Why does the Eucharist appear as bread and wine?

[FuzzyBunny116]

Why does the Eucharist appear as bread and wine, rather than flesh and blood? If it becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, why does it not change? I think St. Thomas talked about it having some sort of physical and spiritual essence or somesuch? How does it work? Do I have a misunderstanding of transubstantiation.

 

[jemfinch]

If for no other reason, because that’d be pretty darn gross.

I, for one, am glad Christ’s flesh and blood appear as bread and wine.

Jeremy

 

[TexRose]

My answer would be that it doesn’t have to look like body and blood for me to believe it is, kwim?
Plus, I agree with the previous poster.

 

[FuzzyBunny116]

My answer would be that it doesn’t have to look like body and blood for me to believe it is, kwim?

I’m not doubting, only having trouble explaining it to a friend.

I once heard of some poem about a priest being afraid to consume a consecrated Host because it had been poisoned prior to consecration. Why would the poison still effect him if it has become the Body and Blood?

 

[VociMike]

What does Christ’s risen body and blood “really” look like? I don’t know. Do you? Does anybody?

One of the great symbolisms behind bread and wine is that they are both products of human hands molding God’s gifts. They convey the sense that God continually invites us to join in with His work of salvation. Not out of any need, but out of love.

 

[Atemi]

Why does the Eucharist appear as bread and wine, rather than flesh and blood?

That is a good question.

If it becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, why does it not change?

Technically, according to the RCC today, they both become Jesus Himself entire, not just His body and blood.

 

[dylanschrader]

The appearances of bread and wine remain for a number of reasons.

1. It makes it easier to receive Communion.
2. The concealing function of the sacrament increases our desire for the day when we can behold the Lord face to face.

 

[FuzzyBunny116]

I suppose I worded the question wrong. Perhaps it would be better to say, why does the Eucharist still look and taste like bread and wine if it is not?

 

[duskyjewel]

I would think at least part of the reason is because Jesus held out unleavened bread to the Apostles and said, “This is my Body,” and then held out a chalice of wine to them and said, “This is my Blood.” Jesus himself ordained that that was the form Eucharist would take.

A wonderful theologian who travels our diocese giving educational classes (this man is truly a blessing, Ron Dailey in Phoenix) explained that the substance changes but the form does not. Partly because if the form did change, it would turn receiving Eucharist into a fairly harrowing experience for most people, but also because when the form does not change, receiving the Eucharist becomes about faith. You have to believe that the bread and wine become Jesus’ Body and Blood without outward proof. So while God is kind, He doesn’t make it that easy…really ever.

 

[dylanschrader]

I suppose I worded the question wrong. Perhaps it would be better to say, why does the Eucharist still look and taste like bread and wine if it is not?

Are you asking for an explanation of transubstantiation or for a possible explanation of God’s rationale for using transubstantiation?

 

[LilyM]

Think of it in these terms. Each thing consists of two parts

1. “accidents” (appearance, taste, physical characteristics and so on)
2. “substance” (something intangible that makes a thing what it is or a person who they are)

For example - look at yourself.

On the one hand your physical characteristics are probably completely different in every respect to what they were when you were a baby of one hour old. In fact every cell in your body would have been changed many times since then. Yet you retain your ‘substance’ - whatever intangible property it is that made that baby fuzzybunny the same as the grown fuzzybunny.

On the other hand people who do have every physical characteristic exactly the same as each other do exist - they’re called identical twins. Even twins DNA is EXACTLY the same. So their ‘accidents’ can be exactly the same. If a clone is made of you same deal. But that twin or clone doesn’t have your ‘substance’ - fuzzybunny’s twin or clone isn’t the same person as fuzzybunny.

So every person, and every thing, has properties beyond and different from the physical that make that person or thing what it is. That make you you, not your twin or your clone or a perfectly physically correct robot replica of you. And that make you you even if you had plastic surgery to totally change the way you look. This unique property is what we’d call ‘substance’.

So it is with the Eucharist. The physical and perceptible qualities are those of bread and wine, but the ‘whatness’, ‘substance’ or ‘essence’ of those things becomes the ‘whatness’ or ‘substance’ or ‘essence’ of Christ instead.

As for a deeper ‘why’ - well, Christ’s substance is the substance of God - what sort of appearance exactly do you think His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity would or should naturally have? :hypno:

It wouldn’t be an appearance we could comprehend, and certainly nothing we could take into ourselves as we do the Eucharist, yet He commanded us to do so. So in His wisdom he gave us something that’s easy for us to see, touch and eat and drink.

 

[FuzzyBunny116]

Are you asking for an explanation of transubstantiation or for a possible explanation of God’s rationale for using transubstantiation?

More an explanation, but I think LilyM pretty much answered my question . Thanks all.

 

[sandmountainsli]

I would think at least part of the reason is because Jesus held out unleavened bread to the Apostles and said, “This is my Body,” and then held out a chalice of wine to them and said, “This is my Blood.” Jesus himself ordained that that was the form Eucharist would take.

.

In John 15: 5 Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” do you believe that he is literally a vine and we are branches in a literal sense?
In John 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door.” do you believe him to literally be a door?
It is the belief of many of us that the Eucharist was meant in a spiritual and figurative sense by Our Lord.
WP

 

[dylanschrader]

In John 15: 5 Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” do you believe that he is literally a vine and we are branches in a literal sense?
In John 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door.” do you believe him to literally be a door?
It is the belief of many of us that the Eucharist was meant in a spiritual and figurative sense by Our Lord.
WP

Those Catholics. They always take the Bible so literally.

Certainly Christ was speaking figuratively in the vine/door examples and others. He used parables all the time.

At the Last Supper, he didn’t say “I am bread” (although he does say this in John 6), he said “this is my Body” not “this bread is my Body” just “this is my Body.”

The apostles knew what it meant as can be seen from St. Paul’s writings about “discerning the Body” not to mention John 6. The early Church knew what it meant. Just read St. Ignatius of Antioch, et al.

 

[Pax]

In John 15: 5 Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” do you believe that he is literally a vine and we are branches in a literal sense?
In John 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door.” do you believe him to literally be a door?
It is the belief of many of us that the Eucharist was meant in a spiritual and figurative sense by Our Lord.
WP

Please be advised that when Jesus spoke in parables and word pictures, such as those you have cited, that it is eminently clear that he is speaking figuratively and not literally. All of the surrounding text and the figurative language associated with the text supports the fact that it is an analogy and not a literal usage.

Your example of John 10:9 is especially misplaced because verse 6 actually tells us that “Jesus used this figure of speach with them but they did not understand what he was saying.”

When Jesus spoke of the Eucharist he was extremely literal and graphic and all of his disciples and the twelve understood him literally. Jesus did nothing to dispel their thinking in this regard and even allowed his “disciples” that didn’t believe him to walk away.[See John 6]

 

[LilyM]

In John 15: 5 Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” do you believe that he is literally a vine and we are branches in a literal sense?
In John 10:9 Jesus said, “I am the door.” do you believe him to literally be a door?
It is the belief of many of us that the Eucharist was meant in a spiritual and figurative sense by Our Lord.
WP

For starters, read the whole of John 6 - it’s all in the emphatic tone, which is quite different to any metaphor or simile Jesus uses at any other time.

If Jesus spoke similarly in regard to any of his metaphors … as an example, if he said ‘I am a vine … I am a vine … I am a vine …I’m telling you guys I REALLY am a vine, and if you don’t eat the fruit of this vine you won’t have eternal life … my body IS A REAL VINE and my arms and legs are REAL branches …’

…and then LET PEOPLE WALK AWAY who thought he was crazy rather than simply and easily correcting their misconceptions and saying ‘hey guys, I only meant that I’m metaphorically a vine’ … and then asked the Apostles if they too wanted to leave instead of believing him …

You know what, at some point I’d say ‘hey, he’s the Son of God, if he’s so insistent that he’s literally a vine it’s just possible that he’s telling the truth!’

The point is this was called, by ALL those who heard it, a HARD teaching. What’s hard about a metaphor or parable? The apostles, disciples and other followers heard many such from Jesus, and didn’t walk away because they thought he was crazy when he said he was a door, a vine or a shepherd.

Clearly there’s something very different about John 6. And here it is - the hard bit is believing that, for once, he WASN’T speaking in metaphor as he so often did, but actually speaking literal truth!

 

[Pax]

I suppose I worded the question wrong. Perhaps it would be better to say, why does the Eucharist still look and taste like bread and wine if it is not?

The answer to your question might have something to do with the fact that Jesus’s actual glorified body is located in heaven. Jesus’s body is a glorified body but it is, nevertheless, a physical body. As such it would seem that Jesus’s body can only be in one place at one time.

Through the miracle of the sacrament we say that Jesus is substantially present…body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. It may be necessary that the accidents of Jesus body and blood are not visible in the Eucharist because of the spatial limitations of his physical body being located in heaven. This may be the flip side that explains the accidents of the bread and wine as they remain visible in the Eucharist.

Please note that this a speculation off the top of my head and is not meant to be something that I have read as Church teaching or a theological presentation by scholars. If I am corrected on this I will readily retract my comments.