Are we back again with the liberal theological and Christological heresies of the sixties and seventies? Insubordinate theologians tried and tried to dethrone the sacrosanct term “transubstantiation,” which expresses the change of bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ at the consecration of the Mass, but they failed miserably. Their theories and new terminology have gone with the wind. No one even remembers them. But “transubstantiation” lives on as the best expression of the sacramental mystery of Faith. The way Father Kelly talks one would think that Aristotle invented the word “substance” out of thin air. If he did (as far as I know, he did not), then the Holy Ghost approved of his invention because Saint Paul was so inspired to use the Greek equivalent “hypostasis” at least three times in his epistle to the Hebrews. “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high” (1:3). We also get the sacramental term “character” from the Greek word for “figure” (carakter, perfect image) inspired by God in this passage. Moreover the Council of Nicaea in 325 also adopted the term, consecrating it as the shibboleth of orthodoxy against the Arians, to express the oneness of the divine nature of the Father and Son, homoousios, which means “consubstantial,” i.e., of the same substance. Substance, as the Greek philosophers understood the term, means “that which exists in itself,” as distinguished from accidents, which do not exist in themselves but in a substance.” Accidents “in-exist.” Therefore, in the Holy Eucharist, the substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the Body of Christ, while the accidents of bread remain. Once you tamper with these traditional terms, you lose the definition of the reality you are identifying. The Church has spoken. There is no better way to describe the mystery of Faith, that is the changing of the elements of bread and wine into the living Glorified Body of Christ, than the active word, transubstantiation. The news clip is short but poignant in its catechetical preciseness. The Comments are also very informative.
Catholic Culture reports: Stating that “Catholics can become fanatical about one form of the Body of Christ in the bread of the Eucharist as the REAL presence of Christ,” Father Michael Kelly, the Jesuit CEO of the Asian Catholic news agency UCA News, criticized the doctrine of transubstantiation in a May 24 column. Full report is here.
