Seattle has See’s, and also many higher quality chocolates. Dilettante is wonderful, they have a big market at the airport AND the best coffee kiosk if you want a devilishly dark Mocha.
Our mid-size midwestern town has at least six independent chocolatiers, where you can go in, try a sample, and have them put together a custom box (“I only want really dark ones. What herbs are in the Herbal Infusion? Is the Sea Salt Habenjero Dark very spicy? Isn’t Almond Amaretto redundant? Ooh, what’s that one?” They love me…).
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Arrrrgh! I just saw that we’re far afield of the topic, sorry. So…
“Your Mass is invalid, because your Bishop was a hamster and your Father smelt of elderberries!”
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I’ve always wondered, surely someone has done a hemoglobin test on “consecrated” wine…
Our church is full of smart people (University profs, doctors, scientists). I’d bet you that, no matter what their doctrine says, NONE of them actually believe they’re drinking human blood.
As I understand it, that’s what makes transubstantiation a miracle. The Blood and the Host are indistinguishable from wine and stale bread, but are now the Body and Blood of Christ.
I often wonder whether the first century christians deliberately turned their backs on symbolism, as the gnostics were all about it.
Correct, but as explained to me (by a very devout MD, who is also a PhD in something) you can’t taste it as blood and flesh because of your own limitations. It is absolutely, positively the body and blood of Christ, not just symbolically so.
I often wonder if that can explain various miracles attributed to Christ: maybe the water he turned into wine remained indistinguishable from water — and maybe this or that guy cured of blindness remained indistinguishable from other guys who remained blind — and maybe the body of the guy who died has now returned to life, by which I of course mean it remained indistinguishable from, as it were, remains.
After all, if someone is going to claim that a miracle occurred even though the stuff before us is indistinguishable from the wine and stale bread that it, uh, used to be, then why the heck wouldn’t they blandly advance each of the other claims for significantly similar reasons?
I remember watching a miniseries on TV that was a sequel to Tales of the City. In it, one character came across a secret group of devout Episcopalians in San Francisco that took the whole body and blood of Christ thing way too seriously. Spoiler-blurred for grossness but one of their members stole a human limb from a hospital and they literally ate it rather than the communion wafer.
I have never heard that, not in 12 years of Catholic school, not ever. Lots of explanation about “form” versus “substance,” but it was always clear that no outward physical change occurred for any aspect of the bread and wine.
I suspect your MD friend is usurping the duties of the magisterium. The next time you see him you should burn him at the stake as a heretic. It’s safest that way.
ETA: To be clear, your pal is correct in this: The RCC teaches that the consecrated bread and wine is positively, absolutely the body and blood of Christ. But no need to make the poor faithful feel deficient because they can’t conjure up the taste of blood. They have enough problems trying to keep track of which sins are venial and which are cardinal. Best to keep an attorney on retainer.
Yeah, they told us it was real blood and body, but I never believed it even as a pretty little kid. My younger sister said she even knew at that age that I was an unbeliever.
and I wasn’t sure where else it belongs.