2025/09/29

215. Transubstantiation

The Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. Lumen Gentium, one of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, states that the Eucharist is "the fount and apex of the whole Christian life" (Lumen Gentium № 11). Belief in the fact that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ is therefore at the core of our faith. But do we as believers understand it and accept it with a sense of reality? 

The priest, at the alter, asks the Father for the work of the Holy Spirit, takes the bread and the chalice and says: "This is my body which will be given up for you" and "This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins", repeating Jesus' words at the Last Supper (cf. The Roman Missal). Thus, the petition to the Father is fulfilled, and the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. The Church has long addressed this fact as "transubstantiation." The Council of Trent clearly defined this term as follows. "By the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation" (Council of Trent (1551): DS 1642). 

This is confirmed again in Pope Paul VI's encyclical Mysterium Fidei (Sep. 1965). The "transubstantiation", in which the bread and wine, which bear no resemblance to the body and blood of Christ, are transformed into the Eucharist by the united work of the priest and the Holy Spirit, whom the Father has sent in the name of Jesus, means not only a change, but that the bread and wine become the very body in which the Lord himself is present. The priest works in union with the Holy Spirit, and the Eucharist is born. Without the priest, the Eucharist would never be born. 

The term "transubstantiation" is one that evokes deep empathy for women who have experienced pregnancy and childbirth. That is because the fertilised egg, which bears no resemblance to a human body, is protected by the woman's womb and eventually is born as a human body. In the body of the foetus is the life of a human being, which God has desired, through the word of God "Be" and the work of the Holy Spirit. Even now, without the woman, human life would never be born. 

The Gospel of Luke tells: "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb" (Lk 1:41). John the Baptist, at this time, in his mother's womb, bore witness to Jesus, who had become a man. A fertilised egg, something that bears no resemblance to a human being, grows and quickens inside a woman's body. That could be called another "transubstantiation." Hence, Jesus, at the Last Supper, told the Apostles about the joy that a child is born into the world, giving a parable of a woman giving birth to a child. 

Jesus said, "When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world" (Jn 16:21). Then he continued, "I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you" (16:22), thus foretelling his resurrection as well as the birth of the Eucharist. 

Jesus then gave them an assurance by saying, "In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full" (Jn 16:23-24). The Church has asked for the best in this world. It has responded to these words of Jesus by asking and praying, "so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." The words, "if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you," will be realised immediately. At this time, the priest, united with the Holy Spirit, is demonstrating the words of Jesus. 

When considered in this way, the "transubstantiation" of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ on the altar is not difficult to accept, even for people today. When receiving the Eucharist, we, as believers, must realise that we have become one with the Body of Christ in which God is present with a sense of reality. Therein lies a hope for the future when we will be called to a new "transubstantiation." 

Maria K. M.