THE Catholic Church believes and teaches that at Mass a priest by the words of consecration changes bread and wine into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Orthodox Churches, who separated themselves from Rome in the eleventh century, hold that bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ but that this change is effected by the invocation of the Holy Spirit. Although the Ritualists or High Anglicans profess the same doctrine, all other Protestants deny it.

United in denial, the original Reformers were nevertheless divided on the question of the Lord’s Supper. Martin Luther, for example, said that when the supper ritual was taking place, Christ’s body and blood were present with the bread. Ulrich Zwingli, however, totally denied the Real Presence, claiming the Eucharist is only a symbol which stirs up faith but in itself is merely a memory or an empty image of Christ. Contrary to both, John Calvin taught that Christ is in the Eucharist insofar as He is apprehended through faith as if He were really present. In such a reception Christ pours supernatural graces into the souls of believers. There is, therefore, the real power and efficacy of Christ in the Eucharist but not Christ Himself.

Though these explanations are contrary to Catholic teaching, surveys reveal that most Catholics identified one of them as best reflecting their beliefs. The January 1992 Gallup Survey of Catholics Regarding Holy Communion, for example, disclosed that 62% of the Catholics polled selected one of the following three statements:

.1.

“When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving bread and wine, which symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus, and in so doing are expressing your attachment to His person and words” (29%).

.2.

“When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving bread and wine, in which Jesus is really present” (10%).

.3.

“When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, which has become that because of your personal belief” (23%).

This appalling ignorance—if not denial—of the Church’s Eucharistic teaching is, in my opinion, attributable not only to deficient catechetics but also to a precipitous decline in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. The separation of the tabernacle from the altar, the removal of the communion rail, the rarity of Benediction and the disappearance of Eucharistic processions and Forty Hours have produced a bitter harvest.

To repair this evil, practice must express belief but belief must be clearly and repeatedly taught.

A human belief is something accepted on the testimony of a human being, but a belief of faith is accepted on the testimony of God Who cannot deceive. When the Catholic Church obliges her children to accept her teaching under pain of excommunication, she is exercising the authority given her by her Divine Founder Who said, “He who hears you, hears Me and he who rejects you, rejects Me” (Luke 10:16). Established by Christ on the Apostles, the Church has inherited their mission of proclaiming His teaching to every creature. Her teaching is not her own but that of Christ and it is Christ who insures that she will transmit it faithfully (“And behold I am with you all days until the consummation of the world” [Mt. 28:20]).

In writing to the Galatians, St. Paul said, “If anyone preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal.1:9). When the Reformers preached a doctrine on the Eucharist which attacked what the Catholic Church had always taught and what had been received down through the ages, the Church at the Council of Trent solemnly defined her teaching and proclaimed those who denied it anathema.

Canon 1 of the Decree Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, for example, says: “If anyone denies that the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, but says that Christ is present in the Sacrament only as a sign or figure, or by His power: let him be anathema.”

This cannon clearly condemns the positions of Zwingli and Calvin who denied the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. It also condemns the position of the Gallup survey which stated: “When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving bread and wine, which symbolize the spirit and teachings of Jesus and in so doing, are expressing your attachment to his Person and words.”

Trent’s Canon 2 on the Eucharist, which condemns the position of Martin Luther, says: “If anyone says that the substance of bread and wine remains in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denies that wonderful and extraordinary change of the whole substance of bread into Christ’s body and the whole substance of the wine into His blood while only the species of bread and wine remain, a change which the Catholic Church has most fittingly called transubstantiation: let him be anathema.” Since bread and wine no longer remain after transubstantiation, another survey position is also condemned, i.e., “When receiving Holy Communion, you are receiving bread and wine in which Jesus is really present.” The view on the survey, which claims that “when receiving holy Communion you are receiving the body and Blood of Christ, which has become that because of your personal belief,” is condemned by both cannons. Christ is present in the Eucharist independently of anyone’s personal belief.

Another position Martin Luther, already mentioned but not reflected in the survey, was condemned by Canon 4: “if anyone says that after the consecration the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not present in the marvelous sacrament of the Eucharist, but are present only in the use of the sacrament while it is being received, and not before or after, and that the true body of the Lord does not remain in the consecrated hosts or particles that are kept or are left over after Communion: let him be anathema.”

Though the above canons clearly expose and sufficiently condemn the Reformers’ errors regarding the Real Presence, I will nevertheless make two further quotes from Trent’s teaching of the Eucharist, one of them a canon and the other a sentence from the decree, to manifest that Catholic practice expresses Catholic belief.

Canon 6 declares: “if anyone says that Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist with the worship of latria, including the external worship, and that the Sacrament, therefore, is not to be honored with extraordinary festive celebrations nor solemnly carried from place to place in processions according to the praiseworthy universal rite and custom of the holy Church; or that the Sacrament is not to be publicly exposed for the people’s adoration, and that those who adore it are idolaters: let him be anathema.” Because of such widespread denial of Christ Eucharistic presence, those who love Him should offer Him reparation by visiting Him often in the Blessed Sacrament and encouraging others to do the same.

Chapter Seven of Trent’s decree on the holy Eucharist is entitled “The Preparation One Should Make to Receive the Holy Eucharist Worthily” and contains the following sentence which is an admonition most appropriate for our times. It reads, “The custom of the Church makes it clear that the proof necessary is this: no one who has a mortal sin on his conscience shall dare receive the Holy Eucharist before making a sacramental confession, regardless of how contrite he may think he is.” The only sacraments that can be received fruitfully by those in mortal sin are baptism and penance. If a man receives holy communion, knowing that he’s in the state of mortal sin, commits the mortal sin of sacrilege. In the words of St. Paul, “he eats and drinks condemnation unto himself.” (1 Cor. 11:29)