Kitchen Catechism: Featured Articles
by Lois Donahue
Not too long ago I read that a small but possibly growing percentage of people claiming to be Catholic say they do not believe that during the Consecration of the Mass when the priest says these words which Jesus spoke at the Last Supper - "Take (the bread) and eat; this is my body -- drink (the wine) for this is my blood --- do this in memory of me." (Mat 26:26-28 & Luke 22:l9)-- that the bread and wine on the altar actually become the body and blood of Christ in spite of the fact that they still look like, smell like and taste like nothing other than bread and wine. I thought, 'how sad' and wondered why they did not believe. Since I had no way of knowing their 'why', I did some reverse thinking. I asked myself 'why' I do believe that is what actually happens. So began my process of thinking about 'believing the unbelievable' and now I beg your patience as I share my thinking with you-and remember this is no more than my thinking.
Without doubt, the reason I first 'believed' is that I was born into a very Catholic family who 'believed' and for eight years was taught by Catholic nuns who definitely 'believed'. From then on I honestly don't remember of having any reason not to believe. However, the time did come when the reality of the 'mystery' connected with the Real Presence made me realize I wanted to do more than just rely on my somewhat 'hereditary' acceptance of truth. Not that I thought out-and-out disbelief was an option, I was just hungry to learn more. So I dealt with the whole idea of 'mystery' and had no problem accepting the reality that we encounter things we can't understand at every age stage of our lives and under any imaginable circumstance…no matter whether we are dealing with things as religious as the Real Presence or as 'down to earth' as someone's explanation of modern technology. I even read recently that in the world of science 'the ultimate nature of substance' remains a mystery even to the scientists themselves.
But back to the understanding level in my world. No five year old child can possibly understand his surgeon father's explanation of open heart surgery. It is a mystery and yet, by the way, he believes it to be true. A more personal example -even after reading that, according to an eminent University Professor of Mathematical Physics, bombarding the proton in an atom of beryllium with alpha articles produced hydrogen, I didn't have a clue as to what he was talking about. Yet, as the child above, I believed him.
Which led to the question -- If I don't understand something, WHY do I believe it? First I had to admit that a great deal - probably the majority-of what I believe to be true about things which God has made the human mind capable of understanding is not because I have witnessed anything personally or were adequately informed, but because I have 'faith' in those who told me it was true. - For example - Throughout history great events happened which I didn't see and great people lived who I didn't meet but I did learn about both thanks to people who did 'see' and did 'meet' and passed information along to reliable historians.
Consequently, my next thought was - since I accept the fact that there are 'things of earth' which I cannot personally verify and yet which I accept as true because I have 'faith' in some legitimate spokesperson who tells me they are true, why shouldn't I be able to use the same logic in dealing with 'things of God' especially with mysteries which human minds are simply not capable of understanding?
I am making an issue of this because my belief in God's presence in the Eucharist, like all other great mysteries of the Church, is again based on my 'faith" in spokespersons as legitimately knowledgeable about the 'things of God' as others are about the 'things of earth'. For me there is no question as to who those persons are - they are primarily those who, inspired by God, speak to us through the Bible and those who speak to us as the official voice of the Church which Jesus founded.
For instance, I learned many things in different parts of the writings of Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that deal in some way with the mystery we are talking about today. I learned that before Jesus went to Jerusalem to, in His own words "suffer greatly", He said to those gathered in the synagogue "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." Reacting to this, some of the people quarreled among themselves saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
Even many of His disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard: who can accept it?" and "as a result, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him". I also learned that the 'chosen twelve' (who I like to think of as the first priests of 'His' Church), had such faith in Jesus that they did not leave even if they didn't understand.
Fortunately those Apostles were still with Him at the Last Supper on the night before He died when He instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist thus not only showing 'how' He planned to give people His flesh to eat and His blood to drink but how they and their priest successors could also do, with God's help and Church guidance, what He wanted them to "do in His memory"---something that made it possible for those of us yet to come to be able 'to eat His flesh and to drink His blood' and thus 'remain in Him and He in us' if we choose to follow the teaching of His Church and choose to receive Holy Communion. It is interesting to note some people today think that back earlier when Jesus fed more than a thousand people with only a few loaves of bread, He was preparing them for belief in the Holy Eucharist and letting them know there would always be enough to feed generations to come - the supply would never diminish.
Let me insert here that some people claim Jesus is only present in the Eucharist symbolically. That just doesn't make sense to me because when He said what was quoted above and people grumbled in doubt, even walked away, He didn't back down on what He'd said - He did not urge them to come back 'because they had misunderstood him - that He didn't really mean that they should actually eat his body! No need to try analyzing those words searching for symbolism. It was the same way when he told the rich man to "Go sell what you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven" and the young man walked away. Again Jesus didn't back down because --- He was a man who said what He meant and meant what He said.
In learning all these things connected with the 'mystery' of the Real Presence, I seriously began to wonder why we are so hesitant to believe, that Jesus had the power ("for God all things are possible"--Mat l9:26) and used it to miraculously change bread and wine into His body and blood without apparently changing either the bread or the wine at all and yet we have no trouble believing, again as the Bible tells us, that He was able to change water into wine, to enable the lame to walk , the blind to see, to heal the sick and even to bring the widow's son, Jairus' daughter and His friend Lazarus back to life?
No doubt a response to that thinking would be that Jesus HIMSELF performed those unbelievables - no priest was involved which would lead me to ask - "Couldn't Jesus allow His power to work through a priest just as He did through Peter when the Apostle took a crippled beggar by the hand, raised him up and immediately he was able to walk and the crowd was amazed at what Peter was able to do?"
BUT NOTE! Peter, in response to the crowd's amazement, admitted that it was not through 'his' power that the man was able to walk but rather through the power of God. I'm sure any priest would acknowledge the same thing about what happens on the altar where he stands. (Acts 3:l-l2)
Something else I learned along the way was that even after the Apostles had died many of the men who followed them and are now great saints of the Church expressed in writing their belief that the bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Jesus. In fact, up until the Reformation all Christians held that belief even one bearing the familiar name of Martin Luther. All of this tells me God intended that the reality of His Real Presence was to be, and to remain, a crucial part of His teaching Church.
That seems to pretty much sum up my "why" for believing Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, except for the most important reason why I sustained that belief….. "prayer to guide my thinking" and that's why I truly hope anyone, like those I mentioned in the opening, who no longer believe in this mystery, will pray as did the father whose son was possessed by a demon-"..help my unbelief".(Mark 9:24)
So now, having again thought through the truth of this mystery, this time with you, I can in all honesty say without the shadow of a doubt, I do not understand but I DO believe!