![]() The second reason is that, attuned as they were to the importance of “this,” they would have seen instantly the similar importance of “me.” * And if what had just been done had turned bread into the Lord’s body, then, obviously, “this,” which we do today, does so as well. ![]() You can see that Fathers and Doctors who thought deeply in this way, when they next came to “This you are all to do, for a remembrance of me.” They take “This” to point to exactly what had just been done. So that the statement is never false, and it becomes true precisely in effecting what it signified. Therefore, “This is my body” would mean “This bread is my body,” which is a false statement.Īquinas resolves the problem by emphasizing that Jesus did not say, after all, “This bread,” but rather simply “This,” which in the context must mean, “That which underlies and is hidden here by the appearances which you see and touch.” At the start of the statement, “This is my body,” he holds, nothing else is picked up and referred to, and, by the end, that which underlies and is hidden is indeed his body. When Jesus begins to say that statement, however, the word “this” refers to the bread, which has not yet been made his body. Therefore, we grant that, Jesus’ statement “This is my body,” through being uttered, can make it so that the bread has become his body. The first is that they were keenly attuned to how pronouns that point – like “this” and “me” – were at work in the Last Supper.įor example, Aquinas raises an interesting problem, which goes as follows: the word of God can effect what it signifies. Apparently, they did not see the threat of false argument here. I have wondered about the origin of this modern Protestant argument, based on the words “do this for a remembrance of me.” The Fathers and the Scholastics seem not to have been concerned about it. For instance, it makes perfect sense for a married couple to regard their intimate union as a remembrance of their wedding – their original act of union – but need it be said that an act which can procreate a child is hardly a “mere” remembrance? A remembrance need not be solely a remembrance, and the very thing remembered, or something close to it, can be the means of remembrance. When I was a Protestant, I would hear that the Eucharist is solely a memorial, no different from the Washing of Feet, or Stations of the Cross, because Jesus said so: it was “for a remembrance.” This you are all to do, for a remembrance of me.” (Lk 22:19) Thus a rather wooden and literal translation, which preserves the word order, and the oddities of the original language, clearly connoting something strange and mysterious. “This is my body, the body given on your behalf.
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