How Many Atoms of Jesus Do You Eat Everyday?

Because I know you're curious, somebody has written a carefully reasoned report on how many atoms the Catholic communion adds to the universe. In case you are curious, the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation states that when a Catholic takes communion, the bread and wine become — physically speaking — the body and blood of Christ. So while you may be continuing to see bread and wine, rest assured, there's more.

Lets assume 2 grams of wafer and 10 grams of wine per communion, a light wafer and a small sip. We'll also assume that upon transubstantiation the wafer and wine don't turn into any specific body part or muscle group, but instead into sort of a uniform Jesus slurry. That is, we're going to assume that the liquid to solid ratio of the human body is the same as the wine to wafer ratio found in communion.

To count the number of atoms in each serving, all we need is some high-school level chemistry. We're first going to find how many grams of each element appear when the serving is transubstantiated, using percentages from delld's writeup under Human Body Composition. For simplicity's sake, the 1% of the human body made up of trace elements will be ignored. Using those figures along with the Periodic Table of the Elements, we'll convert from grams to moles. Since moles count the number of atoms in a given mass, we'll have the total atomic count of each communion after all of this calculation.

How many atoms of Jesus you eat every day@Everything2.com

Now before you jump up and say "Ah ha! This means transubstantiation is physically impossible!" keep in mind the Catholic perspective. Namely, that it is all a miracle, don't attempt to understand it, it's simply the grace of God. So in the end, this report doesn't add anything new to religious debate except as an interesting thought experiment.

What more, I doubt the average Catholic cares about the ins and out of how it all works. It will never make sense, don't try to understand it. Hey, I'm not saying I agree with them. That's just how they view it.

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