page_title: Eucharist
section_title: As a real presence
hierarchical_section_title: Eucharist / Ritual and liturgy / Catholic Church / As a real presence
caption_attribution_description: Português: Cerimônia de canonização do frade brasileiro Frei Galvão celebrada pelo papa Bento XVI no Campo de Marte em São Paulo, Brasil. (fragment)
context_page_description: The Eucharist is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instituted by Jesus Christ during the Last Supper; giving his disciples bread and wine during a Passover meal, Jesus commanded his disciples to "do this in memory of me" while referring to the bread as "my body" and the cup of wine as "the new covenant in my blood". Through the eucharistic celebration Christians remember both Christ's sacrifice of himself on the cross and his commission of the apostles at the Last Supper.
  The elements of the Eucharist, sacramental bread and sacramental wine, are consecrated on an altar and consumed thereafter. Communicants, those who consume the elements, may speak of "receiving the Eucharist" as well as "celebrating the Eucharist". Christians generally recognize a special presence of Christ in this rite, though they differ about exactly how, where, and when Christ is present.
context_section_description: The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus is present in a true, real and substantial way, with his Body and his Blood, with his Soul and his Divinity under the Eucharistic species of bread and wine, Christ whole and entire, God and Man. During the consecration of bread and wine, both bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of his Blood is called transubstantiation. This change is brought about in the eucharistic prayer through the efficacy of the word of Christ and by the action of the Holy Spirit. However, the outward characteristics of bread and wine, that is the "eucharistic species", remain unaltered. The presence of Christ continues in the Eucharist as long as the eucharistic species subsist. that is, until the Eucharist is digested, physically destroyed, or decays by some natural process (at which point Aquinas argued that the substance of the bread and wine cannot return). The empirical appearance and physical properties (called the species or accidents) are not changed, but in the view of Catholics, the reality (called the substance) indeed is; hence the term transubstantiation to describe the phenomenon. The Council of Trent declares that by the consecration of the bread (known as the Host) 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." The Church holds that the body and blood of Jesus can no longer be truly separated. Where one is, the other must be. Therefore, although the priest (or extraordinary minister of Holy Communion) says "The Body of Christ" when administering the Host and "The Blood of Christ" when presenting the chalice, the communicant who receives either one receives Christ, whole and entire. "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."
  The Catholic Church sees as the main basis for this belief the words of Jesus himself at his Last Supper: the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24; Luke 22:19–20) and Saint Paul's 1 Cor. 11:23–25 recount that in that context Jesus said of what to all appearances were bread and wine: "This is my body … this is my blood." The Catholic understanding of these words, from the Patristic authors onward, has emphasized their roots in the covenantal history of the Old Testament. The interpretation of Christ's words against this Old Testament background coheres with and supports belief in the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
  In 1551, the Council of Trent definitively declared, "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." The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 had spoken of "Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread being changed (transsubstantiatis) by divine power into the body and the wine into the blood." The attempt by some twentieth-century Catholic theologians to present the Eucharistic change as an alteration of significance (transignification rather than transubstantiation) was rejected by Pope Paul VI in his 1965 encyclical letter Myster
caption: Pope Benedict XVI celebrates a Mass.
exif: {}