Father Cletus Bulletin Article

TRANSUBSTANTIATION: REAL PRESENCE OF JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST

Our Catholic faith teaches us that bread and wine, after the Prayer of Consecration by a priest at the Holy Mass, change from being bread and wine to the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus assures us in the Bible that This is my Body, this is my Blood, with a command: do this in memory of me (Lk. 22:19-20).The change that bread and wine undergo to become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is substantial, not accidental. Philosophically speaking, a substance is what a thing is in its core, while accidents are modifications of that substance.

Substantial change is a change from one substance to another substance. In a substantial change, a new thing (new substance) emerges. For example, when a Sodium (a substance) is mixed with a Chlorine (another substance), a new substance (salt) comes to be.

Accidental change is a change that modifies a substance while the substance remaining what it is. For example, a two-year-old child today will still be the same person when he or she is forty years old. At forty, he or she has undergone a series of accidental changes such as growth but he or she is still the same person.

The change that bread and wine undergo to become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is not accidental. This is because bread and wine do not remain bread and wine after the Prayer of Consecration but the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Hence, the change is substantial. “The consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of his blood” (From the Council of Trent, quoted by Pope JP II, in Ecclesia de Eucharistia–The Church of the Eucharist, #15). What we see from the Concil of Trent above is what the Church calls Transubstantiation. In his Mystagogical Catecheses, quoted by Pope JP II, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem tells us, “do not see in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are his body and his blood: faith assures you of this, though your senses suggest otherwise” (Ecclesia de Eucharistia–The Church of the Eucharist, #15). Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

How fortunate we are that we are members of the Church of the Eucharist! What a priceless treasure we have in the Catholic Church!

Reverend Cletus Orji 
Parochial Vicar