The Sacrament of Unity: the Eucharist and Those Outside the Visible Bounds of the Church

Assigned reflections on assigned texts for my Sacraments masters course at the University of Notre Dame.

Assisi, 2023.

The Liturgy of the Eucharist is not usually where conversations on ecumenical unity begin, given the many diverging opinions on that doctrine across denominations. Yet, for Catholics, the Eucharist is precisely where one should begin (both personally and theologically) in their pursuit for true Christian unity. Far from acting as a kind of Catholic membership card, the Eucharist should be regarded as the symbol and source of unity amongst all members of the mystical body of Christ, including those who have yet to receive him in the sacraments, but are incorporated into the Church by their desire for sacramental union with him.

Colman O’Neill’s analysis of Saint Thomas’ eucharistic theology provides, in this regard, a helpful framework for understanding the nature of true Christian unity. Following the Eucharistic theology of Thomas, O’Neill claims that ecclesial unity should not be understood as lying per se in the “common submission to Christ in heaven” as is often thought, but primarily “in their relation to the Blessed Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ possessed rightfully only by the Roman Catholic Church” (179). Thus, the real body and blood of Jesus present in the Eucharist, within the Catholic Church, is what unites those who receive Christ sacramentally in the Eucharist to those who receive the Eucharist spiritually by their desire for real union with him (“even if they do not recognize it” as orienting them toward the Eucharist). 

The Eucharist, the Church, and Salvation

To understand why Thomas grounds ecclesial unity in the Eucharist (which exists “at the center of the Church on earth”; 179), rather than in shared interior submission to Christ in heaven, a proper understanding of the Eucharist’s relationship to the Church is in order. Contrary to how it is often presented, the Eucharist is not just an instrument of divine grace which intensifies unity amongst Christians (173), but the very lifesource of the Church which constitutes her unity and character (CCC 766). Her very being is formed by receiving him who gave his life for her — a reality which is wholly present in the Eucharist. Any unity that exists amongst Christians, thus, expresses the presence and activity of the Church (even if it is partial) and accordingly, finds its source in the reality of the Eucharist.

The Salvific Desire for the Eucharist

By grounding Christian unity in the Eucharist, which belongs to the Roman Catholic Church alone, it may sound like O’Neill is condemning all who do not regularly receive the Eucharist, or believe in it, to Hell. He, on the contrary, is actually claiming that the Eucharist is “the one existing and real sacramental sign symbolizing here and now the charity of those who are drawn towards it by Christ” (181). According to O’Neill, integral to understanding this dynamic is Thomas’ concept of salvation by desire for reception of the integrally interlinked sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. Thomas wrote that “the effect of a particular sacrament may be obtained before actual reception of the sacrament by means of a desire” to receive it (174-175). While the desire for the Eucharist is certainly not the same as receiving it, the desire does indeed orient one’s life toward that reception, preparing the person to unite with Christ, even unknowingly. What then constitutes, for Thomas, desire for the Eucharist? Thomas identifies “every act of charity with desire for the Eucharist” (175). Highlighting the singularity of Thomas’ thought here, O’Neill writes,

The Eucharist, in short, causes the unity of the mystical body because it causes charity. This is commonplace in sacramental theology. What is distinctive about St. Thomas is that he interprets the Eucharist’s efficacy as being universal. There is no charity and nothing belonging to the Church which escapes the influence of the sacrament. (173)

Thus, anywhere true acts of love are found, we find signs of unrealized Eucharistic desire and accordingly, signs of the Church at work, even if it is outside of its visible bounds. Those who are shaped and formed, even unknowingly, by the self-giving love of the Eucharist “give body to Christ in the Church” (37-38) in each of their lives, perhaps just in its corridors and quarters not yet discovered. 

To be sure, such persons cannot be known as members of Christ and the Church as they “do not possess the character of baptism and are consequently not of the number of those who can validly receive the Eucharist or offer the mass” (181). However, because the Eucharist is the symbol and the cause of the Church, “it provides within the Church a sacramental expression of the interior union with Christ enjoyed by whoever is not baptized yet possesses the gift of grace” (181). By one’s desire for union with Christ, the Eucharist becomes for him or her “the symbol and cause of their salvation though they do not recognize it” (182). Thus, desire for union with Jesus – which anticipates reception of the Eucharist – can save, by God’s grace, the unbeliever, since desire is integral to proper reception of the Eucharist.

Disunity as a Call for Eucharistic Charity

This means that when Catholics behold and receive the Eucharist at Mass today, they can understand that they are, by virtue of their eucharistic union with Christ, in union too with all those who are not present at Mass and long in their hearts to receive the love of Christ. O’Neill identifies this as a real tragedy. He urges Catholics to, in response to the tragedy of disunity, enter more deeply into the mystery of the Eucharist. He writes,

so many of those who have at their disposal this sacrament…do not realize that the white host fulfills on earth all the longing of the human heart. How much responsibility for continuing disunion must be borne by those who profess belief in the sacrament of unity? (182)

Graciously, we have a God who abides with the Church, despite her believers' many failings at all times and places. Our hope for reunion with fellow grace-shaped persons thus lies

in the fact that, in spite of humanly contrived disunion, one strong bond remains uniting objectively all who call upon the name of Christ, and uniting them, unconscious of the fact though they may be, under the care of Christ’s vicar on earth. (182) 

By gazing upon him who gave his life for us, may we Catholics recognize in the Eucharist the desire of Christ to draw all of humankind to his breast and nourish them with his own body and blood, and the union we share with all those who long for it.