Communion & Adoration

komeeks18 · #1 May 21, '12, 12:13 am

In Catholic communion, the Eucharist, how does the bread and wine change substances without the physical substance changing? Is there a way to explain this? Also, what exactly is Eucharistic adoration? I don't quite understand it. Thank you and God bless!

Pfaffenhoffen · #2 May 21, '12, 1:16 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

In Catholic communion, the Eucharist, how does the bread and wine change substances without the physical substance changing? Is there a way to explain this? Also, what exactly is Eucharistic adoration? I don't quite understand it. Thank you and God bless!

Bad example but just an illustration.
See your picture as a baby.
See a picture of you now.
Both are the same person. Yet, the body appearance changed radically.

Now, the contrary.
You enter the 1st year of University and take a picture.
You exit the 4th year of University and take a picture.
SUPPOSE that you did not change a lot and both pictures look alike.
Outside is the same, but inside in the 1st year you were a naive student, in the end of the 4th year you are a brilliant physicist.
Yet both pictures look the same. But inside the person is not the same.

Just to illustrate. What happens in the Eucharist is a miracle.

komeeks18 · #3 May 21, '12, 1:22 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pfaffenhoffen

Bad example but just an illustration.
See your picture as a baby.
See a picture of you now.
Both are the same person. Yet, the body appearance changed radically.

Now, the contrary.
You enter the 1st year of University and take a picture.
You exit the 4th year of University and take a picture.
SUPPOSE that you did not change a lot and both pictures look alike.
Outside is the same, but inside in the 1st year you were a naive student, in the end of the 4th year you are a brilliant physicist.
Yet both pictures look the same. But inside the person is not the same.

Just to illustrate. What happens in the Eucharist is a miracle.

Basically, you're saying that the Eucharist looks & tastes the same as before, but the substance itself changes into the body & blood of Jesus Christ? And that by it being a miracle that it surpasses human understanding?

Seira · #4 May 21, '12, 2:30 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

Basically, you're saying that the Eucharist looks & tastes the same as before, but the substance itself changes into the body & blood of Jesus Christ? And that by it being a miracle that it surpasses human understanding?

That's transubstantiation for ya.

PerfectTiming · #5 May 21, '12, 2:31 am

You may find these articles helpful:
The Real Presence
Christ in the Eucharist
Eucharist

Christine85 · #6 May 21, '12, 2:42 am

The Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine. Yes it is miraculous.

PrayHarder · #7 May 21, '12, 8:21 am

Here's my take. Perhaps there is a change at the atomic level of the bread and wine. Can someone account for all the atoms and say nothing changed? At a spiritual level, I remember the opening text in the movie, "Song of Bernadette" -- "To those not of faith, no explanation is possible. To those of faith, no explanation is needed."

Because the consecrated bread and wine are the real presence of Jesus, Eucharistic adoration is praying with Jesus physically in the room. And while we can pray to Jesus anytime, there is something special about adoration that can't be described. By analogy, anyone can play soccer. But playing soccer in the park with friends will never match the focus and intensity of playing it in a championship game. Adoration is prayer's championship game.

komeeks18 · #8 May 21, '12, 10:03 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrayHarder

Here's my take. Perhaps there is a change at the atomic level of the bread and wine. Can someone account for all the atoms and say nothing changed? At a spiritual level, I remember the opening text in the movie, "Song of Bernadette" -- "To those not of faith, no explanation is possible. To those of faith, no explanation is needed."

Because the consecrated bread and wine are the real presence of Jesus, Eucharistic adoration is praying with Jesus physically in the room. And while we can pray to Jesus anytime, there is something special about adoration that can't be described. By analogy, anyone can play soccer. But playing soccer in the park with friends will never match the focus and intensity of playing it in a championship game. Adoration is prayer's championship game.

Thank you for your explanation! I really appreciate it! (:

Lifesong · #9 May 21, '12, 10:16 am

Because the consecrated bread and wine are the real presence of Jesus, Eucharistic adoration is praying with Jesus physically in the room. And while we can pray to Jesus anytime, there is something special about adoration that can't be described. By analogy, anyone can play soccer. But playing soccer in the park with friends will never match the focus and intensity of playing it in a championship game. Adoration is prayer's championship game.[/quote]

I love that- as a Methodist we would have a monthly prayer call to the altar at our Contemporary service to lay our concerns at the foot of the cross. When I first walked into adoration last summer while still in RCIA the feeling was unbelievable, it was like the altar call on steroids! I really felt His presence. I try to go every 1-2 weeks as schedule allows in addition to daily Mass. I am fortunate to live by the National Shrine of Czestochowa where the Adoration Chapel is open every day from noon to 5 except on Sunday. I tell my husband when I leave my home office to pop in that Jesus needs to see me in His office- he knows when I have to go and it is usually work and family stress. To think this was down the street from me for 20 years and I am just discovering it now! The Lord is good all the time!

Blessings,

Val

YoungTradCath · #10 May 21, '12, 10:18 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

Basically, you're saying that the Eucharist looks & tastes the same as before, but the substance itself changes into the body & blood of Jesus Christ? And that by it being a miracle that it surpasses human understanding?

This is exactly right.

To expand:

The outer qualities of the consecrated bread and wine are called "accidents:" texture, smell, taste, and so on. These are accidentals, to put it another way.

However, the substance is different between regular bread and wine versus consecrated bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ. For convention's sake we can still refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as "bread" and "wine."

Say I take a normal potato and you eat it. It tastes like a potato should taste, and it smells like a potato should smell, and it has the texture of a potato. On a microscopic level, it is as a potato should be.

But now say I am a brilliant materials engineer and I can somehow "create" a "potato" out of something other than carbohydrates and water, and I can do it in such a way that you still perceive the taste, smell and texture of a potato. So when you eat it, your senses perceive a potato. But I just manufactured it in my laboratory and so you know that it is not a potato. But we can still, for convention's sake, still call it a "potato."

komeeks18 · #11 May 21, '12, 2:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by YoungTradCath

This is exactly right.

To expand:

The outer qualities of the consecrated bread and wine are called "accidents:" texture, smell, taste, and so on. These are accidentals, to put it another way.

However, the substance is different between regular bread and wine versus consecrated bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ. For convention's sake we can still refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as "bread" and "wine."

Say I take a normal potato and you eat it. It tastes like a potato should taste, and it smells like a potato should smell, and it has the texture of a potato. On a microscopic level, it is as a potato should be.

But now say I am a brilliant materials engineer and I can somehow "create" a "potato" out of something other than carbohydrates and water, and I can do it in such a way that you still perceive the taste, smell and texture of a potato. So when you eat it, your senses perceive a potato. But I just manufactured it in my laboratory and so you know that it is not a potato. But we can still, for convention's sake, still call it a "potato."

Yes, I understand now! Thank you. Can you expand on Eucharistic Adoration for me, please?

YoungTradCath · #12 May 21, '12, 3:10 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

Yes, I understand now! Thank you. Can you expand on Eucharistic Adoration for me, please?

Eucharistic Adoration is when a consecrated host, usually a larger one than normal, is placed inside of a glass case called a luna, which is a metal frame with two glass windows, one on the front and one on the back.

This luna is then placed in a metal thing called a monstrance or ostensory, which is a usually circular metal piece on a stick which is connected to a base. The monstrance is either placed on a small table-like thing which is then placed on an altar, or the monstrance is placed directly on the altar. They can be rather simple or extremely elaborate and jewel-encrusted, like the following, with filigree and other decoration. The usual basic design is usually a sort of artistic rendering of the sun.

Here:

People then go into the church or chapel and kneel or sit before this consecrated host--the Body of Christ--in the monstrance. It is a devotional practice that is by no means required, although one certainly does gain vast graces from it. It is fairly common and I'd say most parishes offer it, but not all do. It has been quickly regaining in popularity in the past decade or so. Some parishes offer "perpetual" adoration in which the host is constantly adored by at least one person, 24/7/365, although the host is replaced before it goes stale. (Yes, consecrated hosts can go stale just like normal bread can; in "perceptory" qualities it is just like normal bread and so whatever can happen to normal bread can happen to a consecrated host)

There is also a practice called "Benediction," which is a ritual in which a priest or bishop (I don't think a deacon can do it) wears a cope (cape-type garment) and wraps a humeral veil (which makes sure that he does not touch the monstrance with his human hands, although this is only symbolic) around his arms, picks up the monstrance and then blesses the people with it by moving the monstrance in the shape of a cross.

This is the Pope doing it:

Pfaffenhoffen · #13 May 22, '12, 10:45 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

Basically, you're saying that the Eucharist looks & tastes the same as before, but the substance itself changes into the body & blood of Jesus Christ? And that by it being a miracle that it surpasses human understanding?

completely surpasses human intelligence.
But above intelligence, it is Faith.
Faith is to know things that you know they are but you do not understand: for instance, the existance of God, of after-life, of Eucharisty.

Many times Faith reaches wider and longer than intelligence, as that is the case.
Though Faith is not easy: you do not see, do not hear, do not touch, do not smell.
Yet, the things you have Faith on, they exist, and exist more than the things that you see....

To see? Mirages, you see and they do not exist....
Many people say that if they do not see that is a sign that they do no exist.
Yet, senses play trick on us and people fundament many times their knowledge on them.

So, Faith may fundament on other than the senses...

Vico · #14 May 22, '12, 11:42 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

In Catholic communion, the Eucharist, how does the bread and wine change substances without the physical substance changing? Is there a way to explain this? Also, what exactly is Eucharistic adoration? I don't quite understand it. Thank you and God bless!

(Excerpted from Modern Catholic Dictionary)

ESSENCE. What a thing is. The internal principle whereby a thing is what it is and not something else.

ACCIDENT. That which is not of the essence of something. It is not a thing but the mode of a thing.

SUBSTANCE. A being whose essence requires that it exist in itself, commonly distinguished from an accident, whose essence is to exist in another, (that is, in a substance).

INHERENCE. Dependence on another being for its existence. Accidents naturally inhere in the substances they modify. By divine power, in the Holy Eucharist the accidents of bread and wine exist without inhering in their substance, which has been changed through transubstantiation into the substance of Christ's body and blood.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION. The complete change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood -- only the accidents of bread and wine remain. After transubstantiation, the accidents of bread and wine do not inhere in any subject or substance whatever. Yet they are not make-believe; they are sustained in existence by divine power.

http://www.therealpresence.org/dictionary/adict.htm

finisterra · #15 May 25, '12, 12:20 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by komeeks18

In Catholic communion, the Eucharist, how does the bread and wine change substances without the physical substance changing? Is there a way to explain this? Also, what exactly is Eucharistic adoration? I don't quite understand it. Thank you and God bless!

It is a miracle.
We adore God.