THE REAL PRESENCE
In the Eucharist, the Christ who offered himself on the cross is the same Christ who now, through the ministry of the priest, offers himself on the alter. Under the Eucharistic species (the exterior signs of bread and wine), He comes in the way that is most satisfying - as a human person. He is present in a unique way - whole and entire, God and man. This presence is also called Real Presence, not because the other ways of being present are not real, but because this way of being present surpasses all the others. It is the personal presence of Christ's glorified body. He makes himself truly present in a sacramental way in the Eucharist through the instrumentality of his Church.
When Jesus comes to us in Communion, he knows and loves each of us personally. As the food of divine life, he deepens his eternal life in us, transforming the human things and actions become his proclamation of the Good News. Our service of others is both his service to them and our service to him, for "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40). Through the Eucharist, the world is daily recharged with the current of Christ's love until the final day when God's love will be the light and warmth of both heaven and earth.
THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE
How the change in the bread and wine by the words of consecration takes place is a mystery. No explanation can clarify it completely, but, from the beginning of the Church, theologians have labored to find words that attempt to explain what Jesus did that night of the Last Supper.
While bread is a basic, ordinary food, it contains many meanings. It is the symbol of all God's gifts of creation and also all "the work of human hands." The crushing of the many grains to make flour is an image of human interdependence.
Jesus did not merely strengthen these meanings. He gave the bread an entirely new meaning. Jesus broke the bread to share it, to show that all present were one in spirit. Jesus with his disciples, and they with one another. He changed the bread completely from a gift - a thing given - to the very giver himself. Although the appearances of the bread remain in the Eucharist, the reality of bread is changed into the personal, actual, and real presence of Christ himself.
To describe this change of bread into the body of Christ, official Church teachings use the technical word transubstantiation. It means the change of the substance of bread into the body of Christ. The bread and wine are not annihilated or wiped out of existence, instead, they are transformed. All their physiochemical properties - color, taste, bulk, minerals, carbohydrates - remain. It is faith alone that tells us that what we eat and drink is the risen Lord Jesus.
Because of developments in physics and philosophy in the last two hundred years, the word substance has undergone a shift in meaning. As a result, Catholic theologians of this century have been prompt to search for more suitable words to reinterpret the doctrine of the Real Presence.
Thus far, however, no word is so helpful as transubstantiation, first used by the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, to describe the "how" of the Eucharist. Although the term is not in the Bible and was never used before A.D. 1150, it has served for centuries to express what happens at the words of consecration. As Christians, we have the obligation to be careful of the words we use to express this mystery. The great truth that we must always remember is that in giving the Eucharist, Christ gave not merely a proof or symbol of his love, but his very self to be the sacramental food.