There are other hungers- for love, for immortality for life, for affection, for being cared, for forgiveness, for mercy. This hunger can be satiated only by the bread that comes from above. Jesus himself is the living bread that gives life to the world (cf.
Jn 6:51). His body offered for our sake on the cross, his blood shed for the pardon of the sins of humanity is made available to us in the bread and wine to the Eucharist transformed in the consecration.
But the Eucharist does not end with the partaking of the bread and blood of the Lord. It leads us to solidarity with others. The communion with the Lord is necessarily a communion with our fellow brothers and sisters. And therefore the one who is fed and nourished by the very body and blood of Christ cannot remain unaffected when he sees his brothers suffering want and hunger. (
Homily for the Feast of Corpus Christi, 5-30-13)
Therefore the Eucharistic Celebration is much more than simple banquet: it is exactly the memorial of Jesus’ Paschal Sacrifice, the mystery at the centre of salvation. “Memorial” does not simply mean a remembrance, a mere memory; it means that every time we celebrate this Sacrament we participate in the mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. The Eucharist is the summit of God’s saving action: the Lord Jesus, by becoming bread broken for us, pours upon us all of his mercy and his love, so as to renew our hearts, our lives and our way of relating with him and with the brethren. . . . the bread that is the Body of Jesus Christ who saves us, forgives us, unites us to the Father. (
General Audience, 2-5-14)
Jesus underlines that he has not come into this world to give something, but to give himself, his life, as nourishment for those who have faith in Him. . . . Every time that we participate in Holy Mass and we are nourished by the Body of Christ, the presence of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit acts in us, shaping our hearts, communicating an interior disposition to us that translates into conduct according to the Gospel. (
Angelus for the Feast of Corpus Christi, 6-22-14)
In the Eucharist Jesus does not give just any bread, but
the bread of eternal life, he gives Himself, offering Himself to the Father out of love for us. (
Angelus, 8-13-14)
The Eucharist is Jesus who gives himself entirely to us. To nourish ourselves with him and abide in him through Holy Communion, if we do it with faith, transforms our life into a gift to God and to our brothers… eating him, we become like him. . . . [the Eucharist] is not a private prayer or a beautiful spiritual experience . . . it is a memorial, namely, a gesture that actualizes and makes present the event of the death and resurrection of Jesus: the bread is truly his Body given, the wine is truly is Blood poured out. (Angelus, 8-16-15;
Catholic News Agency)
It’s not just a memory, no, it’s more: It’s making present what happened twenty centuries ago. . . . This is Mass: entering in this Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus, and when we go to Mass, it is as if we go to Calvary. Now imagine if we went to Calvary—using our imagination—in that moment, knowing that that man there is Jesus. Would we dare to chit-chat, take pictures, make a little scene? No! Because it’s Jesus! We would surely be in silence, in tears, and in the joy of being saved… Mass is experiencing Calvary, it’s not a show. (General Audience,
Crux, 11-22-17)
It continues to be a breathtaking phenomenon, how the dumbfounded, relentless enemies of this pope can’t undertake the slightest labor to simply check and see what the pope believes about a given topic, by doing a search. Is this impossible for them? Have they not heard of the Holy See website and its searching capabilities? Are they unaware of Google? It’s astonishing.
So why does Pope Francis often seem to equate “bread” (after consecration) with Jesus’ Body? He doesn’t say the more precise and literal “what was
once bread” or “what has the
appearance of bread” or “what continues to have the
accidents of bread and wine”. I contend that he’s simply using
phenomenological language. We do so all the time by saying, “the sun goes down” or “the sun rises.”
It’s everyday language that refers to
appearance rather than
essence. We know that He believes in transubstantiation because he refers to partaking of the Body and Blood in several of his homilies and other talks. He combines this orthodox belief with the language of appearance. And so he says, “the bread is truly his Body given, the wine is truly is Blood poured out” (8-16-15).
Is it
impermissible (or heretical) to speak in that way? I should think
not, seeing that our Lord Jesus and the Gospel writers and St. Paul did so. Jesus still referred to the consecrated and transformed former bread as “bread”:
John 6:50-51, 58 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. [51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” . . . [58] This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”
No, Pope Francis Did Not Deny Transubstantiation
