Ok, I hope you’re sitting down, ‘cause this is going to be pretty heavy. Good thing is, since this is a blog, and people tend to read blogs on computers, you probably ARE sitting down. Although, if you’re standing and reading this on an Android phone, you should take a moment to sit down. If you’re reading this on an iPhone, you should get an Android. I recommend the HTC EVO 4G.
So two posts ago we talked about the Epiclesis, the calling down of the Holy Spirit, which changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Last post we talked about the Words of Institution, which change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. So the obvious question is: What is the exact moment at which the bread and wine change into the Body and Blood of Christ. The not-so-obvious answer is: There is no ONE moment. (I love that profound look of confusion on your face right now…but wait: it gets worse—or better.) See, God is infinite, and not bound by time. This is probably one of the most difficult concepts to grasp, because we are finite, and our entire existence is completely surrounded by measurements of time. We’ve only ever known existence as bound by time, and so we have nothing else to compare the possibility of no time restraints to. As far as the Mass goes, we have to realize that we’re not operating by TIME, but more by circumstances and ideas (for lack of much more impressively philosophical terms). The bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Christ happens between a combination of the Epiclesis and the Words of Institution, and really the whole of the Eucharistic Prayer, but it’s really not correct to say that at the moment of whichever part comes last, the change happens. There’s also the Great Amen to think about, too. Our response is important in that we are asking God for this gift as a whole church, but it’s also not correct to say that after we say, “Amen,” the change happens. It’s just a concept we have to take on faith, because our limited brains just can’t comprehend it.
Now for something even more incomprehensible (uncomprehensible? imcomprehensible?). What actually happens with the bread and wine? If you have eyes (which is a pretty safe bet, if you’re reading this right now), you’ve probably noticed that the Body of Christ we receive during Communion looks a whole heck of a lot like the bread that’s brought to the Altar before all this Eucharistic Prayer stuff happens. So much like it, in fact, that it looks exactly the same. Same thing goes for the wine that becomes the Blood of Christ. So where’s the change? For that, we’ll have to have a short (very watered-down) metaphysics lesson. (That’s a cool philosophy term.)
Everything in the world (according to Aristotle) has two parts to it that make it what it is: (1) substance, and (2) accidents. The substance is the basic concept of what a thing is, while the accidents are the properties of that thing that circularly define the substance. Let’s take a chair, for example…ordinary dining room chair with four legs, a seat, and a back. The substance of that chair is, well, “chair.” It just IS a chair. How do we know it’s a chair? Well, we just look at its accidents. It’s got 4 legs. It’s got a seat. It’s got a back. You can sit on it. It’s (probably) made of wood. If the wood’s stained, it’s probably brownish in color. All these are the properties that help us understand the substance of this object and let us realize that this is a chair.
So what if I changed the accidents of that chair? Some accidents could change without changing the substance. For example, I could paint the chair white, and it would still be a chair. If I changed other accidents, however, the very substance of that chair could be changed. Let’s say I rip the legs of the chair off. Now I’m just left with a weird-looking, 3-D, wooden “L.” It’s no longer a chair. So I can change the accidents around and either change the substance, or leave it in tact. I can’t, however, change the substance of that chair without changing the accidents. I can’t look at that chair with its 4 legs, seat, back, sit-ability, wooden composition, and brown color and say, “Well, that’s a TV.” That’s just ridiculous, because TVs aren’t made of wood. (Ok, there are other reasons too, I guess.) No matter how hard I try, I cannot change the substance of something and leave the accidents the way they are. If you were to change the substance of something without changing its accidents, that would be a miracle…………..
………(I’m waiting for that little light bulb to go off over your head)…………
Before we get too ahead of ourselves (for those of you whose light bulbs haven’t gone off on their own yet), let’s talk about the bread we use at Mass.
Here’s where it gets tricky:
AFTER the Eucharistic Prayer, the bread is made of wheat, flour, and water. It’s typically somewhere in the color range of bright white to medium-brown. It’s usually round, and often has a little cross or some other design pressed into it. The wine is a liquid. It’s either red or white. It contains actual alcohol. It’s made from grapes. It’s wine. HOWEVER, at this point, it is profoundly incorrect to call these bread and wine. They have become the Body and Blood of Christ. The accidents have NOT changed. ONLY the substance has changed. This change of substance is called transubstantiation (fact), which is the COOLEST word in the Catholic Faith (shamelessly biased opinion). This comes from the prefix trans- which means, “to cross” or “to change” (as in Transformers who “change” their form from cars to intergalactic fighting robots), and the –substantiation part comes, obviously, from the word substance. Literally, “to change substance.”
So now you’re asking, “Wait, didn’t you just say that if you were to change the substance of something without changing its accidents, that would be a miracle”? Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this little book called THE BIBLE that’s full of stories about God working miracles. Picture what happens at Mass: The priest takes the bread and wine we offer and says a prayer asking God to send his Holy Spirit upon those gifts to make them holy so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Well, guess what happens!! God sends his Holy Spirit upon those gifts to make them holy so that they become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ. “Ask and you shall receive,” right?
So to summarize, during the Eucharistic Prayer, God (because we ask him to) transforms the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ without changing anything about the accidents. The Body and Blood of Christ contain the true spirit of the Risen Christ that we are to consume as he DIRECTLY instructed us in John 6:53-58:
Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."
So to ANYONE who calls himself a Christian, but does not believe that the bread and wine doesn’t actually become the Body and Blood of Christ, I say re-read your Bible you “claim” to know so well.
You want an idea of how I REALLY feel when somebody challenges the teachings of my Catholic Church?? Go watch this video. And yes, Stephen Colbert IS a hardcore Catholic. WARNING: this video is extremely awesome. Another WARNING: yes, there is a word "bleeped" out towards the end of this video, but it's, well, BLEEPED. Just wanted to make some of our more "sensitive" readers aware of that fact before being blind-sided by it.
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