Catechesis on the Most Holy Eucharist

The Real Presence

The fact of the REAL PRESENCE

The reality itself of the bread, is changed, into the reality itself of the living, wounded, glorified, Body of Jesus Christ. The same Body that was born of the Virgin, nailed to Cross, and which came forth alive from the tomb on the third day.

The reality itself of the wine is changed, into the reality itself of the living, glorified, Blood of Jesus Christ. We call this the Real Presence. It is real. Just as real as you are, sitting in that pew It is not a merely symbolic presence. The crucifix behind me shows Jesus crucified, still alive but crucified. The image of the Sacred Heart shows Jesus Christ risen from the dead . These are images. These are depictions. But what is in the tabernacle is not an image, not a symbol, not a depiction. Jesus Christ is as really present in the Blessed Sacrament as you are really present in that bench where you are sitting. You are not symbolically present in the church today, you are really present. Jesus Christ is present really, truly and substantially in His Body Blood, Soul and Divinity.

The WITNESS of the Church's Faith

When this mass began you stood up to begin the sacred action of worship of the Divine Majesty. (You did not stand "to greet Father Paul".) Rather, we stood to begin the Sacred action. When I reached the front, on your behalf and my own,0 I touched my right knee to the ground. I made a genuflection. This was an act of adoration of the Real Presence. Later, just after the consecration of the bread, I touched my right knee again to the ground. And after consecrating the chalice, which from that moment contains the glorified Blood of Jesus, I bent my knee to the ground, I touched my right need to the ground. These are acts of adoration of the Real Presence. Again before receiving Holy Communion, I genuflected, and before I left the area of the sanctuary and processed to the back of the church I genuflected. These are acts of adoration of the Real presence. I acknowledged my Creator and Lord, Who is Jesus, present in the tabernacle or on the altar. I expressed therefore my absolute dependence upon my Lord and my God and I expressed that I owe Him everything. Before the time of Holy communion, you yourselves attested to the fact of the Real Presence. You were on your knees and I held up the Bread of Life, the Sacred Host and I said to you in, in effect. "Look! This is is the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God." And you responded, speaking to the Host, speaking to the Bread of Life. "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof."

God Himself bears witness

From time to time God Himself bears witness to the Real Presence. These divine testimonies are called "Eucharistic Miracles". Here is an example:

A genuine miracle played a decisive role in Pedro Arrupe's decision to become a priest. He was a young medical student on pilgrimage to Lourdes. He noticed a young man twisted with polio in a wheelchair at Mass. As the Blessed Sacrament came near, he cried out "If you want to, You can cure me!" When he was blessed by the Sacred Host in the monstrance, the young man leapt to his feet, instantly and completely cured. Writes Arrupe:

Thanks to the special permission I had, I was later able to assist at the medical examinations of the young man. The Lord had truly cured him. There is no need to tell you what I felt and thought at that moment. I had come from the Faculty of Medicine in Madrid where I discovered so many professors (some truly renowned) and so many companions who had no faith and who always ridiculed miracles. At Lourdes, I had been an eyewitness of a true miracle worked by Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, by that same Jesus Christ who had, during the course of His life, cured so many who were ill and paralytic.

"I sensed God very close and tugging at me."

Interestingly, there was another miracle in the future Jesuit's life.

Arrupe wrote in a book –I lived the atomic bomb – his experiences the day of the tragedy and the following months. On 6 August 1945, he was in a house with 35 young people and several Jesuit fathers, when, at 8:15 a.m., he saw "a very powerful light, like a magnesium explosion, shot before our eyes".

When we opened the door of the room facing Hiroshima, "we heard a huge explosion, similar to the roar of a terrible hurricane, which took doors, windows, glasses, unstable walls…, that broke to pieces and fell over our heads". These were three or four seconds "that seemed to be lethal", although all those present there saved their lives. And none of those in the house ever suffered radiation sickness.