business was the production of a revised celebration of the Easter Vigil (1951), followed by the revision of all the Holy Week services (1955) and a simplification of the rubrics for Mass (1956). 

The insight of Vatican II

Pope John XXIII shocked many people at the celebration of the feast of the conversion of St. Paul at the basilica of St. Paul's outside the walls in Rome on January 25, 1959. He called for a revision of the code of canon law, for a diocesan synod for Rome, and for a general council for the whole church. While many theologians had thought that the Vatican I needed to be completed, they did not expect a 78-year-old pope to initiate it. 

The preparations for the council soon began and questionnaires went out to all the bishops of the church to ask them what topics they wanted to have treated. One topic that appeared on many responses was liturgy. A preparatory committee, with Father Bugnini as the secretary, prepared a draft of a constitution on the sacred Liturgy. This came to be the first document approved by the fathers of the council on December 4, 1963, just months after the death of Pope John XXIII and the election of Pope Paul VI.5

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy introduced a number of important principles and concrete reforms into the liturgy. In the opening paragraphs, the document laid out a fundamental theology of the liturgy as rooted in God's plan of salvation for the world, especially in the paschal mystery of his son, Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. In these opening paragraphs, number 7 stands out:

To accomplish so great a work, Christ is always present in his Church, especially in its liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of his minister, "the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on the cross," but especially under the eucharistic elements. By his power he is present in the sacraments, so that when a man baptizes it is really Christ himself who baptizes. He is present in his word, since it is he himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the Church. He is present, lastly, when the Church prays and sings, for he promised: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20).6

Notice the dependence of this paragraph on Pius XII's thought in his encyclical. The idea of presence is more developed and proceeds from the highest form of presence in the sacred species at Mass, to the most diffuse form of presence in the gathered assembly. This could be called a theology of presence "from above."

Paul VI and eucharistic theology

Paul VI wrote an encyclical on the Eucharist in 1965. It was a response to a number of trends in eucharistic theology that had emerged in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially in the Netherlands. One of the main concerns was that the traditional Catholic concept of "transubstantiation" was being replaced by other ways of understanding how Christ is present in the eucharistic species. In the course of his exposition, Pope Paul took the teaching of the Constitution and reshaped it for his argument. It is an important text and worth quoting at length:35. All of us know well that there is more than one way in which Christ is present in his Church, but it is useful to dwell on this beautiful teaching that the Constitution on the Liturgy brought out briefly (see SC art. 7). 

Christ is present in his Church when it prays, since it is he "who prays for us and in us, and is prayed to by us; he prays for us as our Priest and in us as our Head; as our God he is prayed to by us" (Augustine, In Ps. 5, 1: PL 37, 108). He himself has promised; "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst" (Mt 18:20). 

He is present in his Church as it performs works of mercy, not only because we do to Christ whatever good we do to one of the least of his brothers or sisters (see Mt 25:40), but also because it is Christ, performing these works through the Church, who continually assists by his divine charity. 

He is present in his pilgrim Church longing to reach the harbor of eternal life, since it is he who through faith wells in our hearts (see Eph 3:17) and through the Holy Spirit whom he gives us pours forth his love in the Church (see Rom 5:5).

36. In yet a different but most real way, he is present in the Church as it preaches. The Gospel that is proclaimed is the word of God and thus is preached only in the name of and by the authority of Christ, the incarnate Word of God and with his help, so that there may be "one flock which is safe with one shepherd" (Augustine, Contra Litt. Petiliani 3, 10, 10: PL 43, 353).

37. He is present in his Church as it shepherds and guides the people of God, since the Church's sacred power comes from Christ and since Christ, "the shepherd of shepherds" (Idem, In Ps 86, 3: PL 37, 1102), is present in the shepherds who exercise that power, according to the promise made to the apostles.

38. In a manner even more sublime, Christ also is present in his Church when it offers the sacrifice of the Mass in his name and administers the sacraments. . . . These ways in which Christ is present fill the mind with wonder and present the mystery of the Church for contemplation. 

But there is another, indeed most remarkable way, in which Christ is present in his Church in the sacrament of the eucharist. This therefore among all the sacraments is "sweeter in devotion, lovelier in meaning, holier in content" (Giles of Rome, Theoremata de Corpore Christi, theor. 50 [Venice, 1521] 127); for it contains Christ himself and is "as it were the high point of the spiritual life and the purpose of all the sacraments" (ST 3a, 73,3).

39. This presence is called the real presence not to exclude the other kinds as though they were not real, but because it is real par excellence, since it is substantial, in the sense that Christ whole and entire, God and man, becomes present . . . .7

There are two things Pope Paul does in his encyclical that are worth noting. First, he reverses the order of the presences from the Constitution. He begins with the most diffuse presence in the assembly of believers and moves to the most focused and intense in the sacred species. Second, he says that all of these presences are real and that the presence in the sacred species is real in a way that is qualitatively different: par excellence (a French phrase difficult to capture in English). This makes more explicit than the Constitution that there is a broadening of the Catholic understanding of presence taking place. The presence of Christ is not exclusively to be found in the Blessed Sacrament but is found throughout the celebration of Mass, in the other sacraments and indeed when believers serve Christ in the needy. This teaching still has not been fully integrated into recent works of eucharistic theology. It is repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1088, 1373-74, but not developed.

On the other hand, there are some that would find this teaching a threat to the doctrine of Christ's presence in the Blessed Sacrament. They point to the recent New York Times poll that raised questions about whether Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the way their parents' may have. But from this quick overview of the teaching about Christ's presence, it is clear that the official teaching of the church on Christ's presence has gone beyond what it had seemed to be in the recent past: Christ is even more present to us than we used to think and in more ways, all of them real.

Experiencing Christ

The celebration of Mass becomes a progressively deeper entrance into Christ's presence. We gather with other believers at the start of Mass and already begin to experience Christ "where two or three are gathered" in his name. We hear the word proclaimed and preached and Christ himself speaks to us. The priest leads us in the eucharistic prayer in the person of Christ. In communion we receive Christ's own Body and Blood under the forms of bread and wine in a presence that is qualitatively different: He is substantially present. Finally, we are sent "in peace" to love and serve the Lord -- in the poor, sick, hungry whom we meet every day.

The reflection on the significance of this teaching of the many modes of Christ's presence is something that will enrich our theology and prayer.8

Notes

1. See Xavier Leon-Dufour, Sharing the Eucharistic Bread: The Witness of the New Testament, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell (New York: Paulist Press, 1987); Jerome Kodell, The Eucharist in the New Testament (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier, 1988); Eugene La Verdiere, The Eucharist in the New Testament and the Early Church (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press/Pueblo, 1996).

2. See David Power, The Eucharistic Mystery: Revitalizing the Tradition (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Edward Kilmartin, The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology, ed. Robert J. Daly (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press/Pueblo, 1998); Liam G. Walsh, The Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, vol. 7, <I>Geoffrey Chapman Theology Library 7<D> (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988) 165-303.

3. For one concrete description, see Peter Leo Johnson, Halcyon Days: Story of St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, 1856-1956 (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1956) 306<196>323.

4. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 39 (1947) in James Megivern, ed., Official Catholic Teachings: Worship and Liturgy (Wilmington, N.C.: Consortium, 1978) 67-68. For the analysis that follows, see Michael G. Witczak, "The Manifold Presence of Christ in the Liturgy," Theological Studies 59 (1998): 680-702.

5. The text can be found in Documents on the Liturgy, 1963-1979: Conciliar, Papal and Curial Texts (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1982) 4-27. We will cite other documents from this source, abbreviating it DOL with the page number.

6. DOL 6. The article concludes:

Christ always truly associates the Church with himself in this great work wherein God is perfectly glorified and the recipients made holy. The Church is the Lord's beloved Bride who calls to him and through him offers worship to the eternal Father.

Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy, by means of signs perceptible to the senses, human sanctification is signified and brought about in ways proper to each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members.

From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the Priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its effectiveness by the same title and to the same degree. 

7. AAS 57 (1965), English translation in DOL 384-385.

8. See the recent issue of Liturgical Ministry 11 (2002) on the theme "The Place of Christ in the Liturgy" in which various aspects of this teaching are developed at greater length.

Michael G. Witczak is a presbyter of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, as well as professor of liturgical studies and rector of Saint Francis Seminary in St. Francis, Wis.