We believe that the bread is Our Lord's flesh.

Thursday, 4/26/12

Jesus said, “The bread that I will give is my flesh.” That leaves us wondering how the bread becomes the Body and Blood of Christ.

In 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council the Catholic Church obliged us all to believe in what they called “transubstantiation.” The word describes the disappearance of the substance of bread and wine to be replaced by the substance of the body and Blood of Christ.

In our day it is difficult to embrace that word altogether. For us a substance is the molecular make-up of anything. At Mass when the priest says, “This is my body” there is no change in the molecular make-up of what he is holding.

Our Lord’s DNA doesn’t suddenly becomes present.

Perhaps some Church scholars have a way for saying the word Transubstantiation still holds good, but I prefer letting the whole matter drop. Jesus said the bread becomes his body, so I believe it. I believe everything he said. I don’t care how it happens. I would agree with a verse from George Herbert where he says this.         

                                    I am sure, whether bread stay,

Or whether bread fly away

         Concerneth bread, not me.