SUBJECT:
TRANSUBSTANCIATION OF BREAD (WAFERS) AND WINE INTO THE BODY, BLOOD, SOUL AND DIVINITY OF LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST (EUCHARISTISTIC COMMUNION) NEED NOT BE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH TO OVERCOME OR SOMETHING TO GRASP. RATHER, EUCHARISTIC “PRESENCE” IS A SACRED AND MYSTICAL OCCASION, AND ALSO A SACRAMENT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, TO BE OBSERVED, DEEPLY CONTEMPLATED, AND YES, PHYSICALLY RECEIVED AND CONSUMED BY THE FAITHFUL BELIEVER.
COMMENTARY:
This paper is to bring to your attention what two preeminent theologians have recently presented about the real presence of the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ in Eucharistic bread and wine that is worthy of your consideration.
PART I
Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D. of www.magiscenter.com presents insightful wisdom recorded in this content-rich YouTube, well worth your watching:
He starts by reciting the universal words of consecration said at every Mass:
On the day before He was to suffer,
He took bread in His holy and venerable hands,
and with eyes raised to heaven to you, O God,
His almighty Father, giving you thanks,
He said the blessing, broke the bread
and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take this, all of you, and eat of it,
for this is my body, which will be given up for you.
In a similar way, when supper was ended,
in His holy and venerable hands, and once more
giving you thanks, He said the blessing
and gave the chalice to his disciples, saying:
Take this, all of you, and drink from it,
for this is the chalice of my blood,
the blood of the new and eternal covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.
Fr. Spitzer then proffers the meaning of Christ’s words of consecration as first-century Jews would have understood them in Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew; he then inputs the same words in a theological context by invoking their meaning in the “eternal now” – as God the Father’s “mind” sees “time.”
A promise, Fr. Spitzer’s task here is a tall order, but stick with his line of thought and you’ll see the act of consecration of the Eucharist and communion with new eyes! I continue to write the following preface, but it is no substitute for watching Fr. Spitzer’s YouTube presentation: HOW FIRST-CENTURY JEWS WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD THE WORDS OF CONSECRATION IN ARAMAIC, HEBREW, AND GREEK:
The Aramaic and Hebrew languages are fundamentally literal and logical, based on consonantal roots which hold the most basic meaning of a word. The Greek language less so. For example, instead of talking about time as a linear chronological flow (past, present, future), native speakers expressed actions as either completed (perfective) or ongoing/incomplete (imperfective), regardless of when they occurred and not in the strict tenses of past, present, and future. But these imperfective verbs are also directed by participles, that is, verbs that function as adjectives that modify a noun, creating complex verb tenses. In English, they are present participles (ending in “ing”) or past participles (ending in “ed”, “en”, or with irregular endings).
Christ’s words of consecration were proclaimed by Him at the “last supper,” meaning at his Passover meal with His apostles on Holy Thursday night, the evening before His passion, crucifixion, and death on Good Friday, the following day. In that context, His words of consecration are grammatically broken down as follows:
| Take this, all of you, and eat of it, | The verb, Take and eat, are direct commands, imperatives giving instructions, invitations, orders; |
| for this is my body, (raising bread) | The verb is indicating a state of mind occurring right now in the present; |
| which will be given up for you. | The verb giv“en” presents a past passive participle because the subject (“body”) receives the action of being given up. |
| Take this, all of you, and drink from it, | The verbs, Take and drink, are imperatives of direct commands or invitations. |
| for this is the chalice of my blood, (raising chalice) the blood of the new and eternal covenant | The verb is states a factual reality existing in the immediate present. |
| which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. | The phase, will be poured out for you, an action that will occur later, is passive because the subject “blood” receives the action of drinking. |
| Do this in memory of me. | Do this is the final command instructing that His Words are to be memorialized. |
Fr. Spitzer notes that the bolded words of Christ at the Last Supper, the day before His passion and crucifixion, are formed in the present passive participle. What does this mean? Why is this important?
What does the present passive participle mean regarding Christ’s words said at the Last Supper? A present passive participle (describing an action currently being done right now in the passive voice) does not exist in Latin nor in the English language. Instead, English uses present active participles (ending in -ing), while past participles (ending in -ed, -en, -t) are used to construct the passive voice. A participle is formed from a verb but looks and behaves like an adjective. A verb is a type of word that is used to convey an action or state. An adjective is a word used to describe a noun (person, place, or thing). A past participle is used with the verb ‘to be’ to indicate an action that is complete. For example: I am finished.
In the Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic), the present passive participle played a central grammatical role. A present passive participle with the action being done right now in the passive voice, as a literal translation with word-for-word accuracy, prioritizing the exact syntax and vocabulary of the source text is not possible in semantic translations that prioritizes the intended meaning, contextual nuance, and natural language flow. Even rephrasing or interpreting cultural idioms is not possible.
Why this is important:
Thus, Fr. Spitzer’s commentary gives us the best equivalency: Jesus’ words, “[t]his is my body which will be given up for you” and “[t]his is the chalice of my blood . . . which will be poured out for you” means being poured out implicitly and being given up in the present. Both being present passive particles, also demonstrate that Jesus’ prophetic voice is going into the future now.
Finally, the Last Supper attendees were there reenacting the Passover memorial, the Seder. Drinking wine from a shared cup was already a liturgical requirement. In Exodus 12:14, God commanded that the Passover must be kept as a “memorial” (Zikharon) forever. A 1st-century Jew would recognize this tradition as a command to participate in a communal blessing – again, as an immediate, ongoing reality.
In the original Greek texts of the Gospels (Luke and Matthew), use of the present participle (“being poured out“) emphasizes that the sacrifice is an immediate, ongoing reality. The Latin text shifts this explicitly to the future tense (effundétur) to clearly show the on-going relationship between what Jesus was doing at the Last Supper table and what he was about to do on the Cross the next day.
THE “ETERNAL NOW” – AS GOD THE FATHER’S “MIND” SEES “TIME.”
Us humans experience time as the continuous, irreversible progression of events from the past, through the present, and into a future. In our dimension of time, we measure the duration of events, the intervals between them, and the sequence in which they occur. Physicist Albert Einstein famously said time is simply “what a clock measures.” In our 3D dimension of time, the universe cannot return to exactly the same state in which it was at an earlier point. Time does not move backward. In our world, time can be considered the fourth dimension of reality of the physical universe defined by only three independent directions: width, height, and depth.
Almighty God’s “time” is not restricted by any of these human limitations. We are not even capable of understanding God’s time, as we can only strive to comprehend God’s time in terms of our narrow physical reality.
Nevertheless, we try. Fr. Spitzer delves into the Last Supper’s reality that then, for the first time, Jesus’ consecration of bread and wine transubstantiated these species – the bread into his crucified body, the wine into his shed blood notwithstanding timing – Christ’s passion, crucifixion, death, and burial was the next day, on Good Friday. Yet, at that very moment at the Holy Thursday Seder meal Jesus was offering up His actual Good Friday body and blood. “Take all of you, eat and drink.” Fr. Spitzer submits at that moment, God the Father whose “mind” has all time, c o l l a p s e d Good Friday time so that the body and blood of Christ, His Son, could “be given” to the apostles in Holy Thursday’s time. God can do this!
So, we see that God’s time is fungible. He can move future time into a past event as He did on Holy Thursday, consecrating Eucharistic bread and wine into the body and blood of His Son, Jesus. He can and does move past time into the future, He does so at every single Catholic Mass ever since said, being said right now, and to be said – over 2000 years and going forward. Again, each time, c o l l a p s i n g past time between Christ’s passion, crucifixion, and death on Good Friday up to now, and into our future so that each of us can relive in real time that sacred event again and again. God can and does do this for us!
THE EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES
As if God’s collapsing past time for us into the present moment so we can relive in real time and participate in Christ’s Holy Thursday’s memorial supper isn’t blessing enough, God periodically sends us Christ’s doubting Thomas-styled Eucharistic miracles.
Patron Saint Carlo Acutis of www.danielsteele.com documented 140 Eucharistic miracles occurring between 750 D.C. and 2013 which can be reviewed on St. Carlo’s website here:
www.miracolieucaristici.org Of these, Fr. Spitzer concludes his presentation discussing three Eucharistic miracles occurring in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1992-1994-1996; Tixtla, Mexico, 2006; and Sokolka, Poland, 2008. In each miracle, the consecrated Eucharist would not dissolve when placed in water. I.e., autolysis (the natural, enzymatic self-digestion of cells after death or damage, acting as the earliest stage of decomposition where lysosomal enzymes break down cellular components) of living cells was absent; and living red and white blood cells of living heart tissue continued regeneration. Fr. Spitzer chose these Eucharistic miracles to discuss because each of the hosts was thoroughly scrutinized by the top laboratories throughout the world by top experts, and Fr. Spitzer has all the lab reports to share with you at www.magiscenter.com
PART II
Finally, another preeminent theologian, Scott Hahn, Ph.D., in this YouTube presentation:
https://youtu.be/nYciRm1MCO0?si=R-YNIhmXfmqe6DzS recites what the resurrected Christ did two days after His crucifixion. At marker 57:55, Scott tells the story of how Christ reappeared, and it wasn’t the way human nature would expect:
His book, titled the Emmaus Paradigm, An Interpretive Key To Unlocking The Scriptures, is about Jesus’ return to earth from death in Hades on Easter Sunday. Scott muses, you’d expect that Jesus’ resurrectedself would have wanted to drop in on his executioners, Pilot, Caiaphas, Herod, and the Sanhedrin, like many of us would have done, or to visit His mother, Mary, or the women at His tomb on Easter Sunday morning. Instead, He undertook a seven-mile hike with devastated former followers that were in Jerusalem for Passover and who possibly now had doubts about the whole Jesus thing. From Jerusalem to Emmaus, He walked with them – Clopas, a lowly layman, possibly the younger brother of St. Joseph from Hegepus. Biblical scholars believe the second person was Clopas’ wife, Mary, and yes, one of the women identified at the foot of the cross on Good Friday.
On the way, Jesus, who they did not recognize, drew near and walked with them. At their invitation, Jesus agreed to stay at their house for the night. “At the table, He took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that, their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. He then vanished from their sight.” Jesus chose to reveal His resurrected self in His first human encounter, following crucifixion and resurrection in His “breaking of the bread,” the sacrament He instituted at Holy Thursday’s Passover meal. Jesus could not wait to show us how, through the Priesthood, to consecrate Eucharistic bread and wine and, for all of us, to receive Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity!
The passage concludes that afterwards, Clopas and his wife “set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them.” There, these two lowly people, Clopas and his wife, basically re-evangelized Peter and the other disciples, telling them how “all the scriptures, beginning with Moses and all the prophets,” were about this disguised Jesus who these two recognized “in the breaking of the bread.” Scott further muses that Peter had to be wondering why Jesus would have spent His first day back hanging out with “what’s your name . . . Clopas[?]” and not with the apostles[?] and that Clopas might have responded: “well, maybe if you hadn’t denied Him three times . .
.”
This portion of our salvation story is captured and beautifully told by St. Luke, a second century physician, in the following Gospel passages:
The Gospel according to Luke, Chapter 24:
The Resurrection of Jesus.
Verse:
1 But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
4 While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
5 They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
6 He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”
8 And they remembered his words.
9 Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.
10 The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
11 but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.
12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.
The Appearance on the Road to Emmaus.
13 Now that very day two of them were going [back] to a village seven miles* from Jerusalem called Emmaus,
14 and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.
15 And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
16 but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast.
18 One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”
19 And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,
20 how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him.
21 But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place.
22 Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning
23 and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive.
24 Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.”
25 And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.
28 As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
29 But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So, he went in to stay with them.
30 And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.
31 With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.
32 Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?”
33 So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them
34 who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!”
35 Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
For your spiritual health and well-being,
[1] Thomas’s doubt: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)
Jesus’s appearance: A week later, Jesus appeared to the disciples and told Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:27)
The blessing: After Thomas believed and declared, “My Lord and my God!”, Jesus replied, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29).
