Communion Question

[fif1189]

So I have been studying Catholicism since I am interested in possibly converting. That said, I have a question. If the bread and wine at communion are supposed to literally be the body and blood of Christ then why do they not taste like meat and blood? (that said, I’m assuming they don’t, my Catholic friend whom I asked this question to said they didn’t) I mean this as a serious question. It just seems like it should given the teaching on it. Thoughts?

 

[AlltheRoses]

So I have been studying Catholicism since I am interested in possibly converting. That said, I have a question. If the bread and wine at communion are supposed to literally be the body and blood of Christ then why do they not taste like meat and blood? (that said, I’m assuming they don’t, my Catholic friend whom I asked this question to said they didn’t) I mean this as a serious question. It just seems like it should given the teaching on it. Thoughts?

Catholics believe that the substance of the bread and wine changes into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, but that the accidental properties of the bread and wine, such as taste and color, remain the same. The substance of the bread and wine has been changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus (so the bread and wine is now really the Body and Blood of Jesus), but the actual form hasn’t changed. Someone can probably explain it better than that, but hopefully that helps a bit.

God bless you on your journey!

 

[Leon_Bloy]

If it literally changed into the appearance of flesh and blood, it is my opinion that that would be a kind of violation of God’s own chosen respect for our freedom to believe. God values our decision to believe in him and love for him because we freely choose it. So - he comes to us under the appearance of ordinary bread and wine.

A miracle occurring with such obvious visibility (it is still a miracle nonetheless) all over the world on a daily basis would seem to be a kind of coercion of belief, wouldn’t it? Who would be free to choose not to believe? The same would be true of God hurling down lightning bolts at people on earth who sin. The Bible says that the “wheat” and the “chaff” will be separated at the end, and in the meantime, the sun and rain come down upon the just and the unjust.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[fred_conty]

So I have been studying Catholicism since I am interested in possibly converting. That said, I have a question. If the bread and wine at communion are supposed to literally be the body and blood of Christ then why do they not taste like meat and blood? (that said, I’m assuming they don’t, my Catholic friend whom I asked this question to said they didn’t) I mean this as a serious question. It just seems like it should given the teaching on it. Thoughts?

Because this food is from heaven and we do not change him into us(body), but he changes us into him(heavenly).

 

[kear28]

It retains the appearance of bread and wine so that it is consummable. Otherwise, you would be revolted at actually drinking blood and eating flesh, yes? During the transubstantiation, it is consecrated by the priest and changes substance into the Body and Blood of Jesus. The mystery of faith.

 

[promethius]

So I have been studying Catholicism since I am interested in possibly converting. That said, I have a question. If the bread and wine at communion are supposed to literally be the body and blood of Christ then why do they not taste like meat and blood? (that said, I’m assuming they don’t, my Catholic friend whom I asked this question to said they didn’t) I mean this as a serious question. It just seems like it should given the teaching on it. Thoughts?

You are fif1189.

If tomorrow you lost your legs in a tragic accident, should I ask you if you are only half of a person now? I should certainly hope that you would (rightly) be offended by such a question! After all, who you are, WHAT you are, is not tied directly to your physical matter. You could lose an arm, but you are still 100% yourself, still imbued 100% with the whole measure of human dignity, and still loved equally by God. The reality of you, and your body itself, are not synonymous.

By the same right, the reality of the Eucharist (it’s substance) and it’s physical appearance (it’s accident) are not synonymous. In the consecration, the priest acts in persona Christi to remove the substance of the bread and wine and to confect the substance of the Body and Blood… in essense, he speaks with the authority of Christ when he says “This is my Body and this is my Blood” (as per the bible, where Christ confers that “He who hears you, hears me”). And by Christ’s authority, the underlying reality of the bread and wine cease to exist. The REALITY is that they are now Body and Blood.

What remains, however, is the phsyical appearance known as an accident. We have a reality, a substance, of the Body and Blood of Christ, and an appearance, an accident, of bread and wine. In other words, what we have is Christ in the appearance of fruit of the vine and work of human hands (wine and bread).

And should we expect more? After all, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

 

[teachccd]

Jesus took bread and said,“This is my body”. In the story of the first post resurrection Mass in Luke 24 we find Jesus breaking bread with the disciples on the Road to Emmaus. They recognized Him in the breaking of the bread and then he vanished from their sight because He was now with them in the Eucharist. This is a sacramental presence whereby Jesus took the essence of bread and wine and changed them into the very essence of Himself. The “what is it” is not bread and wine but Christ Himself. There is no need for the bread and wine to change into flesh and blood if we take Jesus at His word.

The incarnation of Jesus shows us His divinity veiled in His humanity. Save the transfiguration, we saw the God-Man, Jesus, only in His human appearance but that never diminished His divinity. So we see bread but that never diminishes Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist. I hope that this helps… teachccd

 

[Anna_Claire]

The change to the bread and wine is not something we can perceive with our senses. Some may say that it’s actually not a change because a change would mean that it is a readjustment to our world. The Eucharist is not of our world. What was once our food of bread and wine becomes the Bread of Heaven, the glorified Body of Christ, not the same body as when Jesus walked on earth. This is a miracle that we cannot comprehend! It is like a language that we can only understand by our faith.

 

[teachccd]

The change to the bread and wine is not something we can perceive with our senses. Some may say that it’s actually not a change because a change would mean that it is a readjustment to our world. The Eucharist is not of our world. What was once our food of bread and wine becomes the Bread of Heaven, the glorified Body of Christ, not the same body as when Jesus walked on earth. This is a miracle that we cannot comprehend! It is like a language that we can only understand by our faith.

Very well said!

 

[Vico]

So I have been studying Catholicism since I am interested in possibly converting. That said, I have a question. If the bread and wine at communion are supposed to literally be the body and blood of Christ then why do they not taste like meat and blood? (that said, I’m assuming they don’t, my Catholic friend whom I asked this question to said they didn’t) I mean this as a serious question. It just seems like it should given the teaching on it. Thoughts?

The bread and wine are symbolic of the fruits of the earth, but there is more to it. When transubstantiation takes place, the signs (accidents) are not changed, rather the essence of them is changed from ordinary material essence to divine essence. So when you say “literally” perhaps you are thinking of the accidents not the essence?

This may require study, but you may have doubts so here it is.

Fr. John Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary:

**SUBSTANCE
**A being whose essence requires that it exist in itself. It is an ens per se (a being by itself) or ens in se (a being in itself). It is commonly distinguished from an accident, whose essence is to exist in another, that is, in a substance. (Etym. Latin substantia, that which stands under, principle, foundation.)

ACCIDENTS
Things whose essence naturally requires that they exist in another being. Accidents are also called the appearances, species, or properties of a thing. These may be either physical, such as quantity, or modal, such as size or shape. Supernaturally, accidents can exist, in the absence of their natural substance, as happens with the physical properties of bread and wine after Eucharistic consecration.

ESSENCE
What a thing is. The internal principle whereby a thing is what it is and not something else. Sometimes essence is said to be the same thing as being, but being merely, affirming that a thing is, without specifying its perfections. Essence is not quite the same as nature, which adds to essence the notion of activity, i.e., nature is the essence in action. Or again essence is substance, but not all essences are substantial because accidents also have an essence. (Etym. Latin essentia, essence, being.)

TRANSUBSTANTIATION
The complete change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood by a validly ordained priest during the consecration at Mass, so that only the accidents of bread and wine remain. While the faith behind the term itself was already believed in apostolic times, the term itself was a later development. With the Eastern Fathers before the sixth century, the favored expression was meta-ousiosis, “change of being”; the Latin tradition coined the word transubstantiatio, “change of substance,” which was incorporated into the creed of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The Council of Trent, in defining the “wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the wine into the blood” of Christ, added “which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation” (Denzinger 1652). After transubstantiation, the accidents of bread and wine do not inhere in any subject or substance whatever. Yet they are not make-believe they are sustained in existence by divine power. (Etym. Latin trans-, so as to change + substantia, substance: transubstantio, change of substance.)