“Transubstantiation of the Eucharist” is terminology with which I was au fait by age ten. My family was decidedly Roman Catholic; my uncle had trained in theology at The Vatican, under Pope John Paul II. My dad was a minister of the Eucharist, which is to say he was one of the few men entrusted with the license to handle the body and blood of Christ during the mass.
As a kid, I enjoyed our weekly catechism classes more than most. I aced the dogma quizzes on communion: “Trans = change, thus transubstantiation is the mystical change of substance from bread to flesh.”
It was common for me to get the chills, moved with wonder, at the ethereal sound of the altar boy’s chimes, sounded at the precise moment at which the bread of communion changed substance into the body of Jesus. I was a card-carrying Catholic, a preteen company man.
Then I turned eleven. Read More
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