Transubstantiation is a truth of Faith, and Faith, according to St Paul, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).
Newsdesk (01/10/2024 10:07, Gaudium Press) This is how the Council of Trent summarizes and defines the dogma of Transubstantiation in Canon 4 of Session XIII, with the precise language that is appropriate in the documents of the ecclesiastical magisterium. It is a long sentence in which the reasoning proceeds harmoniously, all very well weighed and measured: “If any one saith, that, after the consecration is completed, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the admirable sacrament of the Eucharist, but (are there) only during the use, whilst it is being taken, and not either before or after; and that, in the hosts, or consecrated particles, which are reserved or which remain after communion, the true Body of the Lord remaineth not; let him be anathema.”
Many Catholics do not profess this belief with the radicalism that it entails, and in this they tend to be more victims than culprits when they are unaware, for lack of education, of the transcendence of the words of consecration and the action of the Holy Spirit who works this transubstantiation during Mass.
The astonishing miracle of Transubstantiation is not a trifle, it is part of Revelation, and one cannot doubt or ignore a truth of Faith without jeopardizing the integrity of the Faith as a whole. Recently, a survey reported that among US Catholics who say they ‘rarely’ attend Mass, only 51 per cent believe in the Real Presence. Another alarming statistic is that 31 per cent of Catholics who consider themselves practising Catholics in that country say they don’t believe in the Real Presence. If these percentages are true – opinion polls are not exact sciences, much less infallible, like dogma… – we would be faced with an overwhelming fact: unbelief champions the ranks of believers themselves. This result reveals the failure of a totally misguided pastoral effort on a central issue.
This is why it is necessary to pay attention and value what Transubstantiation is, as much as such a mystery can be believed and assimilated. The Church advises against examining with curiosity how this conversion takes place, since we cannot understand it through human logic. It must also be believed that Christ is whole (body, blood, soul and divinity) in each of the consecrated species and in each of their parts, no matter how tiny.
Now these ‘unbelieving Catholics’ we were talking about – and don’t think they exist only in the United States – don’t explicitly and consciously oppose the fact that substances are altered. They simply deny the Real Presence, regarding the consecrated host as a mere symbol.
In his work Philosophy of the Eucharist, published in honour of the International Eucharistic Congress held in Chicago in 1926, the renowned Spanish Catholic philosopher Juan Vázquez de Mella wrote a few lines on the subject of Transubstantiation that are worth reproducing here:
“What does transubstantiation mean? The supernatural and total conversion of the inferior substance into the superior, but not by fusion or incorporation, which would go against dogma and the meaning of the word. The prefix ‘trans’ has never meant the partial or total fusion of one substance into another. It indicates transit, beyond, exchange of one thing for another: transpirenaica, transatlantic, transfiguration, transformation, etc, prove it.
The material and partial conversion of one substance into another in which it is incorporated and in which it remains as a part or accident is not transubstantiation; it is a natural conversion. There is not a single example of transubstantiation in nature. One substance, the bread and wine, existed; another appears and totally replaces it, because although the accidents remain, it is by supernatural action, and nothing remains of the primitive that disappears, resulting changed, altered, in the one that replaces it. What is this fact called? It is outside and above natural conversions, it is supernatural and unique; then we will have what is known as transubstantiation”. (Eugenio Subirana, pontifical editor, Barcelona, 1928).
Transubstantiation is therefore a truth of Faith, and Faith, according to St. Paul, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). This Pauline statement may horrify a rationalist, an atheist or an ignorant Catholic. For moderately educated Catholics, Faith is the pillar on which Eucharistic worship and all religion rest. Faith can increase or decrease, it can reside in the soul in a strong state… or in a weak one.
So let’s say with the father of the child possessed by an unclean spirit told in the Gospel: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24).
By Fr. Rafael Ibarguren, EP – Councillor of Honour of the World Federation of the Eucharistic Works of the Church.
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Compiled by Roberta MacEwan
