Good Question

In our motley faith community, there is an ongoing discussion about the Eucharist--especially in terms of what participation in that celebration looks like. This was helpful:

"The momentous doctrine of the Body of Christ was taught in two different ways by St. Paul. He used it both for the community itself (building on Jesus who said “wherever two or three gather, I am there”) and also for the bread and wine of the Eucharist. In the first thousand years, the community was called the Corpus Verum—the True Body of Christ—and the Eucharist was called the Mystical Body of Christ (Corpus Mysticum), but no one doubted they were both the Presence! In the second thousand years the usage was almost entirely reversed, and we called the people the “mystical body of Christ” and the bread and wine the “real presence” or “Corpus Verum.” I wonder what that reversal of mentality reveals about our understanding of the Gospel?"

Richard Rohr