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University President shares Augustine's vision of the Eucharist with Villanova community
By Maureen McKew

   In response to a request from the bishops of Pennsylvania to all presidents of Catholic colleges and universities in the Commonwealth, the Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A. recently presented a talk on the writing and preaching of St. Augustine of Hippo on the Eucharist. The bishops’ request came as part of the worldwide celebration of the Year of the Eucharist, proclaimed by the Holy Father. Father Dobbin said he was always delighted at the opportunity to reflect on Augustinian themes which are at the core of our mission. This is most especially the case with the theme of the Eucharist.

   Over the centuries, he said, the Church has not taken full advantage of the unifying vision Augustine had for the Eucharist. He suggested two reasons for this: the antiquity of Augustine’s writings (more than 1650 years ago) and Augustine’s highly sophisticated use of rhetoric. He was one of the great rhetoricians of all time and his use of metaphor and symbolic discourse has often been difficult to interpret in later times and cultural contexts. The difficulty often had to do with how realistically to interpret his symbolic references. For example, in later centuries some scholars questioned Augustine’s belief in the real presence arguing that the presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist was “merely symbolic.”

   With that as a background, the president went on to talk about four aspect of the Eucharist that have always been part of Church teaching and certainly in Augustine’s writings: (1) the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, (2) Eucharist as sacrifice, (3) Eucharist as banquet, and (4) Eucharist as sacrament of unity. Although these aspects of the Eucharist have always been essential to the understanding of the sacrament, down through history there has often been a tendency for one to be emphasized at the expense of the others. For example, at times reverence for the sacred presence was so emphasized that the reception of communion was forgone out of respect, thus diminishing the sense of Eucharist as banquet. At other times accentuation of the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist diminished the sense of Eucharist as a communal banquet, etc.

   Augustine’s view of the Eucharist as sacrament of unity clearly integrates and nicely holds together these four essentials. Father Dobbin read several citations from Augustine confirming his strong and realistic affirmation of the first three essentials – real presence, sacrifice and banquet. He then suggested the fourth essential as the key for Augustine’s understanding of the sacrament. He cited at length the following text which summarizes Augustine’s typical sermon to the newly baptized:

   “The image of the many grains of wheat gathered into one loaf offered as the Eucharist as symbolizing the Church’s unity is found as early as the Didache, and later in Irenaeus and Cyprian. Augustine expands on it in his homilies to those who have just been baptized at Easter (s. 227, 229, 229A, 272). There were many grains, he tells them, which were threshed by oxen when the gospel was preached to them, and stored in barns when as catechumens they were held back from participation in the Eucharistic celebration.

   Then they were ground by fasting and exorcisms moistened with water and shaped into one lump of dough in baptism, and in the anointing by the Spirit they were baked by the fire of the Spirit into the Lord’s loaf of bread. Similarly the wine in the chalice also symbolizes the oneness in mind and heart which Acts 4,32 describes as given to the faithful, since many individual grapes put through the winepress are poured together into one good-tasting wine in the cup. Augustine tells the newly baptized that they are now on the table and in the cup together with the rest of the faithful, citing 1 Corinthians 10:17 (‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we partake of the one bread.’)”

   It is the persistent interplay in Augustine between Jesus own real presence in the Eucharist and the incorporation of the members of the celebrating community into the sacrament which undoubtedly led some scholars down through the ages to interpret his view of the real presence as “merely symbolic.” For Augustine the interplay between the presence of Christ and Christ’s body, the Church, is indeed symbolic but nevertheless it references something very real. It is consistent with the theme of the Totus Christus (The Whole Christ) so prominent throughout Augustine’s writings. This theme provides a unifying model for Augustine’s understanding the Eucharistic banquet.

   In broad strokes, at the Offertory the gifts of bread and wine are carried to the table, representing self-offering of the congregation both individually and collectively. During the Eucharistic Prayer, the celebrant recalling the Last Supper invokes the Holy Spirit upon the gifts, transforming them – including ourselves – into the Body and Blood of Christ. In effect we are drawn into the one Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection as members of His one Body. The real presence, the sacrifice, the banquet are clearly integrated in this vision.

   Augustine illustrates this “whole Christ” dimension by telling his congregation that when the Eucharistic minister offers them the host to eat, he says “Corpus Christi” (“the Body of Christ”), but that he actually means “You are the Body of Christ.” The recipient says “Amen” confirming what has just taken place on the altar.

   This theme of the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity of the whole Christ, head and members, while it is developed primarily in a few of Augustine’s sermons, pervades his writings in passing allusions and is subtly displayed as a distinctive trait of his Eucharistic theology. An example of this is the following passing reference in The Confessions. “I am your food, but instead of my being changed into you, it is you who will be transformed into me.” (Confessions 7, 10, 16)