38 Adoration Companion The Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass We believe that the Mass…is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. We believe that…the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence. Christ cannot be thus present in this sacrament except by the change into his Body of the reality itself of the bread and the change into his Blood of the reality itself of the wine, leaving unchanged only the properties of the bread and wine that our senses perceive. This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must…maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the consecration, so that it is the adorable Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine…. The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament that is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed host that our eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom they cannot see, and who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us. From Sollemnis Professio Fidei, an apostolic letter on the Credo of the People of God, proclaimed by Saint Paul VI on June 30, 1968.
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