For Further Study
The Early Church Fathers on The Real Presence (Free)
Books - This Is My Body by Mark P. Shea
DVD - Footprints of God: Jesus, the Word Became Flesh with Steve Ray
CD - Proving the Real Presence by Fr. Frank Chacon
Posted on 03/19/2012 7:19:57 PM PDT by Salvation
The Eucharist
by Sebastian R. Fama
The Church has always taught that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. This is difficult for some to accept. However, belief in the Real Presence rests upon the words of Christ Himself. In John 6:48-57 we read:
I am the the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread, will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. The Jews quarreled among themselves saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me." Opponents of the Real Presence contend that this is all symbolic. But read what happens in verses 60 and 66, – "Then many of His disciples who were listening said, 'This saying is hard, who can accept it?'...As a result of this, many [of] His disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him."
Why was it hard for Jesus' disciples to accept something that was supposedly symbolic? Why would they abandon Him over it? Apparently they took Him literally. If they were wrong, why didn't He correct them? When Jesus taught something and it wasn't understood, He would explain it as He did with the parables. If His message was understood but rejected, He just repeated it with more force, as He did with the Pharisees. Which category do you suppose John 6 is in?
At the Last Supper, Jesus fulfilled His promise: "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, 'Take and eat, this is My body.' Then He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins'" (Matthew 26:26-28). This could hardly be seen as symbolic, as Jesus held bread and the cup of wine in His hands and said "This is my body" and "This is my blood." He was obviously referring to what He was holding. Luke records that Jesus also said to do this in memory of Him (22:19). For the Jews, to do something "in memory" meant to make it actually present.
Paul affirms the Real Presence in 1 Corinthians 10:16 and 11:27-29. "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?... Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord...For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself." If the Lords body and blood are not present, how can a wrong be committed against them?
Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant sacrifice prefigured the New Covenant sacrifice. Both include a partaking of the sacrifice to signify participation in its effects.
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch from the year 69 to 110, writes in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans, "But look at the men who have those perverted notions about the grace of Jesus Christ…They will not admit the Eucharist is the self same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness afterwards raised up again" (7:1).
A few decades later, around the year 150, Justin Martyr wrote: "Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these, but since Jesus Christ our savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66).
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For Further Study
The Early Church Fathers on The Real Presence (Free)
Books - This Is My Body by Mark P. Shea
DVD - Footprints of God: Jesus, the Word Became Flesh with Steve Ray
CD - Proving the Real Presence by Fr. Frank Chacon
Essays for Lent: The Eucharist
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Thank you for posting. This is an item that devides Catholics and non-Catholics, but should not. Catholics say the bread and the wine ‘become His body and His blood’ (transubstantiation). Non-Catholics say the bread and the wine ‘represent His body and His blood (transliteration).
Jesus took the bread and said ‘this is my body’...he too the cup of wine and said ‘this is my blood’...neither transubstantiation nor transliteration. It very simply is His body, His blood.
Why do we have to make this so difficult. God’s Word, the words of Jesus Himself, are clear...’this is’.
Essays for Lent: Justification
Essays for Lent: Tradition
Essays for Lent: Scripture Alone
Essays for Lent: The Canon of Scripture
Essays for Lent: Papal Infallibility
Essays for Lent: The Pope
Essays for Lent: The Church
Essays for Lent: The Bible
Essays for Lent: The Trinity
Essays for Lent: Creationism or Evolution?
Maybe some people don't understand what the meaning of "is" is when Jesus speaks it. Sad..................
Bless Salvation and thanks. Easter is my birthday this year.
Happy Birthday a bit early, then.
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Starting with Father Martin Luther...Protestants believe what they want to believe, each person getting to interpret Scripture as he wants. There's no Apostolic Tradition either. The item that divides Catholics and non-Catholics is HUGE: the papacy/Peter, Transubstantiantion, priesthood, the ONE interpretation of Scripture by the Church.
The biggest divide IS the Eucharist. Without that how can Protestants even consider themselves Christian when they don't even believe Jesus' words at His Last Supper?
Tansliteration? Sad.
What blows my mind is that some people think all they have to do is get baptized as a baby, go to Mass every chance you get, go to confession every chance you get, receive communion every chance you get, give to the poor, get confirmed, do good deeds, do works of mercy, obey the commandments, believe everything the Pope and bishops tell you, get last rites before you die - if you're lucky enough, and STILL have no assurance that you will go to heaven when you die.
When Jesus said to eat his body and drink his blood he was talking about receiving him, believing in him and trusting in him as Savior by faith. Believing that when he died on the cross he paid for ALL our sins and because of God's grace we are saved through faith in HIM. The Eucharist was as Jesus said, "In remembrance of him.". Participating in the communion service is joining with the body of Christ to celebrate and remember what he did for us, by his shed blood we are redeemed. His body was broken for us and his blood was shed for our sins in full payment so that NOTHING I can do needs to be added to that sacrifice. The Apostle John, who also wrote the Gospel According to John where the account of Jesus' words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood is told, tells us in I John 5:13, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life and so that you may believe on the name of the son of God." This do in remembrance of me.
As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you do show the Lord's death until he comes.
But read the Apostle John carefully!
This is addressed to Christians. We have to live the life. We have to confess our sins to God as Christians though Jesus.
John 1:
5 “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 IF we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But IF we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[b] sin.
verse 7 “shows IF WE KEEP THE WALK THE SON PURIFIES.”
8 IF WE( Christians) claim to be Without Sin, WE DECEIVE ourselves and the TRUTH IS NOT in US. 9 IF WE CONFESS Our SINS, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 IF we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
There are several IF ‘s in this by John The Apostle. IF is defined as Condition, Requirement Or Stipulation in my Dictionary.
Notice every One of the words IF the true meaning it reads after this word "IF" are presented for true understanding.
Notice "Decieve". Deceive equals if We Claim to be with out Sins.
Notice how “we make God a liar” and His Word is Not in Us.
Do Not Be Decieved. Why would The Apostle John write These exact words!
Do Not Be Deceived!
Jesus I Pray for All to Understand Your Apostle’s Words !
Praise You Jesus Always!
Glory Be To The Father ,Son and Holy Spirit!
Amen!!
The Bible has the words. I’ll take them!
Sorry that you do onot seem to believe these words of Jesus.
There is nothing to argue since these words come from the mouth of Jesus.
So you agree with the necessity and sufficiency of the Eucharist for salvation, then? Jesus’ words, after all
“We have to confess our sins to God”
Yes we must confess our sins to God. Not through a priest.
I am not getting into that argument. There are people here who believe not at all in any type of confession to God. Like we are robots. Very dangerous.
As John The Apostle Shows when he Uses the word We. Which He is including himself in the "We."
He points out we are Deceived if we do not confess.
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