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I do recall that our philosophy professor used as an illustration of different types of causality the act of switching on a light: material cause -- the generation power and wiring; efficient cause -- act of switching the light on; final cause -- to have light; and formal cause -- the laws of electricity.

I'm afraid I have to say that's a lousy example because it's WAY too complex. (See, your perfesser probably knows stuff that happened AFTER 1400, while, for the most part, I don't.)

Switching on a light is an act of will, and the various causes of the light bulb's working are sort of ancillary.

And I think your guy didn't really get or 'work' the idea of telos, 'that for the sake of which,' final cause. Normally I switch on a light that I may see.

And I think his formal cause is messed up as well. The formal cause of switching on a light bulb is will, I'd guess. The formal cause of electricity is far too mysterious for me, but I'd offer something like electro-magnetic energy.

However, the formal cause of a light-bulb is interesting to think about because it develops the answer to the question of what happens to transubstantiation when the accidents of the used-to-be bread go bad or the ditto wine turns to vinegar.

I'm thinking -- and I'll have a chance, if I remember to take it, to check -- that a lightbulb with a broken and irreparable filament is no longer a lightbulb. The other case that comes to mind would be that it is a fatally defective lightbulb.

But the 'esse' of lightbulb is, I submit, a "device which turns electro-magnetic energy to light." Whether it is incandescent, fluorescent, or an LED, the formal cause remains the same and accounts for the ordering of any of a number of materials and parts.

The connection between this and transubstantiation is that if the Sacred Body no longer has the accidents appropriate to bread, or the Precious Blood no longer has the accidents appropriate to wine, then the transubstantiation is no longer true. ( I THINK that's right.)

This casts a VERY interesting light on our view of the miracle and its relationship to time, huh? It suggests, for example, that God doesn't just "do it" at the words of Institution, but that He keeps on doing it for as long as necessary.

FWIW, for, oh my GAWD, 45 years I have almost always answered the formal cause of a thing by adding ‘ness’ to the noun. It’s smart-alecky because it’s kind of question-begging, but it really is, I think, the way to begin to answer the question.

The connection between this and transubstantiation is that if the Sacred Body no longer has the accidents appropriate to bread, or the Precious Blood no longer has the accidents appropriate to wine, then the transubstantiation is no longer true.

Yep -- that's how we learned it! I also recall dimly something about the same thing once processes of digestion rendered the accidents unrecognizable. Or something like that.