Q. 228:  How can one possibly believe that the "bread" or "host" that we receive at the Eucharistic liturgy can possibly be the real body and blood of Christ?

A. 228:  If you have any grandkids at all, you will probably appreciate the one-word comment of "Yuck" that accompanies their reaction to many sensory perceptions.  Have you ever tried to get them to eat peas or liver?  And they say: Yuck!  Or, what do very young boys say about girls, and vice-versa?  Yuck!
Now, be realistic: when the pagans in the first and second centuries heard that Christians were "eating the flesh and blood of Jesus," what do you think they first felt?  Yuck!  Cannibalism!  Can you blame an unbeliever, who had not yet heard the truth about Jesus, the Good News?  And twenty centuries later, can you blame a non-Catholic for not understanding what us "insiders" call "transubstantiation" - our weak attempt to describe the most incredible miracle in history - past, present or future?  And even us "insiders" don't understand it; we just "believe"!
This is probably the supreme test of our faith, of anyone's faith.  To believe that somehow the Creator of the Universe, the omnipotent one, the omniscient one, is -- or maybe is not? -- able to totally transmute into what "appears" to our senses to be bread and wine.  Do you and I pass this test?  Do we take Jesus at his word and believe?  Or do we do what some of them said: "This is a hard saying" - and walk away?
Praise God for your faith in this central mystery, an incredible gift from God!  You have heard and seen and believed what kings and prophets have wished to see and hear (Luke 10:24).

Know Your Catechism!  At the Last Supper, Jesus anticipated the free offering of his life (CCC# 610).  This memorial has been repeated for twenty centuries by the valid clergy, faithfully preserving the deposit of faith and the very Paschal mystery of Jesus (CCC# 1341-44).  Are you aware of the significance of his sacramental presence (CCC# 1380-81), and why faith is so central to accepting this foundational belief?

Deacon Paul Rooney
Mary Our Queen Parish, Omaha

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