Why does Body & Blood taste like bread & wine?

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eyeCalypso

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If bread and wine are totally and substanially changed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, why does the Body taste like bread and the Blood taste like wine?
 
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eyeCalypso:
If bread and wine are totally and substanially changed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, why does the Body taste like bread and the Blood taste like wine?
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Taste is a function of the “accidents” of bread and wine. Since the accidents remain while the substance is changed, the taste remains unchanged (as do color and form).

Deacon Ed
 
Deacon Ed:
Taste is a function of the “accidents” of bread and wine. Since the accidents remain while the substance is changed, the taste remains unchanged (as do color and form).

Deacon Ed
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Whew! And aren’t we glad about that!
 
The Church teaches that the Host becomes the actual body and blood of Christ but the matter retains its’ appearance, taste and texture. How this is possible is a mystery of faith. But remember that God created the universe and everything in it from nothing. So, whatever He wants done will be done. I remember we used to ask questions just like that one to try to trip the Priests and Sisters up.
 
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palmas85:
The Church teaches that the Host becomes the actual body and blood of Christ but the matter retains its’ appearance, taste and texture. How this is possible is a mystery of faith. But remember that God created the universe and everything in it from nothing. So, whatever He wants done will be done. I remember we used to ask questions just like that one to try to trip the Priests and Sisters up.
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Wasn’t trying to trip anybody up; just trying to learn. Thanks for the answers.
 
Of course another answer is, “If God is everywhere, how can he NOT be present in the Eucharist?” Is he everywhere BUT there?

NotWorthy
 
Everthing that is perceptible to the senses: taste, touch, weight, smell, color, are part of the “appearances” or “accidents” of the bread and wine. The accidents remain. There is no way to tell from the senses (or any physical instrument) that they are anything but bread and wine. But the underlying reality of the bread and wine is gone, replaced by the body and blood of Christ, which is hiddent “under” those appearances of bread and wine.
 
Christ said that His Body and Blood as given to us in the Eucharist was “Real food”. Therefore it does in fact appear to look like, and taste like real food to us.
 
It would be hard to swallow a 5 foot 6 person for starters…luckily Size (“quantity”) is an accident.
 
Is the Bread and Wine that Jesus consecrate during the last supper tasted blood and flesh?

And we are thankful that Jesus didn’t allow us to eat and drink fresh blood and flesh.:bigyikes:
 
In the Eucharist we are taught that it is the Body, Blood, SOUL and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, when you blend body, blood, Soul AND Divinity, it tastes just like…Flesh only? Blood only? or something else? God deemed it to taste like bread and wine. Simple. Besides He knew the Vega’s would become Catholics too.
 
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JimG:
Everthing that is perceptible to the senses: taste, touch, weight, smell, color, are part of the “appearances” or “accidents” of the bread and wine. The accidents remain. There is no way to tell from the senses (or any physical instrument) that they are anything but bread and wine. But the underlying reality of the bread and wine is gone, replaced by the body and blood of Christ, which is hiddent “under” those appearances of bread and wine.
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Good, thank you! Another question: when you say “the underlying reality” of the transubstantiation takes place, what exactly are you refering to if no bodily senses and no physical instrument can detect it? In other words, is it a physical change or a change other than physical? Does the bread and wine change on a molecular level or sub-atomic level, or neither during the consecration? I know I’m speaking technically here, but I’m a chemist by training so it’s how I easily understand things. Thanks in advance for any replies.
 
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eyeCalypso:
Good, thank you! Another question: when you say “the underlying reality” of the transubstantiation takes place, what exactly are you refering to if no bodily senses and no physical instrument can detect it? In other words, is it a physical change or a change other than physical? Does the bread and wine change on a molecular level or sub-atomic level, or neither during the consecration? I know I’m speaking technically here, but I’m a chemist by training so it’s how I easily understand things. Thanks in advance for any replies.
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In Thomistic philosophy (named after St. Thomas Aquinas) there is a distinction in all matter between its substance and its accidents. Substance refers to what the Greeks called the “nature” of a thing – but it goes beyond that. The accidents of a thing are its physical properties: height, weight, color, smell, taste, etc.

Consider who you are. If someone who didn’t know you came across your body he would simply have your accidents – but who you are, your human nature and the things that make you uniquely you are your substance.

Or, consider a rose. Its distinctive color, scent, size, thorns, etc. are all “accidents” while its “roseness” is its substance. That is, what makes a rose a rose is the substance of the rose while what makes a particular rose is the combination of substance and accident.

Does that help?

Deacon Ed
 
In REALITY, it changes on ALL levels. But it APPEARS to change on NO levels.

So, yes, on an atomic and subatomic level, it has changed…inashmuch as the molecules of bread and wine no longer exist and have been replaced by Jesus Himself.

But the molecules of bread and wine, though they no longer exist after transubstantiation, are not what is essentially changing nor the vehicle of that change: they do not change each individually into corresponding molecules of Jesus. Rather, the substance changes as a WHOLE first…and it is only because of that overall change that the constituant parts and elements have changed, and not the other way around. Philosophy states that parts of something can only be defined after the “something” as a whole has been defined.

But if you looked under a microscope they would still APPEAR to be there, because that is an accident.

Substance is what something OBJECTIVELY is. Absolutely and in-and-of itself in reality.

Accidents are what something SUBJECTIVELY is. Relative to other things and how it effects them.

So the Eucharist becomes objectively Jesus Christ Himself, but it still effects the tabernacle, our eyes, our tongue, our senses, our perception, our stomach acid…in the same way. Relative to other things, it still acts as bread and wine, but objectively speaking it is Jesus.

Some materialist, modernist philosophers claim that something is only what it is Subjectively. These are the Relativists that Pope Benedict warned about. They claim that a thing is ONLY the sum of its accidents. That things exist only as traits relative to other things. That there is no Absoluteness or Objectivity in the universe, that things simply exist as effects relative to other things. They claim that there is no such thing as substance, that something is only the sum of its size, color, position, etc…relative to other things. That there is no (for example) tree except relative to me. That it doesn’t exist except for the fact that photons bounce off of it…and they also claim that the photons wouldn’t exist except for the fact that they are bouncing of the tree! They make everything completely relative. There is no objective existence or reality for them, things do not exist in and of themselves they say, they only exist as effecting other things.

But the Catholic Church believes things both have a Subjective (accidents) and Objective (substance) existence.

Consider this hypothetical: what if there was only one thing in the universe. What if that thing made up the entire universe?

It would still exist, and yet it would not exist relative to anything else, nor would it effect anything else. And yet it would still exist objectively, not simply as a set of subjective effects relative to other things, but as an absolute substance.

That is what substance is: what something would still objectively be, even if it had nothing else to effect or be relative to.

Hypothetically, if a host BEFORE consecration was the only thing in the universe and made up the whole universe, it would just be a host.

But AFTER consecration, if a host was the only thing in the universe and made up the whole universe, it would be Jesus.

It is SUBJECTIVELY still bread and wine, but OBJECTIVELY Jesus.
 
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eyeCalypso:
Good, thank you! Another question: when you say “the underlying reality” of the transubstantiation takes place, what exactly are you refering to if no bodily senses and no physical instrument can detect it? In other words, is it a physical change or a change other than physical? Does the bread and wine change on a molecular level or sub-atomic level, or neither during the consecration? I know I’m speaking technically here, but I’m a chemist by training so it’s how I easily understand things. Thanks in advance for any replies.
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If you examine the consecrated species at the molecular or atomic level, all you would perceive is bread and wine. Any scientific instrument is but an extension of the senses. And the appearances of bread and wine–everything which is perceptible to the senses–remains.

So, no, you can not find any change by senses or any instruments.

All that we know of reality is through the senses. We can’t actually get the essence of bread or wine or of anything else directly into our mind. It all comes through sense perception.

In this one case, God changes the underlying reality while leaving the former appearances in place.

The underlying reality is Jesus Himself–body, blood, soul, divinity, Jesus in his entirety. But you can not perceive him through sense perception because, again, in this one case, Jesus chooses to make himself present only where we perceive the appearances of the bread and wine.
 
From “Das Problem des Transubstantiation,” by Joseph Ratzinger, Theol. Quartal., 1967, v. 147, pp. 129-176 at p. 150, as translated by Francis Sullivan in Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium, p. 125:
The eucharistic change, by definition, concerns not what appears, but what cannot appear (i.e., the “substance”). This change takes place outside the physical realm. That means that, as far as physics and chemistry are concerned, nothing happens to the bread and wine. Physically and chemically, they are the same after the change as before.
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