Well, to get past that: Catholics do adore the Eucharistic bread, but they do so because the Eucharistic Bread is Jesus, — precisely because it is not longer bread.
Our rector preached an excellent homily last Sunday (the Feast of the Body and Blood, a/k/a Corpus Christi) on how we need to be more careful with our terminology -- once the words of consecration are pronounced, a miracle occurs and we behold the Body and Blood of our Saviour.
They shouldn't be referred to thereafter as bread and wine . . . because They aren't.
Great homily. He quoted Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Without notes. I gotta say, every once in awhile I like a homily that makes my head ache. It's good for me.
So...let me ask you a question.
When the bread is taken away, do you lose contact with Jesus?
In other words, when praying to that Eucharistic bread, do you feel closer than when praying by yourself, at home?
Why? Does Jesus vanish when the Eucharistic bread is removed? If He does vanish, then what does that do to His statement, “Lo, I am with you always”?
He said “Always” not just when the Eucharistic bread is in place in front of you.
That’s why it seems so silly to me to see people praying towards a piece of bread, Jesus is everywhere, “Neither death, nor life, nor dark...can keep [Jesus] from us.”
NOTHING keeps Jesus from us, so...if He is everywhere, sees us at all times, hears us at all times, why would His presence be so much more powerful when there’s a piece of bread in front of you than when there is no piece of bread in front of you?
Ed