Does the bread literally become the body of Christ in the Catholic religion? Or is it symbolic? If possible, can you please provide a cite.
Thnak You.
AFAIK only the Roman Catholic church has transubstatiation.
It is indeed the body of Christ
Is it considered meat? Can a Catholic eat it on Friday during Lent?
No.
Yes.
Catholics, along with Orthodox, those in the Anglican Communion, several groups of Lutherans/Evangelische, and a few others believe that Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist. No one pretends to “understand” the nature of that Presence.
What the Catholic Church has done, beyond that simple statement, has enshrined in doctrine the Aristotelian/Scholastic/Thomistic explanation of Transubstantiation, that says that there are different types of reality. The truest type of reality is the substance or true being of any thing. In Transubstantiation, that substance is transformed from bread and wine to the very nature of Jesus. Other levels or types of reality are manifested as accidents (a technical philosophical term meaning the reality we encounter with our senses, regardless of what an object’s substantial reality might be). In the RCC’s doctrine of Transubstantiation, the accidents of the bread and wine do not change. They remain bread and wine (and are not, therefore, eaten in a cannibalistic act and, if tested in a scientific examination, will continue to appear as bread and wine).
Why the RCC insists on a specific theological description of the Eucharist (that is subject to rejection by anyone who does not accept Aristotelian/Scholastic/Thomistic philosophy as a valid description of reality), I am not sure.
However, as noted above, the Catholics are not alone in their belief in the Divine Presence, only in their insistence on a specific philosophical description of that event.
My grandfather was a devout Catholic for his entire life. He did two things…he farmed and he went to Mass. He attended Mass every day except Friday, and he farmed every day except Sunday.
I asked him once why he didn’t attend Mass on Fridays (the Catholic church in his little burg actually never had Mass on any Friday save Good Friday or Christmas, should Christmas fall on Friday). His response was that he didn’t feel right eating the Eucharist on Friday’s during Lent. This is coming from a man who forsake ALL foods on Fridays during lent and gave up meat (including fish) every other day during Lent.
I am not sure if that is a general Catholic process (as I am not Catholic) or if it is just one man’s religious views.
Wow. Thank you, Tom~ – I appreciate the acknowledgement of our (Anglicans’) stance on the Real Presence in this context. BTW, according to two staunch Orthodox over on the Pizza Parlor, a quite similar stance (Real Presence; no specific explanation of how – it’s a musterion) is taken by the Orthodox Communion.
I remember seeing a very intriguing post on “consubstantiation” by a Lutheran – they put an interesting twist on the entire Real Presence concept – but haven’t been able to dig it up, and have decided to have mercy on the hamsters and not do an unlimited search for it. But if a wandering Lutheran Doper wants to talk about his church’s views, I’d love to see it.
I don’t think there is any question that more groups than the RCC accept the Divine Presence. I would expect even Ratzinger to acknowledge the belief (although he might get pissy about whether the belief was justified outside the Catholic and Orthodox traditions–or he might not). While Benedict made an issue of declaring the Anglican Orders null, I suspect that there is still room for rapprochement on that subject, as well, although the Anglican decision to ordain women put a spike in the discussions as long the current Catholic power structure is in place.
(Certainly I have always pointed out that the RCC is not alone in its belief in the Divine Presence.)
There is never Mass on Good Friday. There is a liturgical service, but never Mass.
This is one of those oddball situations where I have to agree with someone and call them wrong at the same time.
In Catholic and Anglican churches (and I’m pretty sure it’s an across-the-board rule) there is never a celebration of the Eucharist in the classic form where the Canon of the Mass (AKA Great Thanksgiving, Eucharistic Prayer, etc.) is said over the elements to set them apart as the Body and Blood of Christ.
Nonetheless the classic Good Friday service is supposed to include communion from elements set aside at the Maundy Thursday service (or Palm Sunday service if the church didn’t have a Maundy Thursday service for some reason) which is called the “Mass of the Presanctified” or “Mass of the Preconsecrated.” It’s an extremely solemn and somber service, and highly moving.
I suspect strongly that Bricker’s statement is stressing that the liturgical service for Good Friday (as opposed to the Three Hours’ Devotion done by many churches both Catholic and Protestant) has no Eucharistic Prayer, and hence is “not a complete mass” in the same sense that the Liturgy of the Word led by a Deacon who then distributes communion from the reserved sacrament is not a true Mass. However, the longstanding tradition of the church (in both Catholic and Anglican communions) is to call the Good Friday service a special form of the Mass.
The debate has in the past been between transubstantiation and consubstantiation. See the links in posts above.
Brief summary:
(T) Transsubstantiation - the elements in the Communion, once consecrated, become literally and in reality the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
© Consubstantiation - the elements in the communion, once consecrated, occupy the same place in space and time with the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ without actually becoming them.
Both are wrong
Both are wrong, as what is going on is a spiritual event. (T) implies that you could analyse the elements and find that they had turned into blood and flesh. © implies an invisible yet physical relationship between the two, which is offered as a reality but isn’t one. What happens is that the elements are symbols of what is going on at the time - to quote from the RC and Anglican Cathechisms, they are “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”.
No. Transubstantiation explicitly does not say that. The whole point of couching the discussion in terms of substance and accident indicates that the accidents of the bread and wine will continue to be identified as the products of wheat and grapes, regardless of their “true” nature (substance).
The use of the word transubstantiation requires that the discussion be couched in Aristotelian/Scholastic language (which, given the way that Philosophy has moved beyond those paradigms, is why I think the RCC should stop emphasizing that language), however, if one steps into that Philosophic world view to explain it, it is not valid to criticize it by changing the meaning of the words used in that world view.
I am not suffidiently familiar with the (Platonic/Augustinian) world view that gave rise to Consubstantiation to comment on it, directly, but I would urge caution in criticizing it outside its own frame of reference, as well.
One can, of course, write off both explanations as irrelevant by denying their frames of reference (from any perspective ranging from “That school of Philosophy has been superseded” to “There is no God and it is all word games”). However, if one addresses the terms as they are used, one should not ascribe meanings that differ from the meanings of those world views.
MY very first time in GD. Be gentle with me.
Former Lutheran here, raised LCMS, then changed to ELCA, now an Episcopalian.
In Lutheran confirmation classes as a teenager, we went over the whole communiun issue in nit-picky thoroughness. (T) was explained to us as being the belief that the body and blood of Christ were physically present, although it still *looked * like bread and wine. Two things occupying the same space I suppose. © was the belief in the Real Presence. In the section of the Catechism titled “The Sacrement of the Altar” it is stated
In, with, and under the bread Christ gives us His true body; in, with, and under the wine He gives us His true blood.(Real Presence.)…Bread and wine are not changed into the body and blood of Christ; for the Bible expressly declares that bread and wine are still present in the Sacrament 1 Cor.11:26-28 and 1 Cor 10:16
Episcopalian belief is pretty much the same. The Eucharist is held to be more that a memorial of Christ, but we don’t believe that the bread and wine are really the body and blood of Christ. Those are, however, spiritually present. The Book of Common Prayer states The outward and visible sign in the Eucharist is bread and wine, given and received according to Christ’s command…the inward and spiritual grace in the Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith.
BTW, if my use of the words “nit-picky thoroughness” sounds a tad snarky, I am sorry. It comes from my suspicion that there was a reason the subject was gone into in such detail(I left out a lot of other catechism material, if you want it let me know). That reason would be that the Lutheran church body I grew up in(LCMS) wanted to explain why their communion is “closed”. That means that only LCMS Lutherans can partake of the sacrament in their churches. So I can’t commune anymore in the church I grew up in, because I’m not their kind of Lutheran, I’m Episcopalian.
I prefer the it’s done at my congregation. Before the Eucharist the priest says “All who love God are welcome here. This is not the Episcopalian’s table, but the Lord’s” And we have in the pews one of those “Welcome” type of books a lot of churches put out. On the first page it says "There is one thing we want to get straight up front. If you are wondering “Am I allowed to take Communion here?” the answer is not just “Yes!” but “We hope you will!”
On a re-reading of my post I realize that I left out something important, the meanings of the acronyms LCMS and ELCA. The former stands for Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the latter for Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. They are two distinct Lutheran church bodies, completely separate organizations. The LCMS is, IMHO, best characterized by a conserative attitude. In it women are not only not ordained, they are not voting members of the congregation. The ELCA takes a more open stance. Women are equal in religion, and communion is generally recognized as being open. The ELCA congregation I was a member of stated that any baptized Christian could partake of the Eucharist with them.