My View on the Eucharist

Yes, indeed I am a slacker, I have been lazy and undisciplined when it comes to my blog. This is not a good thing when one is in the process of becoming a priest. Yet perseverance is also a virtue and redemption is always part of the process. So now I will make my case that the nature of the Eucharist is Incarnational. What do I mean by this? The Eucharist is Bread and Wine and yet the Body and Blood. Sounds like Consubstantiation. Not quite! It is fully Bread and Wine and fully the Body and Blood. Just like Christ is fully God and fully Man. His Deity and Humanity are joined together in what we call the hypostatic union. The Body and Blood of Christ are joined and embodied in and with the Bread and Wine by the power of the Spirit (and the Words of Institution). There is a change in the elements, the Real Elements of Bread and Wine are joined with the Real Presence of Christ analogous to the Word becoming flesh, fully God and fully Human and just like the Incarnation we must receive this Mystery by faith. The Bread and Wine embodies the Body and Blood of Christ. Therefore after consecration His Presence remains in the elements. We in our society have pitted structure over substance not realizing that they are joined together, the substance is expressed and embodied through the structure without the structure being deconstructed. As Alexander Schmemann says the fathers could talk about the Eucharist being a Symbol without robbing it of its Presence because they understood Symbols as Embodying the Presence. Jesus being fully God and fully Man is the Archetypal Symbol of God because the Substance of God became or took on the Substance of Man therefore joining the two in hypostatic union. There are two natures joined in one person in Christ and there are two natures joined in one Eucharist. Therefore the Eucharist is Bread and Wine without ceasing to be so but also the Body of Blood with nothing diminished in both. Yet this is a mystery that cannot be explained but must be experienced.