“I come again to ask… transubstantiation. What is a good, somewhat understandable, treatment of same. Article length would be good. I currently live in the murky comfort of believing the bread and wine are important yet not needing to have hard-wired doctrine on exactly what’s going on in that mystical communion. Thanks, as usual. 
“
THIS IS MY BODY basically makes the case for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, not Transubstantiation. The Real Presence is what the Church has always believed: namely, that the Eucharist is not a mere symbol but the actual Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Risen and Glorified Christ under the appearance of Bread and Wine. That is what all apostolic communions share.
Transubstantiation is an attempt by the western Church to explain how the Real Presence can be and was articulated over a thousand years after the institution of the Eucharist, because that’s where the questions arose that Transubstantiation was trying to answer. Very few Catholics (including me) could articulate it adequately. Many apostolic Churches have never bothered to try.
As C.S. Lewis said, “The command was ‘Take, eat’, not ‘Take, understand'”. As he also noted, you can eat your dinner while having no idea what vitamins and proteins are and people have done so for thousands of years and felt better afterwards. If the science of vitamins and proteins is learned, you still eat your dinner and feel better afterward. And if the whole science of nutrition turns out to be in error, you will still eat your dinner and feel better.
Transubtantiation is the best stab at formulating a human philosophical explanation of how the Real Presence can be (and not, by the way, the only one the Church allows). The Church endorses it in much the way expert nutritionists endorse food guidelines for us ordinary slobs who know nothing about the science of nutrition. It does not require ordinary people to learn Thomas’ philosophical formulae. It just says that if you take it into your head to try to think about the Eucharist and puzzle out what is happening there (which most people never do) then Thomas has done one of the best jobs in the history of the Church in articulating what is going on there. But for most people, all that is necessary is “Amen” to the proposition of the Eucharistic minister who hands us the sacrament and says, “The Body of Christ” or “The Blood of Christ.”
In short, it is matters far more to believe *that* it is true than to understand *how* it is true.
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3 Responses
Interesting, thanks Mark. I always assumed/understood Transubstantiation is “the” position of the Church, based on my EWTN education.
I can speak only for myself, but I am completely comfortable with a certain amount of Mystery in religion (and in science for that matter). Part of being a finite human is realizing that I can’t completley understand the Infinite. There are some doctrines I believe that I don’t pretend to fully understand. I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around the Trinity. Ain’t happened yet. And then there is the Incarnation, which makes my brain want to crack. But I don’t understand how gravity works either. I know it does though.
When it comes to the Real Presence, I always try to keep in mind something Peter Kreeft once said: “Remember. Jesus commanded us to ‘take and eat,’ not ‘take and understand.’ “
I don’t try to convert my protestant daughters-in-law.
One Christmas, I felt a bit discomfited by one of my sons (the one that is discerning a vocation to the priesthood)debating my fifth son’s wife. Gabrielle is simply one of the most lovely human beings I have ever met, and Jesus is her #1. I asked permission to interrupt their exchange and then told her: “I once had a real problem with what St.Paul wrote about those who fail to discern the body and blood of Christ in communion.”
‘..anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner is guilty of sinning against Christ’s body and blood, and eats and drinks judgment (or condemnation) on themselves for failing to discern the body.” (1 Corinthians)
I told her that I struggled with that for a while, but then realized that instead of Protestants *not having life within them–for failing to believe in the Eucharist, Catholics can receive Jesus *for* their Protestant brothers and sisters. I told her that Saint Thomas Aquinas called the Eucharist the “source and summit” of divine worship, and that I too believe this.
Gabrielle is one of the kindest, saintliest Christians that I know. Grace clearly flows through her, but I hope in some way, that I was able to convey to her what she is missing out on.