His Enduring Gift: What Do We Make of the Eucharist and Transubstantiation?

Recently a friend of mine undergoing a conversion asked me a question: “If the Eucharist is really God, then why aren't people clamoring to get to church to receive Communion so they can have God dwelling inside their body physically in addition to spiritually?” What a great question! I have to admit that for many years I had a lukewarm appreciation for Christ's gift. We are taught as Catholics that transubstantiation means that the host and wine are substantially turned into the body and blood of our Lord, yet to our senses of smell, touch, vision, and taste they remain as before. But doctrine tells us that on being received the Eucharist is actually God traveling down an esophagus, into a stomach and digestive system, and then throughout an entire body. Do you believe that?

My epiphany came upon my “digesting” readings from St. Faustina's famous diary Divine Mercy in My Soul.¹ Among the many mystic revelations and visions she received, there are dozens focused explicitly on the Eucharist. Over several months a few years ago, I read them all together and finally understood that we should indeed be clamoring to get to Mass to receive Christ intimately in the form of His Eucharistic gift. St. Faustina wrote, “The most solemn moment of my life is the moment when I receive Holy Communion. … If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two reasons: our receiving of Holy Communion and [the privilege of] suffering.”² In another entry, St. Faustina wrote about an image being exhibited over a monstrance on the altar of Christ when the priest exposed the Blessed Sacrament: “Rays of light pierced the sacred host and spread out beyond the church to the rest of the world, and beyond that I saw throngs of people of all countries and heard these words, ‘These rays of Mercy will pass through you just as they passed through the host.’”³ She promised Christ, “It would be difficult for me to live through the day if I did not receive You. Holy Communion is my shield.”⁴

Last year a physician I know converted to Catholicism. As a cradle Catholic, I was moved by his devotion to become Catholic and his relentless pursuit of RCIA. Several months after his first communion and confirmation, however, he jarred me on the sideline of a soccer field when he admitted to me something he said he had kept on the down low: “Wes, as a scientist, of course, I know that under the microscope the host will look identical before and after the Mass, and therefore I don't really take it seriously that this bread changes into Christ, into God.” It hit me like a ton of bricks to hear that, because I knew that many think this way. And I am reminded of the famous New York dinner party at which Mary McCarthy, an ex-Catholic novelist, declared the Eucharist to be a useful literary tool, even for those who regard it as only a symbol. The otherwise silent O'Connor shocked the literary elite at this swank affair by suddenly declaring, “Well, if it is just a symbol, then to hell with it!”

We read in John 6:27, after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, “Do not labor for food that perishes, but for that which endures unto life everlasting, which the Son of Man will give you.” In the original Greek, the verb Jesus is recorded to have used was not a figurative “to eat” but rather he taught that we must “gnaw or munch” on the Flesh of Man in an animalistic manner. Thus, he presents Himself as real and enduring food. As a physician, I incorporate science into my faith to acknowledge that the Eucharistic meal enters into the actual workings of every cell in our bodies. This potent reality must change life intrinsically, even down to the most basic of events such as the generation of heart-beats, breaths, and (yes) sight.

How much do we long for Him? Poignantly, I had the privilege of witnessing true hunger for Christ during the Christmas season in the intensive care unit (ICU). As the attending physician, I was overwhelmingly blessed by a dying patient who came into the hospital having suffered for ten to fifteen years with a chronic disease that led to severe sepsis. He brought with him a shadow box that he had built to contain icons including crosses, water and soil from Golgotha, and a rosary. He called this an altar and begged, through gasping breaths at the end of his life, to receive Viaticum (“food for the journey”). I could see that for him, nothing else mattered. On receiving the Eucharist, I watched my patient shiver, and the closing words of Flannery O'Connor's story “The Enduring Chill” echoed in my mind:

The old life in him was exhausted. He awaited the coming of new. It was then that he felt the beginning of a chill, a chill so peculiar, so light, that it was like a warm ripple across the deeper sea of cold. His breath came short. … A feeble cry, a last impossible protest escaped him … and the Holy Ghost continued, implacable, to descend.

And my patient died within the hour, equipped with the only food that will never perish.

Mischaracterization of Evolution

I was struck by an aside on evolution that Dr. Samuel Nigro made in his review of Dinesh D'Souza's recent book Life after Death (Linacre Quarterly 78 [2011]: 475–479), and it was a sufficient mischaracterization of evolution that I wanted to provide some clarification. Dr. Nigro describes himself as a newfound skeptic of evolution on the basis of the pheromonal incompatibility of different species, preventing inter-species mating and the breeding of hybrids, and secondly, the sterility of hybrids produced under artificial circumstances, both of which he holds as incompatible with the Darwinian model of cross-species gene transfer.

The key tenet of evolution is speciation, which is not how separate species exchange genetic material but rather how populations of the same species diverge such that they no longer are genetically compatible, such as Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands. This is precisely the phenomenon that Dr. Nigro cites as a counterexample to evolution. While evolution has historically been challenged to explain large rearrangements of genes as a driver of evolution as opposed to the accumulation of point mutations in individual genes, scientists have discovered mechanisms for this. These include cross-species (“horizontal”) transfers of genes by viruses¹ and the duplication of genes, followed by subsequent mutations in the copies, allowing two formerly identical alleles to serve novel, parallel functions.² The latter finding, incidentally, provides a concrete mechanism for the evolution of complex molecular machines, which are the Intelligent Design movement's poster children for the inadequacy of evolutionary theory.

There are still open questions in the field, and the paradigms of evolution may yet be upended, but the same can be said of quantum physics, and they are not grounds for the rather swift dismissal made in Dr. Nigro's book review. No Catholic is obligated to believe in evolution or any other scientific theory, of course; but, especially as health professionals, our scientific positions should be as well-grounded as possible.

Erratum

In the letter to the editor “No Prenatal Diagnosis = Saved Lives” in the February 2012 issue of The Linacre Quarterly, Donna J. Harrison was inadvertantly listed as co-author. Dr. Harrison was the translator of the letter, not a co-author. While Dr. Harrison and AAPLOG respect Dr. Rodriguez and the work he is doing, the position in the letter is his alone and not the position of Dr. Harrison or AAPLOG. We at The Linacre Quarterly apologize for the error.