[the invisib1e hand]

ping.

[Ravens70]

Could you enlighten us as to the specific “abuses” taught by the Catholic Church...which most every Christian believed for 1500 years??

[fetal heart beats by 21st day]

“I am the bread of life.....

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven.”

“If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and

the bread that I will give,

is my flesh,

for the life of the world.”

“The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying:

How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said to them:

Amen, amen, I say to you:

Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last day.

For my flesh is meat indeed:

and my blood is drink indeed.....”

(John vi:48-60)

“and whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke; and gave it to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat.

This is my body.

And taking the chalicem he gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying: Drink ye all of this.

For this is the blood of the new testament, which will be shed for many unto remission of sins.” (Matt. xxvi:26-28)

“And whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread; and blessing, broke, and gave to them, and said: Take ye.

This is my body.

And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of it.

And he said to them:

This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many.” (Mark xiv:22-24)

(Luke xxii:19,20)

(1 Cor. xi:23-26)

[GonzoII]

"Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

But this doesn't square with St Paul who is quite clear on the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist....

1Cor:10:16: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (KJV)

A friendly objection.........

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you for this. I do think that too easily the discussion falls into a caricature or misrepresentation of the other side's view.

I was intrigued years ago to try to nail down Cranmer's eucharistic thought and am always interested in what others say on the matter.

One summation of Reform thought was, 'real presence in the believer', with the implication (in the Articles of Religion it's explicit) that "the wicked" do not partake of the Body and Blood but are guilty of abusing the sign of so great a thing.

One of the less important reasons I love this topic is that it touches on basic philosophical questions. What is "real"? What is "spiritual"? What is the difference between what a thing is, what it's made of, and what it's used for? Like that.

Anyway Merry Christmas to you.

[dangus]

>> overly present in the supper <<

If God isn’t as present as you could imagine, wouldn’t it be more wonderful if he were more present? And yet God is infintely good, so how could he be less present than we could imagine him to be? The problem is that we disrespect his presence so, that people cannot fathom that God could permit himself to be present, but he is.

[dangus]

>> By this Luther wanted to suggest that Christ was “truly” in some way present in the Supper, even in the elements themselves, yet he did not want to go where the Catholic church had been on the supper. <<

Luther didn’t seem to understand Aquinas. He thought the fact that it seemed like bread meant it wasn’t in some way the body of Christ.

Consider a hammer. If I pick something up that is very good at driving nails into wood, is it a hammer? If it was created for the purpose of driving nails into wood, is it a hammer? Or must it be made of a wooden shaft with an iron tap affixed to it to be a hammer?

The answers are yes, yes, and no. I may use a rock to drive nails into wood, but it’s not truly a hammer unless it is created for that purpose. Yet, if it achieves that purpose to which it was created, it is a hammer, even if it is made of plastic and some new ceramic compound, or even if it is in some new ergonomic shape. The *form* is not the *substance.*

Likewise, the host, once its substance has been changed, is created to be the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ, even though it retains the form of bread. Luther could not fathom that.

[Lui]

When discussing beliefs I think we should try to be accurate as possible. Catholics do not believe the mass is a recreation of the crucifixion and as such being offered up over and over but rather that the crucifixion was a singular event in time and also was an eternal event outside of time. And the mass is the mystical union of the faithful throughout the ages made present in that one moment of time of the crucifixion.

[Petronski]

LOL

What a hot mess.