Ven. Fulton Sheen on the double meaning of the most sacred words of the Mass

December 9 marks the anniversary of the death of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, one of the greatest evangelists of the twentieth century. Known above all for his pioneering work in radio and television—at the peak of his popularity in the 1950s, his Life Is Worth Living program beat out celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle—Sheen was also a gifted theologian and writer. His first book, an adaptation of his doctoral dissertation, featured an introduction by G. K. Chesterton, and he went on to write dozens more, including his beloved Life of Christ.

Sheen’s writing, like his preaching, is chock full of insights. And in one 1935 text titled The Mystical Body of Christ, he offers an unforgettable “both/and” reading of the most sacred words of the Mass: the consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus.

He begins by pointing out what he calls the “primary significance” of the words:

When the priest, in obedience to the command of our Lord at the Last Supper to “Do this in commemoration of Me,” pronounces the words over the bread, “This is My Body,” and over the wine, “This is My Blood,” the primary significance of the words is that the substance of the Bread is changed into the substance of the Body of our Lord and the substance of the wine is changed into the substance of His Blood. Mystically divided by the separate consecration, our Lord thus renews the Sacrifice of Calvary.

This is what we might call the divine side of the words of consecration. The priest, acting in persona Christi, effects the mystery of transubstantiation, by which the ordinary elements of bread and wine become the real presence of Christ—body, blood, soul, and divinity. “This is” signifies the transformation of that “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”; the “my” signifies the voice of Jesus himself; and the “Body” and “Blood” signify his Eucharistic presence, given to humanity.

As Sheen wrote the following year in Calvary and the Mass: “He willed to give us the very life we slew; to give us the very Food we destroyed; to nourish us with the very Bread we buried, and the very Blood we poured forth.”

But there is another side to the words—the human side. Sheen goes on:

But our Lord is not alone. The Vine Sacrificed Himself on the Cross; the Vine and Branches now Sacrifice themselves in the Mass. The primary meaning of the words of consecration then refer to the Vine: This is the Body and This is the Blood of Christ renewing the Sacrifice of Calvary. But the secondary meaning refers to the Branches united to the Vine to form the Mystical Body, in which Peter and Paul, Mary and Anne, and each one of us who are members of the Church say: “This is my Body; this is my Blood. I offered myself with Thee at the offertory; now I immolate myself with Thee at the consecration.”

Here, the vertical movement of the consecration meets a horizontal movement, and the Son’s self-gift to the Father is another self-gift: that of humanity to the Son. This meaning of the words is secondary, not primary, because it doesn’t effect, sacramentally, the divine presence. But for Sheen, it is still a very real and very important aspect of this sacred prayer. Here, “This is my Body” is the voice of each member of the Church, giving their own lives to God in and through the same Eucharistic sacrifice. Sheen goes on:

“Take my Body and my Blood with Thee to the Cross; take my Body and Blood with all the pains, sorrows, agonies; with their capacities for love, for service and for repentance; take them with Thee to the Cross, that they may be united with Thy Sacrifice which alone makes them acceptable to Thy heavenly Father; that Thou mayest purchase me to Thyself in act, as Thou didst purchase me in Hope at Calvary; take not merely my possessions, my titles, my apostolate, my zeal, my energy, but take all that I am—the very substance of my life—my Body; my Blood.”

Thus, in the prayer of consecration on the altar, the divine and human sides of the faith meet, the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary becoming one with the sacrifices of his Church in the present.

The consecration, like the Mass itself—like the Church itself—is not simply heavenly or simply earthly but an incarnational communion of the two. If we take the divine side without the human side, we lose the dramatic “push” of the Mass out into the temporal world below; if we take the human side without the divine side, we lose the transcendent “pull” up into the eternal world above. When we take both together—striving to sense, mysteriously, both meanings at once during the Mass—we glimpse the Totus Christus, the “total Christ,” wherein the Bridegroom and Bride become one flesh.

Sheen articulates this convergence beautifully:

“Take [my Body and my Blood], make them one with Thy Sacrifice as the drop of water becomes one with the wine. Possess them so that what is mine is Thine; so that the heavenly Father, in looking down upon Thy renewed Calvary, may find that there is but one Body and one Blood, which is that of Thee, His Beloved Son, in whom the Father is well pleased.”

Venerable Fulton Sheen has been revered not only as a courageous preacher or brilliant thinker but also as a holy disciple; indeed, his cause for canonization was officially opened in 2002. After a long postponement of his beatification, will the first American pope (and Sheen’s fellow Illinoisan) be the one to officially declare Fulton Sheen Blessed—or eventually Saint?

Whatever happens on the ecclesial front, Sheen’s theological and spiritual insights, including this one, remain a treasure for the Church to return to and ponder—the Church born of, and always bearing, the Eucharist.