Do priests have the power to turn bread and wine into Jesus?

While priests are ordained with the ability to act in the person of Christ at Mass, they rely on God's power to transform bread and wine into Jesus.

It can be tempting to think that priests are the ones who perform a miracle at every Mass, transforming bread and wine into Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity.

However, it is not the priest who possesses this extraordinary power.

God is the miracle worker

The priest is technically only an instrument through which God exercises his power.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes this abundantly clear:

It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. the Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:
It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. the priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.
CCC 1375

St. Ambrose says similar words, affirming Christ’s role in the conversion:

Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. the power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed…. Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.
CCC 1375

God certainly has chosen priests as his privileged channels of divine grace, but the priest should never think that he is the one who has power over creation.

Only through Jesus’ words can simple bread and wine be turned into his body and blood.

God is the miracle worker.