Eucharistic difference between Anglican/Catholic

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f_william

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I’mI was wondering what is the differrnce befween Catholic and Anglican eucharist?I The Anglican belief is that the elements remain the same they look, taste, and smell like bread and wine. So they remain bread and wine. The change is in the substance where it can’t be seen. I think the Catholic belief is after consecration nothing remain of the elements they are now the body and blood of Christ. Are we saying the same thing? We see the elements but know the substance is Christ.You see the bread and the same way we do but you claim it isn’t bread and wine. How can you say it isn’t there if you see withyour eyes? We agree on the same thing that the substance has charge. NOW I have no disrespect for your belief I just want to know why all the fuss is we believe in the same thing that the dread and wine is Christ.

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Basically protestants say, “It is Christ, but it isn’t.” and Catholics say, “It is Christ.”

Really it’s not big enough of a difference to get worked up over.
 
The key word here is “transubstaniation”. Caholcs believe that what Jesus said at the Last Supper is exactly what He meant and that when He said that He would remain with His church until the end of time, that He intended it to be so. He meant–literally–that when the priest says the words of the consecration, the bread and wine, quite literally become the body and blood of Jesus through transubstantiation. They look like bread and wine, but they are no longer bread and wine–they are truly the body and blood of Our Lord.
I am not an expert on the Anglican faith or other protestant beliefs, but my understanding is that they believe that the consecration is basically just done in memory of what Jesus did at the Last Supper. Thus, a cracker and grape juice remain a cracker and grape juice.
 
I would say the single most important difference between what the Catholic Church teaches on the Eucharist and what most Anglicans believe, has to do less with the sacrament of Holy Communion and more with the sacrificial character of the Mass.

The Council of Trent defined: “If any one saith, that the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. . . but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits only the recipient, and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema” (Sess. XXII, can. iii).
 
Perhaps Anglicans and many Protestants for that matter believe that Christ is “spiritually present” but not physically present.
 
f_william said:
I’mI was wondering what is the differrnce befween Catholic and Anglican eucharist?I The Anglican belief is that…
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Actually, to my understanding, it’s difficult to identify a single ‘Anglican belief’ with respect to the Eucharist, since there are a number of Anglican theologies of the Eucharist! (Namely, some believe that the spiritual presence of the Eucharist exists in the physical presence of the bread and wine when a believer believes in them; others believe in transubstantiation, in which the physical elements remain but the substance is changed into the substance of Christ; and still others believe in consubstantiation, in which the physical elements and substance of bread and wine remain, but the substance of Christ joins them.)
The Anglican believe is that the elements remain the same they look, taste, and smell like bread and wine. So they remain bread and wine. The change is in the substance where it can’t be seen.
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This is ‘transubstantiation’.
I think the Catholic belief is after consecration nothing remain of the elements they are now the body and blood of Christ.
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If by ‘elements’ you mean ‘physical elements’, then no, that’s not what Catholics believe. In fact, Catholic teaching asserts ‘transubstantiation’.
We see the elements but know the substance is Christ.
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I guess I’d ask you what you mean by ‘knowing the substance is Christ’? If the substance is Christ, then the Eucharist is Christ.
You see the bread and the same way we do but you claim it isn’t bread and wine. How can you say it isn’t there if you see withyour eyes?
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We see ‘accidents’ – that is, physical properties. Catholics would say that we continue to see the physical properties of bread and wine, but that the substance of these is the substance of Christ, and therefore, what we see is Christ.

Have you ever seen food that looks like something that it’s not? For instance, a hamburger that’s really a cake, or candy that’s really sushi? Would you look at it and say “how can you say that this isn’t a hamburger? It looks like a hamburger!” The response you’d get is “but, although it looks like a hamburger, it is actually a cake!”
 
Basically the Catholic belief is that the substance has changed (transed, if there is such a word) from bread/wine to Body/Blood/Soul/Divinity. The other belief is that it is both bread/wine and body/blood. (I don’t know about the Soul and Divinity part. )

This presumes that a valid consecration has taken place.
 
f_william said:
I’mI was wondering what is the differrnce befween Catholic and Anglican eucharist?I The Anglican belief is that the elements remain the same they look, taste, and smell like bread and wine. So they remain bread and wine. The change is in the substance where it can’t be seen. I think the Catholic belief is after consecration nothing remain of the elements they are now the body and blood of Christ. Are we saying the same thing? We see the elements but know the substance is Christ.You see the bread and the same way we do but you claim it isn’t bread and wine. How can you say it isn’t there if you see withyour eyes? We agree on the same thing that the substance has charge. NOW I have no disrespect for your belief I just want to know why all the fuss is we believe in the same thing that the dread and wine is Christ.

VT by
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Since you’re asking about Anglicans, the standard answer is “depends on which Anglican you ask.”
 
The outward expression of Real Presence is what one sees at an Anglican Mass and the strong impression is that Anglicans believe in the Real Presence. The actual explanation of what is happening at the consecration is not as important.
 
Roman Catholicism - transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass bringing about the remission of sins.

Anglicanism - spiritual presence of Christ in the Supper, no substantial change in the bread and wine. Also, the eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God when celebrated by believers, but is not a propitiatory sacrifice to bring about the forgiveness of sins, because Jesus has completed that by his “one oblation of himself once offered” at Calvary.
 
Indifferently said:
Roman Catholicism - transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass bringing about the remission of sins.
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Not completely accurate. 🙂 Transubstantiation is a philosophical definition of what happens when the bread and wine are confected into the body and blood of Christ with his soul and divinity also present. It is the risen, glorified Christ we receive not merely the physical being he had as a man before his death and resurrection. Reception of the Eucharist remits venials sins, yes by the grace of God and as we confess them in our hearts. I shall go into more detail about remission of sins in my next response below.
Anglicanism - spiritual presence of Christ in the Supper, no substantial change in the bread and wine. Also, the eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God when celebrated by believers, but is not a propitiatory sacrifice to bring about the forgiveness of sins, because Jesus has completed that by his “one oblation of himself once offered” at Calvary.
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Catholics strongly believe your bolded words, too. But we are not resacrificing Christ in the Eucharistic celebration. Rather, we are re-presenting the one sacrifice of Christ which he completed by his death and resurrection and which he presented to the Father in eternity Because he presented his one sacrifice in eternity, we are able to re-present it and draw on the graces which it provides. Our mortal sins must be confessed for forgiveness and absolution, under ordinary circumstances. We do not rely on reception of the Eucharist for forgiveness of mortal sins. Indeed, we are not to receive if we have mortal sins on our souls lest we receive unworthily and profane the body and blood of Christ.
 
Indifferently said:
Roman Catholicism - transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass bringing about the remission of sins.

Anglicanism - spiritual presence of Christ in the Supper, no substantial change in the bread and wine. Also, the eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God when celebrated by believers, but is not a propitiatory sacrifice to bring about the forgiveness of sins, because Jesus has completed that by his “one oblation of himself once offered” at Calvary.
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Depends on which Anglican you ask.

GKC
 
Della said:
Not completely accurate. 🙂 Transubstantiation is a philosophical definition of what happens when the bread and wine are confected into the body and blood of Christ with his soul and divinity also present. It is the risen, glorified Christ we receive not merely the physical being he had as a man before his death and resurrection. Reception of the Eucharist remits venials sins, yes by the grace of God and as we confess them in our hearts. I shall go into more detail about remission of sins in my next response below.

Catholics strongly believe your bolded words, too. But we are not resacrificing Christ in the Eucharistic celebration. Rather, we are re-presenting the one sacrifice of Christ which he completed by his death and resurrection and which he presented to the Father in eternity Because he presented his one sacrifice in eternity, we are able to re-present it and draw on the graces which it provides. Our mortal sins must be confessed for forgiveness and absolution, under ordinary circumstances. We do not rely on reception of the Eucharist for forgiveness of mortal sins. Indeed, we are not to receive if we have mortal sins on our souls lest we receive unworthily and profane the body and blood of Christ.
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Perfectly in keeping with some Anglicans you might ask.

GKC
 
praestat_fides said:
Perhaps Anglicans and many Protestants for that matter believe that Christ is “spiritually present” but not physically present.
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Perhaps some Anglicans affirm that, in the validly confected sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words that may be familiar.

GKC

Anglicanus-Catholicus
 
GKC said:
Depends on which Anglican you ask.

GKC
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The Prayer book and Articles Anglican, not the “I believe what I want” Anglican who completely dismisses the historic Anglican formularies in deciding what he believes (the episcopal congregationalist).
 
Indifferently said:
The Prayer book and Articles Anglican, not the “I believe what I want” Anglican who completely dismisses the historic Anglican formularies in deciding what he believes (the episcopal congregationalist).
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Or, those who know the Articles are not binding on any Anglican, save IAW the Act of Subscription, on the clergy (theoretically) of the CoE.

I am not CoE.

You weren’t either, IIRC, when we first met.

GKC
 
A great many Anglicans essentially decide they can squeeze their own preferred theology into the grammatical constraints of whatever “Anglican” texts they use and then go along with that. I think it’s intellectually dishonest, and Laudianism, Anglo-Catholicism and Latitudinarianism, and their various offshoots, are essentially revisionist movements.

Anglicanism in its pure form is essentially Catholic order and Reformed theology. I see no other historically defensible position.
 
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