Bishop Robert Barron regularly offers theological and practical insights in a style that is clear, concise, and compelling. Moreover, he typically (1) mentions authors whose works I have read and want to revisit, (2) refers to authors and titles that are new to me, and (3) brings to mind books I have read that he hasn’t mentioned. The book Eucharist exemplifies all those features, but in this review, I’ll concentrate on the final three.
In his Introduction, Barron offers a detailed summary of Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen, emphasizing the eucharistic aspect of the story (1-16). Indeed, Barron’s overview prompted me to reread Dinesen’s story slowly, recognizing, as Barron had pointed out, that the Lutheran community’s theological flaw is dualism or puritanism, according to which the things of God are divorced from the affairs and pleasures of this world. He clarifies his point by noting that, according to Christian teaching,
God is intimately involved in the world that he has made, and every nook and cranny of creation speaks of the beauty of the Creator. Accordingly, the biblical imagination is not dualist but sacramental. Although the world is distinct from God, it serves as an icon of the one who made it, and therefore, whatever is good, true, and beautiful in creation functions as a potential point of contact between human beings and God.
Annie Dillard illustrates this point in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, where she explores the many nooks and crannies of creation that prompt us to declare the glory of God. For example, in her chapter titled “Seeing,” Dillard writes about a book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight, that describes the reactions of some who were blind from birth and had their sight restored. One twenty-two-year-old girl, dazzled by the world’s brightness, kept her eyes closed for two weeks. When she finally opened them, she did not recognize any objects, but “the more she now directed her gaze upon everything about her, the more it could be seen how an expression of gratification and astonishment overspread her features; she repeatedly exclaimed: ‘Oh God! How beautiful!’”
In Chapter 1 of Eucharist, titled “The Eucharist as Sacred Meal,” Barron mentions John Henry Newman’s book, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, which argues that religious assent involves much more than accepting logical inferences. It is as much a matter of hunch, intuition, and feel as thought. I took note of intuition from having read E. I. Watkin’s The Bow in the Clouds. Watkin’s point is that intuition is essential for the proper functioning of nearly all of the “orders of being” (e.g., metaphysics, life, art, religion) represented by the colors of the rainbow.
Barron sees the Eucharist in Babette’s Feast, but Dinesen alludes to other passages and events in the Scriptures, most notably Pentecost. A dinner speech by a prominent guest, inspired by “the noblest wine of the world,” brought a change of heart to the twelve guests. The narrator describes the aftermath: ‘add’
Of what happened later in the evening, nothing definite can be stated here. None of the guests later on had any clear remembrance of it. They only knew that the rooms had been filled with a heavenly light, as if several small halos had blended into one glorious radiance. Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that had been almost deaf for years were opened to it, and time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight, the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.
That scene resembles events in the chapter “The Descent of the Gods” in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups.
What they said, none of the party could ever afterwards remember. Dimble maintained that they had been chiefly engaged in making puns. MacPhee denied that he had ever, even that night, made a pun, but all agreed that they had been extraordinarily witty. If not plays upon words, yet certainly plays upon thoughts, paradoxes, fancies, anecdotes, theories laughingly advanced, yet, on consideration, well worth taking seriously, had flowed from them and over them with dazzling prodigality.
By alluding to the Eucharist and Pentecost, Dinesen produced a virtual lenticular print in which we can both enter into the Eucharist and observe Pentecost.
In Chapter 2, Barron emphasizes that the Eucharist is a sacred meal and a sacrifice. The word remembrance in Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of me,” means more than simply recalling and giving thanks that Christ died for us. Barron notes, “... at the Eucharist assembly, Christ makes present both the past and the future. Indeed, the whole sacrificial history of Israel—from Noah and Abraham through David and Isaiah and Jesus himself—is gathered and summed up, re-presented at the Mass.” Thus, the Eucharist is a kairos moment when the people of God enter into the once-for-all-time sacrifice offered by our Lord Jesus Christ. In the moment, we affirm, celebrate, and proclaim the truth expressed in the letter to the Hebrews:
But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Hebrews 10:11-14, italics mine).
In his third chapter of Eucharist, titled “If It’s a Symbol, To Hell With It,” Barron explains Catholic teachings about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist based on the Gospel of John, Chapter 6. Barron’s chapter title was inspired by Flannery O’Connor’s account of her reaction early in her career to Mary McCarthy, a lapsed Catholic and a published author. During a dinner party at which O’Connor was a guest, McCarthy remarked to O’Connor that she considered the Eucharist a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. O’Connor responded candidly in a shaky voice, “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” Barron notes,
“In its bluntness, clarity, and directness, Flannery O’Connor’s remark is one of the best statements of the Catholic difference in regard to the Eucharist. For Catholics, the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus, and any attempt to say otherwise, no matter how cleverly formulated or deftly articulated, is insufficient.”
O’Connor’s affirmation prompts fond memories of having read her short stories, essays, and letters in 2010, for they were one of the influences in my becoming a Roman Catholic.
In Chapter 3, Barron also links the petition “Give us this day our daily bread” of the Lord’s Prayer with the Eucharist. He explains that the phrase daily bread (ton arton . . . ton epiousion) in the literal sense of the Greek is something like “supernatural bread,” signifying, not so much the bread we eat to sustain our physical life, but the bread suitable for a higher pitch of existence.
In his Jesus of Nazareth series, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) explained the concept of daily bread more thoroughly, noting that the Gospel writers coined the word that is commonly translated “daily” (epiousios), as it didn’t exist in Greek until then. Ratzinger clarified that scholars suggest two principal interpretations: One maintains that the word means “what is necessary for existence.” The other interprets it as “bread for the future,” for the following day. With the second option, Jesus would have us ask for the bread that belongs to the future—the true manna of God. In that case, it’s a petition anticipating the world to come, asking the Lord to give already “today” the future bread, the bread of the new world—himself.
When I say the Lord’s Prayer during the Mass, I emphasize the second option, asking to receive the true manna from heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Barron ends his book as it began, with a short story. This time, it’s the post-resurrection account of Jesus’ encounter with the two on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). Barron calls the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke a literary masterpiece and the narrative of the encounter on the road to Emmaus a masterpiece within a masterpiece. He notes that, with the possible exception of John Chapter 6, this story is “the most thorough and important New Testament meditation on the meaning of the Eucharist.” Throughout history, this literary gem has inspired other works of art, including Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus, which depicts the moment the disciples’ eyes are opened.
The two disheartened disciples knew of Jesus’ death and had heard reports of his resurrection, but they hadn’t “connected the dots.” As Jesus explained what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself, their hearts were warmed, but they still didn’t understand. Yet, when Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him—and he vanished from their sight.
Naturally, they hurried back to the Eleven and those assembled with them in Jerusalem. As Barron notes, they shared their “god spell” that Jesus made himself known to them “in the breaking of the bread,” New Testament shorthand for the Eucharist.
Because Eucharist is a beautifully written, cogent, and clear description of the Eucharist, even as it illuminates other books, I commend it to those who long to know Christ in the breaking of the bread. ♱
© Stan Bohall July 15, 2025
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