How do we defend transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass?

[bigphil48]

Hi,
I was talking to a Presbyterian minister about the Eucharist and he told me that he did not believe in the Catholic Dogma of transubstantiation because Jesus is one of us and he cannot appear as bread and wine. Jesus ascended into Heaven and is interceding at the right hand of the father in his glorified body and that he will not appear on earth again until his second coming. The Father sent the Holy Spirit to be his presence in the world and therefore the presence in the bread and wine is spiritual.
He also did not believe in the sacrifice of the Mass because the Sacrifice has been made once and for all time and does not need to be re-done, renewed or re-enacted and that it is all-sufficient for all our sins, past, present and future This finished sacrifice is then applied to the believer who is truly Born Again of his spirit cf Ephesians chapter 1 verses 6-7.
I would be very grateful if you could help me in responding to this ministers points of view being faithful to traditional Catholic teaching and the magesterium.
Yours in Christ.
Phil

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi Phil,

First of all, Jesus became incarnate and everything He did was incarnational, including the establishment of the sacraments and the establishment of His Church. He didn’t say that He would never appear on the earth. That is not in Scripture. In fact, He said that He would be with us all days. He didn’t leave any writings. All He left was His Church and the command to preach by word and sacrament. Mt. 28:18-20)

The Eucharist is the living memorial of His Passion. It is significant that when the early Protestants dropped the belief in the sacrifice of the Mass, the Eucharist became merely a symbol. Can you imagine what Christianity would be like if Christians had dropped the belief in His litteral Passion? Nothing keeps our awareness of His Passion so alive as does His Eucharistic Presence—which is why He established the Eucharist in the first place. Why would He establish the Eucharist if all it is, is a symbol? In Jn. 6: 35-71 Jesus insisted so strongly how necessary it is for us to eat His flesh and drink. Why would He be so insistent if it were only a symbol? When so many disciples left him because of His insistence that they eat His flesh and drink His blood, He didn’t go after them to explain that He was only speaking figuratively. He meant what He said. The early Church Fathers (Ignatius of Antioch, 110 AD, Irenaeus of Lions, 150 AD. Cyril of Jerusalem, 350 AD) testify to this. I can give you these citations, but I don’t have room here. No one at the time understood what He was saying. But the Apostles believed Him because they trusted and loved Him.

No form of Christianity has had as consistent and developed an understanding of-and devotion to-the Passion, as does the Catholic Church—from apostolic times to the present. As for the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, the Catholic Church was the first to uphold this and still does. But it is imperative to recognize that the Passion transcends time. It covers all those who lived before Jesus came to earth and all those who were to come. The Mass simply allows us to be present at the Passion by the Eucharistic elements on the altar. It is impossible to understand the Eucharist without the Passion since it is the living sign of the Passion. The sign of the body of Christ on the altar, separate from the sign of His blood in the chalice tell us, without words, that He died. We don’t see His body and his blood as people saw them on Calvary, but we see them nonetheless under the forms of bread and wine. The Eucharist brings His Passion right into our lives and literally into us, the incarnate spirits that He and the Father designed us to be. Ours is an incarnational religion. He loves our souls and He loves our bodies which He fashioned in His own image and likeness. In our reception of the Eucharist, we are united with Him in the Holiest of Communions! Most Christians (Catholics and Orthodox) in the world have believed this for centuries. The greatest tragedy of Protestantism is its’ loss of the Eucharist as Jesus established it. We pray daily that these brothers and sisters of ours will one day receive the Eucharist with us. St. Thomas Aquinas said of it: “It was the fulfillment of ancient figures and the greatest of all His miracles, while for those who were to experience the sorrow of His departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.”

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.