Why do we call this eucharistic presence “real”?
The word real comes from a Latin word, res, which means thing. So to identify this presence as real — or “thinglike” — is meant to convey the sense that it is the presence of one “thing” to another, not just a fleeting change but an enduring reality, like the thing rather than its changing features.
Pope Paul VI explained the Church’s use of the term this way. “This presence is called ‘real’ — by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, divine and human, makes Himself wholly and entirely present” (Mystery of Faith, 1965).
What does it mean to call this a “substantial” presence?
To identify this as a “substantial” presence adopts the substance/ accidents terminology used by medieval Christian theologians like Thomas Aquinas. The idea of a thing being made up of sub- stance and accidents rests on our everyday experience. Substance (Latin, “standing under”) talks about the basic underlying reality. Accidents (Latin, “clinging or hanging on to”) describe the changeable features noticed by our senses. As the term implies, the substance is what “stands under” all of the accidents. The substance identifies what we call the thing — the dog, cat, house, person, car. The accidents refer to characteristics of the thing such as color, weight, shape, etc. So even though many accidental characteristics might change — I put on or lose weight, lose a tooth, dye my hair, get a tattoo, replace a hip joint — my substance continues and I remain myself.
How does this relate to the doctrine of transubstantiation?
The doctrine of transubstantiation was officially adopted by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) as an attempt to guide our thinking about the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements of bread and wine. The doctrine of transubstantiation tells us that to understand the difference between the bread and wine before the eucharistic prayer at Mass and after it, the change can best be described as a change of sub- stance, not of accidental features.
Does the priest do the transubstantiation?
Although the priest, who is the representative of Christ among the worshipping assembly, prays the words at Mass, the power to make the change in substance belongs to God alone.
So what does a change of substance mean?
Transubstantiation tells us that what happens with the bread and wine through the act of consecration is a change in their substance brought about by the action of God’s Holy Spirit. After the consecration, the bread and wine are no longer the same things (sub- stances) they were before. Before the consecration, their substance was that of bread and wine, after it their substance is the person of Jesus Christ.
But what about the accidents of the bread and wine?
The change in the substance does not affect the accidents at all. After the consecration, the shape, color, taste — everything except the substance — remains exactly the same. There is no way by analyzing the bread and wine, for example though chemistry or atomic analysis, to discover any difference. So we cannot just
“take a good look” at the consecrated bread and wine and conclude that they have undergone a change of substance. Only our “eyes of faith” can perceive the change.
What other views inadequately explain the “Real Presence”?
The doctrine of transubstantiation affirms that the bread and wine undergo a change of substance (what they are as things) without a change in their appearance or accidents. This means that talking about this reality in magical, or merely symbolic terms is inadequate.
What are magical explanations?
Magical explanations depend too much on the sense perception of changes in the accidents. So if someone claims to see Christ’s face in the Host or his blood dripping from it, this might be a miracle, but it is not an indication of the Real Presence. In fact, because all these sense-perceptible changes would be in the accidents and not in the substance, they would not confirm the Real Presence. Remember, in the Real Presence there are no changes in the accidents of bread and wine that our senses can detect.
Can chewing the Host or letting it touch our teeth hurt Christ?
No. This is again a magical type of understanding of the reality. Christ becomes the bread, and tells us to eat it. When we chew the bread or Host, we do not hurt Jesus but rather take Him into our bodies as our nourishment for eternal life as He directed us to do. As we eat and digest the bread, we are transformed into Christ through his presence now in us.
How long does the change in substance last?
Because the change in substance is a change in the thing itself, it lasts until it is no more. For us, the substantial change in the bread and wine remains until these are changed into our substance as happens to all food through digestion. This also helps to explain the reverence for the bread that extends beyond the actual Mass.
What happens to us when we receive Holy Communion?
Just as we nourish our bodies by eating, so we nourish our spiritual lives by contact with God’s presence in the eucharistic bread and wine. Through Holy Communion, we become what we eat — the Body of Christ. St. Cyril of Alexandria understood that “When we ingest the Eucharist, in reality we are ingesting the Godhead … Because his Body and Blood are diffused through our members, we become partakers of the divine nature.” The divine reality works from within us — this
is what grace is all about — God’s divine life present in us is at work transforming us from within. As digestion transforms the bread and wine into ourselves, so too are we being transformed on the spiritual level into the divine through contact with God’s holy reality.
How does the Real Presence make a difference in our lives?
We believe that God’s Real Presence continues today in our lives and in the Church, especially in the sacraments. Pope Benedict XVI reminds us in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”) that “God encounters us ever anew, in the men and women who reflect God’s presence, in God’s Word, in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist. In the Church’s liturgy, in her prayer, in the living community of believers, we experience the love of God, we perceive God’s presence, and we thus learn to recognize that presence in our daily lives.”
So as we take Christ into our mouths and into our hearts, we become more and more like Christ Himself. In this way we will more faithfully imitate his love and our lives will radiate with his compassion for others and his concern for justice. As Teresa of Ávila recognized, “Christ has no body now on Earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which to look at Christ’s compassion to the world, yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”