[Herbert] McCabe\u2019s starting point in the essay \u201cTransubstantiation and the Real Presence\u201d\u009d is a straight affirmation of standard Catholic teaching. He contrasts it with an understanding of the presence that is, at one extreme, metaphorical, and at the other extreme, materialistic. He talks about the food and drink of the Eucharist being \u201cradically or as we say \u201d\u02dcsubstantially\u2019 transformed\u201d\u009d, and about it not \u201cremaining ontologically the same\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n
Early on he makes an important distinction between what it means to say \u201cChrist\u201d\u009d is present in the Eucharist and to say \u201cthe body of Christ\u201d\u009d is present. It is by speaking of \u201cbody of Christ\u201d\u009d, rather than just of \u201cChrist\u201d\u009d that he can make the most of the word \u201csacramental\u201d\u009d that defines the mode of presence that is believed to occur in the Eucharist.<\/p>\n
His theology of the Eucharist is a theology of it as sacrament of the body, and blood, of Christ. His concern with the bread and wine will not be directly with what happens to them, but with what it means to say they are sacraments of the body and blood of Christ.<\/p>\n