Turning wine into blood

[walnutleviosa]

I started RCIA last year and have trouble wrapping my mind around bread and wine becoming the flesh and blood of christ.

I accept it as symbolism…but actual? I’m not sure.

 

[Vico]

I started RCIA last year and have trouble wrapping my mind around bread and wine becoming the flesh and blood of christ.

I accept it as symbolism…but actual? I’m not sure.

The bread and wine are symbolic of the fruits of the earth, but there is more to it. When transubstantiation takes place, the signs (accidents) are not changed, rather the essence of them is changed from ordinary material essence to divine essence. So when you say actual perhaps you are thinking of the accidents not the essence?

This may require study, but you have doubts so here it is. Fr. John Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary:

**SUBSTANCE
**A being whose essence requires that it exist in itself. It is an ens per se (a being by itself) or ens in se (a being in itself). It is commonly distinguished from an accident, whose essence is to exist in another, that is, in a substance. (Etym. Latin substantia, that which stands under, principle, foundation.)

ACCIDENTS
Things whose essence naturally requires that they exist in another being. Accidents are also called the appearances, species, or properties of a thing. These may be either physical, such as quantity, or modal, such as size or shape. Supernaturally, accidents can exist, in the absence of their natural substance, as happens with the physical properties of bread and wine after Eucharistic consecration.

ESSENCE
What a thing is. The internal principle whereby a thing is what it is and not something else. Sometimes essence is said to be the same thing as being, but being merely, affirming that a thing is, without specifying its perfections. Essence is not quite the same as nature, which adds to essence the notion of activity, i.e., nature is the essence in action. Or again essence is substance, but not all essences are substantial because accidents also have an essence. (Etym. Latin essentia, essence, being.)

TRANSUBSTANTIATION
The complete change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood by a validly ordained priest during the consecration at Mass, so that only the accidents of bread and wine remain. While the faith behind the term itself was already believed in apostolic times, the term itself was a later development. With the Eastern Fathers before the sixth century, the favored expression was meta-ousiosis, “change of being”; the Latin tradition coined the word transubstantiatio, “change of substance,” which was incorporated into the creed of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The Council of Trent, in defining the “wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the wine into the blood” of Christ, added “which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation” (Denzinger 1652). After transubstantiation, the accidents of bread and wine do not inhere in any subject or substance whatever. Yet they are not make-believe they are sustained in existence by divine power. (Etym. Latin trans-, so as to change + substantia, substance: transubstantio, change of substance.)

 

[achmafooma]

I started RCIA last year and have trouble wrapping my mind around bread and wine becoming the flesh and blood of christ.

I accept it as symbolism…but actual? I’m not sure.

I understand your difficulty. We’re very accustomed in our society to having everything supported by evidence and proof, but the transubstantiation is basically beyond perception.

We cannot let our senses deceive us; we must take it as an article of faith – taking Christ at His word when He said, this is my body and this is my blood. He didn’t say this is a symbol of my body and blood.

I had much difficulty with this too. Even when I was welcomed into the Church, I accepted the Church’s teaching on this subject because I trusted the Church…not because it really made sense to me. Even when I first received the Sacrament, and for a number of times after, I kept trying to discern the presence with my senses – which simply will not work.

When I stopped trying to analyze it, that’s when the Sacrament really started working on my Soul. Now I have no doubt whatsoever about the Real Presence, because I have truly experienced it.

God bless you in your faith journey through RCIA. Keep studying and learning, but don’t be afraid to abandon yourself to the guidance of Holy Church and step out in pure faith too!

 

[ConstantineTG]

I started RCIA last year and have trouble wrapping my mind around bread and wine becoming the flesh and blood of christ.

I accept it as symbolism…but actual? I’m not sure.

Do you believe Jesus died, resurrected, and ascended into heaven?
Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God eternally begotten of the Father and took flesh and became man?
Do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?
Do you believe Jesus walked on water?
Do you believe Jesus resurrected Lazarus and the little girl from the dead?
Do you believe Jesus healed the sick, gave vision to the blind, made the cripple walk?
Do you believe Jesus fed 5000 men with 5 loaves of bread and two fish?

If you say yes to all of them, then why is it hard to believe that the bread is the body of Jesus when He says it is, and the wine is His blood when He says it is?

 

[blanc10]

It’s hard to explain. If you put the host and the wine under the microscope, they are still bread and wine. Jesus veils himself as the bread and wine. His body* is* the bread and his blood* is *the wine.

 

[walnutleviosa]

Thank you Vico for all the info it certainly helped. And thanks to everyone for their contribution

 

[Brendan]

One other way of looking at would be the Incarnation itself.

If one accepts that an Infinite God can take human form, the concept of Transubstantiaion is not that much different.

When Christ walked among us, He did so in human form. But every scientific test would have shown nothing but humanity. There was no "God’ gene to detect, no Divine enzyme floating in His blood. Everything looked human (because it was), but that did not mean that it was not God Himself. Those ‘scientific’ things we can do are called Accidents.

The Accidents said everything was human, but we certainly know better since we can also use the eyes of Faith.

The Eucharist is our chance to recognize and adore Christ among us using the eyes of Faith, just as Peter and the Apostles did in their time… It truely IS Christ, just in the form of bread and wine.

There are some subtle theological differences. In the Incarnation, Christ assumed human nature, as human nature was in need of Redemption… Bread and wine are not in deed of redemption ( except, maybe for some cheaper Merlots I’ve tried ). Therefore the nature (substance) of bread and wine are no longer present, but rather dual Divine and Human Nature of Christ Himself.

But the Accidents of bread and wine remain, just as the Accidents of humanity were what the Apostles saw.

Does that help?