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.
