Good evening, dear Father Angelo,

I would like to ask you the following question: if the Eucharistic rite in the missal were to be changed from ‘Take this, all of you and eat of it, for  this is my Body, offered in sacrifice for you’ to a different word (such as ‘sign of love’), would Transubstantiation still take place?

If not, and the second part of the rite (that of the chalice) remained unchanged, would the Transubstantiation of the Wine also become invalid, or would it remain valid?

Thank you and have a good evening.

Mauro

The priest’s answer

Dear Mauro,

1. Saint Ambrose reminds us that “consecration is performed with the words and affirmations of the Lord Jesus. In fact, with all other words, God is praised, supplications are made for the people, for kings, for everyone else. But when performing the venerable sacrament, the priest no longer uses his own expressions, but rather the words of Christ. Therefore, it is the word of Christ that performs this sacrament” (De Sacramentis, 4,4).

2.St Thomas gives two reasons for saying that consecration takes place through the words of Christ.

The first: because while in other sacraments the words spoken by the minister indicate the use of the sacrament, for example, I baptise you, I absolve you from your sins, here in the Eucharist the words express the consecration of the bread and wine even before stating the reason for it.

The words that effect the consecration or transubstantiation of the bread are as follows: “This is my body”. The words that express the reason why it is made present are: “Offered in sacrifice for you”.

The same applies to the consecration of the wine. The words that consecrate are: “This is the chalice of my blood”, and those that express the reason for the consecration are: “poured out for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins”.

3.The second reason is to affirm that “consecration is accomplished by using the very words of Christ, because the priest at that moment utters them in the person of Christ himself who speaks; so that it is understood that the minister in the celebration of this sacrament does nothing other than utter the words of Christ” (Summa Theologica, III, 78, 1).

4.Although consecration takes place instantaneously with the utterance of the words “this is my body and this is the chalice of my blood”, nevertheless all the other words of Christ are essential for consecration’ (Ib., III, 78, 3).

Here, by the word “essential”, St Thomas means that it is necessary to utter them because, as he himself says, they are for the integrity of the sacrament (pertinent ad integritatem locutionis: they belong to the integrity of the formula).

So “it must therefore be considered that if the priest were to pronounce only the above words with the intention of celebrating this sacrament, it would be valid: for the intention would make these words understood as uttered in the person of Christ, even if this were not expressed by the preceding words (the preceding words are: ’take and eat of this, all of you”).

However, the priest who celebrated in this way would be committing a grave sin, since he would not be respecting the rite of the Church” (Ib., III, 78, 1, ad 4).

5.This is also what the Church teaches in her magisterium. In fact, the Council of Florence in the bull Exultate Deo declares : “The form of this sacrament is the words with which the Saviour consecrated it. The priest consecrates by speaking in the person of Christ.  And by virtue of these same words, the substance of bread is transformed into the body of Christ and the substance of wine into his blood. However, this occurs in such a way that the whole Christ is contained under the species of bread and the whole Christ under the species of wine, and even if these elements were divided into parts, in every part of the consecrated host and consecrated wine there is the whole Christ” (DS 1321).

6.Therefore, the words of consecration are as follows: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat of it: this is my body, which will be given up for you,’ and ‘Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the chalice of my blood, the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.’

For validity, the words ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood’ are required because they signify and bring about the presence of Christ’s body and blood.

The others are not secondary or accessory, but are essential for the integrity of the sacrament.

Therefore, the corruption of the words that are for the integrity of the sacrament does not invalidate the sacrament.

So, if by chance a priest were to say, ‘This is my body offered as a sign of love for you,’ it would not invalidate the celebration of Mass. But, according to St Thomas, he would be committing a grave sin.

7.Saying ‘sign of love’ instead of ‘offered in sacrifice’ is wrong because it does not make clear Jesus’ sacrificial intention.

The expression ‘sign of love’ is generic. A gift is also a sign of love.

The Latin text Quod pro vobis tradetur means that he is sacrificed for you. In our translation, ‘offered in sacrifice for you’ is the equivalent.

Offering oneself in sacrifice is undoubtedly a sign of love, but not every sign of love is an offering in sacrifice.

Therefore, any change is not only generic and arbitrary, but incorrect and can lend itself to the denial of Christ’s sacrifice.

8.To complete the answer to your last question: if he had altered the essential words of the consecration of the bread so as to render it invalid and had faithfully uttered those of the consecration of the wine, the consecration of the wine would be valid and that of the bread invalid.

But since the celebration of the sacrifice consists in the separate consecration of the two offerings, if only one is consecrated, it is as if he began the celebration of the sacrifice but left it half done.

This would constitute a profanation of the sacrament.

I wish you all the best, I bless you and I remember you in my prayers.

Father Angelo

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