Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist! And therefore, the Holy Eucharist is the greatest gift in this world. But many have lost faith in Christ’s presence at every Mass. This compelling book provides the most convincing proofs for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist from Scripture, Tradition, and scientific investigations of Eucharistic miracles. Accompanied by Church Fathers Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons and Cyril of Jerusalem, Fr. George Elliott leads the reader to an encounter with our Lord like a first century Christian. Dr. Stacy Transacos analyzes the popular Eucharistic miracles reported in Bolsena and Lanciano, Italy, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a twenty-first-century chemist’s objectivity. Together, Fr. Elliott and Dr. Trasancos lead you from the burning faith of the saints to the light of the Gospels, to modern science, and right back to the Word. With well researched details and thought provoking questions at the end of each chapter, this book will convict and empower you to evangelize to the world that the Holy Eucharist is not a symbol but truly flesh, bone, hands, and feet. “Behold,” Christ said, “It is I.”

Behold It is I by Stacy Trasancos Ph.D and Father George Elliott is more than just another summation of evidence on the Church’s teaching on the Eucharist. The third part of this book also looks at some of the evidence from the perspective of science by looking at miracles and discussing some specific Eucharistic miracles.

In “Part 1: What Does the Bible Say?” They look at the Old Testament, The Institution Narratives, The Gospel of John, and then scripture related to after the crucifixion.

In Part 2, they go into four of some of the earlier Church Father’s is separate chapters.

I liked the focused way they presented all three parts of this book. I especially appreciated when going into texts; they were not just proof-texting from limited sections but more extended sections. For example, when discussing Chapter 6 of John, they have you read the whole chapter as presented in the book to see the entire context before diving in. There is a lot of attention to detail here in giving the information.

I found the Review/Summary at the end of each chapter especially useful. Helpful to memorize the information and use it as a resource.

The review/summary includes:
– Key Ideas
– Good Facts to Memorize
– Effective Questions to Ask When Discussing the Real Presence

Each section is also extensively footnoted.

If this book only contained the first two chapters, it would have been worth buying.

The main reason I had bought this book was that I had read Stacy Trasancos other books and knew I wanted to see her perspective regarding the science of Eucharistic miracles. Her background includes being a research chemist for DuPont. She is a convert from atheism and holds a doctorate in chemistry and a master’s degree in dogmatic science.

The chapter on “Miracles and Transubstantiation” is an excellent primer on the subject that makes careful distinctions as it enters the realm of theology, philosophy, and science. There is so much to think about here as she answers some anticipated questions and some less so—a great introduction to the subject of miracles in general.

The following chapters cover:
– Eucharistic miracle that occurred in Bolsena, Italy, in 1263
– The more recent Buenos Aires series of Eucharistic miracles in the 1990s.
– The Lanciano Report of the Eucharistic miracle occurred in the eighth century.

This section is a fascinating look at the scientific evidence for these fairly well-known cases. However, Stacy Trasancos is cautious about what the science can confirm regarding previous investigations.

One of the problems is that so many accounts of these miracles have been inaccurate, and the evidence does not fully support conclusions drawn. Some pieces of evidence point to these cases being miraculous, but it is not the slam dunk popularly presented. Moreover, there are aspects to these stories that are either mistaken or open to other interpretations. What I found especially interesting is how vital the chain of evidence is regarding contamination.

Perhaps for future Eucharistic miracles there could be a protocol for a congregation or celebrant to follow if someone sees a Host bleed or become tissue or the wine becomes physiological blood. At that point, the Vatican should convene a team of scientists and doctors to write a plan detailing how to collect and store the sample, where to send the samples for the same testing each time, who to include in the analysis, and how to report the results compared to a bank of data.

We need a “CSI: Eucharistic Miracle” (CSI being Communion Scene Investigation)

One of the questions I have heard people often ask is why don’t we use scientific evidence of Eucharistic Miracles more to make our case to non-Catholics? If we do so, we need to strongman our case and present only factual data to make our case. These Eucharistic miracles can be used to make a cumulative case in conjunction with scripture and the Church Fathers. I have learned a lot from Jimmy Akin regarding applying critical thinking skills to subjects. So I admire Stacy Trasancos for doing the same and only going as far as the current evidence supports.

One final note. If you like ebooks, I recommend you buy the ebook directly from Tan Books Behold It is I. Since their ebooks do not have Digital Rights Management, I copied extensively from the book into my notes.

When I was at this year’s Catholic Answers Conference, I heard Joe Heschmeyer speak on the subject of identity. This talk is based on what he learned while writing Who Am I, Lord?: Finding Your Identity in Christ His speech gave me enough to think about that I picked this book up there.

In part of the introduction, he writes about the years he spent in the seminary before discerning that the priesthood was not his vocation. He reflected on just how much his identity was wrapped up in him being a seminarian. Not an easy process as you lose what you thought was primary regarding your place in life.

His describing this time in his life hit home with me as something I had not fully processed. It seems to me, we each develop a hierarchy of identities. That it is the primary ones, when lost, do the most disruption. For example, as a widower, I have felt unmoored as something fundamental about my identity is lost. That I am “just too old” to have to be discerning what God wants to do with me, as I thought I had it all figured out.

I found a good deal in this book to help me think about this. The subtitle of “Finding Your Identity in Christ” of course, points to the fact that if we place this at the top of our hierarchy of identifications, we will never lose this. We are indeed called to be children of God and can find everything we need in him.

He described the framework of his book as a diptych. The term is usually used regarding “an artwork consisting of two pieces or panels, that together create a singular art piece these can be attached together or presented adjoining each other.” Wikipedia.

In the last chapter, he again discusses this:

Each of the chapters in this book is half of a couplet: Chapter 1 goes with chapter 3, chapter 2 with chapter 4. The point is that each of the identities of Christ that we’ve looked at has a sort of “companion identity within us, and understanding the one helps us to understand the other. But this chapter is coupled with chapter 4, in which we discussed Jesus as Lord and God.

We must take seriously the idea that we are made in God’s image and likeness and keep orienting our lives to this fundamental idea.

This following story he cites, I think, is representative of the points he is making.

An Elder was asked by a certain Soldier if God would forgive a sinner. And he said to him: Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away? The Soldier replied and said: No, I will mend it and put it back on. The elder said to him: If you take care of your cloak, will God not be merciful to His own image? Apophthegmata Patrum (Sayings of the Fathers)

There was much that I highlighted and found useful. I also delighted in his deft use of humor, such as describing natural theology as “CSI: Theology.” I highly recommend this book.

My musings on the subject sparked by this book are to realize just how disordered we have arranged our hierarchy of various identities. Identity politics has placed on top what is mostly the least important aspects of ourselves. For most of us, we need to reassess this and ground our identity in what is timeless and changeless who not just incidentally, loves us!

So I have been reading a couple of books from Holly Ordway. I had heard her a couple of times on Catholic programs over the years. First up was her conversion story detailed in Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms, which I found very interesting.

There was much in what she wrote that I could relate to from my atheist days.

“Life inside the fortress of atheism was good. I thought I could make sense of the world just as well as, or much better than, the people who claimed to have faith. I didn’t believe in God, but I had a worldview that felt perfectly satisfactory. It wasn’t a particularly cheery view, but I preferred truth over comfort any day.

She relates her love of reading and then how Tolkien’s works changed everything for her. As she says her imagination had been baptized in Middle-earth. It would take some years for this influence to flower.

Reading through this I could not help to think about how I had deprived myself by purposely avoiding Tolkien and Fantasy in general and priding myself on SF as the most realistic. It was only much later fantasy epics played a part in my life, when I wondered why I loved virtuous heroes, while I was not virtuous myself. I think reading Tolkien earlier for me would be like the parable involving rocky soil. It was only on my way in to the Church that I even read the Hobbit and the LotR and it is still flowering in me slowly.

What I found most interesting, regarded her fencing coach Josh and his wife Heidi. Holly seemed to have a hair-trigger when it came to attempts by anybody to evangelize her, to sell her Jesus. Josh was not an evangelizer looking to just put another notch on his Bible Belt. He is a Christian that worked at being good at his job, respecting others, and building relationships. Over years he was there to train her and answer questions as they came up, especially as she started to wonder about religion.

I think many Christians would have scared her off as she started to tentatively ask questions. Josh really seemed to be the perfect person to play such a role in her life and to challenge her as necessary. To show her the intellectual arguments over a period of time.

I was stunned by the very concept that there were rational arguments for the existence of God. Never mind whether I agreed with the arguments or not, the simple fact that Josh said, “Let’s reason this out” rather than “You have to take it on faith” made me want to keep talking.

What’s more, these arguments made frighteningly good sense. I could see, even right there in that casino coffee shop in Reno, Nevada, that they made more sense than I wanted to admit.

This paragraph was one I could totally relate to upon first hearing a summary version of St. Aquinas’ Five Ways of Knowing God. I was stunned by the idea that there were rational arguments for the existence of God.

Her portrayal of Josh gave me a lot to think about and the kind of slow-brew evangelization he practiced. One that was not about him. Holly would not end up joining the church he was part of and she initially became Anglican before coming into the Church. I got no sense from the book that there was any tension regarding this.

Overall this was a very good read. Her writing is so evocative and pulled me into the moments of her life, not just the ones I could directly relate to.

The second of her books I read was Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Word on Fire Academic.

I think the only thing I didn’t like about this book is that the title is a too narrow indicator of the content. Although, this book would be hard to concisely title.

There are a lot of lessons to learn involving this book. Beyond exploding the myth that Tolkien was stuck in the past in many ways and disdained anything modern from books to technology. That in fact he was very-wide read in a wide range of authors and genres. That he was no technophobe. He could enjoy authors he was diametrically opposed to philosophically. I think if there was a contest where you had to match up books and authors that Tolkien enjoyed or disproved of, most of us would lose terribly.

This book also reinforced to me the idea that you just can’t snapshot people. To get an idea of them from just one period or instant of time. Tolkien was quite capable of reassessing an opinion he previously had regarding a book. So much has been made of various comments he made on other’s works, including his friend C.S. Lewis, that needed more context. This book provides plenty of insight into this. It is always good to be reminded that people are complicated.

I also liked the methodology she employed in this book. She severely limits what other authors and books might have influenced Tolkien’s legendarium to only those he directly mentioned or that there was proof that he knew of them. She takes a very insightful deep-dive into these influences. Tolkien enjoyed detective stories, and this book reminds me of one. For the Tolkien fan, this book is a great read. It is rather amazing how angry it makes me how Tolkien’s early biographers and people up to the present have so inaccurately stereotyped the man.

By the way, before reading this book I had wondered if Tolkien had read Dune. I found this unpublished letter to John Bush, 12 March 1966.

Tolkien writes:

Thank you for sending me: copy of Dune. I received one last year from Lanier and so already know something about the book. It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike DUNE with some intensity, and in the unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment. Would you like me to return the book as I already have one, or to hand it on?”