Many sincere Non-Catholics refuse to believe in the Real Presence, on the ground that it is wholly incomprehensible to them, how a little piece of bread can become the true body of Jesus Christ, and a few drops of wine can become His true blood, and how His body and blood can be in so many places at the same time and be actually received whole and entire by so many persons. They claim that, if they could understand this, they would no longer refuse to believe in the Real Presence.
We should, however, bear in mind that the truth of a thing does not depend on our understanding it. Experience shows that every one of us holds many things to be true which he does not and can not understand. Every one knows and believes, that the food he partakes of is changed into his own blood and flesh; that the blood circulating in his body becomes flesh, veins and arteries, bones, skin, hair, and forms the different organs of his body; but does he understand all this? how this is done is a perfect mystery to him. The same may be asserted of the vegetable kingdom: plant, for instance, a peach stone; in the course of time it will grow into a tree; now tell me how the very same sap of the peach tree formed in its roots and circulating in the tree forms its bark, its wood, its branches, its leaves, its blossoms, and its fruit which is composed of the stone, the seed, the pulp, the skin, each of which would naturally argue a different origin for every other part. But although we know that the same sap forms them all, can we understand how this is effected? Hence even in the natural order there are everywhere mysteries which surpass our understanding, and the only rational explanation we can give thereof is, that God made things so. Our senses, our reason testify to the existence, reality and truth of these natural facts and we act reasonably, when we believe them, although we cannot understand them. Their truth does not depend on our understanding them. Let us never lose sight of the fact that God is almighty, and is also Truth itself; that He gives existence to things by His mere word, by a mere act of His will. Hence to change a bit of bread into His own body, He has only to will it, to declare it, saying: "This is My body." Just as there are mysteries in nature, such as the intimate union of our soul and body, our physical life, the changes of substances into one another, the workings of electricity, so also, and even much more, there are greater and deeper mysteries in religion, in all that relates directly to God Almighty and in finitely perfect, and in the truths He has deigned to reveal to us through His divine Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, such as the Blessed Trinity, that is, one God in three equal and distinct divine Persons, the Incarnation of the Son of God, and other mysteries, especially that of the Blessed Eucharist or Real Presence.
Wherefore in matters pertaining to faith and revelation, the question is not and should not be, whether we understand the doctrines proposed to our belief, but whether these doctrines have been really revealed and taught by Jesus Christ. Our divine Savior, whilst calling Himself the "Son of man," because He was really man like ourselves, claimed to be the Son of God, to be true God and equal with God, His Father, and to be one with Him; this claim He upheld and proved to be true by numerous unquestionable miracles; the greatest of which and the most unquestionable and the most clearly proved of historical facts, was the raising of Himself to life the third day after His most cruel and public death. Jesus Christ, therefore, is true God, almighty, omniscient, and the infallible Truth itself. Wherefore, all that Jesus Christ said, declared, and taught, must be accepted as absolutely and infallibly true, how ever incomprehensible it may be to us. To gainsay the words, the teaching of Jesus Christ is to charge God Himself with deception, ignorance, or impotence. Every man claiming to be a Christian, is bound to admit this without any qualification what ever. The writer of these lines has clearly and conclusively proved that at the "Last Supper" our divine Savior actually changed bread and wine into His very body and very blood, and, at the same time, empowered the priests of His Church to do like wise in remembrance of Him; and, moreover, that Jesus Christ actually declared that "the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood is necessary to salvation."
However incomprehensible all this is to our reason, we have no valid reason to doubt it or to hesitate in believing it firmly, for he who denies or doubts it, is not a true Christian, and practically charges Christ with deception, or with lacking the power to do what He wills and expressly declares; he practically joins the ranks of infidels, of unbelievers. A man cannot be or consistently call himself a Christian, a believer in, a follower of Christ, unless he sincerely believes the words of Christ, who alone "has the words of eternal life" (John 6:69). We know that at the "Last Supper" Jesus Christ said: "This is My body, which shall be delivered for you" (1 Corinthians 2:24). What He then held in His hands must have been His true body, though this was not apparently so; to doubt or deny it would be to charge Jesus Christ either with uttering an unmitigated falsehood, or with being unable to change bread into His true body, or with not knowing what He was actually holding in His hands. The true Christian who believes Jesus Christ to be God, to be truth itself, to be omniscient and almighty, will say; "I firmly believe that after Jesus Christ had pronounced these aforesaid words over the bread He had taken into His hands: This is My body, which shall be delivered to you, He actually held in His hands, no longer bread, but His own body, which He sacrificed on the following day on the cross for the salvation of mankind. How the bread could become the true body of Christ, I do not know, I do not understand, but I know that Christ, being God, is almighty and can therefore effect all that He wills, and consequently, that He then by His almighty power, changed the bread He was holding into His true and real body. I know and believe that Jesus Christ willed, that all who desire salvation should partake of His very flesh and blood, and that He therefore instituted the priesthood in His Church, so that they should multiply His presence in the Blessed Eucharist all over the earth, to enable all men to partake of His flesh and blood; I know also and believe that Jesus Christ, being God and almighty, can do this and has actually done all this; although it is beyond my comprehension and that of all mankind, nevertheless, I believe it all most firmly, for Jesus Christ is the all-wise and all powerful God."
Wherefore in matters of faith it belongs not to us to examine, whether the doctrines we are required to believe are comprehensible to us, but merely to inquire whether they have been revealed by Jesus Christ, our divine Savior; if they are included among the doctrines He has revealed, they are necessarily true, however incomprehensible and mysterious they may appear to our weak and limited reason. In believing them we cannot err, for Jesus Christ, being God, can neither deceive us, nor be Himself deceived or mistaken, and we can then be more certain of their truth and of all the other truths of faith than of any truth pertaining to our natural reason, and why? Because in believing the truths or doctrines of faith, we rely on the infallible testimony of the all-knowing and infinitely perfect God, and there can be nothing more certain, more sure, than the testimony of God Himself, who can neither deceive nor be deceived: "The testimony of God is greater" (1 John 5:9).
The intellect of the brightest and most intelligent of men is very limited indeed. Saint Thomas Aquinas, speaking of the human intellect in relation to the revealed mysteries of our holy religion, compares it to the eyes of the owl in relation to the light of the sun, which is too bright for them to behold. Our modern unbelievers, who reject the truths of divine revelation, merely because they are above their comprehension, are like the owl that would deny the existence of the light of the sun, merely because it is too bright for its vision! But as the owl's denial of the sun-light does not and cannot prove that there is no such thing as the sun-light, so also the unbelievers denial of the existence and truth of divine revelation has not the least weight against its existence and truth, for they are no more competent to judge in this matter than the owl is to judge of the light of the sun. Unbelievers are the most conceited of men. They pride themselves on their superior intelligence as self-sufficient and subject to no one, independent of all authority, even of God Himself; their mind becomes the slave of their passions and falls into the most absurd theories and gross errors, and they have the arrogance and effrontery of claiming to be the benefactors of man kind, on the plea of freeing them from all subjection to God and His holy law. But the real truth is that they have led mankind astray from virtue and correct living, and undermined, by their false teachings, the very basis of society itself, the human family. Not one of the proud and boasting unbelievers has ever done as much good to man kind as one Sister of Charity, of Mercy, or one Little Sister of the Poor by her virtuous life and her devoted charity towards her fellow-men! Those vain boasters, claiming infallibility for themselves and their erroneous theories, attempt to destroy in men all belief in God and the supernatural, and practically seek to debase their fellow-men to the level of the brute!
On the other hand, the Protestant sects, hardly less boastful, less arrogant, put their own private judgment, or views, in the place of the Church, which Jesus Christ instituted as His infallible organ, as the competent teacher of His revelation, as the guide and promoter of salvation. Instead of seeking to know what Jesus Christ really did teach, what His words really mean, and adapting their belief thereto, they exert themselves so to explain His words and doctrines as to suit them to their own views or theories. Our divine Savior, when commanding His apostles to go into the whole world and teach all men the very things He Himself had taught them, and threatening eternal punishment to all who would refuse to accept and embrace such teachings, such doctrines, established His Church, the Catholic Church, and not Protestantism or any one of the Protestant sects, as the lawful teacher and competent interpreter of His revelation. Wherefore, the true meaning of His words, of His doctrines, must be sought and will be found, not in the views or teaching of Protestantism or any of its sects, but solely in the teaching and doctrines of the Catholic Church from the time of Christ until the present day. In previous articles we have seen the invincible arguments and unquestionable testimonies, which clearly prove that our divine Savior instituted at the "Last Supper" the Holy Eucharist, by changing bread into His true body, and wine into His true blood. He who denies this, might as well reject Christ and the whole Christian religion, as so many Protestants now practically do, for without the Real Presence, without the Eucharist, man's redemption would, in some manner, be incomplete! For by His Incarnation Jesus, the Son of God, united Himself to our human nature; by His sufferings and death He effected man's redemption; but by means of the Holy Eucharist Jesus Christ intimately unites Himself, not merely to human nature in general, but to individual men, and makes each individual man who receives the Holy Eucharist, or Holy Communion, a partaker of the fruits of His Passion and death, of the Redemption, and imparts to him the right to heaven and its glory, and thereby completes the individual Redemption of each communicant, who believes in Him and worthily receives Him.
- text taken from Jesus in the Eucharist, by Father Ferreol Girardey, C.Ss.R.