Eucharistic Meal

Hi guys. Posted this reflection on my Facebook sometime last year, but seeing as this Sunday is the solemnity of Corpus Christi I thought it woul be appropriate to post it up again:


Why is does the consecration of the bread and wine into the Precious Body and Blood still leave the sacrament with the physical characteristics of bread and wine (transubstantiation)? Well, the explanation is simple.

Let's say you suffer from an iron deficiency. You go to the doctor, and he determines you need more iron. If he gave you a solid iron bar and told you to eat it, chances are you'd think he's nuts and you wouldn't listen to him. Even if you did, you could chew on the iron bar for hours and it'll do you no good.

Instead, the doc gives you iron supplement pills. In these iron pills, the iron is in salt form, in the form of iron sulphate. Those of us who take chemistry know that iron sulphate doesn't look like iron, doesn't smell like iron, doesn't taste like iron and doesn't feel like iron. However the iron ions in the iron sulphate are able to be absorbed by the body, remedying your iron deficiency.

In the same way, if Jesus cut a chunk out of His arm and asked you to eat it, and slashed His wrist and made you drink His blood, you'd think He was nuts, and wouldn't do it. However, He comes to you in the form of bread and wine, something we can easily consume. It doesn't look, smell, feel, or taste like His Body and Blood, but we believe that He is truly present in it as Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, and He will enter your heart and remedy your brokenness. He is present in the form of bread and wine, which is something we can easily stomach, just like how we ingest iron in the form of pills, which is also something we can easily consume.

-Matthew