One of the post-communion prayers in the Eucharistic liturgy makes
this petition: “Lord, by our sharing in the mystery of this
Eucharist, let your saving love grow within us. Grant this through
Christ our Lord.” Notice the italicized words. We pray and
say things like this so often in our liturgy we tend to take them
for granted. Take another and closer look at what Jesus Christ does
in this great mystery of the Eucharist.
Start With the Incarnation
Ponder these astounding words from the prologue to the Fourth Gospel:
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God,
and the word was God...And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth...” (John 1:1, 14a) Sacred scripture
is telling us that Almighty God has become part of the material
world. And all for the purpose of working out our salvation through
the human nature (body as well a soul) of his divine Son.
Now that Christ has been raised in glory, through his transfigured
human nature God mediates to us the salvation Christ has won for
us. God acts on us I an intimate, person-to-person way. Our contact
with God is a spiritual reality made possible by god’s grace
and by our response to that grace in faith. And so for all persons
who have faith in Christ, he makes himself spiritually available
to them.
Bur in his infinite love for us, Jesus Christ has chosen to do far
more than be simply spiritually available.
In the Eucharist, Jesus Christ Gives Us Direct Contact
With His Human Nature
Think of your senses: Hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, tasting.
You can hear or see or smell something, but our sense of hearing
or seeing or smelling is detached from its object. You are not in
direct physical contact with what you hear or see or smell.
Touching is different. We come into direct contact with something
by putting our fingers or our hand on that object. Tasting is a
form of touching, but with a very great difference. Tasting –
eating – actually brings about a union between ourselves and
the object of our tasting (eating). What we eat literally becomes
part of us.
Now this is deeply significant: the central act of the Catholic
religion is an act of feeding on particular food. Jesus wants us
to be united with him through faith, of course. But through his
Church he has provided for much more intimate contact with himself.
He has given us food – the Eucharist – through which
he gives us his very self. At the Last Supper he said of the elements,
“this is my body,” “this is my blood.” (Matt.
26:26-28).
Jesus Christ gives us himself under forms of bread and wine. In
all the other sacraments, Jesus uses physical means through which
he gives us his grace: the water of baptism, the oil of the anointing,
and so. But in the Eucharist, the physical means Jesus uses themselves
become Jesus Christ himself.
Only God himself could fully explain the miracle of the Eucharist,
but the Holy Spirit enables his Church to describe the miracle,
in her doctrine of transubstantiation.
Transubstantiation
To describe what happens in the Eucharistic action, the Church uses
two basic concepts. The first is “substance”: the inner
essence of something: what it really is at the core of its being.
The second is “accidents” (or we might use another word,
“appearances”): the qualities of a thing which we can
experience by one or more of our senses.
As an example of “accidents,” take a book. You can see
its shape, its weight, its color. You might even imitate a toddler
and tear out a page and chew on it to test its flavor. What you
can see or feel or taste are the “accidents,” the “appearances”
of the book. But the essence of this object if book.
In the Eucharist, the appearances of the bread and wine remain unchanged.
The essence of the bread and wine is totally changed. Their essence
is changed into the very Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The Church calls this change “transubstantiation.”
The change is both miraculous and unique.
We human beings can change both the inner essence (“the substance”)
of something and its appearances (“the accidents”).
By cooking, we can change wheat into bread. IN its essence it is
no longer what; it is bread. It no longer looks like what: the appearances
(“the accidents”) are changed.
We human beings can change the appearances of something without
changing the substance. We can freeze water so that it no longer
looks like water, but it’s still water. We can transform water
into steam so that it no longer looks like water, but it’s
still water.
But here is something impossible for us: we can never change the
inner essence (the “substance”) of something without
changing its appearances (the “accidents”). Only God
can do that. That’s exactly what he does in the consecration
of the Eucharist. God changes the substance of the bread and wine
into the Body and Blood, soul and divinity, of Jesus Christ. But
the accidents, the appearances of bread and wine remain unchanged.
Here is the miracle, enacted by God at every Catholic altar. The
Blessed Sacrament does not merely give us a spiritual presence of
our Lord. This Sacrament gives us the actual flesh and blood of
the risen Christ to be our food, to become literally part of us.
Two Articles of Faith Regarding Our Lord’s Eucharistic
Presence
First of all, the Church teaches that the bodily presence of the
risen and ascended Christ is in heaven, where “he is seated
at the right hand of the Father.” Over 1500 years ago Pope
Leo the Great proclaimed, “The Son of God entered into the
lowliness of this world, descending from his heavenly throne yet
not leaving the glory of the Father.” While the Eternal Word
was on earth in his humanity – being born of a virgin, teaching,
preaching, healing, suffering and dying on the Cross – the
Eternal Word in his divinity was at the same time governing the
universe with the other Persons of the Blessed Trinity.
The Church also teaches that Jesus Christ – Body and Blood,
Soul and Divinity – is truly present in the Eucharist. Jesus
Christ is present in each of the many hosts in a single ciborium.
One ciborium may contain many hosts, but that ciborium will contain
only one bodily presence of Christ. Jesus Christ is present in all
the cibnoria in all the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in
the entire world. Jesus Christ is fully and completely bodily present
in each part of each host. When the host is broken, Jesus Christ
is fully present in each part of the host, in each visible particle
of the host. No matter how many hosts there re, entire or broken,
in all of them there is only on bodily presence of the Lord.
How Can We Reconcile These Two Truths?
The Church teaches that Jesus Christ is now “seated at the
right hand of the Father” in heaven. The Church teaches that
Jesus Christ is now present in the Eucharist, Body and Blood, Soul
and Divinity. How can this be?
Start with the fact that all things are subject to Christ at this
moment and until the end of time. “’All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me.’” (Matt. 28:18)
“For he [Christ] must reign until he has put all his enemies
under his feet…For God has put all things in subjection under
his feet.” (1 Cor. 15:25, 27) “…in him all things
were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities – all
things were created through him and for him. He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:16-17)
Jesus Christ directs all things, all persons, without limiting their
freedom of choice, shaping the future Kingdom of God. The way in
which he exercises his dominion varies according to the nature of
his creatures, whether human or animal or inanimate.
At the consecration in the liturgy, through the power of his Spirit,
Christ the King directly touches the substance (the inner essence)
of these elements of bread and wine. He touches the substance of
these elements in such a way that he pulls them toward himself.
He subjects them to himself.
A miraculous change occurs which we call “transubstantiation.”
But note: the King of Glory does not descend in order to “enter”
the bread and wine. No, instead of his coming down, he draws the
essence of the elements to where he is, at the right hand of the
Father. The risen Lord draws the inner reality of the bread and
wine in all celebrations of the Mass unto himself and indeed into
himself. Thus he maintains his own bodily unity.
In other words, Jesus Christ himself is not changed into the essence
of the elements of bread and wine. Rather, the essence of those
elements is changed into him.
Consider the Sacred Host and the Precious Blood on a Catholic altar.
We can see the Hosts being distributed and the Precious Blood being
consumed. What we see happening to the Hosts and the Precious Blood
happens not to the substance of those elements, but to the accidents,
the appearances. It is the accidents that we see consecrated, handled,
broken, multiplied in many ciboria on many altars in churches around
the world. The substance of all the Hosts, all the Precious Blood,
in all the world is the one Body and Blood Soul and divinity, of
the one risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Always remember: Jesus Christ does not come down from heaven to
enter the substance of these elements. Jesus Christ in heaven changes
the substance of these elements into himself, while leaving their
appearances unchanged. That is the miracle of transubstantiation.
Conclusion
In any non-Catholic church, you can hear Jesus Christ proclaimed,
often quite powerfully. In any non-Catholic church, you can be invited
to commit your life to Jesus Christ. In almost any non-Catholic
church you will find warm human fellowship. All of these, of course,
you should find in any Catholic church.
But in no non-Catholic church (excepting the Eastern Orthodox) can
you receive Jesus Christ himself, Body and Blood, Soul and divinity.
Because of the lack of apostolic orders for their ministers, none
of the non-Catholic communion services is the Eucharist. Therefore,
in no no-Catholic church can you be literally united with Jesus
Christ.
I shall never forget the exclamation of a theologian, himself a
convert, as he thought about the Eucharist and the priesthood: “that
man,” he said in a hushed tone, speaking of his priest, “can
put God in my mouth!”
This most precious of privileges, this most intimate of all person-to-Person
unions, is available to you only in Christ’s one true Church.
Rejoice! And do something else. Go about your life, carrying out
your individual apostolate, with the words of Jesus ringing in your
ears: “From him who has been given much, much will be expected.”
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