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deceive me. He is God, and God could not tell a lie, because He is
infinite truth. This change is a great miracle, and that is the reason
we cannot understand it, though we believe it. Once at a marriage in
Cana of Galilee (John 2) Our Lord changed water into wine. The people
were poor, and Our Lord, His Blessed Mother, and the Apostles were
present at the wedding when the wine ran short; and our Blessed Lady,
always so kind to everyone, wishing to spare these poor people from
being shamed before their friends, asked Our Lord to perform the
miracle, and at her request He did so, and changed many vessels of water
into the best of wine. In that miracle Our Lord changed the substance of
the water into the substance of the wine. Why, then, could He not change
in the same way and by the same power the substance of bread and wine
into the substance of His own body and blood? When He changed the water
into wine, besides changing the substance, He changed everything else
about it; so that it had no longer the appearance of water, but everyone
could see that it was wine. But in changing the bread and wine into His
body and blood He changes only the substance, and leaves everything else
unchanged so that it still looks and tastes like bread and wine; even
after the change has taken place and you could not tell by looking at it
that it was changed. You know it only from your faith in the words of
our divine Lord, when He tells you it is changed.

Again, it is much easier to change one thing into another than to make
it entirely out of nothing. Anyone who can create out of nothing can
surely change one thing into another. Now Our Lord, being God, created
the world out of nothing; and He could therefore easily change the
substance of bread into the substance of flesh. I have said Our Lord's
body in the Holy Eucharist is a living body, and every living body
contains blood; and that is why we receive both the body and the blood
of Our Lord under the appearance of the bread alone. The priest receives
the body and blood of Our Lord under the appearance of both bread and
wine, while the people receive it only under the appearance of bread.
The early Christians used to receive it as the priest does--under the
appearance of bread and under the appearance of wine; but the Church had
to make a change on account of circumstances. First, all the people had
to drink from the same chalice or cup, and some would not like that, and
show disresp