Bread and wine Quote by Joseph Pohle

““The Mass is not only a relative (commemorative) sacrifice, but likewise an absolute sacrifice, and hence the Eucharistic Victim in the Consecration must be slain, either physically or morally. As Christ cannot be slain physically because of the glorified state of His Body, the slaying must be 11 Heinrich-Gutbcrlet, Dogmat. Theologie, Vol. IX, p. 862. 366 THE EUCHARIST AS A SACRIFICE moral. In matter of fact it consists in the volun tary reduction of His Body and Blood to the con dition of food (reductio ad statum cibi et potus), in virtue of which the Eucharistic Saviour, hu manly speaking, places Himself after the fashion of lifeless food at the mercy of mankind. This self-abasement or kenosis is comparable with that involved in the Incarnation, and in some respects even goes beyond it. 12 De Lugo's theory was adopted by Platel, Muniessa, Ulloa, Viva, Antoine, Holtzklau, Tamburini, and others of the older school. In modern times it was revived, after a long period of neglect, by Cardinal Franzelin, who in his profound treatise De Eucharistia has the fol lowing thesis: " We hold with Cardinal De Lugo and a great many later theologians, that the intrinsic form (essence) of the sacrificial act is in this: Christ . . . puts His Body and Blood, under the species of bread and wine, in a state of food and drink, by way of despoiling Himself of the functions connatural to His sacred Hu manity.””

— Joseph Pohle