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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

At what point do the bread and wine become the true body and blood of Christ?

Question:

At what point do the bread and wine become the true body and blood of Christ?

Answer:

The bread becomes the body of Christ when the words of consecration complete the sentence, i.e., when the object “body” (modified by the adjective “my”) completes the subject “This” and the verb or predicate, “is.” Once the thought is articulated: “This is my body,” the change takes place. The same goes for the wine becoming his blood. Sister told us that knowing the parts of speech would help us in the future—Sister scores again!

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