“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

This acclamation that is so often recited or sung at Mass points to a very important reality: the celebration of the Eucharist brings together past (“Christ has died”), present (“Christ is risen”) and future (“Christ will come again”). The acclamation reminds us that the present time is “resurrection time,” a time of grace as Jesus continues to share the graces of his heavenly life with us, most powerfully through the sacraments of the Church. We look forward to a future fulfillment when, upon Jesus’ Second Coming, God’s Kingdom will be definitively established once and for all. Sometimes we forget, though, that the Eucharist is not just about what we celebrate now, but also what we look forward to in the future.

There’s a powerful image associated with the future Kingdom of God. The Scriptures often compare the Kingdom of God to a banquet marked by great joy and festivity. The celebration of the Eucharistic banquet is meant to be a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. What we glimpse at the celebration of the Eucharist is meant to be an insight into the heavenly joy and heavenly union with God and others that God wants us to have. It is in this sense that we can speak of the Eucharist as the pledge of glory to come, and there are three ways in particular that this pledge is revealed to us.

First, the Eucharist is the pledge of glory to come because it reveals the resurrection. Jesus is really and truly present in the Eucharist; we speak of his Real Presence in the bread and wine that has become his Body and Blood. More precisely, it is his risen body that is present to us. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead was not the resuscitation of a corpse, but rather it was a transformation into a new, heavenly, glorified existence. The accounts of the resurrection appearances in the Gospels tell us clearly that the Risen Jesus still has a body, but it is a risen, transformed, glorified body. It is this risen Body that is given to us in the Eucharist.

As we receive his risen Body as food in the Eucharist, it reminds us that ultimately that’s where our bodies are headed. We are destined to exist in eternity not as disembodied spirits, but as whole persons, bodies and souls — transformed, risen bodies — as we look forward to the general resurrection on the last day. As the texts for the Mass of the Ascension tell us: “In his [Christ’s] risen body he plainly showed himself to his disciples and was taken up to heaven in their sight to claim for us a share in his divine life”; and “Christ is the beginning, the head of the Church; where he has gone, we hope to follow” (Prefaces I & II).

Second, the Eucharist is the pledge of glory to come because in celebrating the Eucharistic liturgy here on earth, we do so in union with the heavenly liturgy. Those who are already in the glory of heaven continue to be united to the offering of Christ. This is why during the Eucharistic Prayer we also refer to our union with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, the apostles, the martyrs, and all the saints.

This leads us to the third way that the Eucharist is the pledge of glory to come. By uniting ourselves with the heavenly liturgy, we are anticipating eternal life, when God will be all in all. The Eucharist is our food for the journey toward our heavenly home and therefore a great sign of hope that makes us long for eternal life. This is why St. Ignatius of Antioch spoke of the Eucharist as our “medicine of immortality” and “antidote for death.”

Father DeGrocco is associate professor of liturgy at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception and a member of the Diocesan Liturgy Commission.