“Words change reality”

This title is in quotation marks because it is not mine but Bishop Robert Barron’s simple way of explaining the mysterious change of the substances of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus during the Holy Mass. This changed-reality is called Transubstantiation in Catholic theology.

The words, “This is my Body… This is my Blood”, are words of Jesus who is God in human form. They therefore have power to change the essence of things which only God can do.

Now there are other realities surrounding the bread-and-wine realities that need also to change by the influence and power of the Real Presence of the Risen Lord. I refer to the reality of the priests celebrating the Sacrifice and uttering these words, “In the Person of Christ”, that is, in the name of Jesus. To be sure a real personal change is always expected of him and of others like him. And change too is expected in the persons of the individuals of the community who participate in the celebration and receive the awesome Real Presence in Holy Communion.

How about the reality of the terrifying presence of the coronavirus 19? Can there be a change too here?

While at the moment we cannot celebrate the Holy Mass with an actual community because of the quarantine and the lockdown, we have been praying, as we watch in the internet the livestreamed Masses, that the disease would soon disappear completely.

There is another reality in my own personal situation. I have been noticing, as do some others I read in the internet, that the long absence of the Real Presence and the worshipping community due to the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic has made us somehow question our personal faith in the power of this Divine Presence. For my part this might sound ambitious and daring, but oftentimes I recall Acts 3:1-10 where a crippled man was healed at the Temple’s gate by the words of the apostles Peter and John. Then I ask myself in humble wonderment if this gift can happen to us priests celebrants empowered by ordination to say, This is my Body… This is my Blood. Yes, I am referring to our personal faith and experience of the Risen Lord.

Of course, we know that unless we experience in humble love the Risen Lord we cannot dare even just to think and say to Covid-19 infected patients, like Peter and John did to the cripple, “Look at us. Silver and gold I do not have but what I have I give you: In the name of Jesus the Risen Lord, get up and be free of the virus!”. Or, “Covid-19, get out of this patient and disappear!”. Ambitious and daring? Sorry. No. Just a humble wish and prayer — hopefully and God-willing with His mercy.