Transubstantiation

"This only will I speak, and that in a word: they which brought in transubstantiations, masses, calling upon saints, sole life, purgatory, images, vows, trifles, follies, babbles, into the church of God, have delivered new things, and which the scriptures never heard of. Whatsoever they cry or crack, they bring not a jot out of the word of God... These they honour instead of the scriptures, and force them to the people instead of the word of God: upon these men suppose their salvation and the sum of religion to be grounded."

"Nothing announced so sudden a destruction. The people in general seemed attached to the ceremonies of catholicism; but there are bodies struck with lightning, who seem still to preserve their life and organization, but touch them, and they crumble into dust. The people had the appearance of believing in the mass, in transubstantiation, and in the most received dogmas of the catholic faith; but the people did not believe in them at all. All the sarcasms of Voltaire against the priests, all the pleasantries of the author of the Pucelle, had reached them... There was only a single step to take to lay the revolutionary axe to the root of altars loaded with gold and silver: had they been naked, they would have escaped the destroying hand. It is not their overthrow which ought to astonish, but it is having seen them fall in one day, with all the circumstances of the most profound contempt or hatred. The progress of irreligion was extremely rapid amongst the vulgar, who armed themselves at once with hammers and levers to break the sacred images before which six months back they bent the knee. They were easily persuaded that it was a useful thing to transform the temples into magazines, golden cups and crosses into money, the iron grates into bullets, and the copper cherubim into cannon. The mob thought, that after the decree of national sovereignty, the right of doing every thing, of commanding every thing, and of not obeying, was fully devolved to them alone."

"They had only three sacraments, baptism, eucharist, and the orders; and would not admit transubstantiation in the manner the Roman Catholics do. They knew nothing of purgatory; and the saints they said were not admitted to the presence of GOD, but were kept in a third place till the day of judgment. Their priests were permitted to marry, at least once in their life. Their rite was the Chaldaean or Syrian.… The uncontrolled power of Papal Rome had not then reached the Syrian churches in Travencore: they preserved their independence, and remained for ages unmolested, until the maritime discovery of India by de Gama: after which, priests and inquisitors from Goa disturbed their peace, burnt their unadulterated versions of the sacred scriptures, and compelled many of their churches to acknowledge the pope’s supremacy."

"Twas God the Word that spake it, He took the Bread and brake it: And what that Word did make it, That I believe and take it."

"To understand transubstantiation, lets turn to a related word that is more familiar to us: transformation. Transformation means changing from one form to another, while transubstantiation means changing from one substance to another. Lets take an example. When we see a woman leaving the hairdressers with a whole new hairstyle, we sometimes spontaneously exclaim: ‘What a transformation!’. No one would dream of exclaiming, ‘What a transubstantiation!’. And rightly so. Her form and external appearance have changed, but not her inner being and personality. If she was intelligent before, she is intelligent now; if she was not intelligent before, I am sorry to say that she is not intelligent now either. Appearances have changed, but not substance. In the Eucharist, exactly the opposite happens: substance changes, but appearances do not. The bread is transubstantiated, but not transformed; in fact, its appearance (form, taste, colour, weight) remains the same, while its profound reality has changed, it has become the body of Christ. The promise of Jesus heard at the beginning [of the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time] has been fulfilled: "The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."