Eucharist Question

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TheInquisitor

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My questions revolves around idolatry right now.

Catholics believe that the bread and wine IS Christ.

The pagans believed that the items they worshiped WERE their gods.

Can someone help me understand the difference?

Thanks,
Ryan
 
The difference is that that God told us not to worship idols but we are required to worship him. Given that the body and blood in the Eucharist is truly God himself it isn’t idoltry.
 
TheInquisitor said:
My questions revolves around idolatry right now.

Catholics believe that the bread and wine IS Christ.

The pagans believed that the items they worshiped WERE their gods.

Can someone help me understand the difference?

Thanks,
Ryan
Click to expand...
God didn’t tell the pagans that those “items” were Himself.
God - Jesus - did tell His followers that the bread and wine was Himself. (“This is My Body”; “This is My Blood”).
 
TheInquisitor said:
My questions revolves around idolatry right now.

Catholics believe that the bread and wine IS Christ.

The pagans believed that the items they worshiped WERE their gods.

Can someone help me understand the difference?

Thanks,
Ryan
Click to expand...
The Church teaches us that when the bread and wine are consecrated, their substance changes from that of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. We full well recognize that the accidents (the physical characteristics that can be observed and measured) still remain bread and wine, but the underlying substance is changed (thus the term transubstantiation).

You can read a moderatly technical article about the concept of substance from a Catholic perspective in the Catholic Encyclopedia. You can read a moderately technical article from a secular philosophical perspective in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

So if you see a Catholic in adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament, the Catholic is not worshiping the accident of bread. The Catholic in question is actually worshiping the substance of the Body of Christ, who we believe is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, begotten of the Father before all ages.

The difference is that pagans worship the creation. Catholics worship the Creator.
 
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