Accepting the unknowable
The Council of Trent (1551) defined transubstantiation as “that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood – the species only of the bread and wine remaining – which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly call Transubstantiation.”
Our increasingly secular culture promotes a materialistic attitude that denigrates and dismisses the idea of miracles and mysteries. Like the apostle Thomas unless we can see it, touch it, taste it, prove it, then it cannot possibly exist or be real. Mystery and miracle are suspect, only real, when scientifically or rationally explained. This materialistic attitude directs us toward the denial of the unknowable, to admitting that creation, redemption, resurrection, sin, grace, the real presence, and transubstantiation are improbabilities not reality.
The sense of wonder that should fill us has been replaced by pragmatism and materialism. We see the light but hold onto the darkness, afraid to believe what we cannot prove, hungry for that which we cannot grasp within our physical senses. Without mystery or miracle, without the unknowable, we submit ourselves to the darkness that surrounds us and close our eyes to the beauty of the light that is God.
