For what reason is Jesus physically present in Holy Communion?

[Dovekin]

surely you can see this is but a metaphor for all authority being given to the Son by the Father .

Religious language is complex. Usually there are many different things going on, not just the simplest one.

Of course it is a metaphor. That is the only way to talk about God. It is much more than that as well. Jesus shares a reality with God, where one can sit and the other cannot. Where one has hands and the other is pure Spirit. Where one dies and the other is unchanging. Yet despite those differences, they are in one reality.

We share that reality with Christ and God in the Eucharist. We share a “physical” space with Christ our human brother so that we can share the meta-physical space with our Father. It is more than a metaphor, though it is a metaphor.

Scripture stated heaven is Gods throne and earth his footstool. Does that mean God has legs that are about 5 km long!

Too short! It means the earth is a place for God to rest his feet. God’s feet are bigger than the earth, his legs are taller than the sky, yet our feet walk with him when we receive the Eucharist. The whole world is too small to contain God, yet God dwells within our hearts. God’s power and authority is symbolized by the right hand that holds our hand.

 

[WojciechKosek]

1. Leon XIII, Mirae caritatis , no 7: “And this miracle, itself the very greatest of its kind, is accompanied by innumerable other miracles; for here all the laws of nature are suspended; the whole substance of the bread and wine are changed into the Body and the Blood; the species of bread and wine are sustained by the divine power without the support of any underlying substance; the Body of Christ is present in many places at the same time, that is to say, wherever the Sacrament is consecrated”.

What does it mean “ the species of bread and wine are sustained by the divine power without the support of any underlying substance ”? It is result of transubstantiation: “ the whole substance of the bread and wine are changed into the Body and the Blood ”, i.e. there is no substance of bread and wine, and that means that there is no existence of „bread”, there is no existence of „wine”. There are only external phenomena, which in the normal course of things accompany the existence of „bread” or „wine” in a given place: from this place, where „bread” no longer exists, all physical influences flow out, responsible for the fact that the beings surrounding these places are subjected to such influence, as if nothing has changed, i.e. as if there is still „bread” being in this place.

That’s why our eyes „see” the bread after the transubstantiation, but the bread is no longer here! In the place where bread was before, i.e. where the substance of bread was, there is now the substance of this being, which is the Lord Jesus.

This is the dogma of transubstantiation! The change of substance, i.e. the substance of bread disappears, the substance of Jesus begins to be here.

1. Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Mysterium Fidei , no. 46

Christ is present whole and entire in His physical „reality,” corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

“As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new „reality” which we can rightly call ontological . For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species – beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical „reality,” corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place ”.