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Catholics teach that the Eucharist does transubstantiate into the literal body and blood of Christ.

Protestants say that the act is purely symbolic.

My take, I'm somewhere in the middle on this. I can see the significance of believing that it literally transubstantiates into the body and blood of Christ for the purpose of the ritual but I don't think it physically changes in substance.

I think they are possible since there are many mysteries we don't know but I'm skeptical of these claims, especially seeing that the latest one listed is 1730. My opinion about miracles though is that it's not the event that's the miracle, since there are many unexplained phenomena that we still don't understand yet we don't call them miracles, but rather what makes something a miracle is the significance the event has on an individual in that it fosters writing the Law in a persons heart.

I didn't think Communion was about coming together as a community - although I grant you that participation together as one church would be an important element of it - but about becoming one with Christ. Maybe I'm mistaken... I've never made a thorough study of Christianity outside of history.

I don't think it has to literally become meat and blood in order to be of Christ. I think the transubstantiation can be symbolic, in that the wafer and the wine contain the very essence of Christ, thus when one takes Communion one is taking Christ into oneself in a very real way, without it having to be in a literal way.

To be honest I really don't understand why it would be done if this were not the case. It sounds like it would be marvellously moving as a ritual.

It's both, at least according to the explanation I've gotten here. The community isn't just the individual congregation, but the Church as a whole, which also includes union with Christ and God. But there is definitely an element of connection to each other, at least for some. A friend of mine described Communion as a continuation of a communal meal where early Christian communities came together to worship, rather than being necessarily connected to blood, symbolic or otherwise. It's a picture of community and helps build that community, emphasizing the need to care for brothers and sisters in Christ.

As a Baptist, it was never described to me as taking Christ into us. We did it to remember his words and the sacrifice, so it is connected symbolically. But not as a replacement of sorts, I guess. It's more that when we drink and eat, we should remember what was done for us. I would have said Christ is already in you and that grows through reading the Bible, praying, etc. We weren't big on rituals...Seems strange for a denomination named for one. biggrin But even there, while we might be known for it, it's worth noting that unlike most of Protestantism, Baptists generally would say nothing saving happens in Baptism and it's not a means of grace, it's just a step of obedience. The same is true for Communion, from that perspective. They sort of run from the idea that anything other than faith has any saving power, so they got rid of the sacramental nature of the rituals and turned them into things that are done just because God said so, not because anything happens in them.

So, basically...I'm sure there's some truth to the point of view that Christ is being taken into the person. But from the perspective of a former Baptist, that idea just rubs me the wrong way. So there's probably something I'm not able to see because I was taught so much not that that point of view was wrong, too close to Catholicism for their tastes.