How does transubstantiation work?

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dustdev14

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Hello! I’m a relatively new Christian (I was an agnostic up until a few months ago) and have started reading the Bible and really getting all that juicy scripture and different views on different rites and sacraments. The catholic faith is something i allign with very well in most viewpoints, however the sacraments and rituals are a big block in the road, particularly this one. Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the literal blood and flesh of Christ rather than a representation of Christ or that it only contains the essence of Christ, correct? To me, two of these things make sense, the Representation view and the essence view. I mean, when Jesus broke bread and said, “this is my body” the bread didn’t turn into flesh, which Jesus could easily make happen, so what makes us think it is to be taken literally? I’d also like an explanation as to how the transubstantiation process works, as in how actual thin little tablets of bread are turned into Christ’s flesh. Sorry for the long post, I tend to just gush over my computer when I make a post
 
I think the how part is a mystery to all, but we know the Holy Spirit is involved. This makes sense considering that Jesus’s whole body was formed by the Holy Spirit–post conception in the womb.

So, if you profess that Jesus’s body was formed by the Holy Spirit, without the need of male material matter, then you should be able to profess that the Holy Spirit can do the same to a piece of bread.
 
The Eucharist appears as bread but in substance it is the Body of Christ.

If you are going to “believe in Jesus” as Protestants say, you need to believe this, even if they don’t believe it. Because one can’t be Catholic w/o believing this.
 
Yes, but there is a difference between Jesus’ conception and the changing of a piece of bread no? Jesus was made from nothing (in the physical sense, like his body) and grew up as a human with human flesh, organs, etc. The piece of bread started as a plant, went through some processes, become the little tablet you can buy in bulk, and will always remain exactly like that in terms of taste, size, molecular makeup, etc.
 
Transubstantiation is one of several explanations of the ‘real presence’; that is, that Jesus is truely present in the consecrated bread and wine. To believe in transubstantiation you have to accept a hundreds-or-more year old theory that all things have something called ‘accidents’ that is, things you can perceive with senses; and ‘substance’ that is a sort of essence of being. So a table has the accidents of wood, nails, lacquer and where I put my coffee cup down. But it is has the ‘substance’ or ‘essential being’ of a ‘table’. So if I spill ink in the table I change its accidents (appearance) but not its substance (it is still a table). Transubstantiation is the other way around, you turn bread and wine into a person but it still looks like bread and wine. Now, I don’t believe that things have ‘accidents’ and ‘substance’ so find that explanation completely unconvincing. But I think (correct me if I am wrong) it is what Catholics believe. It has the advantage like most things ultimately believed on faith that there is no possible observation imaginable which could disprove it! So your search for ‘how does it work?’ will sooner or later be answered by someone in this thread saying ‘it’s a mystery, but I believe it’.
 
Thank you for all the scripture, I appriciate it. However, what’s to say that Jesus wasn’t using that as figure of speech? Jesus didn’t always speak literally, just look at the parables.

For example, couldn’t this refer to simply believing in Christ? As in, by “eat” and “drink” Jesus means to willingly accept him into your heart? The problem I have with this is that if it is taken literally, then doesn’t that mean that ANYBODY could consume the host and just instantly be saved? Doesn’t that directly compete with the idea that we are saved through Faith?
 
dustdev14 said:
Thank you for all the scripture, I appriciate it. However, what’s to say that Jesus wasn’t using that as figure of speech? Jesus didn’t always speak literally, just look at the parables.
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Why then did He let the crowd leave because of a misunderstanding?
“6:67 After this, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.”
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Jesus always corrected misunderstandings to His disciples, did He not?
dustdev14 said:
For example, couldn’t this refer to simply believing in Christ? As in, by “eat” and “drink” Jesus means to willingly accept him into your heart?
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The Greek used for eating is to tear and gnaw, as if it were a piece of flesh. That’s a very violent and graphic image for a symbolic “take me into your heart” meaning…
dustdev14 said:
The problem I have with this is that if it is taken literally, then doesn’t that mean that ANYBODY could consume the host and just instantly be saved?
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Nope! Most certainly not! 1 Corinthians 11:27:
“11:27 Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.”
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Transubstantiation works by divine supernatural power. The process is a divine miraculous miracle and the suspension of the laws of nature performed at every Mass by God through the ministry of the priest. The Church teaches that the whole substance of the bread changes into the substance of the body of Christ and the whole substance of the wine changes into the substance of the blood of Christ and that this change is fittingly called transubstantiation which means a change across the whole substances of the bread and wine while the species [latin - usually translated appearances] of the bread and wine remain.

The best explanation we have of this great mystery in keeping with the faith of the Church and the fathers of the Church was developed by the scholastic theologians most notably St Thomas Aquinas using Aristotlelian philosophical concepts such as form and matter or hylemorphism and the substance/accident distinction.

Essentially, the sensible, visible, measurable, and quantifiable appearances that remain of the bread and wine by divine power after transubstantiation are the accidents of the bread and wine while the substances of the bread and wine have been changed by divine power into the substances of the body and blood of Christ. A real substantial change takes place in the substances or natures of the bread and wine into the substances of the body and blood of Christ which is why we believe the eucharist is literally or substantially the body and blood of Christ while the appearances or accidents of the bread and wine remain.
 
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This is from the back of a Holy Card that I have about the Real Presence. It describes a Eucharistic Miracle called the Miracle of Lanciano:
In about the 700th year of Our Lord, in a monastery, a priest of the order of St. Basil was celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He had been suffering from recurring doubts concerning the mystery of transubstantiation (The changing of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ). After he spoke the solemn words of consecration the host was suddenly changed into a circle of flesh and the wine transformed into blood.

Many verifications of this miracle have been performed over the past 1,200 years, but the most convincing was made in November of 1970. This miracle underwent scientific scrutiny and the conclusion was presented on March 4, 1971 in detailed medical and scientific terminology. The microscopic studies ascertained and documented these facts:

The flesh was identified as striated muscular tissue of the myocardium (heart wall) having no trace whatsoever of materials or agents to preserve the flesh from decay. Both the flesh and blood were found to be of human origin. The flesh and blood were found to belong to the same blood type, AB. The relics may be seen today in the Church of St. Francis, Lanciano, Italy
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dustdev14 said:
I’d also like an explanation as to how the transubstantiation process works,
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Consider that a human body is ultimately made of atoms. You eat, the food is digested, and the atoms in the food are joined into your body. When you get a haircut, or shed dead skin cells, atoms leave your body.

The atoms in the bread of the communion host are analogously incorporated into the Body of Christ.

Rather than be broken down and reconstituted, they are “transubstantiated”. The arrangement of atoms is preserved, so it appears to be bread. Instead, it is the Communion Host, a portion of Christ’s glorified, risen body proper for sacramental consumption.
 
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Substance and accidents. The simplest way to think about it is this.

There are objects all aroud you. The only way you can know them is by their accidents–what is perceptible to the senses. You see Joe standing in front of you. You can’t take Joe himself physically into your brain or your mind. The way you know him, how he looks and everything about him, is by sense perception.

Those things that can get into our senses are sense perceptions. They are how we know the outside world, but they are not the outside world in itself.

Joe, meanwhile, is outside of you, along with the rest of the outside world.

If Joe were replaced by Frank, but the sense perceptions (accidents) remained the same, you could not tell that a change had occurred.

That cannot happen, except in the case of the Eucharist. Jesus replaces the bread with himself, but maintains the sense perceptions of bread.
 
@dustdev14 , I don’t get Aristotelian philosophy so I avoid words like “transubstantiation” .

I prefer to stay with the words of Jesus and believe what He teaches .

In his translation of the hymn Adoro Te Devote Father Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. wrote :

" Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true. "
 
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dustdev14 said:
I’d also like an explanation as to how the transubstantiation process works, as in how actual thin little tablets of bread are turned into Christ’s flesh.
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It’s a Holy Mystery.
We do not understand how it works and probably never will, at least not in our life on earth.

That’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but it’s the truth.
 
I think that answers to mysteries such as these are to be found at the quantum level and perhaps one day they will be discovered, though I’m not sure that I would want to know frankly, I prefer it as a mystery.
 
We need a little bit of Thomistic metaphysics here. Substance and accidents.
 
transubstantiation – because Christ said so. Whatever he meant, that’s what we believe – that is, what he said.

“Let there be kight…and it was so.”

Trans. is as much a mystery as the incarnation of God. We believe that, and we believe in the “incarnational” transubstantiation.

I recall the Dalai Lama commented on the Eucharist and he said how beautiful it was that God would come in the form of food – our fundamental human need.
 
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dustdev14,

You are asking about a Holy Mystery. We receive the Risen Christ (His glorified body) when we receive the Eucharist…He comes into us and depending on how we are prepared for the Eucharist, He can give us many gifts and graces. It is no problem for Our Lord to be able to do that!

Words can be used to try and explain it, but we with our finite minds cannot completely understand this Holy Mystery. God is awesome and loves us very much.

The multiplication of the loaves was a “type” of the Eucharist to come. So was the manna from heaven in the Old Testament.
 
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