What do Catholics mean when they talk about the Real Presence in the Eucharist?

Question

The Catholic Church is one of several denominations that teach the Real Presence, but they don't all have the same understanding of this doctrine. What is the Catholic understanding?

Answer 1

For my part, I can quote the inside flap of the Missal in the pew which says, Catholics believe that the Bread and Wine become the Body and Blood of Christ (not a symbol, but actual fact).

It goes on to say, the Catholic Church permits eastern Orthodox adherents to come to Catholic Mass, celebrate the Eucharist and receive communion. But Catholics are not permitted to go to their Mass unless necessary.

Other Christians are excluded from reception of the Eucharist, mainly because if they hold strong to their professed belief, they do not believe the Eucharist could be what Catholics say it is. (They may believe that it is the Body and Blood of Christ, but they most certainly don't believe that only a validly ordained Catholic Priest could consecrate the host).

All peoples of all religions are invited to come to Mass and participate in the Liturgy.

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Transubstantiation means that the Stuff of the bread and wine is totally replaced with the Body and Blood of Christ. Catholics don't believe that the wine is His Blood and the bread is His Body, Catholics do believe that what can be seen after consecration is just plain old different, even though there is no perceptible change. In this view, Catholic and Orthodox are the same.

In the Orthodox Church it is common to perform intinction (dip the consecrated bread in the consecrated wine) - but it doesn't change the essential belief.

Both Catholic and Orthodox see each others priests consecrations as valid (on account of a common acceptance of apostolic succession and the Imposition of Hands).

Answer 2

The Catholic Church does not understand itself as a denomination which has more the flavor or a breakaway group, whereas the Catholic Church is a communion of 20+ churches that all share a unity in faith, belief & practice (see here). The Catholic Church sees other Churches, such as Baptist, Presbyterian, etc. as Ecclesial (Church) Communities.

Transubstantiation in Catholic thought comes from the philosophical idea of substance (reality) and accidents (appearance). So when the wine is consecrated, the substance of the wine is changed into the blood of Christ but the accidents still look, smell & taste like wine, but there is a real and substantial change in the Eucharistic elements (bread and wine). This is what the real presence means: that Jesus is "really, truly and substantially present". Note the Church does not use words like physical, literal or the like, but rather the philosophical language of the technical term transubstantiation to be accurate in what it believes and teaches.

Answer 3

What do Catholics mean when they talk about the Real Presence in the Eucharist?

Totally surprised to see how few Catholics actually do not insert Catholic sourced based information with a link with a truly proper Catholic definition on this subject of the Real Presence.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say on this subject matter:

The totality of the real presence

In order to forestall at the very outset, the unworthy notion, that in the Eucharist we receive merely the Body and merely the Blood of Christ but not Christ in His entirety, the Council of Trent defined the Real Presence to be such as to include with Christ's Body and His Soul and Divinity as well.

This is an extremely clear definition that I personally grew up knowing. It is clear and full in all regards.

Answer 4

Transubstantiation

The substance of the bread (the essence of the bread and wine, what makes the bread and wine themselves) changes, becoming the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, but what remains the same is the appearance (philosophically, accident) of the bread and wine.

The Biblical Basis for the Eucharist, the Real Presence, and Transubstantiation: Matthew 26:26ss; Mark 24:22ss; Luke 22:14-20; John 6:27.48-61; 1 Cor. 11:23-30; Galatians 2:20

Early Christians on the Eucharist:

First Century St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle ad Syrmn, n. 7:

They [the heretics] abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they confess not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins, which the Father in his mercy raised again.

Second Century Tertullian, Ressurection of the Dead, n. 8:

The flesh is fed with the body and blood of Christ, that the soul may be fattened of God.

Third Century St. Cyprian, De Lapsis, Sect. 1

Your mouths, which have been sanctified with the food of heaven and with the body and blood of Christ, would not after that defile themselves with the impure remnants of meat offered to idols.

Hope this helped! God bless!

Answer 5

The Catholic teaching of transubstantiation and the "Real Presence" holds that by virtue of the words of consecration uttered by a Catholic priest over unleavened wheat bread and wine, the bread and wine are transformed into Christ's own Body and Blood via a unique substantial conversion ( (which change is said to be occur outside of time), in which the substances (only) of the bread and wine are converted into the body and blood of Christ (thus also containing His soul and divinity), even though the accidents (appearances) of bread and wine continue existing by themselves but without their substance, i.e. their properties which material things may be defined by.

Aquinas affirmed, "The presence of Christ's true body and blood in this sacrament cannot be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone..." (Summa Theologica; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.TP_Q75_A1.html) "If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh." (Dwight Longenecker, "Explaining Transubstantiation") Even though persons with celiac disease can suffer adverse effects to the non-existent gluten in the Eucharistic host, and which one could get drunk on in sufficient quantity of the wine.

It is thus held that "Christ is really present and is received whole and entire, body and blood, soul and Divinity, under either species alone." (Catholic Encyclopedia > Communion under Both Kinds) "with His bodily organs and limbs and with His human mind, will and feelings." (John A. Hardon, S.J., Part I: Eucharistic Doctrine on the Real Presence) "Christ in His entirety is present in each particle and in each drop" [as long as you can see it and it looks like bread or wine] - and locally in multilocation, as in numberless separate Hosts, yet once decay begins "Christ has discontinued His Presence therein." (Catholic Encyclopedia>The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist)

Aquinas (Summa theologiae, III, q. 77, a. 6) affirms, "The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ." (CCC 1377; Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1641) "...that is, until the Eucharist is digested, physically destroyed, or decays by some natural process." (The Holy Eucharist BY Bernard Mulcahy, O.P., p. 32) as with mold, digestion, etc., in which case "Christ has discontinued His Presence therein." (Catholic Encyclopedia>The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist)

In addition, Catholic teaching is that the offering of her Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice for sins. "The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice...And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory." 190 [citing Council of Trent] CCC 1367 (http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a3.htm) CCC 1414; “As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.” "One of the ends for which it is offered [the Mass] is the propitiation of God's wrath." (Catholic Encyclopedia>Reparation; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12775a.htm) "Uniquely among the sacraments, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ himself. Sacrifices offer something up to God to honour him, to thank him, to gain communion with him and to make expiation for sin.

The Eucharistic sacrifice of Christ achieves all of these perfectly." (http://www.stjosephsparish.co.uk/index.php/19-our-faith/52-eucharist) "...the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is offered to God for the expiation of our sins. Because the Sacrifice on Calvary is the same Sacrifice that Christ himself offers in the Mass, the priest offers it to God as the complete satisfaction for man’s sins." (http://www.stjohnofthecrossacademy.com/blog)

For it is held that the priest “offers up again the same sacrifice of adoration and atonement which Christ offered on Calvary.” (John A. O'Brien, Ph.D., LL.D., The Faith of Millions, p. 256; Nihtt obstat, Imprimatur) Being "crucified anew" yet not again in the historical sense: "Christ was offered once, and is offered daily, but in one manner then, in another now." (Peter Lombard, Sentences, Lib. IV, Dist. 12) Since that Blood offering, every priest who now offers the Holy Mass does so acting in the Person and Priesthood of Christ and offers the Sacrifice anew in an unbloody manner.. ("father". John Echert; http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage_print.asp?number=312473⟨uage=en) Who “in an unbloody way offers himself a most acceptable Victim to the eternal Father, as he did upon the Cross. (The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism by John Hardon S.J.) "For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different." (Council of Trent, The Twenty-Second Session)

Therefore, in Catholicism the Lord's supper is presented as "the heart and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1407) “a kind of consummation of the spiritual life, and in a sense the goal of all the sacraments," (Mysterium Fidei, Encyclical of Pope Paul VI, 1965) through which “the work of our redemption is carried out,” (CCC 1364) providing “the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ” (CCC #1405) and only conducted by Catholics priests who offer it “in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead,” (CCC 1414) “cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins.” (CCC 1393)

For as is taken literally, then it is believed that by this consumption of “lifegiving flesh and blood” believers thereby obtain life in themselves, thus the priests themselves "are to nourish their spiritual life from the two-fold table of sacred scripture and the Eucharist." (Canon law Can. 275 §2).

In contrast, arguments against the Catholic teaching on the Lord's supper include the fact that a purely literal reading of the “this is my body/blood” that is broken/shed for us said at the last supper would mean that the apostles were looking at actual incarnated bloody flesh, and a cup of actual red blood, just as manifestly physical as Christ was when He sweated blood and was crucified, and a spear thrust into Him and out came water. And who said "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" ();

And which manifestly physical incarnated Christ the Holy Spirit emphasizes, (; , ) in contrast to a Docetist-type Christ, whose appearance did not correspond to what He physically was, meaning a metaphysical Christ instead. And the Lord nowhere appeared as in inanimate object, and Francis Clark, S.J. states that Thomas Aquinas (a "doctor of the church"), considered the issue of purported miraculous manifestations of the physical flesh of Christ in the hosts and explained that what appeared on those occasions,

could not be the real flesh and blood of Christ, for such a possibility was excluded by the nature of transubstantiation and of Christ’s sacramental presence ; but they were miraculous representations produced by divine power as tokens to direct men’s thoughts to, and to strengthen their belief in, the true flesh and blood of Christ invisibly present under the Eucharistic species. ('Bleeding hosts' and Eucharistic theology, Francis Clark, S.J., p. 219-20,22) 

Which inability of the Catholic priests to confect what a purely literal reading of what the "words of consecration" would mean thus requires the contrived metaphysical meaning, versus metaphorical, which alone easily conforms to all of Scripture (see https://peacebyjesus.net/the_lord%27s_supper.html)

Meanwhile, if one want to actually attempt to defend Eucharistic theology, then they face challenges (reiterating some of the above) such as,

1. Where in all of Scripture did Jesus Christ appear as an inanimate object, which by all tests of physicality would be just that? 0.

2. Where in Scripture is the manifest physicality of Christ emphasized as establishing who the real Christ was, in contrast to one whose bodily appearance did not correspond to what He physically was? (Is. 53; ; ; ; 5:6,8)

3. Where in all of Scripture did the words of the Lord's supper necessarily teach that the body that "is broken" and the blood that is shed, appeared as bread and wine, rather than literally appearing as the manifestly physical flesh and blood that was bruised and shed? 0.

4. Where in Scripture is actual water referred to as blood, and thus poured out unto the Lord, and bread referred to as bread for the people of God, and the body of Christ as the church being bread? (; )

5. Where in all of Scripture is spiritual life obtained by literally physically consuming anything? 0.

6. Where in Acts and the apostles teaching in the NT (these being interpretive of the gospels) is spiritual life obtained by hearing and effectually believing the gospel of the grace of God? ; 15:7-9; )

7. Where from Acts onward in the NT is communion/partakers with the object of religious feasts and each other realized by literally consuming the flesh of the object of worship? 0.

8. Where from Acts onward in the NT is communion/partakers with the object of religious feasts and each other realized by sharing a meal together ("feast of charity") in a way that effectually evidences remembrance? (1 Cor. 10,11 )

9. Where are distinctive Greek words for a separate class of sacerdotal believers (hiereus; archiereus; hieráteuma) distinctively used for NT pastors? 0.

10. Where is a distinctive Greek word (hieráteuma) for a separate class of sacerdotal believers used for all believers? (, ; Re 1:6; 5:10; 20:6).

11. Where from Acts onward in the NT are church pastors charged with or exampled uniquely conducting the Lord's supper and offering it up as a sacrifice for sins and dispensing it to the people as spiritual food? 0.

12. Where from Acts onward in the NT are church pastors charged with or exampled as preaching the Word and feeding the flock with the Word which is called spiritual food ("milk," "meat") by which they are nourished? (; ;; ; ; ;

For the Catholic contrivance of the Lord's supper is just one of the distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).