I ended the last issue of this article with comments on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Indeed this is one of the most profound mysteries in which we believe and one which, after the Reformation in the West, many Christian groups have come to deny. It should be noted that the Eastern churches have never denied belief in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is present in a wholly unique manner in the Eucharist. This presence is called real – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be real too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes Himself wholly and entirely present.

In the Eucharist the bread and wine are changed into Christ Himself, for Christ is really present in the Eucharist – really and permanently present, as the Liturgy of the Presanctified gifts make clear. There is a real change of the bread and wine in the Eucharist.

But the change needs to be put in a broader context, if we are to grasp its significance. If the notion of the change is isolated, there is the danger of trying to find some change analogous to the kind of change that takes place, for example, in a chemical reaction – precisely what the Latin doctrine of transubstantiation was seeking to avoid, and not at any perceptible level, whether appearance or anything else that could be detected by human methods of assessment. As the Reformation debates made clear, that danger was not always avoided either by those who insisted on the eucharistic change or by those who denied it.

The wider context is made clear if we look at the prayer of invocation, or epiclesis in the Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom’s Liturgy. The priest prays: Moreover, we offer to You this     spiritual and unbloody sacrifice, and we implore, pray and entreat You: send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts lying before us and make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ….And that which is in this chalice, the precious Blood of Your Christ….Changing Them by Your Holy Spirit.

The invocation to the Holy Spirit is for Him to descend on us and the gifts. We pray that the Holy Spirit may change the gifts of bread and wine into the precious body and blood of Christ and that the Holy Spirit, coming on us, may work a change in us who receive them.

This is where we will begin in the next issue. The change happens. It is truly a mystery that we believe and don’t even really hope to explain.