The Eucharist and the Christian Life.
The summit of Christian life is the sacrament of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is the food of incorruptibility, the antidote against the poison
of death and the "all-healing power." "Our nature had tasted of something
ruinous to it and hence we necessarily needed something that would save from
decay that which had been destroyed." This antidote is that Body "which proved
Itself to be stronger than death," which arose and was glorified. How is it
possible that a single body which is separated into portions and distributed to
the faithful does not remain divided but, on the contrary, reunites those who
have been separated, "becomes whole in each of its portions and thus endures in
each who receives it as a whole?"
Gregory answers by comparing the Eucharist to the food which
nourishes the physical body. "The Word of God," he writes, "entered into union
with human nature. When the Word lived in a body like ours He did not make any
innovations in man's physical constitution but He nourished His own body by the
customary and proper means and maintained its existence through eating and
drinking . . . His body was maintained by bread and thus His body was once bread
in reality. This bread was consecrated by the Word dwelling within the body.
Therefore, for the same reason as that by which the bread in His body was
transformed and received a Divine potency, so now a similar result takes place.
For in that case the grace of the Word sanctified the body, the substance of
which came from the bread, and so in a way the body which was sanctified was
itself bread. So also in this case our bread, in the words of the Apostle, is
sanctified by the Word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:5), not in such a
way that by the process of eating it becomes the Body of the Word but it is
changed into the Body of the Word at once."
The Eucharist and the First Stage of Resurrection.
Thus, the flesh which had contained the Word of God receives
again a portion of its "own substance," and through this portion this substance
"is communicated to every believer and blends it self with their bodies, so that
by this union with the immortal, man too shares in incorruptibility." Through
the sacrament of the Eucharist all humanity is reunited in Christ and is
resurrected. This is, however, only the first stage of resurrection. The
Savior's victory over corruption and death is completely accomplished only at
the last great resurrection of all mankind.
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