Transubstantiation

TRANSUBSTANTIATION 1 IF IT IS TRUE that God has loved the world so much that he has given to it the bodily presence of his Only Son, may we not conclude that he will love the world enough to leave to it the bodily presence of this same Only Son? From the opposite point of view, when the intellect acknowledges the mystery of the Incarnation, yet takes exception to the belief of Chalcedon, how could it reject the mystery of the Eucharist, but fail to challenge the teaching of Trent? I. The Why of Transubstantiation " The bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world." (John 6:51) 1. Scripture sees in the death of Jesus the supreme sacrifice, in which the redemption of the world is accomplished: " He gave himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5: ~) "He has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his place forever at the right hand of God" (Heb. 10: 1~). "We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom. 5: 10). "God has reconciled all things through him, in making peace through the blood of his Cross" (Col. 1: ~0). The redemptive sacrifice extends to all men of the past and the future; it saved the preceding ages by anticipation: the divine helps were offered to each person in view of the future sacrifice of the Cross. And by derivation it saved the ages that followed it: the divine helps are now given through the completed sacrifice of the Cross. "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself" (Jn. 1~: 3~) . ~. Into this sacrifice men are asked to enter: not indeed to increase its value, which is infinite, but to receive from it its purifying power. 1 Summa Theol., ill, q. 75, a. ~. 734 TRANSUBSTANTIATION 735 Fundamentally, we enter into participation of the sacrifice of Jesus by the assent of faith and love-of the great love which is charity. And, where the Gospel has not been preached, that can take place in a most hidden way; as soon as a heart opens in secret to the predisposing and redemptive lights of the Cross. But the express intention of God, as manifested in Scripture, is especially to invite all men to a visible and cultural participation in the sacrifice of the Cross, a participation in no way destined to dismiss faith or love, but rather to draw their unitive capabilities to the highest degrees. In the Old Law there existed a form of sacrifice to which the Jews united themselves, not simply by intention but even more by the personal eating of the victim, to signify that one was offering himself together with victim. " Those who eat the sacrifices are in communion with the altar" (I Cor. 10: 18) . Such sacrifices were called " sacrifices of communion." 3. The sacrifice of the New Law is to be of this kind. The Savior's intention is clear. There is nothing fortuitous in the coincidence of the Last Supper with the Jewish Feast of Passover. It means that the Jewish Passover must give way to a more mysterious Passover that it was prefiguring. The Jewish Passover was the sacrificial offering of a lamb to which one united himself by eating it, in recognition of God's goodness in delivering his people from the captivity of Egypt so as to enable them to enter the Promised Land. It prefigured the sacrificial offering of Christ, the spotless Lamb (I Peter 1: 19). To this sacrifice we are united by communion, and by it mankind is delivered from sin and introduced to the peace of God. The Council of Trent tells us that, after having celebrated the ancient Passover , Christ instituted the new Passover: "in memory of his passage from this world to the Father, when he redeemed us by the shedding of his blood, he rescued us from the power of darkness, and brought us into his kingdom " (Denz.-Sch. no. 1741). The connection between the Last Supper and the Jewish Passover is clearly indicated in Scripture. At nightfall Jesus said to his...