descends from heaven, but that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ." [1] This admirable change, as the Council of Trent teaches, the Catholic Church most appropriately expresses by the word " transubstantiation." [2] When, in the natural order, the form of a being is changed, that change inay be properly termed "a transformation;" in like manner, when, in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the whole substance of one thing passes into the whole substance of another, the change our predecessors in the faith wisely and appropriately called " transubstantiation." But according to the admonition so frequently repeated by the Holy Fathers, the faithful are to be admonished against the danger ol gratifying a prurient curiosity, by searching into the manner in which this change is effected. It mocks the powers of conception, nor can we find any example of it in natural transmutations, nor even in the wide range of creation. The change itself is the object not of our comprehension, but of our humble faith; and the manner of that change forbids the temerity of a too curious inquiry. [3]
The same salutary caution should also be observed by the pastor, with regard to the mysterious manner in which the body of our Lord is contained whole and entire under the least particle of the bread. [4] Such inscrutable mysteries should scarcely ever become matter of disquisition. Should Christian charity, however, require a departure from this salutary rule, the pastor will recollect first to prepare and fortify his hearers, by reminding them, that "no word shall be impossible with God." [5]
The pastor will next teach, that our Lord is not in the Sacrament as in a place: place regards things, only inasmuch as they have magnitude; and we do not say that Christ is in the Sacrament inasmuch as he is great or small, terms which belong to quantity, but inasmuch as he is a substance. The substance of the bread is changed into the substance of Christ, not into magnitude or quantity; and substance, it will be acknowledged, is contained in a small as well as in a large space. The substance of air, for instance, whether in a large or in a small quantity, and that of water whether confined in a vessel, or flowing in a river, must necessarily be the same. As, then, the body of our Lord succeeds to the substance of the bread, we must confess it to be in the Sacrament after the same manner, as the bread was before consecration: whether the substance of the bread was present in greater or less quantity is a matter of entire indifference.
We now come to the third effect produced by the words of consecration, the existence of the species of bread and wine in the Sacrament without a subject, an effect as stupendous as it is admirable. What has been said in explanation of the two preceding points, must facilitate the exposition of this mysterious
