2025/10/06

216. Invitation to a New Transubstantiation

In a dream, Joseph was told by the angel: "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Mt 1:21). The "his people" in these words refers to those who, then and now, like us believers, have believed in Jesus. As Jesus had said, "concerning sin, because they do not believe in me" (Jn 16:9), Jesus always saved those who believed in him from this sin. After this episode, the Gospel inserts an explanation: "'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel' (which means, God with us)" (Mt 1:23). Jesus realised this relationship between God and people for this purpose. Its effects are manifested in those who have believed in Jesus. 

At the time, each believer who followed Jesus and was with him was saved from the sin, "they do not believe in me," by being close to him. Jesus had the opportunity to touch the believers, while believers could feel that God was so near that they could sense God's salvation. Thus, Jesus protected "his people" who would become “my church” (Mt 16:18). By instituting the Eucharist, Jesus prepared the way for what was impossible for himself, who was God but had a body as a man, to become possible. Jesus' words, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood is always in me, and I am always in him” (Jn 6:56), are made possible by the Eucharist, thus continuing the work of God to “save his people from their sins”. It is not that God is near. God enters into the believer. 

The Eucharist is the second mystery of the Incarnation, so to speak, through transubstantiation. The Eucharist continues to save the believers who receive it from the sins, "they do not believe in me." Believers share the things they have learned from the Apostles through the New Testament, such as Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and ascension, which Jesus himself testified to, and the fact that his body was gone, even though they had indeed buried it in the tomb and confirmed it. The Eucharist dies by being eaten by us believers, and his body is gone, just as Jesus' body was gone from the tomb. In that short time, a transubstantiation takes place in believers, by the Eucharist, into those who keep in them the body of Christ, in which God is present. Therefore, the memory of those who receive the Eucharist must be firmly imprinted with who the Eucharist is. 

Mary, on the other hand, was first told by the angel: "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Lk 1:31-33). This announcement meant that Jesus would live his public life in such a way, and fulfill the words, "the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David," on the cross. The inscription over Jesus on the cross, "This is the King of the Jews" (23:38), testifies to that. Indeed, "he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." 

Then, the angel said, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1:35). These words were fulfilled in Mary, who became the mother of Jesus. These words lead us to the scene where Jesus united his mother Mary and an Apostle in a parent-child bond on the cross. They were inherited by the Apostles, who had become the sons of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Hence, when a priest asks the Father, saying, "so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ," the Holy Spirit descends on the priest and the power of the Most High overshadows him. So, the child who is born, that is, the Eucharist, "will be called holy, the Son of God." 

When Jesus said to his disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" (Mt 16:15), Apostle Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (16:16). Then Jesus said, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (16:17). The words that the Father revealed to Apostle Peter represent His will that all believers who call God their Father would look at Jesus and say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." We believers respond to the will of our Father by saying these same words to the Eucharist. 

By repeating the words, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," looking at the Eucharist, the fact that the Eucharist is "the Christ, the Son of the living God" becomes firmly etched in the believer's memory. And when the believer, who calls God his Heavenly Father, receives the Eucharist and, for the short time that the Eucharist remains, undergoes a transubstantiation into a person who has the body of Christ, in which God is present, he comes to realise, even if only slightly, that he is the Son of God. This realisation becomes the force that makes faith in Jesus certain. 

Maria K.M.