In this last conference, what I'd like to talk about is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist

and the way in which the reception of the Most Holy Eucharist

nourishes not only our relationship with Christ, but especially also our relationship with the Holy Spirit

and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Now, in the first part of this talk, which will be maybe a bit

briefer, I'm going to just touch upon the question of what the Eucharist is.

And here I want to talk about the doctrine of concomitance.

That's a great medieval term, a kind of technical term,

that allows us to think about the presence of God in the Holy

Eucharist. So, as we know, the church teaches doctrinally based on the authority of the Word

of God and the Holy Scripture that when a validly ordained minister, be it a priest or a bishop,

says the words of consecration over the bread and wine,

they become, respectively, the body and blood of Christ.

The whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the flesh of Christ, the body of Christ,

and the whole substance of wine is changed into the blood of Christ.

And yet the accidents or properties, the qualities, and quantity of bread and wine remain

so that they are present as that which we can communion in eating the

accidents of bread and wine so as to commune in the very substance of the body and blood

of Christ. You actually commune in the body and blood of Christ through the medium of the

consumption of the accidents of bread and wine. So far, so good, that's just the fundamental mystery of transubstantiation.

And notewen in passing, the mystery of transubstantiation can never be proven

by the powers of mere human reason.

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