Fr Roland Quesnel, CSSp

A few months ago, a columnist in one of our daily newspapers wrote that Catholics believe that in Holy Communion they receive the body, blood, lungs, liver and intestines of Christ, along with the undigested food still in him as he hung upon the cross. Catholics, of course, believe no such thing. We do not believe that we receive the body of Christ as it was before his death, subject to decay and corruption, but the body that he now has in heaven, his glorified body, the body that he had on earth for the forty days after his resurrection; a spiritualised body that could pass through walls and doors; with which he could appear and vanish, as he did after sitting at table with the two disciples at Emmaus, to reappear with the disciples in the locked upper room and say, “Look at my hands and my feet; yes, it is I indeed.”

When Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen after his resurrection, she mistook him for a gardener until he said “Mary”, and then she fell at his feet and clung to him. 

When seven of the disciples returned to fishing on the Lake of Galilee, it was the beloved disciple who recognised him waiting for them on the shore, roasting some fish which he offered them along with bread.

After the forty days, he walked with his disciples to the Mount of Olives, told them that they must preach his message to the ends of the earth, promised them the help of the Holy Spirit, and then ascended before their eyes until a cloud hid him from their sight.

It is the Jesus now in heaven whom we receive in Communion, who comes from heaven to pass into our bodies for a short while, to strengthen us with his love, to make us feel closer to him each time, to help us realise that he is always at hand when we need him. 

He comes to us under the appearance of bread and wine, once they have been consecrated by the words he himself used at the Last Supper.

What do the theologians say about it?  (And you needn’t read any of this – it will do nothing to bring you closer to Christ.)

It is, of course, a mystery, and mysteries cannot be fully understood by the human intelligence.

In the early Church the tendency was to accept the mystery without trying to explain it. Gradually the word “transubstantiation” was accepted as the best to express the Eucharistic change, Berengarius of Tours being the first to be excommunicated, by Pope Leo IX in 1050, for denying transubstantiation.

The Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, defined transubstantiation as Church doctrine and it was theologically defended by St Thomas Aquinas later in that century.

The conflict became acute in the Protestant Reformation, with Luther strongly defending the Real Presence (“I am bound by the words of Christ”) and suggesting the word “impanation” (the bread and wine remaining, but Christ being really present in them), against Calvin and Zwingli, who considered the bread and wine merely symbols of Christ’s body and blood.

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) defined that “the whole substance of bread is converted into the substance of Christ’s body and the whole substance of wine into the substance of his blood” and said that this change is conveniente’ (fittingly) and proprie (properly) called transubstantiation.

That put an end to discussion on the matter among Catholics until the 20th century, when some thinkers pointed out that the word “substance” no longer means what St Thomas meant by it (or Aristotle by the word hypostasis) – what stands (stat) under (sub) the appearances of something.

The modern concept of a chemical substance dates from the end of the 18th century. It is “a material with a definite chemical composition”, such as pure water, which has the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen, whether it is isolated from a river or made in a laboratory. The chemical elements, such as hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, calcium, gold, are all, of course, substances. In this context neither bread nor wine can be considered a substance.

This change in perception has prompted some contemporary theologians to propose such words as “transignification” (change of meaning) or “transfinalization” (change of purpose), but the idea of a change in merely the meaning or purpose of the bread and wine in the Eucharist has not met with approval from the teaching Church.
Forget theology, get back to Christ.

What is the meaning of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ?

It means that, when we receive Communion, for a few moments Christ AS MAN, OUR SAVIOUR, is present within us – the Son of God who became man to experience what it is like to be a human being: to be hungry and thirsty and tired and sleepy and dirty and misunderstood and tortured, and who died in agony on a cross for us because he loved and loves us.

God is present within us, whether saint or sinner, as our Creator, every moment of our life (without this sustaining presence we would cease to exist). He is present in a special way in those who seek him and live in his grace.

But it is only in the Eucharist that he comes with his glorified human body to dwell in us for a short while as our Redeemer, who takes our sins away and enfolds us in his human love.

Tantum ergo sacramentum veneremur cernui – Let us venerate so great a sacrament as we gaze in wonder at it.