And in the Big News today from a Faith Perspective, some art thing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-57334937
Which brings me quite naturally to the feast of Corpus Christi. Bread and wine get transformed, using our priestly magic powers handed down by the laying on of hands via the apostolic succession. Food becomes bits of the temporarily visible third of the Invisible Magic Friend. You can be absolutely sure of this because I wouldn’t lie about something that important.
Plus I went for a walk and talked to some people.
There’s just so much happening in the world. It’s getting quite difficult to cram it all into just three minutes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AweXtK6vtdYQKfVTPRLgEoSUnfnzstNO/view?usp=sharing
Platitude of the Day 
“It’s the ‘feast’ of ‘Corpus Christi’. For you ignoramuses who have never been Christians I’ll explain it; it’s not utterly batshit and weird at all.
Now I’ll talk about something trivial while you try to get your head around how I can casually discuss ‘Corpus Christi’ apparently without it occurring to me how it will strike most grown adults how utterly batshit and weird it is”.
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A pity that time constraints prevented him from going into this “I’ve just eaten bits of my Redeemer” thing in a bit more depth. In particular, enquiring minds would like to know how many wafers you have to eat before you’ve eaten a whole Jesus. And once you’ve reached that milestone is it personally transformational in some way?
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And of even greater importance, when does the eucharist stop being Jesus? Do you get consecrated poo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stercoranism#:~:text=In%20relation%20to%20the%20process,or%20to%20any%20chemical%20reactions.
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LOL! I was going to ‘go there’ but then I thought, no that’s a bit too ridiculous. Apparently not.
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Previous comments have dealt with the Bishop’s offering in exactly the right vein. We were, nevertheless, offered a (surely) heretical stance on the Eucharist from an Anglican prelate – he did say the bread and wine become ‘living flesh and lifeblood’ – far removed from the Book of Common Prayer’s Protestant emphasis on commemoration. This (irregular and scary as it was) only succeeded in emphasising the Batshit craziness of it all.
I suppose his railings into sculpture story shoehorned the ‘news’ item element into his ‘thought,’ though he went a bit overboard on the ugliness of the railings – were we then supposed to make a parallel with the ugliness of a morsel of bread and sip of wine? I wonder how his own flock (had they been listening in) felt about being a rag-tag of sinners? As for the ending, I fail to see how the hikers anecdote had any bearing on the issue – though he betrayed a bourgeois attitude to noisy youngsters from the city suburbs being out of place in the countryside. I doubt if they were wearing Barbour jackets either.
Altogether a rag-bag of batshitness.
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I don’t know if this will help, but it’s “transubstantiation” not “transformation”. Big difference. Here’s a link:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/alethianworldview/2014/11/16/a-wasted-debunking/#more-1718
Bit of a long read, but it explains all. Goes back to Aristotle via Aquinas.
All together now, “Should auld Aquinas be forgot . . . “
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…not forgetting, in celebration of Rev Dr Peter’s “consecrated poo”, a chorus of “stuck in the midden with you”.
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“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right”
That would make a great introductory theme song for TFTD.
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The earliest version of the Eucharist is in Paul’s first email to the Corinthians. This simply contains the instructions for consuming the bread and whatever was in the cup (Paul doesn’t actually say it was wine). That’s it. Nothing about Passover, or the upper room, or the disciples, or any of the other details that ‘Mark’ added to the story to make it seem as if it might actually have happened some 40 years previously. Still, who cares about historical plausibility when you’re trying to persuade people that foodstuffs magically turn into bodily particles if you say the right words?
Like others, I’m not quite sure what the story about the hikers was doing there, but it did suggest that people can be good even without engaging in an act of ritual cannibalism. It seems that they still have to be patronised by a Bishop, though.
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I remember the first time I was at a communion service when my parents used to take us to attend our local Methodist church. They explained what happens but it seemed very odd to a ten year old.
“So, if the bread represents his body you are eating a bit of Jesus and then you drink wine and that is meant to be his blood? Yuk”.
I gave up Sunday School and believing in magical friends soon after thanks to my elder brother’s scepticism.
When I read Peter’s link to the utter bo***cks that people are able to twist their beliefs into to try and get it to make sense – “In relation to the process of digestion, the Catholic Church’s teaching has been expressed in this way: “The substance of Christ’s body is not subject to processes of digestion or to any chemical reactions. The qualities of bread of course behave in their normal way, undergoing a change as they are affected by digestion. Our Lord’s substantial presence ceases as these qualities cease to retain those characteristics proper to bread.” – I know I made the right decision and still find the whole idea laughable.
Would my disdain upset a the bishop as much as being disturbed on his walk by a bunch of towny oiks? I hope so.
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