Transubstantiation

The words of consecration, pronounced by the priest,change bread and wine into the true body and blood of Christ. This sacrament is not a symbol or sign of Christ’s body and blood;it is, in actual fact, the body and blood of Christ.

By the consecration, the substance of the bread and the substance of the wine cease to exist, and there remains only the substance of the living Christ.

The substance of the bread and the substance of the wine are not merely dissolved or disintegrated, either gradually orinstantaneously; neither are these substances annihilated. They are changed into the body and blood of Christ.

The whole substance of the bread is, by divine power,changed into the whole substance of the body of Christ. And thewhole substance of the wine is, by divine power, changed into thewhole substance of the blood of Christ.

The accidentals or accidents of bread and wine (suchas, size, color, shape, taste) remain after the change, which is called tran-substantiation, has taken place. Theseaccidentals do not become theaccidentals of Christ; they remain the accidentals of bread and wine, even though the substance of bread and the substance of wine no longer exist to be qualified by these accidentals.

The element in a bodily thing that makes it the kind of substance that it is, is called the substantial form ofthat thing. When a substantial form is joined with primalmatter, it constitutes the matter as an existing bodily substance of a definite kind. Now, in transub-stantiation, the substantial form of bread (that which constitutes the bread as this kind of substance and no other) is removed; it does not remain, forthe substance is now not bread at all, but the substance of the living Christ. And the same is true of the substantial form of the wine; it does not remain, for, by transubstantiation, that which was wine is now not wine at all, but the substance of the living Christ.

Transubstantiation is an instantaneous change. There isno consuming of time, no movement of the elements (bread and wine)through successive stages or degrees as the change occurs which turns bread and wine into the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. That which infinite power accomplishes need not be worked by degrees, or with time intervals, as though some effort and skill were being applied to the work.

To say, “The body of Christ is made out of bread,” is true when the words are rightly understood, thatis, when these words are understood to mean, “Bread is changed substantially, and is now no longer bread, but the body of Christ.”