The Eucharist and the Rule of Christ

The Eucharist and the Rule of Christ | Fr. James T O'Connor | From The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist (2nd edition) | Ignatius Insight

God the Father has put everything under Christ's dominion, and he shall rule until all powers opposed to him have been subdued, the last of them being death itself (cf. 1 Cor. 15:25-26). This present stage of Christ's rule is something we often profess in the liturgy (especially in the Feast of Christ the King) and in private devotion.

The meaning of the Lord's subjection of all reality in its present stage is, however, something upon which most of us do not often reflect. It means that, in some mysterious but real way, the risen Jesus influences, shapes, and directs all things so that out of all persons and things he is shaping the future visage of creation as that creation moves toward his glorious return. Even the sinner—whose very sin is at least implicitly an attempt to thwart the sovereignty and dominion of Christ—operates now within the overall plan of the Lord for the establishment of his Kingdom.

The ways in which Jesus exercises this dominion vary. Over creatures to whom he has given intelligence and free will, his action is such that it respects his natural gifts. Nonetheless, his power to move us by attraction, the arranging of circumstances, the example of others, the holy inspiration that comes from the reading of Scripture, interior grace that conveys the delectatio spoken of by Augustine— these and many other ways are some of the means by which he reigns efficaciously over intelligent creatures. As Vatican Council II said:

Constituted Lord by his Resurrection. Christ, to whom all power in heaven and on earth has been given, already works in the hearts of men by virtue of his Holy Spirit, not only stirring up a desire for the age to come but by that very fact also animating, purifying, and strengthening the noble intentions by which the human family strives to make its life more human and to subject all the earth to that goal. [16]

Over the lesser beings of creation his power sometimes is not necessarily more powerful (for his attractiveness and inspirations are powerful indeed) but more direct and immediate. And such is the case with the elements of bread and wine, simultaneously products of his creation and of ours, "fruit of the earth and work of human hands". At the Consecration of the liturgy, the heavenly King touches these elements directly by and through the power of his Spirit. He touches them so mightily that—if we may put it this way—he extracts from them their very reality, dominating it and attracting it (forcefully pulling it even) toward himself, so subjecting it to himself that its own true being is lost to it as it becomes the very Lord who has mastered it.

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Comments

[W.]

Is there much of a difference between this edition and the first (1988)? Amazon's "Look Inside" for the 2nd edition is actually of the 1st edition (1988).
Thanks.

[W.]

Found my answer: it does have new material.
Thanks.