Jesus Really Present

Catholic Teaching

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."

Argument

Premise 1: Jesus took bread and called it his body, and he took wine and called it his blood. These he commanded his apostles to eat and drink, and to keep the meal as a memorial.

• [T]he Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'" (1 Cor 11:23-25)

Premise 2: To define what some specific thing is means to define its essence, and essence consists of substance and accidents.

• An adequate explanation of what a specific thing is (what its essence is) must take into account substance and accidents.
• Substance is the qualities which a thing in a class typically possesses which by definition makes it a member of that class. (E.g., a dog by definition has four limbs, a tail, two ears, grows fur, eats food, and drinks water.)
• Accidents are the variable qualities which a thing in a class can possess, no particular instance of which is required to definite its substance. (E.g., a dog can have black fur, brown fur, white fur, or some other color of fur, and none of these colors are in particular required to define what a dog is.)

Premise 3: What Jesus called body and blood did not have the accidents of body and blood.

St. Thomas Aquinas argues we can know this is so by three means (Summa III, Q. 75, Art. 5):

• "First of all, because it is not customary, but horrible, for men to eat human flesh, and to drink blood. And therefore Christ's flesh and blood are set before us to be partaken of under the species [appearances] of those things which are the more commonly used by men, namely, bread and wine."
• "Secondly, lest this sacrament might be derided by unbelievers, if we were to eat our Lord under His own species [appearance]." (See the reaction of Jesus' opponents in Joh 6:52.)
• "Thirdly, that while we receive our Lord's body and blood invisibly, this may redound to the merit of faith."

Conclusion: Jesus instituted a meal to be repeated, by which the substance of bread and wine become the substance of his body and blood.

Objections & Replies

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Scripture

Tradition