Help me understand the Catholic teaching on the Eucharist.

[DaveHTexas]

I am looking into the differences between Catholic and Protestant teachings.

There are obviously things in Protestant teachings, and a lot of lacking church history that make no sense to me, but there are teachings of the modern Catholic Church that are leaving me scratching my head and really struggling to understand.

I am going through The Catechism In A Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz, and I am grasping most of what he is talking about, but this one area of teaching keeps sticking on me and is a stumbling block.

And the teaching on the Eucharist and trans substantiation is it. As presented it is not making sense to me.

More to the point, it is a bit confusing, and if I am confused by it I am sure lots of other folks are too.

I am certain we have all at some point in our lives, tasted our own blood due to biting the inside of your cheek, or having dental work done or whatever. It is not an unfamiliar flavor...

Am I understanding the official church teaching that the bread and wine being at the time of the eucharist being the actual literal body and blood of Christ, or is there something I am missing on this?

For Protestants, the elements of the communion, the bread and wine are symbolic of the actual body and blood of Jesus.

When he broke the bread and held it up saying this is my body broken for you, he didn't tear off a piece of his own body and pass it around the table... so symbolism makes sense here.

But I think we can all agree that miracles that are outside of human science and knowledge do happen.

I have heard it explained that it is the essence of the actual body and blood... how does "essence" differ from "symbol"?

I have had a priest tell me that there really isn't a difference between the ideas, but I am not sure he was right, or maybe trying to make the idea simpler to digest for me.

If anyone can help me clear this up. It would surely help a lot. Thank you.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I'm a Protestant convert to the Catholic Church but unlike others like Scott Hahn I didn't convert due to an exhaustive investigation into church history and theology. I made the move first and did some research later.

I doubt if anybody from the Pope down could explain what literally happens in "transubstantiation". Let's just say I accept it by faith. When Christ broke the bread and passed the cup, He was God in the flesh. His words are eternal - "My words will never pass away".

So when He said "This is my body" and "This is my blood", there was far more than a mere symbolic human interpretation behind it.

As part of the Eucharist, the priest asks the Holy Spirit to come upon these gifts. At that point transubstantiation happens - prior to that they're just wafers and ordinary wine. God's the one doing the work so it is a supernatural event at that precise point.

But we can't see it, any more than we can see the Holy Spirit descend when someone is baptised. For that matter how do you explain God in the form of a human body, namely Christ the God-man? That's one mystery amongst quite a number of others, and transubstantiation is another one.

We had an aggressive Australian journalist named Mike Willesee, who had been raised Catholic but lost his faith, in part because of the way he was treated by priests over his father's Labor party roles. But while he was still a skeptic he began to investigate some of the Catholic supernatural claims.

Unfortunately he died in 2019, but since he sincerely returned to the faith I suspect he is either in Purgatory or in Heaven. If he's in Purgatory he'll get to Heaven eventually anyway.

Mike Willesee looks into Catholic Churches' most polarising 'miracles'

Australian journalist Mike Willesee has dedicated a quarter of his life to investigating claims of inexplicable miracles of Jesus Christ in a bid to prove that God exists.

www.dailymail.co.uk

For a brief bio on Mike Willesee, there's a Wikipedia link here.

Mike Willesee - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I will say this much - if I go to a Protestant service their communion seems to be missing something. Christ is not present in their "elements".

John 6:53-58 Berean Standard Bible -

53 Therefore Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man, and shall have drunk His blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54The one eating My flesh and drinking My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day. 55For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.

56The one eating My flesh and drinking My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57As the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so also the one feeding on Me, he also will live because of Me. 58This is the bread having come down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. The one eating this bread will live to the age.”

God is the one saying all this, not just a mere mortal.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I'll extrapolate a bit more on the business of accepting by faith.

We accept Baptism by faith; the Bible as "God's word" by faith" (the Bible never claims that about itself); the virgin birth by faith; Christ as God-Man by faith: His words by faith (we didn't hear them); His miracles by faith (we weren't there to see them); God's judgement by Faith (He judges about 107 people a minute which is the current death rate); Heaven, Hell and Purgatory by faith (we can't see them): the saving role of the Church by faith; God's omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence by faith (try and prove them); Confession or Reconciliation by faith; God's love by faith in an unloving world; the Fall by faith; and every other Christian mystery by faith.

But for some reason Protestants baulk at accepting Christ's own words about His flesh and blood by faith, and relegate communion to mere symbolism as though Christ is not literally present in the transubstantiated bread and wine.

I'll take my chances on the Catholic interpretation.

PS - The Protestant refusal of the doctrine of Transubstantiation wouldn't be because it is the Catholic belief and the Catholic Church couldn't possibly be right, would it?

 

[Wolseley]

We had an aggressive Australian journalist named Mike Willesee, who had been raised Catholic but lost his faith, in part because of the way he was treated by priests over his father's Labor party roles. But while he was still a skeptic he began to investigate some of the Catholic supernatural claims.

Unfortunately he died in 2019, but since he sincerely returned to the faith I suspect he is either in Purgatory or in Heaven. If he's in Purgatory he'll get to Heaven eventually anyway.

Mike Willesee looks into Catholic Churches' most polarising 'miracles'

Australian journalist Mike Willesee has dedicated a quarter of his life to investigating claims of inexplicable miracles of Jesus Christ in a bid to prove that God exists.

www.dailymail.co.uk

I just finished reading one of his books, about the Eucharistic miracles (the bleeding Host, the weeping statues, etc.) and the scientific examinations of the same. I don't think anybody with an open mind could read it without becoming convinced of the veracity of the accounts.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I am looking into the differences between Catholic and Protestant teachings.

There are obviously things in Protestant teachings, and a lot of lacking church history that make no sense to me, but there are teachings of the modern Catholic Church that are leaving me scratching my head and really struggling to understand.

I am going through The Catechism In A Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz, and I am grasping most of what he is talking about, but this one area of teaching keeps sticking on me and is a stumbling block.

And the teaching on the Eucharist and trans substantiation is it. As presented it is not making sense to me.

More to the point, it is a bit confusing, and if I am confused by it I am sure lots of other folks are too.

I am certain we have all at some point in our lives, tasted our own blood due to biting the inside of your cheek, or having dental work done or whatever. It is not an unfamiliar flavor...

Am I understanding the official church teaching that the bread and wine being at the time of the eucharist being the actual literal body and blood of Christ, or is there something I am missing on this?

For Protestants, the elements of the communion, the bread and wine are symbolic of the actual body and blood of Jesus.

When he broke the bread and held it up saying this is my body broken for you, he didn't tear off a piece of his own body and pass it around the table... so symbolism makes sense here.

But I think we can all agree that miracles that are outside of human science and knowledge do happen.

I have heard it explained that it is the essence of the actual body and blood... how does "essence" differ from "symbol"?

I have had a priest tell me that there really isn't a difference between the ideas, but I am not sure he was right, or maybe trying to make the idea simpler to digest for me.

If anyone can help me clear this up. It would surely help a lot. Thank you.

There is the reality of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, body and blood, soul and divinity. That is referred to as the 'Real Presence'. Then distinct from that is the philosophical explanation of how that happens. The word 'transubstantiation' explains what happens, but that word only makes sense if your philosophy is Aristotelian or Thomistic. Don't try to use that word with other kinds of philosophy as it isn't coherent in every philosophical tradition. I do think that Thomism is a great philosophical system, but it isn't strictly required to be a Catholic. Catholics do believe that bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. Looks like bread and tastes like wine but isn't in actuality any longer. Just Jesus.

Protestants have a whole bunch of different views on what is going on. Some Lutherans follow Luther with an almost Catholic view of it. Other Protestants have dozens of other views of it. Depends on what Protestants you are talking to. Luther was scandalized by all of that and said he would rather side with the Papists on that.

Oh, and the Orthodox have a similar understanding, probably identical, as Catholics but they are much more reticent to go defining things in philosophical terms. It just is for them.

 

[JSRG]

There is the reality of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, body and blood, soul and divinity. That is referred to as the 'Real Presence'. Then distinct from that is the philosophical explanation of how that happens. The word 'transubstantiation' explains what happens, but that word only makes sense if your philosophy is Aristotelian or Thomistic. Don't try to use that word with other kinds of philosophy as it isn't coherent in every philosophical tradition. I do think that Thomism is a great philosophical system, but it isn't strictly required to be a Catholic. Catholics do believe that bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. Looks like bread and tastes like wine but isn't in actuality any longer. Just Jesus.

I don't think it's right to say that the word transubstantiation only makes sense if your philosophy is Aristotelian or Thomistic. This is because the Latin term from which transubstantiation comes--transubstantiatio--predates both philosophies gaining hold in the Latin West (and of course the basic idea predated the term itself).

The first one to use transubstantiation (the Latin version of it, anyway) was apparently Hildebert de Lavardin, from the 11th century. Obviously, this was before Thomism, because Thomas Aquinas was not born until the 13th century (specifically, 1225). It was also before Aristotelian philosophy caught on, because at that point the works of Aristotle were essentially unknown in the Latin West, and were not available until the 12th century.

The term transubstantiation was first formally used in a council by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215. This, again, is obviously before Aquinas (he wouldn't be born for another decade), though it does come after the works of Aristotle were available. However, it also comes before they were particularly popular (that came later in the 13th century from what I can determine), so it is unlikely that Aristotle's ideas played any role in the council.

So the word can certainly make sense if your philosophy is neither Aristotelian or Thomistic, given that the word was used and clearly made sense to people at a time when those philosophies did not exist in Western Europe. Rather, the application of Aristotelian thought to the term transubstantiation in Thomism was an attempt to use Aristotle's ideas to describe the already-existing term.

 

[Bob Crowley]

I just finished reading one of his books, about the Eucharistic miracles (the bleeding Host, the weeping statues, etc.) and the scientific examinations of the same. I don't think anybody with an open mind could read it without becoming convinced of the veracity of the accounts.

What was the name of the book? I might see if I can get hold of a copy myself.

 

[Bob Crowley]

There's a definiton here with a brief history. I noted that "... the faith behind the term itself was already believed in apostolic times..."

Dictionary : TRANSUBSTANTIATION

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...

www.catholicculture.org

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.)

 

[FaithT]

I just finished reading one of his books, about the Eucharistic miracles (the bleeding Host, the weeping statues, etc.) and the scientific examinations of the same. I don't think anybody with an open mind could read it without becoming convinced of the veracity of the accounts.

I read a book or two on the scientific examinations of bleeding hosts, weeping statues etc, too but I don’t think I read the same author you’ve read. I was convinced they’re miraculous, too.

 

[Wolseley]

What was the name of the book? I might see if I can get hold of a copy myself.

The book was titled "My Human Heart". Willessee examines the different places around the world where Communion Hosts have bled, and the medical examinations that have been done on them. He discovered that the Hosts were human heart tissue, with blood type AB. He also examines weeping statues of the suffering Christ, and he goes into quite a bit about the Shroud of Turin, which leaves little doubt that it actually is the burial shroud of Our Lord.
The book actually belongs to my niece; she loaned it to me before she went to Texas last December, and I gave it back to her this last Saturday, which was the first time I've seen her since she returned to Michigan earlier this month.

 

[FaithT]

The book was titled "My Human Heart". Willessee examines the different places around the world where Communion Hosts have bled, and the medical examinations that have been done on them. He discovered that the Hosts were human heart tissue, with blood type AB. He also examines weeping statues of the suffering Christ, and he goes into quite a bit about the Shroud of Turin, which leaves little doubt that it actually is the burial shroud of Our Lord.
The book actually belongs to my niece; she loaned it to me before she went to Texas last December, and I gave it back to her this last Saturday, which was the first time I've seen her since she returned to Michigan earlier this month.

The only thing about the Shroud that bothers me is I’ve thought it was the burial Shroud but I heard something recently that said it isn’t. I’ll google and see if I can find something.
I didn’t find what I was looking for but the theory against it being Jesus’ Shroud had something to do with it was impossible for that image to be on the Shroud if the cloths were wrapped the way they were. Thoughts? I read that this is an ongoing debate.

 

[FaithT]

One thing I just learned was that the RCC takes no official position on the Shroud and that it’s up for scientific investigation. I thought the Church was leaning toward it being Jesus’ burial Shroud.

 

[Valletta]

One thing I just learned was that the RCC takes no official position on the Shroud and that it’s up for scientific investigation. I thought the Church was leaning toward it being Jesus’ burial Shroud.

The Church does sometimes take positions on private revelation and I believe artifacts and relics are in the same category. For private revelations the Church says some private revelations are worthy of being believed. However, since none of the aforementioned are part of the deposit of the faith you are not required to believe. Some miracles, for example, like what happened at Lourdes and Fatima are deemed worthy to believe and are widely accepted by Catholics. You may be wise to believe what happened at Lourdes and Fatima, but again the Church does not require you to do so.

 

[Wolseley]

The only thing about the Shroud that bothers me is I’ve thought it was the burial Shroud but I heard something recently that said it isn’t. I’ll google and see if I can find something.
I didn’t find what I was looking for but the theory against it being Jesus’ Shroud had something to do with it was impossible for that image to be on the Shroud if the cloths were wrapped the way they were. Thoughts? I read that this is an ongoing debate.

Well, if the body of Our Lord was taken down from the Cross and draped with the Shroud, and then wrapped in burial cloths (the winding strips), I don't see why the image couldn't have been created then.

But for me, it really comes down to this: scientists have been studying the Shroud of Turin for decades, and while for them the jury is still out on whether it is or isn't the actual burial shroud of Jesus, one thing that they all do seem to agree on is that they can't figure out how, exactly, it was created. It just is.

So it's exactly like Jesus walking on water; or raising the dead; or healing leprosy with a touch of His hand. Are these things impossible? Scientifically, yes. But we, as Christians, have no doubt that they actually did happen. They were miracles that happened because Jesus of Nazareth is God in the flesh, and He can do things that science, quite frankly, just simply cannot explain. It all comes down to faith, just as everything pertaining to belief in Our Lord and the existence of God and the certainly of an afterlife does.

 

[FaithT]

Well, if the body of Our Lord was taken down from the Cross and draped with the Shroud, and then wrapped in burial cloths (the winding strips), I don't see why the image couldn't have been created then.

But for me, it really comes down to this: scientists have been studying the Shroud of Turin for decades, and while for them the jury is still out on whether it is or isn't the actual burial shroud of Jesus, one thing that they all do seem to agree on is that they can't figure out how, exactly, it was created. It just is.

So it's exactly like Jesus walking on water; or raising the dead; or healing leprosy with a touch of His hand. Are these things impossible? Scientifically, yes. But we, as Christians, have no doubt that they actually did happen. They were miracles that happened because Jesus of Nazareth is God in the flesh, and He can do things that science, quite frankly, just simply cannot explain. It all comes down to faith, just as everything pertaining to belief in Our Lord and the existence of God and the certainly of an afterlife does.

I THINK I heard or read something saying it was a forgery, along with the part about Jesus couldn’t have been wrapped like that leaving the image, but the part about a forgery has been ruled out decades ago.

 

[Gnarwhal]

I am looking into the differences between Catholic and Protestant teachings.

There are obviously things in Protestant teachings, and a lot of lacking church history that make no sense to me, but there are teachings of the modern Catholic Church that are leaving me scratching my head and really struggling to understand.

I am going through The Catechism In A Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz, and I am grasping most of what he is talking about, but this one area of teaching keeps sticking on me and is a stumbling block.

And the teaching on the Eucharist and trans substantiation is it. As presented it is not making sense to me.

More to the point, it is a bit confusing, and if I am confused by it I am sure lots of other folks are too.

I am certain we have all at some point in our lives, tasted our own blood due to biting the inside of your cheek, or having dental work done or whatever. It is not an unfamiliar flavor...

Am I understanding the official church teaching that the bread and wine being at the time of the eucharist being the actual literal body and blood of Christ, or is there something I am missing on this?

For Protestants, the elements of the communion, the bread and wine are symbolic of the actual body and blood of Jesus.

When he broke the bread and held it up saying this is my body broken for you, he didn't tear off a piece of his own body and pass it around the table... so symbolism makes sense here.

But I think we can all agree that miracles that are outside of human science and knowledge do happen.

I have heard it explained that it is the essence of the actual body and blood... how does "essence" differ from "symbol"?

I have had a priest tell me that there really isn't a difference between the ideas, but I am not sure he was right, or maybe trying to make the idea simpler to digest for me.

If anyone can help me clear this up. It would surely help a lot. Thank you.

I'll try to keep my comments concise just cause I'm sure everybody's already said what I'm gonna say anyway.

The first thing is, in John 6:51 specifically, Christ is very intentional about the language he uses to point out that we are/will be eating his flesh and drinking his blood when receiving Holy Communion. As bishop Baron notes, Christ uses the atypical Greek word "trogo" which has a very specific usage denoting when an animal is tearing meat apart with its teeth and gnawing at it. If Christ didn't mean that he would've used the word "phago".

God's intention has always been that Christians are meant to consume Christ's flesh and blood to remain in communion with him because it's the purest sacrifice there ever was. Just like the Hebrews would consume the flesh of a sacrificed lamb, goat, dove, or whatever other animal they had to offer the high priest. In our case, every Mass is supernaturally reaching back through space and time to the original sacrifice at Calvary when Christ died on the cross and when the host and chalice are consecrated they become the body and blood that Christ shed that same day. That's why we're specific when we say the Mass isn't a new sacrifice, it's a re-presentation of that one sacrifice 2,000 years ago on Golgotha.

Ok so now to the part about transubstantiation. That's a difficult ontological concept to wrap our heads around, I know sometimes if I start to spiral thinking about it I have to stop myself and just remind myself that God gets it, and my duty is to have faith in God and what he's divinely revealed to his Church.

That said, as a former evangelical myself, I noticed a conceptual similarity in the evangelical idea of being born again and the Catholic teaching that the Eucharist is transubstantiated when consecrated by a priest. In the former situation, evangelicals believe that they say the sinners prayer and accept Jesus into their hearts and then from that particular moment in space and time onward, they're saved and that's it. Nothing looks different on the outside though, huh? When I said that prayer as a four year old and opened my eyes I still had blond hair, a burst blood vessel on my cheek, and crooked teeth. But what the evangelicals believe happened is an invisible internal transformation that brought me into the kingdom of God and wrote my name in the book of life so that I would be guaranteed to go to heaven when I die.

If you take that idea of a transformation that was invoked by a prayer and transpose it to what the priest is doing, I think it's largely the same. The priest, acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ himself), prays the words of consecration: "hoc est enim Corpus meum / this IS my body" , "hic est enim Calix Sanguinis mei / this IS the chalice of my blood" they are immediately transformed by the Holy Spirit in their essence, meaning their true nature, but not their substance. In philosophical terms we say they transformed in their "accidents" but not their "appearance".

So I don't know if that's any more helpful than anything else that's been said, but it's a bit of a crude analogy that I thought made a little sense.

 

[FaithT]

Another way to explain the doctrine of Transubstantiation

Catholic Answers Director of Apologetics, Tim Staples, helps a caller refine his analogy to better explain the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation.

www.catholic.com

This above was helpful to me.I just watched it a couple nights ago.

 

[Bob Crowley]

The book was titled "My Human Heart". Willessee examines the different places around the world where Communion Hosts have bled, and the medical examinations that have been done on them. He discovered that the Hosts were human heart tissue, with blood type AB. He also examines weeping statues of the suffering Christ, and he goes into quite a bit about the Shroud of Turin, which leaves little doubt that it actually is the burial shroud of Our Lord.
The book actually belongs to my niece; she loaned it to me before she went to Texas last December, and I gave it back to her this last Saturday, which was the first time I've seen her since she returned to Michigan earlier this month.

The author of "My Human Heart" was a different Australian, Ron Tesoriero. Mike Willesee wrote another book "A Sceptic's Search for Meaning".

I've just ordered the book you endorsed. I'm debating about Mike Willesee's book as it is difficult to find in paperbook form and only Kindle or audio.

I'm not a fan of online books and much prefer the old fashioned paper version. If somebody thinks I'm not doing my bit for conservation, I don't think much timber is actually used for books. I went looking for a percentage, and it was hard to pin down. But I found someone who lived in a "timber state" in the US (I assume).

Thank you for the question. As I live in a timber state where a war has raged for decades over timber conservation management, it’s one that matters personally to me.

Only about 15 to 20% of lumber cut is used for pulp (paper) and a surprisingly large percentage of that is used for toilet paper. Which of course isn’t recycled. Most of the rest of the paper produced can be recycled.

So it's somewhere in the 15-20% range, and for books I'd say 1% or less considering how much other paper we use every day - tissues, toilet paper, packaging, cardboard, office printing, etc. etc. Our recycling bin is emptied every two weeks. Due to the recent cyclone there was a four-week hiatus. By then the bin was full to the top and there is only the two of us.

But that's an ethical diversion.

I might talk to a local bookstore and see if they can track it down.To save paper I might even buy second hand!

Both books deal with similar topics.

 

[FaithT]

The author of "My Human Heart" was a different Australian, Ron Tesoriero. Mike Willesee wrote another book "A Sceptic's Search for Meaning".

I've just ordered the book you endorsed. I'm debating about Mike Willesee's book as it is difficult to find in paperbook form and only Kindle or audio.

I'm not a fan of online books and much prefer the old fashioned paper version. If somebody thinks I'm not doing my bit for conservation, I don't think much timber is actually used for books. I went looking for a percentage, and it was hard to pin down. But I found someone who lived in a "timber state" in the US (I assume).



So it's somewhere in the 15-20% range, and for books I'd say 1% or less considering how much other paper we use every day - tissues, toilet paper, packaging, cardboard, office printing, etc. etc. Our recycling bin is emptied every two weeks. Due to the recent cyclone there was a four-week hiatus. By then the bin was full to the top and there is only the two of us.

But that's an ethical diversion.

I might talk to a local bookstore and see if they can track it down.To save paper I might even buy second hand!

Both books deal with similar topics.

I have a Kindle I rarely use. I prefer paper books.

 

[Wolseley]

The author of "My Human Heart" was a different Australian, Ron Tesoriero. Mike Willesee wrote another book "A Sceptic's Search for Meaning".

Oopsie. My bad. I couldn't remember the author's correct name as I no longer have the book. But I'm glad you got the right guy.

I've just ordered the book you endorsed. I'm debating about Mike Willesee's book as it is difficult to find in paperbook form and only Kindle or audio.

I'm sure you will find it enlightening and interesting....I certainly did.

I'm not a fan of online books and much prefer the old fashioned paper version.

My wife and I are both the same way. I probably have somewhere in the vicinity of about 5,000 books; my wife, maybe 1,500 to 2,000. I love to read, and I need the tactile experience of the feel of the book in my hand, the smell of the paper and ink, etc.

I might talk to a local bookstore and see if they can track it down.To save paper I might even buy second hand!

Both books deal with similar topics.

Good luck!