Main Views of the Lord's Supper I

Over the next few days we will take a brief excursus in order to examine the principal views of the Lord's Supper held by the various western Christian traditions (I'm not sufficiently versed in the Eastern Orthodox view to make any comments here). The first view is transubstantiation according to Roman Catholicism. For this we will again look at what the 1994 Catechism has to say:

1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."

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."

1378 Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession."

Official teaching on this sacrament is careful to distinguish between the substance of the elements and what are called the accidens of the elements--that the bread and wine retain all the outward appearances of bread and wine does not negate the substantial change that has taken place. According to the Roman Catholic Church, in the Mass the bread truly becomes the real, physical flesh of the body of Christ even though it looks, smells, feels, and tastes like bread. And similarly the wine undergoes a substantial but not accidental change.

Tomorrow: The Lutheran view of the Supper.