Transubstantiation Two

The term "transubstantiation" is a term coined in the middle ages. It uses a theory going back to Plato and Aristotle, based on two terms: "substance" and "accident." A table is a substance (think "tableness") which can be m modified by accidents, such as size, weight, color. and so on.

Medieval theologians, reflecting on Jesus' words at the Last Supper, and on the centuries of Eucharistic practice between their time and the year 1000, used the categories of substance and accident to describe what happens when a priest says "This is my Body" over a piece of bread. They said the substance of bread ("breadness") is replaced by the substance of the body of Jesus, but the accidents (color, shape) of bread remain.

This theory--and as a human theory it should be subject to human modification and improvement--fit well with the almost magical practices that can grow up around the Eucharistic bread and wine. Taken to absurdity, it asks questions like this: a priest is going by a bakery, and he pronounces the words "This is my body" over all the bread in the bakery. Does all the bread in the bakery become the body of Christ?

When I was a child serving Mass at St. James Parish in Decatur, Illinois, we were forbidden to touch the chalice or paten used at Mass, much less the consecrated Host. The first time I touched a consecrated host was after my ordination as a deacon. But when Jesus walked among us, he was jostled by the crowds. When the woman touched the tassel of his cloak and was cured, and he asked, "who touched me?" the disciples asked, "You see all these crowds around you and you ask, 'who touched me?'"

A non-Catholic person was said to have commented, "If I really believed that Jesus Christ is present in the host in a Catholic church, I would crawl to that church on my hands and knees." I was impressed by that story, but have since reflected, is that how Jesus himself wanted to be approached while he was on this earth?

Having offered these reflections, I don't want to condemn the ideas and practices that so many people find spiritually fruitful. We all have our individual ways of coming to God. What I want to offer is mine, as regards the Eucharist.

Bodies

My body is composed of atoms and molecules. Science tells me that 99% of the molecules in my body today were not there a year ago. In fact, many of them were not there a week ago. My body is a constant coming and going of chemicals. Yet my body is something. What makes those chemicals into my body?

There is a structure to those chemicals that make up my body, a structure and a history. The chemicals have been in a distinct place at a distinct time. The medievals call that structure "substance." I call it my story.

My body is my story in two senses. On a purely physical level, it is a history of the comings and goings of chemicals into and out of the structure that is my body. On a human level, it is the history of that unique structure, starting with its conception and continuing down to the body that is me today.

For some unknown reason, God let a bunch of chemicals come together to form me, and so far those chemicals have hung together and kept coming and going in a predictable way. Scientists claim that the whole pattern of my body is the result of millions of years of natural selection. Okay. That's remarkable, and in a way it makes the Creator an even more impressive source of organic complexity than if God were to have set up the pattern instantaneously in the Garden of Eden.

This is My Body

When Jesus said those words, he was saying that his story, his history, was being attached to the chemicals of the bread, just as his story was attached to the chemicals of his physical body. But his story is attached to more than just that little piece of bread. He said "Do this in remembrance of me." His desire was to have that story attached to the bread in the context of a sharing of the bread in a gathering of his followers. His story is also linked to that gathering, and to all the gatherings down through the years since he lived here physically. We speak of the "Mystical Body of Christ," the people who make up the Church.

The fact that he said those words the night before his passion puts extra meaning into the saying "This is my blood." We are remembering not only the physical presence of Jesus, but the story of his death and resurrection, and of how that story is meant to be our story. The story is what makes us Christians, and the story tells us how to be Christians.

Shortly before he died, St. Francis of Assisi wrote a "testament," a final reflection on what he wanted his followers to remember. He wrote: "I see nothing corporally in this world  of the most high Son of God himself, except his most holy Body and Blood. . . . These most holy mysteries I wish to be held in highest honor and veneration and be kept in precious places." And then he added, in words that some think grew out of his contact with the Muslim Sultan Malik al-Kamil, "Wherever I chance to find his most holy names and written words in unseemly places, I like to gather them up, and I ask that they be gathered up and set in some fitting place."

Francis makes similar parallels in other places in his writings between the Eucharistic presence and the Words of God present in written form. The Bread is also the Word.

That little piece of bread in front of me when I say the words of consecration is a set of chemicals attached to the story of Jesus just as much as Jesus' physical body was a set of chemicals attached to his story when he lived on the earth. But it is not just the chemicals in the bread that are attached to that story, but the whole action of a group of us gathered to do what he did in remembrance of him.

I like to think that when I die, God will remember my story and some day attach that story to another set of chemicals--the resurrection of the body in a new heavens and a new earth. The Eucharist welcomes us into the story of Jesus so that our story will be just like his: death followed by new life as a gift from the Lord.

Heaven isn't just a beatific vision. It is our stories continued as part of the story of the Word made flesh.