Before leaving His disciples to join His Father in Heaven on what we celebrate today as the Feast of the Ascension, Jesus left them these words: "And I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Jesus has kept His promise, remaining truly with us every day since that time by being present in the Holy Eucharist — the host and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ, at the consecration during Mass.
This is what the Catholic Church calls the "real presence": the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus — the whole Jesus — is truly present under the appearances of consecrated bread and wine. The consecrated host retains the appearance (and taste) of bread, but it no longer has the same substance. The substance is no longer that of bread, but that of Christ's body. (The term used by the Church to designate this is transubstantiation.)
The sacrament of the Eucharist originated at the Last Supper (Jesus' last meal with his disciples) on Holy Thursday — the eve of Jesus' Passion and death on the cross. The Eucharistic prayer at every Mass repeats the words Jesus spoke then:
'At the time He was betrayed and entered willingly into His Passion, He took bread and, giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: "Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is My body given up for you." In a similar way, when supper was ended, He took the chalice and, once more giving thanks, he gave it to his disciples, saying: "Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of My blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which will poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this is in memory of Me" (Eucharistic Prayer II)'
Jesus' words are still spoken today, 2000 years later, at every Mass, according to His command to his Apostles: "Do this in memory of Me." But are these words to be taken literally? Does the bread really become His body, and the wine His blood? Was Christ speaking symbolically?
Sadly, some people who call themselves Catholics, and who attend Mass on Sundays, seem to believe His words are symbolic. They go to Communion just the same, but don't know that they're really receiving Jesus in person, and many don't know that one has to be in a state of grace to receive Him, i.e. free from mortal sin, which can only be erased by confessing one's sins to a priest.
That Jesus is really present in the consecrated host is a mystery that is humanly inexplicable and incomprehensible, which may explain why so many people don't believe in the miracle of transubstantiation. Yet, it is an article of faith that we must believe, because it is taught by Jesus Himself, who is the truth itself. Chapter 6 of St. John's Gospel (verses 51 to 55) records the words of Jesus, which, like today's skeptics, shocked His contemporaries:
"I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, for the life of the world." Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, 'How can this man give us His flesh to eat?' Jesus replied to them: 'In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat My flesh and drink My blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day. For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink.'"
"Whoever does not eat My flesh will not have eternal life", Jesus told us. So it's important to receive Communion as often as possible. As Pope Francis explained in his apostolic exhortation on holiness, to have the strength to resist the devil's temptations, we need to feed on the holy Eucharist — the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. Just as food nourishes our body, our physical life, the Eucharist nourishes our soul, our spiritual life.
What would we say if we only ate once a week, once a month, or only once a year? Would that be enough to live on? Well, it's the same with the Eucharist. We need to take Communion often, so as not to die spiritually, ensuring we are in a state of grace at the moment of Communion, by means of the sacrament of Confession. For those of us with faith, Jesus' request — to eat His body and blood — is not shocking, but rather comforting, making us thankful to God for such a great gift.
The word "eucharist" comes from the Greek word eucharistein, meaning "an action of thanksgiving to God." This sacrament may also be designated by other names, as taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (numbers 1328 to 1332):
The Holy Sacrifice, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior and includes the Church's offering, also known as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The Most Blessed Sacrament because it is the Sacrament of sacraments. This is the name given to the Eucharistic species kept in the tabernacle.
Holy Communion, because it is through this sacrament that we unite with Christ, who makes us partakers of His Body and Blood to form a single body.
Holy Mass, because the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished, ends with the faithful being sent ("missio") to fulfill God's will in their daily lives.
The Eucharist is the greatest proof of God's infinite love. There is no greater mystery, no greater miracle on earth than this. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the Eucharist as "the source and summit of the whole Christian life" and "the summary and sum of our faith."
The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species, and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1377.)
Jesus' greatest desire is to unite Himself with us, in the most intimate way possible: to give Himself as food, so that He can dwell within us. Receiving Christ in the Eucharist merges our being with that of Christ. St. Cyril of Alexandria likened this phenomenon to "melted wax blending with the rest of the wax."
Whereas with normal food, it is we who transform the food in our stomachs, in the Eucharist, it is God who transforms us, uniting us to Himself. It's the Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — who comes to dwell within us. It is Christ Himself, in the person of the priest, who offers Himself as a victim to His Father, renewing the sacrifice of His death on the cross, when the words are pronounced: "This is My body, this is My blood."
In 1384 and 1385 of the Catechism, we read: "The Lord addresses an invitation to us, urging us to receive Him in the sacrament of the Eucharist: "Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.""
To respond to this invitation, we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment upon himself" (1 Co 11: 27-29). Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.
The Church obliges the faithful "to take part in the Divine Liturgy on Sundays and feast days" and, prepared by the sacrament of Reconciliation, to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, if possible during the Easter season (cf. CIC, can. 920). But the Church strongly encourages the faithful to receive the holy Eucharist on Sundays and feast days, or more often still, even daily (Catechism 1389).
Some will say: "Because I can't see it, because I can't explain it, then it doesn't exist, it's impossible; this piece of bread isn't Jesus." To young people who told him, "You can't see the Holy Spirit or Jesus arriving in the host during the consecration, a priest replied, "Most of you have a cell phone: it doesn't change its appearance, it doesn't get heavier or lighter when you receive or send messages, images, videos. You don't see the message leave, yet your friend receives it. There are waves, it happens outside our vision. If telephone operators can do that (make things invisible to our eyes as they pass by, as they leave and arrive, as they are transmitted), all the more so can God manage it, and go beyond our senses."
The bread becomes the body of Christ because Jesus says so. God's word has infinite power, as in the Genesis account of the creation of the world, God says: "Let there be light" and there was light. In the Gospels, when Jesus says to the paralyzed man: "Take up your mat, get up and walk", healing is immediate. The same is true of the Eucharist: when the priest says the words of consecration "This is My body" he does so in persona Christi, as if it were Christ saying these words, which become reality immediately.
St. John Chrysostom declares: "It is not man who makes the things offered become the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ himself, who was crucified for us. The priest, the figure of Christ, pronounces these words, but their efficacy and grace are of God. This is my Body, he says. This word transforms the things offered."
St. Ambrose adds: "The word of Christ, who could make out of nothing what did not exist, could not then change existing things into what they were not yet? For it is no less to give things their original nature than to change it."
In His great mercy, Jesus sometimes gives us visible signs to prove that He is really present, either through Eucharistic miracles, or even by appearing as a little child in the Eucharist.
The best-known of these Eucharistic miracles is that of Lanciano, Italy, around 750 A.D. It was this miracle that prompted Blessed Carlo Acutis, a young Italian who died at the age of 15 and was beatified in 2020, and will be canonized in 2025, to list more than 130 Eucharistic miracles around the world (www. miracolieucaristici.org)
During a Mass in Saint Francis' Church in Lanciano, at the moment of the consecration, the celebrant began to doubt the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic species. At the same moment, and in the presence of many witnesses, he saw the host change into a piece of living flesh and, in the chalice, the consecrated wine became real blood which coagulated into five small clots of unequal size, which are still venerated in Lanciano today in 2024, some 1,250 years later. No preservatives were ever used to explain away this miracle!
The clots of blood are of different sizes but, weighed individually, their weight is identical to the sum of the five clots put together, i.e. 15.85 grams, God thus wanting to show us what the Church teaches: that Christ is totally present in each of the smallest parcels of the consecrated host and in the smallest drop of the consecrated wine.
Upon the request of the Archbishop of Lanciano, tests were carried out in a laboratory in 1970 by experts on samples of this miracle. And what is just as extraordinary, they came to the same conclusions as the analysis carried out on samples of other Eucharistic miracles that occurred in Argentina, Poland, and other countries between 1996 and 2013. Here are their conclusions:
• The substances examined are really flesh and blood.
• The flesh and blood are of human origin.
• The flesh consists of muscular striated tissue of the myocardium, a muscle of the heart.
• The flesh and blood are of the same blood type AB (the same blood type as that of the Man of the Shroud and the type most characteristic of Middle Eastern populations).
• The diagram of this blood corresponds to blood taken from a man's body on the same day.
In the book, Explanation of the Mass, by Father Martin of Cochem, we read the following:
"The mystery of the Incarnation is renewed at Mass. On the day of the Annunciation, Mary having offered and consecrated to God her soul, her body, and especially her most pure womb, the Holy Spirit formed in her, from her virginal blood, the body of Jesus Christ, and united humanity to divinity. Thus, when the priest presents the bread and wine and offers them to God, the Holy Spirit changes these elements, by virtue of the words of Consecration, into the true body and blood of Our Lord. I am not exaggerating when I call this divine operation a renewal of the Incarnation, for the priest receives Jesus into his hands as truly as the Blessed Virgin received Him into her chaste womb.
"The priest can say of himself with St. Augustine: 'He who created me without my participation is created with my help; He who, without my help, made everything out of nothing, has given me the power (if I dare say so) to produce it Himself." Is it not a great mystery and a miracle surpassing all others that a man should create his own Creator? The mystery of the Nativity is renewed before our eyes like that of the Incarnation, and with no less clarity. Jesus Christ was born from the virginal body of the Blessed Virgin; at Mass, He is born from the lips of the priest. When the priest pronounces the last word of the Consecration, he has the Infant Jesus in his hands as truly, if not in the same form, as Mary did. In testimony to his faith, he genuflects, adores his God, raises Him above his head and shows Him to the people. The Virgin Mary presented her newborn Son, wrapped in swaddling clothes, to the shepherds' adoration; the priest presents the Christ Child to the faithful under the guise of bread, so that all may recognize Him as their Lord.
"Thomas a Kempis gives us the following advice in his Imitation of Jesus Christ: "When you say or hear Mass, remember that you are participating in a work as great, as admirable, as if, on this very day, Jesus Christ had descended from Heaven and become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary." How happy we would be if Our Lord visibly returned to earth! Who wouldn't rush to adore Him and ask for His graces? So why don't we attend Mass? Alas, there's only one answer: our faith is weak and our knowledge of this divine blessing too imperfect. We will now see in what miraculous way Jesus Christ brings about this mystery.
"There are many reasons why Jesus hides Himself (under the appearance of bread); the main one is to give us, by exercising our faith so greatly, an opportunity for merit. However, to strengthen us in this same faith, He has shown himself on several occasions to pious Christians, and even to Jews and pagans. Albert Krantz reports that Charlemagne fought for several years against the Saxons, whom he wanted to drive out of their idolatry. Defeated and even baptized, these barbarians were continually incited to apostasy by the Duke Wittikind. Emperor Charlemagne was appearing in Saxony for the twelfth time with a large number of troops. It was Lent, and when Easter arrived, he ordered his entire army to prepare devoutly for the reception of the sacraments. The feast was celebrated very devoutly in the imperial camp.
"Wittikind had a great desire to see the pomp of Christian worship. To achieve his goal, he left his precious clothes, covered himself in rags, went alone into the camp, and, like a beggar, began asking for alms. In this way, he observes that on Good Friday, the emperor and his soldiers, visibly contrite, fast rigorously and pray fervently. He then sees them go to confession and prepare for communion. On Easter Day, when the priest offering the Holy Sacrifice had arrived at the Consecration, Wittikind saw in his hands a child of incomparable beauty. At this sight, an unknown sweetness spread through the barbarian's heart. During the rest of the service, he never took his eyes off the celebrant, and when the soldiers went to the Holy Table, he saw him with the greatest astonishment give each of them the same child, which was received by all and consummated by each one in particular, though not in the same way. Indeed, the lovable child went to some with obvious joy, while to others He would not enter, and struggled with His hands and feet, though He was forced to allow Himself. The duke couldn't get over the astonishment he felt at this unheard-of mystery."
We will end with the words of St. John Paul II, taken from his letter Dominicæ Cenæ for Holy Thursday, 1980: "The Church and the world have a great need of eucharistic worship. Jesus waits for us in this sacrament of love. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Him in adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease."
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