What is the transubstantiation?
Jesus said to them: Believe me when I tell you this; you can have no life in yourselves, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood. The man who eats my flesh and drinks my blood enjoys eternal life (Jn 6:53 54).
A sacrament is a sensible or material sign instituted by Christ, by which invisible grace is communicated to the soul. The Eucharist is the greatest of all sacraments. The reason is simple: The very author of grace is present in it and gives himself to us in this sacrament as spiritual food (Holy Communion). However, this truth does not exhaust the richness of content of the Eucharist. We must realize that, “The Eucharist is at one and at the same time a Sacrifice Sacrament, a Communion Sacrament, and a Presence Sacrament.”
Whatever our senses perceive in the consecrated host, even with the help of scientific instruments, is always of the same sort –a quality: the whiteness of the bread, its softness, its roundness, its smell, etc. These are attributes. We call them, in the language of metaphysics, “accidents". These are all our senses perceive. But from them, our mind discerns a deeper reality, something that underlies these qualities or accidents as their subject: the thing itself, which we call the “substance".
We know, through Christ’s words, that in the Eucharistic species, none of the substance of the bread and wine remains. Their accidents or sensible qualities –as bread and wine– remain, though not, of course, as accidents of Christ’s body and blood. They are held up solely by the will of God, who keeps them in existence, without inhering to any subject.
True, before the Consecration what we have on the altar are bread and wine; but as soon as the words of the Consecration are pronounced, the whole substance of the bread and that of the wine disappear, and they become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This change is called transubstantiation. Just as the words that God spoke in the Upper Room are the same as those that the priest now pronounces, so, too, the host is the same. Christ is really present.
“Let us take another look at the Master. You too may find yourself now hearing his gentle reproach to Thomas: ‘Let me have your finger: see, here are my hands. Let me have your hand; put it into my side. Cease your doubting, and believe’; and, with the Apostle, a sincere cry of contrition will rise from your soul: ‘My Lord, and my God! I acknowledge you once and for all as the Master. From now on, with your help, I shall always treasure your teachings and I shall strive to follow them loyally.’"
Our Lord will reward this faithful attitude by giving us a supernatural knowledge of everything, far superior, in extent and certainty, to any human knowledge. And this same faith will lead us to understand more and more sublime truths.
Torreciudad: The Crucifixion. Fruit of the 5th Sorrowful Mystery: The need of sacrifice.
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