EUCHARISTIC MYSTERY IN SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

26. For the joy and edification of everyone, We would like to review with you, Venerable Brothers, the
doctrine on the Mystery of the Eucharist that has been handed down, and that the Catholic Church holds
and teaches with unanimity.

Re-enactment at Heart of Doctrine

27. It is a good idea to recall at the very outset what may be termed the heart and core of the doctrine,
namely that, by means of the Mystery of the Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Cross which was once carried
out on Calvary is re-enacted in wonderful fashion and is constantly recalled, and its salvific power is
applied to the forgiving of the sins we commit each day." (12)

28. just as Moses made the Old Testament sacred with the blood of calves, (13) so too Christ the Lord
took the New Testament, of which He is the Mediator, and made it sacred through His own blood, in
instituting the mystery of the Eucharist. For, as the Evangelists narrate, at the Last Supper "he took bread,
and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body, given for you; do this for a
commemoration of me. And so with the cup, when supper was ended, This cup, he said, is the new
testament, in my Blood which is to be shed for you." (l4) And by bidding the Apostles to do this in
memory of Him, He made clear that He wanted it to be forever repeated. This intention of Christ was
faithfully carried out by the primitive Church through her adherence to the teaching of the Apostles and
through her gatherings to celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice. As St. Luke is careful to point out, "They
occupied themselves continually with the Apostles' teaching, their fellowship in the breaking of bread,
and the fixed times of prayer." (l5) The faithful used to derive such spiritual fervor from this practice that
it was said of them that "there was one heart and soul in all the company of the believers." (16)

New Offering of the New Testament

29. Moreover, the Apostle Paul, who faithfully transmitted to us what he had received from the Lord, (17)
is clearly speaking of the Eucharistic Sacrifice when he points out that Christians ought not take part in
pagan sacrifices, precisely because they have been made partakers of the table of the Lord. "Is not this
cup we bless," he says, "a participation in Christ's Blood? Is not the Bread we break a participation in
Christ's Body? . . . To drink the Lord's cup, and yet to drink the cup of evil spirits, to share the Lord's
feast, and to share the feast of evil spirits, is impossible for you." (18) Foreshadowed by Malachias, (19)
this new oblation of the New Testament has always been offered by the Church, in accordance with the
teaching of Our Lord and the Apostles, "not only to atone for the sins and punishments and satisfactions
of the living faithful and to appeal for their other needs, but also to help those who have died in Christ but
have not yet been completely purified." (20)

Offered Also for the Dead

30. We will pass over the other citations and rest content with recalling the testimony offered by St. Cyril
of Jerusalem, who wrote the following memorable words for the neophytes whom he was instructing in
the Christian faith: "After the spiritual sacrifice, the un-bloody act of worship, has been completed, we
bend over this propitiatory offering and beg God to grant peace to all the Churches, to give harmony to
the whole world, to bless our rulers, our soldiers and our companions, to aid the sick and afflicted, and in
general to assist all those who stand in need; we all pray for all these intentions and we offer this victim
for them . . . and last of all for our deceased holy forefathers and bishops and for all those who have lived
among us. For we have a deep conviction that great help will be afforded those souls for whom prayers
are offered while this holy and awesome victim is present." In support of this, this holy Doctor offers the
example of a crown made for an emperor in order to win a pardon for some exiles, and he concludes his
talk with these words: "In the same fashion, when we offer our prayers to God for the dead, even those
who are sinners, we are not just making a crown but instead are offering Christ who was slaughtered for
our sins, and thus begging the merciful God to take pity both on them and on ourselves.'' (21) St.
Augustine attests that this custom of offering the "sacrifice which ransomed us" also for the dead was
observed in the Church at Rome, (22) and he mentions at the same time that the universal Church
observed this custom as something handed down from the Fathers. (23)

The Universal Priesthood

31. But there is something else that We would like to add that is very helpful in shedding light on the
mystery of the Church; We mean the fact that the whole Church plays the role of priest and victim along
with Christ, offering the Sacrifice of the Mass and itself completely offered in it. The Fathers of the
Church taught this wondrous doctrine. (24) A few years ago Our predecessor of happy memory, Pius XII,
explained it. (25) And only recently the Second Vatican Council reiterated it in its Constitution on the
Church, in dealing with the people of God. (26) To be sure, the distinction between the universal
priesthood and the hierarchical priesthood is something essential and not just a matter of degree, and it
has to be maintained in a proper way. (27) Yet We cannot help being filled with an earnest desire to see
this teaching explained over and over until it takes deep root in the hearts of the faithful. For it is a most
effective means of fostering devotion to the Eucharist, of extolling the dignity of all the faithful, and of
spurring them on to reach the heights of sanctity, which means the total and generous offering of oneself
to the service of the Divine Majesty.

No Mass is "Private"

32. It is also only fitting for us to recall the conclusion that can be drawn from this about "the public and
social nature of each and every Mass." (28) For each and every Mass is not something private, even if a
priest celebrates it privately; instead, it is an act of Christ and of the Church. In offering this sacrifice, the
Church learns to offer herself as a sacrifice for all and she applies the unique and infinite redemptive
power of the sacrifice of the Cross to the salvation of the whole world. For every Mass that is celebrated
is being offered not just for the salvation of certain people, but also for the salvation of the whole world.
The conclusion from this is that even though active participation by many faithful is of its very nature
particularly fitting when Mass is celebrated, still there is no reason to criticize but rather only to approve a
Mass that a priest celebrates privately for a good reason in accordance with the regulations and legitimate
traditions of the Church, even when only a server to make the responses is present. For such a Mass
brings a rich and abundant treasure of special graces to help the priest himself, the faithful, the whole
Church and the whole world toward salvation—and this same abundance of graces is not gained through
mere reception of Holy Communion.

33. And so, We recommend from a paternal and solicitous heart that priests, who constitute Our greatest
joy and Our crown in the Lord, be mindful of the power they have received from the bishop who ordained
them—the power of offering sacrifice to God and of celebrating Mass for the living and for the dead in
the name of the Lord. (79) We recommend that they celebrate Mass daily in a worthy and devout fashion,
so that they themselves and the rest of the faithful may enjoy the benefits that flow in such abundance
from the Sacrifice of the Cross. In doing so, they will also be making a great contribution toward the
salvation of mankind.

CHRIST SACRAMENTALLY PRESENT IN THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

Various Ways in Which Christ is Present

35. All of us realize that there is more than one way in which Christ is present in His Church. We want to
go into this very joyful subject, which the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy presented briefly, (30) at
somewhat greater length. Christ is present in His Church when she prays, since He is the one who "prays
for us and prays in us and to whom we pray: He prays for us as our priest, He prays in us as our head, He
is prayed to by us as our God" (31); and He is the one who has promised, "Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them." (32) He is present in the Church as she
performs her works of mercy, not just because whatever good we do to one of His least brethren we do to
Christ Himself, (33)but also because Christ is the one who performs these works through the Church and
who continually helps men with His divine love. He is present in the Church as she moves along on her
pilgrimage with a longing to reach the portals of eternal life, for He is the one who dwells in our hearts
through faith, (34) and who instills charity in them through the Holy Spirit whom He gives to us. (35)

36. In still another very genuine way, He is present in the Church as she preaches, since the Gospel which
she proclaims is the word of God, and it is only in the name of Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, and by
His authority and with His help that it is preached, so that there might be "one flock resting secure in one
shepherd." (36)

37. He is present in His Church as she rules and governs the People of God, since her sacred power comes
from Christ and since Christ, the "Shepherd of Shepherds," (37) is present in the bishops who exercise
that power, in keeping with the promise He made to the Apostles.

38. Moreover, Christ is present in His Church in a still more sublime manner as she offers the Sacrifice of
the Mass in His name; He is present in her as she administers the sacraments. On the matter of Christ's
presence in the offering of the Sacrifice of the Mass, We would like very much to call what St. John
Chrysostom, overcome with awe, had to say in such accurate and eloquent words: "I wish to add
something that is clearly awe-inspiring, but do not be surprised or upset. What is this? It is the same
offering, no matter who offers it, be it Peter or Paul. It is the same one that Christ gave to His disciples
and the same one that priests now perform: the latter is in no way inferior to the former, for it is not men
who sanctify the latter, but He who sanctified the former. For just as the words which God spoke are the
same as those that the priest now pronounces, so too the offering is the same." (38) No one is unaware
that the sacraments are the actions of Christ who administers them through men. And so the sacraments
are holy in themselves and they pour grace into the soul by the power of Christ, when they touch the
body. The Highest Kind of Presence.

These various ways in which Christ is present fill the mind with astonishment and offer the Church a
mystery for her contemplation. But there is another way in which Christ is present in His Church, a way
that surpasses all the others. It is His presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is, for this reason,
"a more consoling source of devotion, a lovelier object of contemplation and holier in what it contains"
(39) than all the other sacraments; for it contains Christ Himself and it is "a kind of consummation of the
spiritual life, and in a sense the goal of all the sacraments." (40)
39. This presence is called "real" not to exclude the idea that the others are "real" too, but rather to
indicate presence par excellence, because it is substantial and through it Christ becomes present whole
and entire, God and man. (41) And so it would be wrong for anyone to try to explain this manner of
presence by dreaming up a so-called "pneumatic" nature of the glorious body of Christ that would be
present everywhere; or for anyone to limit it to symbolism, as if this most sacred Sacrament were to
consist in nothing more than an efficacious sign "of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate
union with the faithful, the members of His Mystical Body." (42)

The Proper Use of Symbolism

40. It is true that the Fathers and Scholastics had a great deal to say about symbolism in the Eucharist,
especially with regard to the unity of the Church. The Council of Trent, in re-stating their doctrine, taught
that our Saviour bequeathed the Eucharist to His Church "as a symbol . . . of the unity and charity with
which He wished all Christians to be joined among themselves," "and hence as a symbol of that one Body
of which He is the Head." (43)

41. When Christian literature was still in its infancy, the unknown author of the work called the "Didache
or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" had this to write on the subject: "As far as the Eucharist is
concerned, give thanks in this manner: . . . just as this bread had been broken and scattered over the hills
and was made one when it was gathered together, so too may your church be gathered into your kingdom
from the ends of the earth." (44)

42. St. Cyprian too, in the course of laying stress on the Church's unity in opposition to schism, said this:
"Finally the Lord's sacrifices proclaim the unity of Christians who are bound together by a firm and
unshakeable charity. For when the Lord calls the bread that has been made from many grains of wheat
His Body, He is describing our people whose unity He has sustained; and when He refers to wine pressed
from many grapes and berries as His Blood, once again He is speaking of our flock which has been
formed by fusing many into one." (45)

43. But before all of these, St. Paul had written to the Corinthians: "The one bread makes us one body,
though we are many in number; the same bread is shared by all." (46)

Symbolism Inadequate to Express Real Presence

44. While Eucharistic symbolism is well suited to helping us understand the effect that is proper to this
Sacrament—the unity of the Mystical Body—still it does not indicate or explain what it is that makes this
Sacrament different from all the others. For the constant teaching that the Catholic Church has passed on
to her catechumens, the understanding of the Christian people, the doctrine defined by the Council of
Trent, the very words that Christ used when He instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, all require us to
profess that "the Eucharist is the flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins and which
the Father in His loving kindness raised again." (47) To these words of St. Ignatius, we may well add
those which Theodore of Mopsuestia, who is a faithful witness to the faith of the Church on this point,
addressed to the people: "The Lord did not say: This is symbol of my body, and this is a symbol of my
blood, but rather: This is my body and my blood. He teaches us not to look to the nature of what lies
before us and is perceived by the senses, because the giving of thanks and the words spoken over it have
changed it into flesh and blood." (45)

45. The Council of Trent, basing itself on this faith of the Church, "openly and sincerely professes that
after the consecration of the bread and wine, Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is really, truly and
substantially contained in the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the outward appearances of
sensible things." And so Our Savior is present in His humanity not only in His natural manner of
existence at the right hand of the Father, but also at the same time in the sacrament of the Eucharist "in a
manner of existing that we can hardly express in words but that our minds, illumined by faith, can come
to see as possible to God and that we must most firmly believe." (49)

CHRIST PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST THROUGH TRANSUBSTANTIATION

46. To avoid any misunderstanding of this type of presence, which goes beyond the laws of nature and
constitutes the greatest miracle of its kind, (50) we have to listen with docility to the voice of the teaching
and praying Church. Her voice, which constantly echoes the voice of Christ, assures us that the way in
which Christ becomes present in this Sacrament is through the conversion of the whole substance of the
bread into His body and of the whole substance of the wine into His blood, a unique and truly wonderful
conversion that the Catholic Church fittingly and properly calls transubstantiation. (51) As a result of
transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new
finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign
of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain
a new "reality" which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned
species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of
Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed
into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—
beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical "reality," corporeally present, although
not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

Writings of the Fathers

47. This is why the Fathers felt they had a solemn duty to warn the faithful that, in reflecting upon this
most sacred Sacrament, they should not pay attention to the senses, which report only the properties of
bread and wine, but rather to the words of Christ, which have power great enough to change, transform,
"transelementize" the bread and wine into His body and blood. As a matter of fact, as the same Fathers
point out on more than one occasion, the power that does this is the same power of Almighty God that
created the whole universe out of nothing at the beginning of time.

48. "Instructed as you are in these matters," says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, at the end of a sermon on the
mysteries of the faith, "and filled with an unshakeable faith that what seems to be bread is not bread—
though it tastes like it—but rather the Body of Christ; and that what seems to be wine is not wine—even
though it too tastes like it—but rather the Blood of Christ . . . draw strength from receiving this bread as
spiritual food and your soul will rejoice." (52)

49. St. John Chrysostom insists upon the same point with these words: "It is not man who makes what is
put before him the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ Himself who was crucified for us. The priest
standing there in the place of Christ says these words, but their power and grace are from God. This is my
Body, he says, and these words transform what lies before him." (53)

50. Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, is in wonderful harmony with John, the Bishop of Constantinople,
when he writes in his commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew: "He said This is my body and this is my
blood in a demonstrative fashion, so that you might not judge that what you see is a mere figure; instead
the offerings are truly changed by the hidden power of God Almighty into Christ's body and blood, which
bring us the life-giving and sanctifying power of Christ when we share in them." (54)
51. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, in a clear statement on the Eucharistic conversion, has this to say: "Let
us be assured that this is not what nature formed but what the blessing has consecrated; and there is
greater power in the blessing and in nature, since nature itself is changed through the blessing." To
confirm the truth of this mystery, he recounts many of the miracles described in the Sacred Scriptures,
including Christ's birth of the Virgin Mary, and then he turns his mind to the work of creation, concluding
this way: "Surely the word of Christ, who could make something that did not exist out of nothing, can
change things that do exist into something they were not before. For it is no less extraordinary to give
new natures to things than it is to change nature." (55)