Why can one feel tipsy if the substance of the wine has changed?

[SearchTruth]

I am a non-Catholic in search of the Truth, and have been reading Crossing the Tiber. Something that doesn’t make sense to me when reading the book is found on page 255, under ‘Catechism of the Council of Trent’. It reads as follows: “However repugnant it may appear to the senses, is that none of the substance of the elements remains in the Sacrament. The substance of the bread and wine is so changed into the body and blood of our Lord that they altogether cease to be the substance of bread and wine”.

If I understand this correctly, this tells me that the alcohol in the wine ceases to be or to have any affect. I heard a deacon in a Catholic Church say during a Bible study that he didn’t feel comfortable driving home after drinking a good number of ounces of the “leftover” contents of the cup (what remained in the cups after the congregation had participated in the Eucharist) due to feeling the affects of the alcohol.

Please explain how the substance of bread and wine “ceases to be”, yet the affect of alcohol is still present.

Thanks!

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

The substance (essence) of the wine changes, but the accidents (what appear to the senses) remain the same. The taste and appearance and all the other aspects of the wine that affect the senses, including those of alcohol which were present in the wine, do not change. There is nothing about the appearances of the bread and the wine that affects the senses differently after they are consecrated. There is no physical test that can be made that can prove that a change has occurred. Today we must trust the Lord’s words just as much as His disciples did.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.