Avoiding absurdity in preaching the Eucharest

[CrossofChrist]

Wrt Ratzinger (not the Lutheran post…although I wasn’t aware Luther held the belief of transubstantiation, at least later in life…thought he was intentionally ambiguous because he wasn’t sure what happened to the bread/wine but knew for sure Christ was present…but I digress):

When he says “physical”, he means what our senses grasp. Not what the Eucharist actually is. But then how can Jesus’ body have the physical appearance of a wafer? It is his glorified body, and since, as Ratzinger says in Jesus of Nazareth, we have no concept of what that spiritual existence of having a transformed body is like, we can’t have a good grasp of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist–only that what we see has been transformed by Jesus to become Jesus, even if our senses would lead us to believe otherwise.

P.s sorry about the weird sentence structure.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Wrt Ratzinger (not the Lutheran post…although I wasn’t aware Luther held the belief of transubstantiation, at least later in life…thought he was intentionally ambiguous because he wasn’t sure what happened to the bread/wine but knew for sure Christ was present…but I digress):

When he says “physical”, he means what our senses grasp. Not what the Eucharist actually is. But then how can Jesus’ body have the physical appearance of a wafer? It is his glorified body, and since, as Ratzinger says in Jesus of Nazareth, we have no concept of what that spiritual existence of having a transformed body is like, we can’t have a good grasp of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist–only that what we see has been transformed by Jesus to become Jesus, even if our senses would lead us to believe otherwise.

P.s sorry about the weird sentence structure.

Thank you, maybe he will listen to you.

Linus2nd

 

[thinkandmull]

Where have I denied that Jesus is really in the Eucharest? My other thread on Aquinas was questioning those papal statements, not the right of the curious to inquire how far reason can understand the doctrines. That’s what Christian philosophers do.

Like when Linus said that Jesus’s solid matter passed through hard wall, as if God can make a round circle. Maybe He can make a round circle, but its best to try to find another explanation first. Linus dismisses what science says about atoms, but they can explain how Jesus passed through the wall.

 

[thinkandmull]

I hope we can all agree that the host is not an illusion and so can be called matter still. And also that that is what is touched. We don’t touch Jesus’s parts with our mouth and food consuming parts. Linus thinks its ridiculous to speak of this, but my little sister asked me once about putting Jesus in her mouth and I had to explain to her that He’s not sitting on her tongue with his bottom, and Linus has no argument for disagreeing.

I wish we had beautiful traditional art to show the positions here: 1) there is the host, then the substance leaves, and Jesus is in the space of the host, although in heaven, because that whole church is taken into heaven at that moment. Somehow, through relativity of space, Jesus’s body is not altered through being Present there. But my questions is: what even WAS the substance of the bread? Was it a piece of bread somewhere else, apart from what was perceived by the senses? Do we see Jesus, or accidents of bread?

1. It can be resolved by imagining Jesus in the mansions of Heaven, going into the temple, lifting a loaf of bread in there, then it disappears (the bread’s heavenly substance leaving), and Jesus becoming what the bread was in the heavenly halls. I imagine a white form of Him, His Presence, Himself, going down to earth into the “bread”

 

[davidv]

I hope we can all agree that the host is not an illusion and so can be called matter still. And also that that is what is touched. We don’t touch Jesus’s parts with our mouth and food consuming parts. Linus thinks its ridiculous to speak of this, but my little sister asked me once about putting Jesus in her mouth and I had to explain to her that He’s not sitting on her tongue with his bottom, and Linus has no argument for disagreeing.

I wish we had beautiful traditional art to show the positions here: 1) there is the host, then the substance leaves, and Jesus is in the space of the host, although in heaven, because that whole church is taken into heaven at that moment. Somehow, through relativity of space, Jesus’s body is not altered through being Present there. But my questions is: what even WAS the substance of the bread? Was it a piece of bread somewhere else, apart from what was perceived by the senses? Do we see Jesus, or accidents of bread?

1. It can be resolved by imagining Jesus in the mansions of Heaven, going into the temple, lifting a loaf of bread in there, then it disappears (the bread’s heavenly substance leaving), and Jesus becoming what the bread was in the heavenly halls. I imagine a white form of Him, His Presence, Himself, going down to earth into the “bread”

This appears to be in conflict with the following.

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend."201 In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained."202 "This presence is called ‘real’ - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."203

1375 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.204
And St. Ambrose says about this 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.205
1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."206

1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.207

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I hope we can all agree that the host is not an illusion and so can be called matter still. And also that that is what is touched. We don’t touch Jesus’s parts with our mouth and food consuming parts. Linus thinks its ridiculous to speak of this, but my little sister asked me once about putting Jesus in her mouth and I had to explain to her that He’s not sitting on her tongue with his bottom, and Linus has no argument for disagreeing.

I wish we had beautiful traditional art to show the positions here: 1) there is the host, then the substance leaves, and Jesus is in the space of the host, although in heaven, because that whole church is taken into heaven at that moment. Somehow, through relativity of space, Jesus’s body is not altered through being Present there. But my questions is: what even WAS the substance of the bread? Was it a piece of bread somewhere else, apart from what was perceived by the senses? Do we see Jesus, or accidents of bread?

1. It can be resolved by imagining Jesus in the mansions of Heaven, going into the temple, lifting a loaf of bread in there, then it disappears (the bread’s heavenly substance leaving), and Jesus becoming what the bread was in the heavenly halls. I imagine a white form of Him, His Presence, Himself, going down to earth into the “bread”

Like I said, you are just one of those people that cannot be instructed. Se la vie!

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Thinkandmull,

Yes, the accidents of physicality are present. But the genuine physicality has been changed into the body and blood of Christ.
Linus2nd

While Thinkamull is hard to understand in other places it is very easy to understand what he means wrt physicality.

However I wish the same could be said of “genuine physicality” .

Something is either visible to the senses or it is not.
If its sensible…then that is surely genuine physicality for a sane english speaking person.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

While Thinkamull is hard to understand in other places it is very easy to understand what he means wrt physicality.

However I wish the same could be said of “genuine physicality” .

Something is either visible to the senses or it is not.
If its sensible…then that is surely genuine physicality for a sane english speaking person.

We may possibly get Imehahn to comment on this because it bears directly on the Doctrine of Transubstantion. The species look real and have all the detectable characteristics of physical matter,

even though their substance is gone. And if their substance is gone, there cannot be present any physicality. Extending these facts to ordinary substances, it means that we never see actual substance or essence/nature ( including the matter, the physicality of the matter ), that all we ever see are accidents of the substance.

Linus2nd
Linus2nd.

 

[DaveBj]

We have in our freezer a delicacy known as “krab.” It is actually the flesh or an ordinary fish known as the pollock, when cooked and treated in a specific way becomes virtually indistinguishable from regular crab meat.

We also have patties that, when they are grilled, taste like ordinary hamburgers. In fact, they are made from processed soy beans, and there isn’t a bit of actual meat in them.

My point is this: If we humans can make “crab meat” out of the flesh of an ordinary fish, and if we can make hamburgers from beans, than surely an omnipotent God is capable of taking ordinary bread and wine and turning them into the Body and Blood of Christ in the world of the spirit (which is actually more real, not less real, than the physical world in which we live), while allowing them to retain the physical appearance, taste, and smell of ordinary bread and wine.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

While Thinkamull is hard to understand in other places it is very easy to understand what he means wrt physicality.

However I wish the same could be said of “genuine physicality” .

Something is either visible to the senses or it is not.
If its sensible…then that is surely genuine physicality for a sane english speaking person.

You will be happy to know that Ludwig Ott, in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma agrees with you ( see pg 383, paper back ed. 1960 ) He says the The Sacramental Accidents retain their physical reality after the change of the substance. He classifies this as a truth certain since it follows with necessity from the Defined Dogma and what the Fathers, especially Augustine said about the reality of the accidents. He defines the appearances or accidents as everything that is understood everything perceived by the senses, such as size, extent, weight, shape, color, taste, smell.

The question now becomes, " What in the world do mean by substance? "

Imelahn, where are you when we need you?

 

[thinkandmull]

Nothing I have said contradicts the CCC or Trent. Linus too is asking “What in the world do mean by substance?”

I had to correct Imelahn twice on Thomistic predestination recently, but perhaps I can be corrected now.

As for accidents, when we taste the “bread” we are tasting **something **, and its not Jesus because He doesn’t taste like bread, doesn’t inhere in the accidents, and we don’t run our tongues and everything over His Body (although Linus hasn’t given in on this yet). If we taste bread, than we touch bread. If Jesus is not the accidents, than it can be said in a sense that the host is not Him

 

[davidv]

Nothing I have said contradicts the CCC or Trent. Linus too is asking “What in the world do mean by substance?”

I had to correct Imelahn twice on Thomistic predestination recently, but perhaps I can be corrected now.

As for accidents, when we taste the “bread” we are tasting **something **, and its not Jesus because He doesn’t taste like bread, doesn’t inhere in the accidents, and we don’t run our tongues and everything over His Body (although Linus hasn’t given in on this yet). If we taste bread, than we touch bread. If Jesus is not the accidents, than it can be said in a sense that the host is not Him

When you say the host is not Him you are writing in direct opposition to the Church’s teaching.

1333 At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ’s Body and Blood.

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend."201 In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained."202 "This presence is called ‘real’ - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."203

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Nothing I have said contradicts the CCC or Trent. Linus too is asking “What in the world do mean by substance?”

I had to correct Imelahn twice on Thomistic predestination recently, but perhaps I can be corrected now.

As for accidents, when we taste the “bread” we are tasting **something **, and its not Jesus because He doesn’t taste like bread, doesn’t inhere in the accidents, and we don’t run our tongues and everything over His Body (although Linus hasn’t given in on this yet). If we taste bread, than we touch bread. If Jesus is not the accidents, than it can be said in a sense that the host is not Him

Well, you were right about one thing, we can regard the accidents as " physical " reality. Aquinas explains how in S.T., part 3, Ques 77, ans 2. Dr. Ludwig Ott in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pg 383 (1960 paper back edition ) says, " The Sacramental Accidents retain their physical reality after the change of the substance. " ( Not formally announced as doctrine but certain since it pertains to revelation - my interpretation ).

This teaching is not mentioned in the Catechism of the Council of Trent or in any other Catechism I have seen, including the current one. So I am not sure about how obligatory it is to believe that the species are physical. On the other hand the explanation given by Thomas seems reasonable.

Thomas explains this is based on the fact that " dimensive extention of quantity " is an accident of matter. And it this case it remains by the power of God. Do we have to believe this? I’m no theologian so I can’t say. It is not specifically mentioned in the Catechism of the Council of Trent and it is not mentioned in our new Catechism.

Aquinas explains what he means by substance in S.T., part 3, Ques 77, ans 1. Thomas says that a substance is that to which it belongs to have existence without inhering in a subject. And an accident is that to which it belongs to have existence in another.

P.S. You may disagree with Imehaln, but believe me, neither you nor I nor anyone on this forum is qualified to correct him, IMHO…

Linus2nd

Linus2nd

 

[thinkandmull]

david, Linus did fine showing what I meant and I thank him. Jesus is not a piece of bread so you can’t look at, that which is not an illusion, and say directly to it “there’s His leg’s, His back, His eyes”; and yet its dead bread, only having any meaning because its in Heaven

“Thomas says that a substance is that to which it belongs to have existence without inhering in a subject. And an accident is that to which it belongs to have existence in another.”

The color of the bread is an accident of the matter. How can Aquinas say in
S.T., part 3, Ques 77, ans 2 that the matter is not an illusion and elsewhere that the substance is what the mind perceives, not the senses, and yet… well, maybe he believed that there was nothing but accidents in this world of sense and science.

(The hands can feel matter)

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You will be happy to know that Ludwig Ott, in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma agrees with you ( see pg 383, paper back ed. 1960 ) He says the The Sacramental Accidents retain their physical reality after the change of the substance. He classifies this as a truth certain since it follows with necessity from the Defined Dogma and what the Fathers, especially Augustine said about the reality of the accidents. He defines the appearances or accidents as everything that is understood everything perceived by the senses, such as size, extent, weight, shape, color, taste, smell.

The question now becomes, " What in the world do mean by substance? "

Imelahn, where are you when we need you?

I don’t have any problem with Church teaching and its use of Aristotelian terms Linus.
We just need to understand how the average Joe understands the words that we use…so as to avoid seeming absurdity in preaching.

Surely the Eucharistic substance is the same subject in which the accidents of Jesus’s body and blood were supported 2000 yrs ago.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Nothing I have said contradicts the CCC or Trent. Linus too is asking “What in the world do mean by substance?”

I had to correct Imelahn twice on Thomistic predestination recently, but perhaps I can be corrected now.

As for accidents, when we taste the “bread” we are tasting **something **, and its not Jesus because He doesn’t taste like bread, doesn’t inhere in the accidents, and we don’t run our tongues and everything over His Body (although Linus hasn’t given in on this yet). If we taste bread, than we touch bread. If Jesus is not the accidents, than it can be said in a sense that the host is not Him

I know what you mean but it prob isn’t Aristotle unfortunately.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

david, Linus did fine showing what I meant and I thank him. Jesus is not a piece of bread so you can’t look at, that which is not an illusion, and say directly to it “there’s His leg’s, His back, His eyes”; and yet its dead bread, only having any meaning because its in Heaven]/QUOTE]

What do you think Trent meant when it says that the Whole Christ is under the accidents? It also says that the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. And substance just happens to mean the matter - form structure of any substance.

“Thomas says that a substance is that to which it belongs to have existence without inhering in a subject. And an accident is that to which it belongs to have existence in another.”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I know what you mean but it prob isn’t Aristotle unfortunately.

Actually it is. The substance is the matter - form structure which exists. What we touch and feel and see, etc are exactly physical qualities which are properly the accidents of quantity, according to Aquinas in the reference I gave Thinkandmull. I recommend that you read the references for yourself.

Linus2nd

 

[balto]

As for accidents, when we taste the “bread” we are tasting **something **, and its not Jesus because He doesn’t taste like bread, doesn’t inhere in the accidents, and we don’t run our tongues and everything over His Body (although Linus hasn’t given in on this yet). If we taste bread, than we touch bread. If Jesus is not the accidents, than it can be said in a sense that the host is not Him

What you are describing here is not transubstantiation, which is the Catholic view, but rather consubstantiation, which is the view of some mainline Protestant churches. Consubstantiation is the midway position between transubstantiation in the Eucharist and the Eucharist being purely symbolic. It says that the bread and wine are still there substantially but Christ also is present somehow substantially too. But that contradicts what Christ Himself said on the matter, that “this” (referring to the bread) is my body, not my body is associated with this bread.

I think the difficulty you are having is in assuming that “substance” is really just a bundle of specific properties. “Substance” or “essence” as I understand it is that principle by which the properties are unified. So you cannot technically say “oh, the properties aren’t there, therefore the essence is not there” with certainty since the essence is fundamentally prior to the properties but of course, on the other hand, you cannot know that the essence of Christ is really there on anything other than faith.

This issue really does seem to ultimately come down to Christ asking you “who do you say that I am.”

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Some extracts from the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

This general and fundamental principle, which entirely abstracts from the duality of the species, must, nevertheless, be extended to each of the species of bread and wine. For we do not receive in the Sacred Host one part of Christ and in the Chalice the other, as though our reception of the totality depended upon our partaking of both forms; on the contrary, under the appearance of bread alone, as well as under the appearance of wine alone, we receive Christ whole and entire (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, can. iii).

But in particularizing upon the dogma, we are naturally led to the further truth, that, at least after the actual division of either Species into parts, Christ is present in each part in His full and entire essence. If the Sacred Host be broken into pieces or if the consecrated Chalice be drunk in small quantities, Christ in His entirety is present in each particle and in each drop. By the restrictive clause, separatione factâ the Council of Trent (Sess. XIII, can. iii) rightly raised this truth to the dignity of a dogma.

While the three foregoing theses contain dogmas of faith, there is a fourth proposition which is merely a theological conclusion, namely, that even before the actual division of the Species, Christ is present wholly and entirely in each particle of the still unbroken Host and in each drop of the collective contents of the Chalice. For were not Christ present in His entire Personality in every single particle of the Eucharistic Species even before their division took place, we should be forced to conclude that it is the process of dividing which brings about the Totality of Presence, whereas according to the teaching of the Church the operative cause of the Real and Total Presence is to be found in Transubstantiation alone. No doubt this last conclusion directs the attention of philosophical and scientific inquiry to a mode of existence peculiar to the Eucharistic Body, which is contrary to the ordinary laws of experience. It is, indeed, one of those sublime mysteries, concerning which speculative theology attempts to offer various solutions [see below under (5)].

Thus from the concept of Transubstantiation is excluded every sort of merely accidental conversion, whether it be purely natural (e.g. the metamorphosis of insects) or supernatural (e.g. the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor). Finally, Transubstantiation differs from every other substantial conversion in this, that only the substance is converted into another — the accidents remaining the same — just as would be the case if wood were miraculously converted into iron, the substance of the iron remaining hidden under the external appearance of the wood.

To be continued.

Linus2nd