The Blessed Sacrament is cannibalism?

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One of my friends made this statement! What should I say. I said I didn’t know how to answer that:confused::eek::eek:
 
That’s what the ancient Romans thought of the early Christians…and so they burned them, tossed them into the circus and the like. It gives credence to the idea that the early Christians believed in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist…except that the Romans thought the Christians were actually taking people out of nowhere and eating their flesh. (The unconverted were not allowed to see the Eucharistic liturgy take place in order to verify that the charges were ridiculous.)

Paul R. Viola
 
Maybe, although I suppose it depends how you define cannibalism. Most people who call it that are just trying to attach the least appealing word possible to it, generally to make a point. And cannibalism, I guess, is eating the flesh of man, while the Eucharist is the flesh of the Son of Man:
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats 19 my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” (Jn 6:53-58.)
So do Catholics eat flesh and drink blood? The one-word version of the answer is, Yes.
 
Ummm… yes and no.

Even though it’s the “flesh” it’s still not really flesh with epidermis, sarcomeres, etc. It’s a gluten-free wafer.

I think they may be taking transsubstantiation (or whatever that word is)… that in an extreme literal sense.
 
onegreenclover said:
Ummm… yes and no.

Even though it’s the “flesh” it’s still not really flesh with epidermis, sarcomeres, etc. It’s a gluten-free wafer.

I think they may be taking transsubstantiation (or whatever that word is)… that in an extreme literal sense.
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Again, it’s the distinction between accidents and substance.

I was reading an Orthodox forum last night, and they were debating consubstantiation vs. transubstantiation! It was absolutely horrid. Posters were so troubled over it that one had phoned his Archbishop, who had assured him that the bread and wine do not remain.

However, all were clear that we Latins were too scholastic in defining the mysteries and that transubstantiation was the incorrect way to describe it . . .

Anyways, this is what “accidents” and “substance” mean as I see it:

Accidents are what something happen to be made of. Substance is what something is.

My body, for example, is made up of platelets, lymphocytes, epithelium, myocites, and going closer, collagen, hydroxylapatite, phospholipids, myelin, sphingolipids . . .

Christ has given us a gift: his body is made of gluten and starch, and his blood is made of alcohol, water, and sugar. We don’t consume his body that is composed of the typical biological components - that would be repugnant.

Yes, the alcohol, the water, the sugar, the gluten, and the starch all remain after the consecration - that is evident. It’s what His Body and Blood happen to be made of. However, what they are is His Body and Blood, and they are no longer bread and wine.

This is not consubstantiation. What is on the altar is not bread, and it is not wine. However, what Christ’s Body and Blood happen to be made of is gluten, starch, alcohol, sugar, and water.

So, yes, it is cannibalism. We are eating human flesh and drinking human blood. However, no one has to die (again) and it is not in the typical form that is so repugnant to us to eat. Nonetheless, substantially, it is not bread and wine, even though it happens to be made of the same things that make up substantial bread and wine.

Another reason the pagans feared us is because they knew we didn’t burn our dead - they thought we were using their flesh in our ceremonies. hence the lack of cremation.
 
WetCatechumen said:
Again, it’s the distinction between accidents and substance.

I was reading an Orthodox forum last night, and they were debating consubstantiation vs. transubstantiation! It was absolutely horrid. Posters were so troubled over it that one had phoned his Archbishop, who had assured him that the bread and wine do not remain.
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Most Orthodox aren’t concerned with the inner workings of how the Eucharist came to be; hence, we don’t go into whether it is by transubstantiation or consubstantiation or the like. The most an Orthodox will tell you is that it is the Holy Spirit that wills it. For us, it is a mystery, just as God is a mystery and we cannot delve into His essence. In any way, Catholic and Orthodox belief in the Real Presence is practically the same, in that we believe it is the very real body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. The forms may be a bit different (unleavened hosts for Latin rite as against leavened bread for Eastern Catholics/Orthodox), but the teaching is the same.
 
Flame4 said:
One of my friends made this statement! What should I say. I said I didn’t know how to answer that:confused::eek::eek:
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You could respond by asking him why that would be wrong, especially since Jesus so explicitly said to eat his flesh.
 
onegreenclover said:
Ummm… yes and no.

Even though it’s the “flesh” it’s still not really flesh with epidermis, sarcomeres, etc. It’s a gluten-free wafer.

I think they may be taking transubstantiation (or whatever that word is)… that in an extreme literal sense.
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Actually, they are not gluten free. A small amount of gluten it necessary to make them valid matter.
 
Cannibalism is consuming the flesh of a dead human being.

Catholics consume the flesh of our Living God.
 
WetCatechumen said:
Again, it’s the distinction between accidents and substance.
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That is always the tricky part. The substances changes, but the accidents stay the same. It is no longer bread and wine but the body and blood of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine (which is why people with celiacs have trouble with the host, and why you can still go over the legal limit if you drink too much of the precious blood ;))

That’s not the important part though. When we eat the body of Christ we mike it our own and become the body of Christ. When we drink His precious blood we drink all that He is; it is the stuff of life itself, His humanity and His divinity (so technically + “soul and divinity” are correct, but redundant).
 
Milliardo said:
Most Orthodox aren’t concerned with the inner workings of how the Eucharist came to be; hence, we don’t go into whether it is by transubstantiation or consubstantiation or the like. The most an Orthodox will tell you is that it is the Holy Spirit that wills it. For us, it is a mystery, just as God is a mystery and we cannot delve into His essence. In any way, Catholic and Orthodox belief in the Real Presence is practically the same, in that we believe it is the very real body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist. The forms may be a bit different (unleavened hosts for Latin rite as against leavened bread for Eastern Catholics/Orthodox), but the teaching is the same.
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I can message you a link to the thread if you like; I was only mentioning it as a side note. I don’t think this thread is the proper forum for an East/West discussion over the Latin dogmatic formulation of transubstantiation.
 
Verbum_Caro said:
WC,

I don’t think that is quite right?

VC
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If taken improperly, then my post could be taken to mean consubstantiation. It does not, I assure you.

There is no bread or wine present. However, it is clear that gluten, starch, sugar, ethanol, and water are.

The church does not ask us to reject our senses entirely - hence the explanation of “accidents”.

aquinasonline.com/Topics/substacc.html

Accidents are things like what it happens to be chemically composed of. Substance is what it actually is. The accidents that remain are merely what composes Christ’s Body.

What is there is Christ’s Body. What is not there is bread and wine.
 
WC,

I think there might be a couple of difficulties here.

The first, is that those things you listed (gluten, etc) are substances in their own right and not accidents.

The second is that you want to annex them to Christ’s body. Even if they were accidents (which they are not) it still would be improper to say they are accidents of Christ’s body.

God bless (and maybe congrats too on your baptism?)
VC
 
Verbum_Caro said:
WC,

I think there might be a couple of difficulties here.

The first, is that those things you listed (gluten, etc) are substances in their own right and not accidents.

The second is that you want to annex them to Christ’s body. Even if they were accidents (which they are not) it still would be improper to say they are accidents of Christ’s body.

God bless (and maybe congrats too on your baptism?)
VC
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lol, thank you. I was baptized in a Protestant church at age 10, and received into the Holy Catholic Church this past December. Hence, when I was a catechumen, I was wet. Just a little joke.

The site I linked says these are accidents:
Code: 
*  Quantity,
* Quality,
* Relation,
* Action,
* Passion,
* Time,
* Place,
* Disposition (the arrangement of parts), and
* Rainment (whether a thing is dressed or armed, etc.)
Disposition, that is, the way the specific molecules that are the Lord’s Body and Blood are arranged, is an accident. They happened to be arranged like bread and like wine, which is what I was trying to emphasize by saying gluten, starch, alcohol, water, and sugar.

You must remember that your own blood is not erythrocytes, hemoglobin, albumin, fatty acids, plasma, platelets, or whatever other tissue. Those are simply accidents. What distinguishes one level of glucose from another? Is one your blood and the other not simply because the disposition is different? The substance is your blood. The concentration of glucose and the presence of erythrocytes etc. are accidents.

Likewise, the ethanol, fructose, and the water in Christ’s Blood are merely accidents - I only use the words to describe their disposition and quality. However, it is Christ’s blood, and not wine. It is also Christ’s blood, and not water, ethanol, and fructose substantively. Accidentally, though, it is wine. Hence why it is referred to as wine after the consecration.

These types of mind-benders are why Eastern Christians say, “It’s the Body and Blood. Stop analyzing it.”
 
Hi WC,

Arrangement of parts is an accident. The difficulty I have is that you* seem* to be saying the parts themselves are accidents and that those parts are parts of *Christ’s * Body.

Let’s leave aside for a moment what you want to say accidents are. A much bigger concern for me is that you seem to say those things are accidents of Christ’s body (i.e. that his body has the “accident” of gluten). But I think that misses the mark. That is because whatever accidents of bread that remain in the Eucharist surely are not accidents of Christ’s body*.*****As St. Thomas said, speaking of the accidents of bread and wine, “it is manifest that these accidents are not subjected in the substance of Christ’s body and blood, because the substance of the human body cannot in any way be affected by such accidents” meaning that the accidents of bread and wine do not inhere in Christ’s Body and Blood. They inhere in no substance whatsoever.

VC
 
Flame4 said:
One of my friends made this statement! What should I say. I said I didn’t know how to answer that:confused::eek::eek:
Click to expand...
The first thing I would say is “Thank you. Although you are incorrect, you at least acknowledge that the bread and wine do indeed become real flesh and real blood, becasue if they did not we can’t even begin to address the cannibalism question”.

Now that they agree with you that the bread and wine become flesh and blood, we have only to determine what type of flesh and blood. I think we can agree that if f they became cow or pig flesh and blood, that would not be cannibalism, since cannibalism is the eating of human flesh. So, what kind of flesh did Jesus have?

Jesus was fully human and fully devine, so he did have human flesh, the type that was made of human DNA and was torn by scourging and broken and human blood that could be shed - but that was not all. Jesus had a resurrected body that was also flesh (it got hungry, it retained nail holes) but was also more than flesh (it could walk through locked doors and appear/disappear at will). It is this resurrected flesh we consume in the Eucharist. We eat the flesh of the Living God, and that flesh is not of the normal human variety.

I would then close with “well, I hope that answers your question, and by the way since you already believe that a Catholic Priest can turn bread and wine into the body and blood of God, you are well on your way to being Catholic…”
 
TheDoctor said:
It is this resurrected flesh we consume in the Eucharist. We eat the flesh of the Living God, and that flesh is not of the normal human variety.
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It might get a bit complicated, though, if they ask about the Eucharist consumed at the Last Supper, before his resurrection.

VC
 
onegreenclover said:
Ummm… yes and no.

Even though it’s the “flesh” it’s still not really flesh with epidermis, sarcomeres, etc. It’s a gluten-free wafer.
Click to expand...
actually, no, a gluten free wafer would not be valid matter. (My mom has celiac, I’ve read what the Church has stated, and indeed, gluten is required; a very low gluten host may be used, but a totally gluten free host is invalid.)
 
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