Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ

      One of the most interesting and controversial beliefs of the Catholic Church is that of Transubstantiation. During the early years of the Church, it was often believed that Catholics were cannibals due to their consumption of "The Body and Blood of Christ." There were also some fringe groups which actually did cannibalize; they didn't help with that problem.
     So what is transubstantiation you ask? Transubstantiation is the belief that when we eat the bread and drink the wine of the Eucharist, we are actually eating Christ's blood and body. But that is cannibalism! No, its not.To understand the concept, we must talk about substance, and accidents.
     Substance is the actual nature of a thing; it determines what that thing is. Take for instance a dog. A dog will always be a dog, even if you paint it a different color and call it a bear. No matter what you do to the dog, it will always be a dog. This underlying being is called substance; it cannot be changed by changing the outside. Accidents are those outside things. The reason a dog is shaped like a dog is because each substance begets certain accidents. The substance of a dog causes the dog to have 4 legs and a tail. Accidents are physical appearances which can be changed, substances are physical realities which cannot.
     So when the bread and wine are transubstantiated into body and blood, they retain the accidents, but not the substance. The substance of bread and the substance of wine are changed by God into the substance of the Body and the Blood of Christ. The reason it is not cannibalism is because the accidents change. The bread, now body, still looks and taste and smells like bread; so to with the blood. All things which can be perceived by the senses are the same; only the substance is different. And that is Transubstantiation in a nutshell.