I shall not bore anyone with the official teaching of the papacy on transubstantiation first officially formulated in 1215 (see, e.g., Trent, Vatican II and the RC Catechism, in loc.), but this non-miraculous miracle has left me bamboozled (cf. Paschasius Radbertus). Aristotle has a lot to answer for!
I still do not understand why a wafer-god receives worship (latria), according to the Council of Trent, whose teaching has never been rescinded (On the cult and veneration to be shown to this most holy Sacrament, in loc.); indeed, such teaching is irrevocable since Trent claims to have convened by divine appointment! There also seems to be a link to a Belgian nun, viz., Juliana (1193-1258, in loc.), who had something to do with it, through a vision!
At any rate, RC teaching is based on the Bible PLUS ...
So here are 18 questions:
1. Did Jesus say this ‘is’ my body or this ‘becomes’ my body?
2. Was our LORD holding His own (glorified?) body / divinity in His own hands?
3. Is the Apostles’ Creed wrong when it insists that ‘He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty’ until the final judgement Day?
4. Is Jesus truly human if He can be present both in heaven where He remains until He returns as well as in thousands of different altars (wherever the mass is celebrated and the elements are consumed) at the whim of a male priest’s intervention?
5. Is the doctrine of concomitance (not to mention the use of a wafer rather than bread!) not a flagrant violation of our LORD’s command in Matthew 26:27, as well as the universal practice of the apostolic church?
6. Why does Paul retain ‘eating bread’ (1. Cor. 11:27ff.) if the bread has disappeared?
7. How does transubstantiation differ from ‘transubstantiation’ in John 2:1-11?
8. Once the communicant has partaken of the Mass, at what stage do the elements ontologically cease to be the literal person of Jesus?
9. Which New Testament writer relies on the Aristotelian explanation of ‘substance’ and ‘accidents’?
10. How can one get drunk on blood, if the wine ceases to be wine? Just let any priest drink a few cups of the left-over 'blood'!
11. How can the ‘real presence’ be reconciled with the teaching of Jesus in Mark 14:7 and John 16:7?
12. Does transubstantiation not destroy the sacramental character (destroying the analogy between the sign and the thing signified) as defined by Augustine, since the symbols (about to vanish) are changed into Christ?
13. Is it right to speak of two miracles, in the words of one scholar, who says that “it takes a miracle to have the substance of one thing and something else’s accidents, and it takes another miracle to have the accidents of something and the substance of something else”?
14. Why ‘do this in remembrance’ when Jesus is actually literally present?
15. How does partaking of the Mass differ from cannibalism?
16. Why does the 'blood' not congeal?
17. How can one tell the difference between the consecrated and the unconcerted elements?
18. If one were to drink all the left-over blood, would one not still get drunk - on blood?!
Let the reader be warned that
a. The papacy has not revoked the following statement: "CANON II. - If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species Only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema. " (source: click here)
b. My comments could have got me burnt in the 16th century!
