Why not consecrate beer and pizza?

“John Macquarrie indicates something of the wealth of meaning in the Eucharist as a symbol:

The Eucharist sums up in itself Christian worship, experience and theology in an amazing richness.  It seems to include everything. . . .   It combines Word and Sacrament; its appeal is to spirit and to sense; it brings together the sacrifice of Calvary and the presence of the risen Christ; it is communion with God and communion with man; it covers the whole gamut of religious moods and emotions.  Again, it teaches the doctrine of creation, as the bread, the wine, and ourselves are brought to God; the doctrine of atonement, for these gifts have to be broken in order that they may be perfected; the doctrine of salvation, for the Eucharist has to do with incorporation into Christ and the sanctification of human life; above all, the doctrine of incarnation, for it is no distant God whom Christians worship but one who has made himself accessible in the world.  The Eucharist also gathers up in itself the meaning of the Church; its whole action implies and sets forth our mutual interdependence in the body of Christ; it unites us with the Church of the past and even, through its paschal overtones, with the first people of God, Israel; and it points to the eschatological consummation of the kingdom of God, as an anticipation of the heavenly banquet.  Comprehensive though this description is, it is likely that I have missed something out, for the Eucharist seem to be inexhaustible.”

Quoted in, Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation, Orbis Books, 1983, p. 140.

In other words, though Flannery O’Connor captures very poignantly a central Catholic Catholic conviction when she protests against someone treating the Eucharist as if it were only a symbol, we must not take from that affirmation that the Eucharist is not a symbol at all.  If it were not a symbol, it could not be a sacrament.  If transubstantiation were just a divine magic trick, beer and pizza would work just fine.

Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto.  He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.