Eucharist Liturgy and Faith

2. How does the theory of transubstantiation help in understanding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist?

The theory of transubstantiation helps in understanding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist by explaining the words of the Last Supper at which Christ declared the bread and wine to be His body and blood. This great mystery was no less incomprehensible to the disciples than it has been to the doctors of the Church. Nonetheless, Aquinas states that transubstantiation is a mystery, “one that defies imagination, one inconceivable to reason alone, one not to be found at all in the order of nature… Yet, it is the true presence of Christ, not just a communion in mind or spirit, for it is the person of the Word Incarnate, the whole Christ, who is present and gives himself in communion.”[footnoteRef:2] This presence, in other words, cannot be understand by reason alone: it can only be accepted on faith, and God demands that faith from His children. [2: David N. Power, “Thomas Aquinas On the Eucharist: Focal Point of Medieval Thought,” 223.]

Still, the Church has sought to help Her children draw nearer to this mystery so as to appreciate it all the more. For instance, at the Council of Trent in the 16th century, when Protestants were denying the Real Presence all over Europe as they broke with the centuries of teachings of the Church, the Church sought to reaffirm this sacred mystery and explain it in as rational of terms as possible. Thus, Schillebeecx writes that at Trent the Church had to show that “in such a way that after the consecration, the reality present is no longer ordinary or natural bread and wine, but our Lord himself in the presence of bread and wine which has become sacramental.”[footnoteRef:3] However, Schillebeecx goes on to say that Christ is present in the liturgy as well.[footnoteRef:4] [3: Edward Schillebeeckx, “Transubstantiation, Transfinalization, Transfiguration,” in Living Bread, Saving Cup: Readings on the Eucharist (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1987), 183.] [4: Ibid, 188.]

The Real Presence should be a matter of great concern for Catholics, since Christ Himself declared it to be so. Since the Protestant Reformation, however, the Real Presence has been denied with more and more frequency; today, there are Catholics who doubt the Real Presence. Perhaps it does not help that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been changed since the Second Vatican Council to be less focused on the Eucharist and more focused on the people in the congregation, what with the priest now facing the people in the Ordinary form instead of facing the tabernacle and the crucifix above the old altar. There are lay people who distribute Holy Communion, even though their hands have not been blessed as the priest’s have—but because the Church has granted an indult for this to happen due to shortage of priests the laity see little problem with it. But does this not work to undermine faith in the Real Presence when the Eucharist is handled with such little devotion, reverence, and veneration? People in the congregation may go up to receive Holy Communion—not kneeling and on the tongue—but standing and in the hand, as though their hands, too, were blessed. Such reception of the Sacrament would have been viewed as sacrilegious in the Age of Faith; today, when faith seems to be needed most of all, the object of faith—the Eucharist—is treated in a way that does not seem to inspire faith. It is no surprise then that the doctrine of transubstantiation is lost on so many.

In the Middle Ages, theologians were adamant that the Real Presence was truly Christ in the body, blood, soul and divinity—all there in the Sacrament under the cloak, as it were, of bread and wine. Paschasius placed special stress on this matter, stating that the Eucharist truly contained the historical body, blood, soul and divinity of God.[footnoteRef:5] The bread and wine are not to be seen as anything else, once consecrated—but today’s post-resurrection theologians place more emphasis on seeing the Eucharist in terms similar to how the Protestants have tended to view it, and this does not place any demands on one to have a deep faith. Mitchell, for instance, states that Paschasius misinterpreted Scriptures and put too much emphasis on the material of the Eucharist. A more “enlightened” or symbolic understanding would not oblige one to see the Eucharist as really being the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, according to Mitchell.[footnoteRef:6] [5: Power, 210.] [6: Nathan Mitchell, Cult and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass (Liturgical Press, 1990), 70-78.]

But if one is going to accept the Church’s teaching that the Eucharist is truly God, present in body, blood, soul and divinity, then the theory of transubstantiation can be helpful—for it explains the that priest has the God-given power by his own sacramental character to call God down from Heaven to Earth to be present in the bread and wine, using the words of Christ at the Last Supper. It is a mystery, one that requires faith, but faith is what God asks of His believers.

3. In what ways does the Church teach that is Jesus really present in the liturgy?

What is the significance of this teaching for understanding the Eucharist?

The Church teaches that Jesus is really present in the liturgy in the service itself, in the Eucharist, in the Word, in the minister, and in the assembly. This belief is founded on Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” But what does this mean? Does Jesus come because the believers are together? The liturgy helps to direct their attention to the Sacrifice that God made on the cross for our salvation; so the liturgy helps to drive the gathering; that gathering inspires our communion with God: as Power notes, “It is the direct relationship with Christ of each person that stands at the heart of the communion of all in one body, of that holy bonding that makes Christ and his members unite together as though they were one person.”[footnoteRef:7] By gathering and communing, the assembly reflects the power of the liturgy, hears the Word, receives the Eucharist, and accepts God into their souls. [7: Power, 235.]

The liturgy gives voice to the Word, particularly at the Last Supper, when the words of God are used to call down God, as He instructed His disciples to do: they use the very same words given to them by Jesus, and because Jesus is the Word He is present at this moment. But He is also there in the Scriptures that are read—particularly in the Epistle and the Gospel, as they are read each time. Each time, the assembly sees and hears Jesus “in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church.”[footnoteRef:8] The faithful hear the Word of God, and they are transported back to that time when He walked among us as a brother and a friend, a teacher, and a healer. The homily is then used to deepen the faith present among the congregation: “in the readings, as explained by the Homily, God speaks to his people, opening up to them the mystery of redemption and salvation, and offering spiritual nourishment; and Christ himself is present through his word in the midst of the faithful.”[footnoteRef:9] The Word lifts up the hearts and minds of the faithful, just as Jesus lifted them up when He preached to the crowds, just as he lifted Lazarus up from the dead. The Word comes to give life to those who hear it. The Word gives them joy, and thus Jesus is there in the Word of the liturgy. [8: The Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, art. 7.] [9: The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 55.]

In the Eucharist, we see Jesus now coming to His people so that He can give them all of Himself. It is this great mystery of faith that Jesus asks of His people, and it is our communion with God through the Eucharist that brings us to Him in a very real and yet spiritual way. As Aquinas understood it, “the Eucharist put us in a communion of faith with the mystery by which we had been saved and by which we were destined to the fullness of life in glory.”[footnoteRef:10] [10: Power, 240.]