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In what I reasonably think to have been a rejected offer here, I put up links to the discussion of the Eucharist in the third part of the Summa.

I mention this because when I read, "but He is definitely a piece of bread," I can see the misunderstandings already.

He 'is' not, we hold, definitely a piece of bread. That particular thing in his hand WAS a piece of bread and 'now' only 'looks like' bread but IS Him. It would be better to say,"What just now WAS a piece of bread is now He," which is critically different from saying He "is a piece of bread."

One of the reasons I so enjoy Eucharistic Theology is that is goes it so many directions.
-- I'm not even sure what a piece of bread is, or wine.
-- I think we have to ask what the "esse" or the "substance" of "Body" and "Blood" are, especially if we are now talking about resurrected Body and Blood.

I refer to Aquinas, not because I think he's right (though I do think he's extraordinary) but because a lot of the questions that come up in these flailing conversations are addressed in his treatment.

Iscool, for example, thought that there was no breaking of the bread in our Mass, while it is so much a feature of the Mass that Aquinas discusses it. Others, evidently unacquainted with the Mysterium Fidei, tell us as though it were news that the Mass is the proclamation of the Lord's death until he comes again.

Again, Iscool and others protest the withholding of the chalice. Very well. It is admittedly controversial. But the issue was not raised for the first time yesterday. We've had almost two thousand years to think and to pray and to worship, and we've reached some conclusions. It might, it just might, make sense to acquaint oneself with the way our thinking goes BEFORE attacking it.

For example, we think the Risen Christ is incorruptible, as Paul saith, undivided, and indivisible. SO SURE are we of this, that we think the WHOLE Christ is received under either species. So someone with an allergy to wheat products is not harmed or deprived if he only receives the Precious Blood.

Of course, one can disagree. Butt then one needs to think about whether the Risen Christ is divided. When Paul asks (I Cor 1:13),"Is Christ divided," I'd guess he expected everyone to say, "No, of course not!"

In our approach to the Blessed Sacrament, we hold that he cannot be divided.

We are called superstitious and materialistic, but we tell the story at every Mass, we proclaim the resurrection, we remember his death. In certain externals we may fail to duplicate what took place in the upper room that last night. But I guess we would hold that the question of leavened or unleavened or whether every piece is actually broken would be, well, materialistic, external, in a certain way even superstitious.

There is so much misunderstanding, which is sad and bad. But what is remarkable is that there is insistence that we say what we do not say and teach what we do not teach. There is also a certaiankind of circularity to the attack: We are vicious. Why? Because we do such and such. But what's wrong with them? They are vicious! Why? Because we, who are vicious, do them.