"Do this in memory of me" (Luke 22,19; 1 Cor. 11,24.25). It is following this command of the Lord that the Church has always understood, from its very beginning, the great mystery it was to guard and that the Church was called upon to transmit faithfully over the centuries until the glorious return of Christ. Even when the first Christians continued to go and pray in the temple (see At 2,42; 5,12; 3,1), the first act that allowed them to identify themselves as a new community, was the celebration of the "new Easter". Using a surprising denomination, they indicated in the "breaking of the bread" the novelty of their prayers. This consisted in listening to the Word, in remembering the death and resurrection of the Lord and joyfully awaiting the day of His return; the prayers for giving thanks, the Eucharistic prayer, was established from the very beginning as the recollection of the Lord’s supper which took place before his death on the Cross (see 1 Cor 11,26).

The Eucharist therefore is understood as an act created by Jesus himself, placed within the history of Salvation, in the period of time that elapsed between his death and his return in the parousia. The eschatological conscience that accompanied this prayer, therefore constitutes one of the peculiarities that characterize its meaning and allows its integral preservation until the Lord Jesus shall accomplish the "restoration of all things" (At 3,20). The cry of Marana-tha ("Come, Our Lord!"), pronounced during the Lord’s supper, strongly attests to what extent the first community felt the Lord’s presence close to them and to what extent they rejoiced in thanking Him (ευχαριστουντες Eph 5,20), without however forgetting that the fullness of communion had not yet been fully been donated and for this reason they invoked His return. It was this Eucharistic awareness that allowed the first community to experiment in a totally particular manner the closeness, the presence and the communion with the Lord Jesus and it was this that allowed it to confront in a heterogeneous manner the Judaic cult and any other pagan sacrificial action (see 1 Cor 10,16-22). The participation in the body and the blood of Christ went well beyond any analogy, because it involved the real presence of the Lord and real communion with Him. This dimension, which already exists in the signs and the words reveals the sacrificial sense of the Eucharistic banquet, has always allowed believers to build and to strengthen the bonds with their brothers (the "saints" of At 9,13) to the pointing of calling themselves for this reason "God’s community", "the holy assembly" and "the Lord’s people". Finally, it is from Eucharistic life that this community received the strength to lead a moral life that was coherent and a source of testimony. Paul’s invitation to "examine oneself" so as to be worthy of sitting at the Eucharistic banquet is an indication of a conscience capable of perceiving the rules of its own existence in conformity with the mystery it celebrates. These elements allowed them to become aware that it was in the Eucharist that the believing community always found the origin of its being "only one body", "the body of Christ and members of member" (1 Cor 12,27).

This brief introduction, that creates the essential scenario for theologically approaching the subject of the Eucharist, allows us to verify the fundamental and constituent points of this mystery. First of all, there is no rift between Jesus’ established act during the last supper, "the eve of his passion" or "the night on which he was betrayed" and the believing community’s successive customs. This custom has simply repeated and celebrated only what Jesus himself had indicated and commanded to be repeated after his death. Any historical-critical analysis that might attempt to separate these two moments, insinuating that the "Lord’s Supper" is a composition of the community, is destined to disintegrate when confronting the historical evidence which has no analogies with other cultural celebrations and the very self-awareness of the primitive community. The conformity with the entire message announced by the Lord and the events of His death and Resurrection discovers its most coherent and original synthesis in this command to pass down the actions of the Last Supper. With this command for the anamnesis, He impresses the seal of His real presence among His faithful and His Disciples beyond His death. A single act that is not characterized by a tired repetition or representation, but that on the contrary, presents itself as the apax efapax in its unrepeatability. The very words zikkārōn, anamnesis, memory simply interpret the uniqueness of the act in its ever-lasting historical presentation.

The historical and theological development that took place during the first centuries, and of which the Fathers have left us a precious testimony, becomes real in the various passages that progressively lead to the verification of the public characteristics of the liturgical action. The building of the first basilicas with their circular shape, the centrality of the altar added to the solemnity of the celebration are the testimony of the progress that occurred starting with the foundations of Eucharistic life within the Church. Thomas, with the Scholastic will lead to a meditation of the sacramental characteristics of the Eucharist. It is sufficient to read once again some of the questiones (73-79) in the III Pars of the Summa Theologiae so as to verify the deep theological unity that is achieved in the analysis of the signum et res and of the sacrificium laudis et crucis. Regarding the meaning of the Eucharist Thomas wrote: "This sacrament has three meanings. The first concerns the past, because it commemorates the Lord’s passion which was a real sacrifice… The second concerns the effect of the present representing the unity of the Church in which mankind is united through this sacrament. For this reason it is called communion or synaxis… The third concerns the future: because this sacrament is prefigurative of the divine beatitude which will occur in the homeland. In this sense it is called viaticum, because it shows us the path for achieving it and for the same reason it is also described as the Eucharist, the good grace". As one can see, the triple distinction of the sacrament as signum rememorativum (because it proves the uniqueness of the redeeming act), demonstrativum (in the sense that it accomplishes the announced redemption) and prognosticum (because it is the anticipation of the Eschatological banquet), find in these words their theological importance. The antiphon to the Magnificat in the Corpus Domini feast simply evokes liturgically in a poetic synthesis the theological intuition: "Recolitur memoria passionis eius, mens impletur gratiae et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur".

The Tridentine was to mark a fundamental moment in the history of the dogma. Contrary to the Protestant interpretation according to which Christ’s presence is produced by faith, the Councilior Fathers affirmed that Christ is not present in the Eucharist simply because we believe He is, but that we believe because He is already present and that He is not absent because we do not believe, but He remains with us so that we may live in communion with Him (see DS 1654). In the history of the development of this dogma, the Tridentine stage clearly underlines the deep emphasis concerning the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The expiratory finality and the sacrificial character of the Eucharist mark in a decisive manner the theology of this sacrament and the terminology achieves its irreversible dogmatic depth. The Tridentine affirmations lead, as is well known, to the successive controversy that essentially concerned the sacrificial nature. A debate and a theological meditation that reached our times in a interpretative "muddle".

The Second Vatican Council certainly marks a fundamental stage in liturgical, theological and pastoral reform of the sacrament. Although it does not include as specific document concerning the sacrament, the second chapter of the Sacrosanctum concilium can be considered a decisive point on this subject. Because the Council keeps its eyes firmly fixed on the Church, the Eucharist is understood in a binding relationship with the life of the Christian community for which it is the "summit and the source" (LG 11). The terminological variety with which the sacrament is described in the more or less 100 passages of the different documents of the Council, shows on one hand a dogmatic richness and on the other the difficulty in synthesizing the teachings it contains. At least two fundamental issues certainly flow into the teachings of the Council that had determined previous theological reflections.

The first, essentially is referred to Odo Casel’s studies (+1948) with his theory of "renewed-presentation". He claims that in the Eucharist the mystery re-presents itself, meaning a renewed-enacting in favor of the community that celebrates it. The Holy Mass, therefore confers a presence of a trans-temporal and trans-locational nature to the mystery of the Cross. Having removed the reference to a dependence for mystery cults, Casel’s theory had various supporters who continued to favor his interpretations relying in particular on the dimension of the characteristics of the new and definite alliance of the Eucharist. The second, refers to studies by M.Thurian and Louis Bouyer that instead reproposes the notion of a memorial as the sacred pledge that God offered to His people so that they would uninterruptedly represent this to Him. In this manner, they attempt to meditate even more on the essential connection that there is between the memorial, the sacrifice and the banquet.

These brief concise outlines only intend to reproposes the plurality of the interpretations that concern this sacrament. The theological accentuations that we find concern in turn a number of particular subjects that can be synthesized as follows:

1. The concept of memoria (anamnesi), where the institution’s central and founding event finds its basis and its original unity in Jesus’ act at the Last Supper.

2. The concept of giving thanks (beraka), in which the gratefulness of the faithful for the supreme gift they have received becomes clear. Hence the sense of the divine cult, of the glorification, praise and adoration that the community addresses to the Father for the wonders He as accomplished and of which they His people are the witness.

3. The concept of sacrifice (thysia), in which the renewed-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is underlined as an act of redemption involving both His body and the Church.

4. The concept of epiclesi with which the interior action of the invocation of the Spirit, who works and accomplishes the Eucharistic act, is stressed. This presence and work of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist is synthesized in Ippolito the Roman’s anaphora, were one prays to God the Father saying: "Allow your Holy Spirit to descend upon the offering of your Holy Church, and after reuniting them, concede to all the Saints who receive it to be filled by the Holy Spirit so as to fortify them in the faith and in the truth, that we may praise you and glorify you through your Son Jesus Christ, through whom you receive the glory and the honor, Father and Son with the Holy Spirit within the holy Church now and for ever and ever" (Apostolic Tradition, 4). It is the prayer that requests the benediction of the Lord and that is celebrated by the Church as blessing the Lord Himself, according to Paul’s expression: "the chalice of benediction which we bless" (1 Cor 10,16).

5. Il concept of communion, with which one intend to infer the aim of the Eucharist and its accomplishment. The new alliance that Christ enacts with His blood creates the life of the Church and for the church stating the premise of redemption. None as well as Saint Augustine have been capable of understanding the connection in this relationship: "If you are to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostles who tell the faithful: Now you are the body of Christ, and members of member (1 Cor 12,27). If therefore you are the body of Christ and his limbs, your holy mystery is placed on the table of the Lord: you shall receive your holy mystery. To what you are you answer Amen and by answering you undersign it. In fact you hear: "the body of Christ" and you answer: "Amen". Really become the Body of Christ, so that the Amen (that you pronounce) shall be true!" (Sermon 272).

6. The eschatological concept, with which one insists on the final and preparatory characteristics of the Eucharist. "While awaiting His coming" repeated after the consecration clearly certifies the Eschatological intent that the Eucharistic supper contains as the affirmation and the anticipation of new heavens and earth in the Kingdom of God.

A text written by the great Catholic theologian M. J. Scheeben, allows us to synthesize the various elements we have tried to examine: "The Eucharist –he writes in The mysteries of Christianity- is the real and universal continuation and amplification of the mystery of the Incarnation. Christ’s Eucharistic presence is in itself a refection of a amplification of His Incarnation... The transformation of the bread into the Body of Christ thanks to the Holy Spirit is a renewal of the wonderful act with which He originally formed his Body from the breast of the Virgin by virtue of the Holy Spirit Himself and took this body onto His person: and of how, thanks to this act, he entered the world for the first time, hence in this transformation He multiplies His essential presence through space and time". The Eucharist, finally, remains the rule for correct theological thought; we are reminded of this by Saint Ireneus who wrote: "Our doctrine is in agreement with the Eucharist and the Eucharist confirms it" (Against Heresy IV, 18, 5).

X Rino Fisichella