text: This discussion thread seems to hinge on the concept of 'transubstantiation'
  
  I think it a distortion to say that ...."it's ultimately from Jesus that we get the notion of transubstantiation"....
  
  'transubstantiation' came in with Aquinas and his effort to explain things in Aristotle's Philosophical concepts. In that philosophy – as far as I can interpret it – everything is made up of a 'substance' (which seems to be a conceptual category) and 'accidents' which are the sensory appearances.
  
  Frankly, the whole philosophy does not make much sense to me.
  
  According to it, the 'Conceptual Category' (substance) changes during Eucharist, so that we say both bread and wine are now the presence of the Risen, glorified, sacrificed Jesus - whole and entire, body and blood soul and divinity – as the Church expresses it.
  
  Though sensory realities remain the same – it looks and tastes like like bread, our Faith concept is that it is Jesus present. Thus 'trans-substance'! but not trans-accidents'.