Transubstantiation v. Sacramental union

[pjcsisabel]

As I understand it, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that at the words of consecration the substance of the bread and wine changes into the body and blood of Christ, and that while the visible properties of bread and wine remain, the ultimate reality of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ. Furthermore, I understand Luther’s doctrine of sacramental union as saying that the priest does not “change” bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, that Christ’s body and blood has been present long ago and is only “sacramentally united,” with the bread and wine, thus making Christ’s presence real at the Eucharist. Thus, I see that Luther was most wary about the Catholic teaching of the priest “changing” or “creating” the body and blood of Christ out of bread and wine.

Now, my question is how exactly does the Church defend transubstantiation against Luther’s sacramental union (or the mainline Protestant view of the Eucharist in general) or perhaps any other view (e.g. consubstantiation) on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Like what is exactly faulty with Luther’s argument that causes the Church to actually reject it?

 

[tweedlealice]

Well, I am just a simple minded fool but transubstantiation=across the substance and consubstantiation=with the substance.So when the priests of either religion states Jesus’s words, the Holy Spirit makes the changes under both religions. The Lutheran service I attended didn’t give me the impression that the minister felt Jesus was present before the words were spoke. That’s why we are so close to unity. Luther was correct in many of his 99 complaints and John Paul II agreed, at one point and time. We can’t buy indulgence etc.
We’re very close to unity w the Lutherns’.
I never heard term Sacramental Union. I was very ecumenical after Vatican II. But I suppose one can miss a lot of things.

In Christ’s love
tweedlealice

 

[JerryZ]

As I understand it, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that at the words of consecration the substance of the bread and wine changes into the body and blood of Christ, and that while the visible properties of bread and wine remain, the ultimate reality of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ. Furthermore, I understand Luther’s doctrine of sacramental union as saying that the priest does not “change” bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, that Christ’s body and blood has been present long ago and is only “sacramentally united,” with the bread and wine, thus making Christ’s presence real at the Eucharist. Thus, I see that Luther was most wary about the Catholic teaching of the priest “changing” or “creating” the body and blood of Christ out of bread and wine.

Now, my question is how exactly does the Church defend transubstantiation against Luther’s sacramental union (or the mainline Protestant view of the Eucharist in general) or perhaps any other view (e.g. consubstantiation) on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Like what is exactly faulty with Luther’s argument that causes the Church to actually reject it?

Jesus words do not leave much room to wiggle. His words were “This is my body”

John
6:53 Therefore, the Jews debated among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 6:54 And so, 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 will not have life in you. 6:55 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 6:56 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 6:57 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 6:58 Just as the living Father has sent me and I live because of the Father, so also whoever eats me, the same shall live because of me. 6:59 This is the bread that descends from heaven. It is not like the manna that your fathers ate, for they died. Whoever eats this bread shall live forever.” 6:60 He said these things when he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. 6:61 Therefore, many of his disciples, upon hearing this, said: “This saying is difficult,” and, “Who is able to listen to it?”

Matthew
26:26 Now while they were eating the meal, Jesus took bread, and he blessed and broke and gave it to his disciples, and he said:** “Take and eat. This is my body.” ** 26:27 And taking the chalice, he gave thanks. And he gave it to them, saying: “Drink from this, all of you. 26:28 For this is my blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many as a remission of sins.

I Corinthians
11:27 And so, whoever eats this bread, or drinks from the cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be liable of the body and blood of the Lord. 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and, in this way, let him eat from that bread, and drink from that cup. 11:29 For whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks a sentence against himself, not discerning it to be the body of the Lord.

The problem with Luther is that it breaks a simple logic rule. And GOD is logical.

We either have bread OR we have Jesus flesh in front of us.

Jesus says “This is MY body” Is Jesus’s body made up of bread? Of course not!
Now you say: It tastes like bread and smells like bread, it even looks like bread, and I say: but IT IS NOT bread!
I believe Jesus!
So if we take Jesus at HIS words we have Flesh and yet it “looks” like bread. How do we account for the discrepancy?

Something peculiar must happen that allows this to occur. See, with Luther’s explanation we have the problem that IT IS BREAD. NOT Flesh!
By the way “consubstantiation” is basically the same both “substances” or “realities” are present. Which is a breakdown of logic.

Jesus could have said “The bread I will give you is also my flesh”. The Jews that abandoned Him when He declared this doctrine probably could have swallowed the teaching more easily. But NOPE Jesus let them go!

“IT IS MY (JESUS) BODY” what you eat at a Catholic Mass.

The Catholic explanation is that the “substance” is transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus. But the “Accidents” the bread and wine remain under the previous form.

Another issue is that the Catholic Church has never taught that the priest makes this transformation. Unless one is deaf and cannot understand the words of institution, the priest ASKS GOD to send the Holy Spirit and affect the transformation.
A priest is REQUIRED to be present and say the words, but he is a vehicle NOT the motor.

Also indulgences were NEVER sold by the Church. The sin of Simony (Selling or buying GOD’s grace or Sacraments) is a MORTAL sin. Always has.

Did some unscrupulous people attempt to do this (Very possible) just like some “priests” abused children. But it is NOT the teaching of the Church.

.

 

[Micosil]

Jesus words do not leave much room to wiggle. His words were “This is my body”

The problem with Luther is that it breaks a simple logic rule. And GOD is logical.

We either have bread OR we have Jesus flesh in front of us.

Jesus says “This is MY body” Is Jesus’s body made up of bread? Of course not!
Now you say: It tastes like bread and smells like bread, it even looks like bread, and I say: but IT IS NOT bread!
I believe Jesus!
So if we take Jesus at HIS words we have Flesh and yet it “looks” like bread. How do we account for the discrepancy?

Something peculiar must happen that allows this to occur. See, with Luther’s explanation we have the problem that IT IS BREAD. NOT Flesh!
By the way “consubstantiation” is basically the same both “substances” or “realities” are present. Which is a breakdown of logic.

Jesus could have said “The bread I will give you is also my flesh”. The Jews that abandoned Him when He declared this doctrine probably could have swallowed the teaching more easily. But NOPE Jesus let them go!

“IT IS MY (JESUS) BODY” what you eat at a Catholic Mass.

The Catholic explanation is that the “substance” is transformed into the flesh and blood of Jesus. But the “Accidents” the bread and wine remain under the previous form.

Another issue is that the Catholic Church has never taught that the priest makes this transformation. Unless one is deaf and cannot understand the words of institution, the priest ASKS GOD to send the Holy Spirit and affect the transformation.
A priest is REQUIRED to be present and say the words, but he is a vehicle NOT the motor.

Also indulgences were NEVER sold by the Church. The sin of Simony (Selling or buying GOD’s grace or Sacraments) is a MORTAL sin. Always has.

Did some unscrupulous people attempt to do this (Very possible) just like some “priests” abused children. But it is NOT the teaching of the Church.

.

Excellent explanation. I didn’t know that Lutheranism explained it as a “consubstantiation” – indeed, it doesn’t make sense to me that the nature, essence or substance of something could be two things at the same time. It is either a) Jesus, flesh and blood, soul and divinity, or b) bread and wine, but not both at the same time.

 

[JakeWI]

My wife converted to Catholicism this year from Missouri Synod Lutheranism. From what I have been told (and from what I can understand in reading), they always believe in the presence sharing in the bread and wine (consubstantiation) but not that it is actually body and blood.

This was the toughest thing to help my wife understand. It almost seemed as if she didn’t fully understand what she was receiving in the Lutheran faith either, as the lines were very blurred, or the explanation was very vague to her…

 

[Vico]

As I understand it, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that at the words of consecration the substance of the bread and wine changes into the body and blood of Christ, and that while the visible properties of bread and wine remain, the ultimate reality of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ. Furthermore, I understand Luther’s doctrine of sacramental union as saying that the priest does not “change” bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, that Christ’s body and blood has been present long ago and is only “sacramentally united,” with the bread and wine, thus making Christ’s presence real at the Eucharist. Thus, I see that Luther was most wary about the Catholic teaching of the priest “changing” or “creating” the body and blood of Christ out of bread and wine.

Now, my question is how exactly does the Church defend transubstantiation against Luther’s sacramental union (or the mainline Protestant view of the Eucharist in general) or perhaps any other view (e.g. consubstantiation) on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Like what is exactly faulty with Luther’s argument that causes the Church to actually reject it?

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/discip-christ-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20090630_disciples-christ-report-2003-2009_en.html

1. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, common understandings of the Eucharistic presence had again been replaced by a variety of viewpoints. Terms once understood in common now received different interpretations. Just as today ‘substance’ would have a materialist meaning – something we can touch and feel – so in the sixteenth century it was taken to mean ‘materially present’, which was just the opposite of what Aquinas had intended when he used the term ‘transubstantiation’ to oppose materialist misunderstandings. Martin Luther held to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist ‘under the bread and wine’, but repudiated the concept of transubstantiation.
2. The meaning of the term ‘transubstantiation’ continues to be normative for Catholic teaching today. In using this term, the Council of Trent intended to defend the mystery of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, which it did by opposing two extreme positions. On the one hand, Trent condemned positions in which Christ is present ‘as in a sign or figure’, or present along with the bread and wine, which remain. On the other hand, the Council of Trent taught the mystery of Christ’s presence by counteracting materialistic interpretations of it. This meaning intended by Trent is highlighted when Catholics teach that the bread and wine become the body and blood of the risen, glorified Lord.

 

[thinkandmull]

Cardinal Ratzinger said in one of his books that Luther believed in transubstantiation. Figuring out if a Lutheran is actually denying Church teaching is a little hard to determine

 

[Vico]

Cardinal Ratzinger said in one of his books that Luther believed in transubstantiation. Figuring out if a Lutheran is actually denying Church teaching is a little hard to determine

**Lutheran-Catholic Common **
Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017
From Conflict to Communion

1. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) used the verb transubstantiare, which implies a distinction between substance and accidents.(46) Although this was for Luther a possible explanation of what happens in the Lord’s Supper, he could not see how this philosophical explanation could be binding for all Christians. In any case, Luther himself strongly emphasized the real presence of Christ in the sacrament.
2. Lutherans and Catholics can together affirm the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper: “In the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Jesus Christ true God and true man, is present wholly and entirely, in his Body and Blood, under the signs of bread and wine” (Eucharist 16). This common statement affirms all the essential elements of faith in the eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ without adopting the conceptual terminology of transubstantiation. Thus Catholics and Lutherans understand that “the exalted Lord is present in the Lord’s Supper in the body and blood he gave with his divinity and his humanity through the word of promise in the gifts of bread and wine in the power of the Holy Spirit for reception through the congregation.”(52)

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/lutheran-fed-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_2013_dal-conflitto-alla-comunione_en.html#Eucharist_

 

[thinkandmull]

There is no one “conceptual terminology of transubstantiation”