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Respectfully, equating the Eucharist to cannibalism is naive.

A woman giving birth is nothing at all like a woman menstruating even though a naive view might somehow equate both with “human tissue goes through the canal”.

Cannibalism is not eating a living being and in cannibalism the (collection of) substance (s) that is dead physical flesh becomes the physical substance of the eater. In the Eucharist the Christ does not die, He does not become the eater (if anything the opposite), and He persists after the act.

The whole idea of it is fascinating and raises a number of questions and discussions as to why it is necessary, but this exploration cannot happen if it’s labeled something it totally is not.

Laeserin 4mo ago

It's more similar to breastfeeding, really, than cannibalism, but both analogies fall very short. I am happy to own the cannibalism charge, tho, as it was thrown at the first Christians and is proof of the tradition of the Mass.

>> At the last supper, Jesus did say, ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood’. So the Church developed the theory of transubstantiation. This is still Roman Catholic doctrine: that, even though the appearance of the bread and wine remains unchanged, their all-important inner ‘substance’ is radically and really changed into the actual body and blood of Jesus.

The opposite, very Protestant view is that the bread and wine are simply symbols of the living Christ. The Church of England’s middle position since the Reformation, shared by most of the Reformed churches, is of the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine.<<

https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/news/cannibalism-surely-not-sung-eucharist-15-08-21/

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ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 4mo ago

i read the text closely and decided it wasn't a symbol either. but rather "body" to mean "to ask for the presence" and blood "to remember the sacrifice". and that it isn't supposed to be something special but what you do every time you eat (they were having lunch, after all).

idioms in old languages being insensitively interpreted as literal is hilarious especially when the text clearly is analogical.

read the accounts of sex in genesis for an example of how the idiom is foreign to modern english "he went in unto her"... in the hebrew it probably was basically contemporary colloquialism "so abraham fucked sarah"

viper_1 4mo ago

I do get that.

At some level, the cannibalism charge is natural from the language and to give credit to those who levy it, it comes from I think a position of taking the seriousness of what is going on into account.

But respectfully, my understanding of the sacrament convinces me that to try to own the cannibalism charge will permit ignorance of the basic physics of the process in those levying that charge.

Taking the body only, the transubstantiation is a piece of bread into the whole living body of Christ. Consuming the whole, living, body of Christ is just not the same as chewing a piece of flesh.

Not only would it be completely inappropriate to tear up the Christ with our teeth, but any regular piece of flesh has truly ceased to be a substance (and becomes a collection of bits of different, substances) once “bitten off” from whoever or whatever it was. And soon those bits of substances- muscle, sinew, etc will be substantially changed into the eater- and cease to exist as substances. That is cannibalism- and that is not happening in churches.

In the Eucharist (again just considering the body) Christ is not wholly present at the consecration moment but then mechanically transformed into a bunch of different body parts and substances by chewing.

Rather His whole living body becomes present at consecration, remains whole at consumption, still the same whole substance in/as each particle of the consumed species, and for as long as the underlying species exists. And whenever all particles of the species cease to exist inside the consumer, Christ whole living body is entirely gone from the physical place it had been (but Christ has/was not substantially changed).

This is my understanding.