Some miracles are regular in occurrence (e.g., the change
of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, according to the Roman Catholic view), while some are unique (as in Christ's resurrection).
At Ettal, Bonhoeffer could go to Mass and share in the prayers and readings, but, as he was not a member of the Catholic Church, he could not
partake of the bread and wine at communion.
These new relationships of being also allow a deeper understanding of transubstantiation, the
changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, Christ's risen body, as a new relationality of being.
The only change in transubstantiation is also invisible, so the accidents
of bread and wine remain, and so does Jesus, until these accidents are no longer evident.
The Faith theology of what happens in the change
of bread and wine at Mass into Christ's own Body and Blood involves a quite different philosophical framework from that of St Thomas Aquinas: Faith draws on a modern view of the co-relativity of all matter; Aquinas depends more on an Aristotelian system of form and matter.
In terms of the scripture communion is the takeing
of bread and wine in fellowship with others to the glory and rememberence of Jesus sacrafice on the cross.
In the Eucharist the worshipper does not unite himself with Christ, but he receives the
gifts of bread and wine by which he expects inner nourishment from the sources of spiritual life upon which he depends.
Under the consecrated
species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity.»
Some contemporary theologians, using insights of existential philosophy and phenomenology, have suggested that the underlying
reality of bread and wine is not substance, but meaning.
For if a man or a woman's body — or his or her status as a married person, or his capacity to be a father or hers to be a mother — doesn't matter for his or her sex life, why, then, should anyone imagine that the body of the Son of God matters, whether it is in a manger, on a cross, risen, or fully and really present under the
signs of bread and wine?
The oneness of the church — one Lord, one faith, one baptism — is as integral to being a part of Christ's body as receiving the
sacrament of bread and wine.
They put the saying about the wine after the
distribution of both bread and wine, reading, «I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God» (Mk 14:25; Mt 26:29).
Here's a list of things we should test... 1) Worldwide floods 2) Seas parting at the command of a person 3) talking snakes, donkeys, and bushes 4) People spontaneously turning into pillars of salt 5) a few
loaves of bread and some wine feeding thousands 6) instantaneous healing of disease 7) worlds forming in 6 days 8) words forming on stone tablets without the assistance of a living creature 9) people walking on water 10) resurrection on command
Totally unable to comprehend the
mysteries of bread and wine, they presumed to set themselves above the Almighty and flaunt their wickedness.
The reception of God's grace through baptism does not automatically confer new life on the recipient; participation in the Lord's Supper does not necessarily change the
recipient of bread and wine.
This takes place particularly through the celebration of the Eucharist, when thereal presence of Jesus under the species
of bread and wine reveal and effect the union for which the universe longs.
Its a neo-platonic idea, they don't necessarily believe the atomic
structure of the bread and wine is actually changed, they believe its essence has changed in a spiritual sense.
His teaching is sometimes labeled «consubstantiation», which means that the substances of both the body and blood of Christ and
of bread and wine coexist on the altar.
Hymns, doxologies, benedictions, sermons, and
symbols of bread and wine all flow from this event and return to it in the form of proclamation, reenactment, remembrance, thanksgiving, and prayer.
And surely the symbolism of eagle feathers as a way to commune with the Creator isn't all that different with Christianity's
use of bread and wine to represent the body and blood of Christ.
It displays two parts that form a fundamental unity: the gathering, the liturgy of the Word, with readings, homily and general intercessions; the liturgy of the Eucharist, with
presentation of bread and wine, the consecratory thanksgiving, and communion» (CCC1346).
(22) The substantial
conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of «nuclear fission,» to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to thetransfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).
There is even a Last Supper, 13 - strong and with a
banquet of bread and wine, though here accompanied by pineapple sundaes and Thanksgiving turkey.
Catholics held to the doctrine of «transubstantiation», which said that at the consecration the substance, or underlying reality, changed into the body and blood of Christ, although the accidents, that is the physical
appearance of bread and wine, was unchanged.
Jesus himself becomes present here today, under the
form of bread and wine, so that we can unite all of our prayers of thanksgiving, sorrow and petition with Christ himself, as an offering to the Father.
It is indeed a difficult task to «switch gears» from a theology based on static, spatial models alone, such as the essence of God, the natures of Christ, and the
substance of bread and wine, to a theology that is concerned with spatio - temporal models, such as change in God, Christ becoming divine, and the on - going process of revelation.
He also suggests that the eschatological prospect entertained by Jesus is a later addition, and notes that it has nothing to do with the
gift of bread and wine.