Question on the real presence in the Eucharist

[Jonatron5]

Firstly I want to say that this may sound flippant. But I do honestly not intend it that way. I mean it as a legitimate question.

I was never raised in a Catholic family have never been to a Catholic church so all I have to go on is what I have picked up, so please be patient if my question is based on misconception.

All that being said. I have recently learned that many Catholics believe in the litteral pressence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. As in the bread is physically transformed into Jesus’s flesh.

Being raised Protestant I always assumed most people interpreted his speech at the last supper as being metaphorical and not literal.

I could not square this mentally and one question kept popping up in my head.

“if the bread is transformed into Jesus’s flesh, why does it taste like bread?”

Again I do not mean this to offend anyone or to challenge their beliefs, it’s just where I got stuck in my own head, and would welcome some (name removed by moderator)ut from people who know more than I

 

[Happymom]

Hi @Jonatron5
It tastes like bread because that’s the form Jesus presents Himself in as He has said.
"I am the bread of life!’ We understand this by walking by faith and not by sight. We offer up the bread and wine through the Priests and is consecrated and transformed into Jesus. We could not eat of the flesh of Jesus if Jesus did not offer Himself to us in the form of bread and wine. (John 6:54) That said we are in Spirit when we experience Jesus in the sacrament even the scripture says we must ‘Worship in spirit’ and Truth! You must approach this with the eyes of faith or you won’t understand.

Just about everything in the Bible clues us into this miracle. Jesus saying He is the bread of life is most significant and John 6 talks about it in depth. At the Transfiguration as we watch Jesus change appearance it clues us into knowing Jesus is capable of this transubstantiation miracle. Remember and scripture right after Jesus rose Mary Magdalene heard Jesus voice but there was just a gardener there?!? (John 20:11-18) this is another Clue Into the ability for Jesus to change form. On the road to Emmaus the disciples heard but did not see Jesus until the breaking of the bread and the Last Supper was the first Mass where Jesus taught us (the disciples) about what was to happen with the bread and wine in the future in order to prepare us for what was to come after He died.

Jesus can change into anything He wants to be but it was prophesied that He would feed His flock this way after His death.

1 Corinthians 2:19 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” – the things God has prepared for those who love him–

 

[otjm]

The issue is usually described in terms of scholastic philosophy, of substance and accidents.

The term accidents when used in philosophy do not mean something like 2 cars running into each other. It is a term, for example, that would describe the difference between an apple tree and a fir tree. One of the accidents of an apple tree is that it bears fruit; fir trees don’t. another accident would be that an apple tree has leaves which fall off in the Fall; a fir tree has needles instead of leaves, and they do not fall off in the fall.

However, both can be identified as trees; they have the substance of tree.

The Church teaches that the host, before it is consecrated, is bread (well, more like a cracker, which is also a bread item) and if you took a host before it was consecrated, and compared it to a loaf of bread, the accidents would differ; the bread (because of the gluten and the yeast) is a tightly laced quantity of bread with a lot of air spaces; the host is very thin, had no yeast so there are no air holes through it; the bread would have a dark crust and the host has none; but they share the same substance - we can recognize them as bread based.

If you read the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel, Christ tells his followers they must eat his flesh. You might note in reading that chapter, that some left Jesus and no longer walked with him (were no longer followers). They could not believe.

At the Last Supper, the Gospels tell us Christ said “This is my body” and “This is my blood” It still looked like bread, and still looked like wine. St. Paul also speaks of the Eucharist; and if you read the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, who was a convert and studied under John, and was a bishop, in his letters he is clear that the Christian communities accepted the Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ.

If you want to read a very interesting book pick up a copy through Amazon by Brant Pitre titled
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper – February 2, 2016.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The bread and wine retain the accidents(physical properties) of bread and wine, as they did at the Last Supper.

Frank Sheed on Transubstantiation in Theology for Beginners.

In The Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas

 

[angel12]

Again I do not mean this to offend anyone or to challenge their beliefs, it’s just where I got stuck in my own head, and would welcome some (name removed by moderator)ut from people who know more than I

Please don’t worry. Most of us understand that it can be a difficult concept for a non-Catholic. You already have 2 excellent answers.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The consecrated Host maintains the physical appearance of bread, including looking like bread, tasting like bread, feeling like bread etc, but Jesus’ body and blood are hidden behind these appearances.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote about this in his prayer/ hymn, “Adoro te devote”, which reads in part:

I devoutly adore you, o hidden Deity,
Truly hidden beneath these appearances.
My whole heart submits to You,
And in contemplating You, it surrenders itself completely.

Sight, touch, taste are all deceived in their judgment of you,
But hearing suffices firmly to believe.
I believe all that the Son of God has spoken;
There is nothing truer than this word of Truth.

On the cross only the divinity was hidden,
But here the humanity is also hidden.
Yet believing and confessing both,
I ask for what the penitent thief asked.

 

[Gorgias]

“if the bread is transformed into Jesus’s flesh, why does it taste like bread?”

Some have given you explanations of the Church’s teachings on “transubstantiation.” They’re good explanations, but require a background in philosophy in order to make sense.

Let’s start, instead, with what the Church always believed. From the beginnings of the Church, Christians believed that the Eucharist was really Jesus’ body and blood. (If you want, you can go to the writings of the Early Church Fathers and see what they had to say on the subject. Typically, they would maintain that it was a symbol – but the kind of symbol that really is what it also symbolizes.) Here’s a good description of some of those writings (in the context of refuting what a contemporary Protestant is claiming about them).

But, even though the earliest Christians believed in the real presence, they didn’t know quite how it was what they said it was. In fact, the original word for ‘sacrament’ in Greek is mysterion – a mystery! They knew it tasted like bread and wine, and they believed Jesus’ assertion that it was His body and blood… but they didn’t know how to explain it further. It was a matter of faith.

Later, as philosophy and theology developed, additional ways of explaining it were found. But, at its heart, Christians from Pentecost until today have believed that the Eucharist – although appearing like bread and wine – are literally Jesus… because He himself said so!

 

[Wesrock]

The doctrine is that it changes to become the body and blood of Jesus Christ while retaining the appearance of bread and wine. Even though the host retains all of it’s molecules and atoms and taste and such, what it is is actually Jesus Christ. This is only possible by supernatural means, in which God makes the change.

A few clarifications. We don’t believe that part of the host becomes his hand, and the other part his leg. It is not dead flesh. We believe that every particle that appears to be bread and was consecrated is changed to Jesus Christ in full, that he gives himself totally to us. Jesus is not harmed or divided or broken in any of this, and once the semblance of bread or wine disappears, the Real Presence does, too.

We also understand the Real Presence to be more than just a spiritual presence. Christ is spiritually present with any believer or body of believers. The consecrated host is like if Jesus Christ appeared right now to you in your room bodily, or like walking with Jesus 2,000 years ago in Galilee. It is that type of presence. His body is made present, and as the body is indivisible from the person, he is fully present, including his divinity.

 

[Todd_Easton]

“if the bread is transformed into Jesus’s flesh, why does it taste like bread?”

Pope Paul VI, in his 1968 Apostolic Letter Credo of the People of God, wrote about the Eucharist, saying in part:

1. … We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His body and His blood which were to be offered for us on the cross, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence.(35)

Transubstantiation

1. Christ cannot be thus present in this sacrament except by the change into His body of the reality itself of the bread and the change into His blood of the reality itself of the wine, leaving unchanged only the properties of the bread and wine which our senses perceive. This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation. Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine,(36) as the Lord willed it, in order to give Himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of His Mystical Body.(37)
2. The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed Host which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word whom they cannot see, and who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us.

 

[njlisa]

I’m an RCIA Catholic. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. My church held the Lord’s Supper about four times a year, if that. We were taught that we participated in the ordinance because Jesus told us to do it in his memory. That ordinance had nothing to do with being a special holy ceremony. The Scriptures were the sole source of faith.

When I went through RCIA, some teachings were easy for me to accept, such as the Communion of the Saints, the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Mother, and the Sacrament of Confession. I wholeheartedly wanted to become Catholic, but transubstantiation puzzled me. The scriptures mentioned above helped me understand. And sitting in a adoration chapel helped. (I can’t kneel properly because of disabilities.) The chapel was so quiet. And the holiness within was palpable.

I can’t explain how I accepted this belief. It just happened, although sometimes, I do slip into a state of puzzlement, but never rejection.

 

[PJM]

I could not square this mentally and one question kept popping up in my head.

“if the bread is transformed into Jesus’s flesh, why does it taste like bread?”

Again I do not mean this to offend anyone or to challenge their beliefs, it’s just where I got stuck in my own head, and would welcome some (name removed by moderator)ut from people who know more than I

THAT my friend is an excellent question that I hope I can cover in a single POST?

1. The “Real Presence” is a defined DOGMA of the RCC
2. 5 different Catholic authors of the NT witness it [4 of them by their Life as Martyrs]

Mt 26: 26-28

Mk. 14: 22-24

Lk. 22: 17-20

Jn. 6: 47-58; 66-70

Paul 1st Cor. 11: 23-30
EACH IS A LITERAL ACCOUNT

1. it was believed and accepted by the Early RCC {Read Acts 2:42} the 1st terms for Catholic Holy Communion was “Breaking of the Bread”
2. Google “Eucharistic Miracles” {all independently confirmed}
3. What remains after the Consecration is termed theologically “the Accidents”; while it STILL looks and taste like bread; it HAS nevertheless been miraculously transformed into the very BODY. BLOOD, SOUL & DIVINITY OF JESUS.

Pls let me know if you have further questions,
GBY, Patrick

 

[PseudoClasm]

do not mean this to offend anyone or to challenge their beliefs, it’s just where I got stuck in my own head, and would welcome some (name removed by moderator)ut from people who know

Basically, God does what He wants. And it is His choice to administer the Eucharist under the appearance of Bread & Wine. We didn’t question the fact that Christ glowed, actually emitted light on Mt. Thabor but hid His divinity the rest of the time on earth. We didn’t question the fact that angels don’t have bodies and yet, angels showed up to Lot, Jacob, Mary, and at the tomb with bodies. Further, we didn’t question it when He multiplied the fish and the loaves. If we accept these powers of God to veil the true substance of things under different appearances and/or make whatever matter He wishes, why wouldn’t He also be able to change the taste of food? He is God after all.

 

[Hope1960]

“Miracle”

“Supernatural”

“Powers of God”

All said to correctly explain the reality of transubstantiation.

 

[njlisa]

Thanks. I had no idea.

 

[runningdude]

As in the bread is physically transformed into Jesus’s flesh.

The bread us not “physically transformed”. It still has the form of bread; the physical arrangement of atoms has not changed.

Rather, the atoms cease to be “bread” atoms, but are incorporated into the Body of Christ, as a portion fit for sacramental consumption.

The body and blood respresent life. The body is a physical presence, but the atoms are constantly shifting as blood flows, hair grows, etcetera.

A living body has flowing blood. When Christ died, his blood flow ceased. His human soul and divine natures departed his body. When he rose, his pulse was restored, and his soul was reunited with his flesh. When Holy Mass is celebrated, what was once bread and wine are recombined as Christ’s body and blood, representing his living whole.

The Host and Wine make Christ present before us, and allow us to receive his soul and divinity, which are in inextricably interwined with his living glorified risen body. The appearance is symbolic for our benefit, for the body and blood are both present in the solid and liquid. We receive the whole of Christ’s grace by receiving either.

The appearance is Christ’s concession to us. When Christ told his followers that they must “eat his flesh and drink his blood”, half left in utter disgust. He did not chase after them, saying he was only being symbolic.

Rather, his remaining followers trusted him through this disturbing news, and he rewarded their faith by his living flesh taking on the taste and appearance of bread and wine in the sacrament.

 

[KevinK]

Rather, the atoms cease to be “bread” atoms,

I would be careful here because that is scientifically refutable. Best to leave it as something “supernatural” or the like.

 

[runningdude]

I would be careful here because that is scientifically refutable.

There is no scientific definition of a “bread” atom; there is nothing for science to refute!

The sum of the atoms was once bread; the atomic structure has not changed, but the sum of the matter is now Christ’s body. The substance has changed, but the accidents, the appearance and properties remains the same.

 

[Gorgias]

Rather, the atoms cease to be “bread” atoms, but are incorporated into the Body of Christ, as a portion fit for sacramental consumption.

Uh-oh. Some problems here. There are no such things as “bread atoms” (or even “wine atoms” or “runningdude atoms”). There are just… atoms. So, they stay the same (carbon, or oxygen, or nitrogen… or whatever), regardless what the substance of the thing they’re part of, actually is.

So: the atoms don’t “cease being bread atoms”, but rather, the substance of bread is replaced with the substance of Jesus, sacramentally present.

 

[runningdude]

Hence the “quotes”. I am using informal language to describe the situation. “Bread atoms” refers to to the substance “bread”.

If you over parse figurative language, any metaphor will fail.

 

[semper_catholicus]

Because the bread and wine are substantially changed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, not physically changed.

The acidents or bread and wine remain after the consecration, but the substance has changed.