Here, after the shocking reality of Transubstantiation, as of Tabor, we are left to mumble with Peter and the Church the truth of this experience (Mt 17:4). How else but to tell the mystery of the slain Lamb on the altar just the way it is:
We proclaim your Death, O Lord,
and profess your Resurrection,
until you come again.
When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup,
we proclaim your Death, O Lord,
until you come again.
Save us, Saviour of the world,
for by your Cross and Resurrection
you have set us free.
Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed (Jn 20:29). It is silly to opt for a preference of seeing the actual cosmological dynamics taking place during the Eucharist; who can withstand the sight of God, that which every Prophet dreaded, and an experience from which all Apostles fled?
Instead, the Eucharistic sign becomes, through the God given gift of faith, an act of mercy that leverages our sight, shielding from us the blazing mountain, the darkness, the gloom and the storm of Transubstantiation, and allowing us a corporeal access to the Divine Sion (Heb 12: 18-24).
But how sure are we that this faith is not a figment of imagination? The answer is in the ‘know’, and a verification of the sign; the sheer strength of a belief gifted by God, and a conviction born of personal experience through an attentiveness to the Eucharist (Jn 14:11).
Signs, while necessary, suffer from a contemporary crisis of verification that is ruled by the dictatorship of minds focused on the spectacular, an anomaly which has transmogrified modern man into an evil and adulterous specie (Jn 12:39).
The ‘know’ also suffers from the constant constraint of materialism and consumerism. But the paradigm of reality has shifted, the real has become unreal and the unreal is more real than the real. Seeing is surely believing, but more importantly now, believing is seeing. Mind rules before Matter.
The starting point of this perception is in faithfulness to little things (Lk 16:10) and an accompaniment of thanksgiving that enables the signs of times also to be seen in great things (Jn 12: 54-56). Discard not your good ‘silly’ mustard thoughts, follow through and see how it would blossom into a reality greater than your very self.
Faith is built out of a fellowship with Christ (Heb 12: 2) and an accompaniment by the Church (1 Tim 3: 15) amidst her numerous scandals. Detest scandal but develop a thick skin against it, refuse to be scandalized, for no man can be trusted (Ps 116:11). Every scandal has found an alibi in the great scandal of Transubstantiation. Get over it and follow.
The ‘know’ and verification of every sign and wonder shall ultimately narrow down to the historical drama taking place within the Eucharist, that is the promised sign of Jonah, the mystery of our faith (Jn 12:39).
