The Reformers, since they had explicitly rejected the idea of a ministerial priesthood, engaged in some pretty shaky theological, metaphysical, & linguistic chicanery to somehow make Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist fit with their new ecclesial & sacramental models.

Consubstantial was a favorite term – Christ present alongside the elements, but not actually the elements themselves. Or it may have been a passing presence, not a lasting one. Sorry, homebound. The worst is perhaps the lack of belief in any presence at all. How far that falls from not only what the Lord himself said, but what Christianity has believed always & everywhere since the beginning.

The fruit of this is frequently seen at Protestant “communion services” all over the land: after the service, the bread gets dumped in the trash & the grape juice poured down the sink drain. I witnessed this many times myself before I came back to the Church, & even knowing that it wasn’t the Eucharist, it almost made me sick.

We must never get content or lazy about trying to explain this central Mystery of the Faith to our separated brethren. Just tonight, I saw a TV ad for a show called Hocus Pocus about witches. Hocus Pocus was term created to mock Catholic belief in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist & to equate the priest’s actions with practicing magic…

“Hoc est enim corpus meum” – This is my body