transˌfinaliˈzation Theol.
[f. trans- 3 + finalization.]
The change in purpose or function undergone by bread and wine at the Eucharist through transubstantiation, expressed in terms of finality or teleology. Cf. transignification.
| 1965 Pope Speaks X. 311 It is not permissible..to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than ‘transignification’ or ‘transfinalization’ as they call it. 1966 Worship XL. 337 In the eucharist we ought to be concerned with an interpersonal relationship between Christ and us,..in which Christ gives himself to man by means of bread and wine which, by this very gift, have undergone a transfinalization and an ontological and therefore radical transignification. 1975 E. L. Mascall in Critique Eucharistic Agreement v. 73 The writers who introduced the notions of transfinalization and transignification were worried that the term ‘transubstantiation’ as commonly understood suggested a notion both insufficiently dynamic and insufficiently human. |