Another Question About Transubstantiation

[fide]

https://forums.catholic-questions.org/u/Hope1960 - God can act in time, in anticipation of future events that He infallibly knows will happen in future time. They are as “present” to Him, in certainty, as present events are to us in the here and now. In this way, in anticipation of the Cross on which Jesus would merit the redemption of the whole human race, God the Holy Trinity could apply that merit to Mary at the instant of her conception, and save her from all stain of sin. Thus by the Cross, Jesus redeems the world, and saves all who will be saved.

God is not confined to time as we are. He is confined only to the truth, and to love; to justice and to all goodness. The same understanding that the Church applied to the salvation of Mary from all sin before her Son was even conceived, can be applied to the Eucharist at the Last Supper - in anticipation of His resurrection and glorification, He could thus bring resurrection Life to the Eucharist before His own death.

 

[JimG]

My personal opinion is that we all receive the exact same Jesus in the Eucharist, regardless of when or where we receive it. The Eucharist is not timebound. It need not parallel the earthly timeline of Jesus earthly existence. The Jesus I receive in the Eucharist today is the same Jesus I received last week, last month or 30 years ago; the same Jesus received by everyone all over the world and throughout history. The Eucharist is in effect a way of transcending time by making the one salvific sacrifice of Jesus present everywhere and anywhen the Mass is being offered.

 

[Richca]

If the Blessed Mother could be redeemed and preserved from original sin in her Immaculate Conception prior to and in virtue of the future merits of Christ’s redemptive work especially of his passion and death on the cross, what is there to prevent the apostles at the Last Supper receiving Christ’s mortal body and with it a pledge of future glory in virtue of the future resurrection of Christ following the future merits of his passion and death?

 

[fide]

The difference is between the natural and the supernatural. Is that a big deal, or not? I’ll answer: it is a very big deal.

 

[Hope1960]

The difference is between the natural and the supernatural. Is that a big deal, or not? I’ll answer: it is a very big deal.

Meaning what, exactly? That if He gave the Apostles His glorified body before His death and resurrection, it was a supernatural event?

 

[Gorgias]

Meaning what, exactly? That if He gave the Apostles His glorified body before His death and resurrection, it was a supernatural event?

Let’s be honest. The Eucharist, in and of itself, is already a supernatural event. (That’s why I think @fide is making a mountain out of a molehill here – the Eucharist is the Eucharist; it’s the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. Always has been, always will be. This discussion doesn’t impinge on that fact. )

This misunderstands Aquinas’ error.

This!

It’s important to note that Aquinas’ error with respect to the Immaculate Conception was an error of biological knowledge, not theological insight.

 

[fide]

The resurrected. glorified substance of His Body and Blood is supernatural; the pre-resurrection, mortal substance of His Body and Blood is natural - as are our own bodies, now.

 

[Vico]

When we eat Jesus’ body are we actually eating his hair, toes, hands etc? Please include a source for your reply.

Christ our savior is present in heaven (glorified) “according to the natural mode of existing”, he is present in the Eucharist by another “manner of existing”, per the Council of Trent:

“In the first place, the holy Synod teaches, and openly and simply professes, that, in the august sacrament of the holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things. For neither are these things mutually repugnant, that our Saviour Himself always sitteth at the right hand of the Father in heaven, according to the natural mode of existing, and that, nevertheless, He be, in many other places, sacramentally present to us in his own substance, by a manner of existing, which, though we can scarcely express it in words, yet can we, by the understanding illuminated by faith, conceive, and we ought most firmly to believe, to be possible unto God.”

Council of Trent , Session 13, “Decree concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist”, chapter 1.

 

[Gorgias]

the pre-resurrection, mortal substance of His Body and Blood is natural - as are our own bodies, now.

The problem is, you can’t just go around attempting to separate Jesus like that, as if you can point to part of Him and say “this part is human and natural” and “this part of Him is divine and supernatural.”

If you did hold to that notion, you’d be dissenting with the Council of Chalcedon, which had to deal with the same problem. Post-Nicaea, some people were asserting what you seem to be asserting here – that you could point to Jesus and ‘separate’ Him into His component parts (that is, that you could separate or distinguish his humanity from his divinity). However, they asserted the error of that thought. Right in the beginning of the Chalcedonian Creed, they wrote:

[We] confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ… truly God and truly man, of a [rational] soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; … to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures … concurring in one Person and one Subsistence.

In other words, the substance of Christ before His Passion/Death/Resurrection is the same as His substance afterward. And, of course, that’s what we consume in the Eucharist: Christ, substantially present in a sacramental mode.

So… no. It’s not as if we can say that Christ was mundane before His Resurrection and supernatural now.

 

[fide]

You are saying that resurrection into immortality, having the attributes of Body of the resurrected Christ, is “natural”? Resurrection bodies are natural?

1Co 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
1Co 15:46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.
1Co 15:47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
1Co 15:48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.
1Co 15:49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

 

[Gorgias]

You are saying that resurrection into immortality, having the attributes of Body of the resurrected Christ, is “natural”? Resurrection bodies are natural?

No. What I’m saying is that Christ’s body was always supernatural. (Therefore, the distinction you’re making, pre- and post-Resurrection, in the context of the Eucharist, is moot.)

 

[fide]

I’m saying I’m finished with this conversation. The Church has not defined enough of this issue, it seems to me, for it to be settled between the two of us. I’ve put too many words fruitlessly into the vacuum as it is, so fare thee well.

 

[Gorgias]

The Church has not defined enough of this issue

There we go. I can agree with that.

So, in the end, it comes down to where we started: “do you believe that Christ is substantially present in a sacramental mode in the Eucharist?” If your answer is “yes”, then we’re on the same page.

 

[Mintaka]

Resurrection bodies are natural and spiritual, much as your normal baptized human is both natural and spiritual.

Grace builds upon nature. The resurrection body is our old body made new and improved, but it’s still the same body that participated in our glorious and shameful acts during life. Otherwise, there would be no point to anointing the body at Baptism, “putting on Christ,” bodily saintly relics, etc. Our bodies and souls get judged as one person, and they both go to the second death or to eternal life.

Transubstantiation, OTOH, is a matter of the bread’s substance being taken to Heaven as an offering (as you hear in the prayers of the Mass), and entirely replaced with Christ’s Real Presence. All that remains from the bread is the accidents of the bread; it’s not bread in any way except poetically. It just appears to be bread.