What kind of substance is Substance?

 Bosco Peters has posted an "essential" reading explanation of the meaning of "substance" in relation to "Transubstantiation", here.

Comments on his post should be made at his blog, not here. But I am glad to link to his post as clarity of thought on "substance" as well as on "real presence" can be lacking in discussion and debate on these matters in Anglican circles (and, as Bosco points out, Catholic circles also). The tendency is to fall prey to simplicity of thought in the face of a great mystery.

A few thoughts of my own:

- any account of the significance of the bread and wine of communion must account well for the "is" in "This is my body ... this is my blood" and do so with reference to the Synoptic and 1 Corinthians 11 accounts of the last supper, John 6 and the participatory language in 1 Corinthians 10. Broadly speaking "real presence" does this in a way which "memorialism" (all we are doing is remembering that Jesus died for us) or "representationism" (the bread represents the body of Christ etc) does not.

- there are "both/ands" involved in this mystery: Jesus is really present and (as Bosco notes) the bread and the wine are symbols - powerful symbols - and "representations" (in the sense of re-presenting to us the body and blood of Christ" and our participation matters (as those present at communion (with our bodies; together being "the body of Christ"), as those giving thanks in our hearts for what Jesus has done for us, as those eating the bread of communion and drinking the wine of communion by faith receiving these elements as the body and blood of Jesus).