CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - A casual glance at the daily news provides ample evidence of the worldwide chaos caused by many who have rejected God.  Rapidly accelerating violence, unbridled hedonism, heedless consumption of resources and rampant corruption, now exceeding previously unimaginable dimensions have resulted from the actions of those who have foolishly tossed aside the truth of Jesus Christ to indulge in their own insatiable proclivities.
 
Only Jesus can satisfy the deepest aspirations of the human spirit.  Only Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  Only Jesus is the way to the Father.  Only through Jesus can we hope to gain eternal life in Heaven.  The foolish and the ignorant reject this truth.  When Christianity is abandoned, the results are devastating.
 
Jesus remains with us in the tabernacle of every Catholic Church.  His Real Presence is celebrated and adored in the monstrance placed in every chapel dedicated to Perpetual Adoration.  He is with us, not just spiritually, but sacramentally as well.  This is the miracle of the Eucharist. 

The sixth chapter of the Gospel of John is known for Jesus' teaching on the Eucharist.  For the next five weeks, the Catholic liturgy will remind us that we possess an immense treasure. 

When a Catholic priest takes a little piece of unleavened bread and repeats the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, "This is my body," and when he takes a small of amount of wine in a chalice and says, "This is my blood," the bread is no longer bread and the wine is no longer wine. 
 
At every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we participate in a marvelous miracle, the miracle called, in the Latin or Western Catholic Church, Transubstantiation. Belief in the truth of this Mystery of the Faith dates back to its instituion by Jesus Christ Himself. It is affirmed by the unbroken witness of the Apostolic Fathers and the magisterium of the Church.  

"The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend. In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist 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. This presence is called real - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be real too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1374).
 
Transubstantiation cannot be proven through scientific experimentation.  If we were to examine reverently a consecrated host using a high-powered microscope lens, the physical attributes of bread would be obvious.  If we were to do to the same with the precious blood, the physical attributes would be that of wine. 
 
Transubstantiation belongs to the reality of faith.  Faith does not contradict reason.  Instead, the gift of faith that we receive at Baptism, gives us a superior vision.
 
Transubstantiation means "change of substance", or "change of reality." 

When the priest repeats the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper, the bread is no longer bread, and the wine is no longer wine.  Instead, the entire substance of the bread and the entire substance of the wine have been changed into the substance of The Body and Blood of Christ.  

Transubstantiation occurs only by the power of God, and in a way that we cannot empirically detect.

We know that transubstantiation takes place through the certainty of faith.  Jesus, the Son of God; Jesus the Messiah; Jesus the Lord and Savior of the universe said: "This is my body"; "This is my blood".

Faith is a vision superior to reason, but it does not contradict reason, precisely because faith relies upon the authority of God who does not deceive, nor can be deceived.  Jesus is the truth and thus is incapable of lying.
 
The Fathers of the Church give witness to the fact that Jesus did not give us a symbol of himself, but rather he empowered his Church to continue his presence throughout the world.

J.N.D. Kelly, a renowned Protestant scholar who studied the history of the early church extensively, affirmed that this is true when he wrote: "Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior's body and blood" (Early Christian Doctrines, 440).
 
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