Concomitance
The
words of consecration directly make Christ’s Body present under the species of
bread and His Blood present under the species of wine. However, since Christ’s Body after the
Resurrection is now inseparably united to His Blood and to His soul, these also
are made present in the Eucharist by a natural accompaniment, or
“concomitance.” This means that the Body is necessarily accompanied by the
Blood and the soul that the precious Blood is necessarily accompanied by the
Body and the soul.
Furthermore,
Christ’s divinity is inseparably united to every part of His sacred humanity by
the hypostatic union. This union of the divinity with Christ’s Body and Blood
was not interrupted even in His death. The dead Body in the tomb was still the
dead Body of the Second Person of the Trinity, and His separated soul was
likewise still united to his divine Person. At the moment of his death on the
Cross, Christ’s Body and Blood were physically separated from each other and
from His soul, although they all remained united to His divinity. In the moment
of His glorious Resurrection, however, Christ’s Body was again united to His
Blood, and both were again animated by His human soul, and all three—Body,
Blood, and soul—remain inseparably united to His divinity.
Therefore,
the words of consecration, “This is my body,” are not limited to producing this
one effect by divine fiat—to make Christ’s Body present—but they also
indirectly make His Blood, soul, and divinity present, [49] because
these are now inseparable from Christ’s glorified human Body. The same thing
occurs in the separate consecration of the wine. Although the power of the
words is directly ordered to making Christ’s Blood present, they also
indirectly make His whole Body, soul, and divinity present in every drop of the
consecrated species of wine.
St.
Thomas holds that if Holy Mass had been celebrated on Holy Saturday before the
Resurrection, while Christ’s physical Body was still in the tomb, the words of
consecration would have made Christ’s inanimate Body present, separated from
His soul and from His Blood but still united to His divinity. Likewise, the
words of the consecration of the species of wine would have made only His Blood
present, separated from His Body and from his soul but still united to the
divinity. [50]
After
the Resurrection, however, until the end of time, Christ’s physical Body and
Blood have been reunited to one another and to His soul, and all three are
inseparably united to His divinity. Therefore, the words of consecration in
every Mass makes Christ’s entire reality as it currently exists—present
under every part of the consecrated species. (Lawrence Feingold, The
Eucharist: Mystery of Presence, Sacrifice, and Communion [Steubenville,
Ohio: Emmaus Academic, 2018], 282-84)
Notes
for the Above
[49]
See ST III, q. 76, a. 1, ad. 1:
Because the change of the bread and
wine is not terminated at the Godhead or the soul of Christ, it follows as a
consequence that the Godhead or the soul of Christ is in this sacrament not by
the power of the sacrament, but from real concomitance. For since the Godhead
never set aside the assumed body, wherever the body of Christ is, there, of
necessity, must be the Godhead be; and therefore it is necessary for the
Godhead to be in this sacrament concomitantly with His body. Hence we read in
the profession of faith at Ephesus (P. I., ch. 26): “We are made partakers of
the body and blood of Christ, not as taking common flesh, nor as of a holy man
united to the Word in dignity, but the truly life-giving flesh of the Word
Himself.”
[50]
See ST III, q. 76, a. 1, ad. 1:
“His soul was truly separated from His body, as stated above (III, q. 50, a.
5). And therefore had this sacrament been celebrated during those three days
when He was dead, the soul of Christ would not have been there, neither by the
power of the sacrament, nor from real concomitance. But since ‘Christ rising
from the dead dies now no more’ (Romans 6:9), His soul is always really united
with His body. And therefore in this sacrament the body indeed of Christ is
present by the power of the sacrament, but His soul from real concomitance.”
