Pope Francis holding the monstrance on Corpus Christi (May 30 in Rome)
Posted on 06/02/2013 11:49:33 AM PDT by NYer
On this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, it’s good to remember the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas:
Almighty and Eternal God, behold I come to the sacrament of Your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. As one sick I come to the Physician of life; unclean, to the Fountain of mercy; blind, to the Light of eternal splendor; poor and needy to the Lord of heaven and earth. Therefore, I beg of You, through Your infinite mercy and generosity, heal my weakness, wash my uncleanness, give light to my blindness, enrich my poverty, and clothe my nakedness. May I thus receive the Bread of Angels, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, with such reverence and humility, contrition and devotion, purity and faith, purpose and intention, as shall aid my soul’s salvation.
This is the humble attitude with which we should both enter the church building (because the Blessed Sacrament is reserved there) and approach the Blessed Sacrament at Holy Communion.
The reason for our humility is that the glorified and risen Lord is present here in the Bread of Angels. The Eucharist is not a manmade symbol for an absent reality, a mere reminder of times past.
Rather, as Saint Thomas prayed in his Prayer after Communion: “I thank You, Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God, for having been pleased, through no merit of mine, but of Your great mercy alone, to feed me, a sinner, and Your unworthy servant, with the precious Body and Blood of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Blessed Eucharist is the Body and Blood of the Son of God. It is the only thing worthy of the worship that is given to God alone for that very reason.
How different would the attitude be in our churches if Christ’s Real Presence were taken seriously? Rather than trying to make our churches like movie houses or secular meeting spaces or – worse – copying other religions, perhaps we could make them houses of the Blessed Sacrament, oases of the guaranteed presence of Christ in a secular world.
Pope Francis holding the monstrance on Corpus Christi (May 30 in Rome)
The celebration of the Eucharist is not a closed, feel-good moment, private to our parish or even to our family. Eucharistic Prayer I says very clearly: “by the hands of your holy angel this offering may be born to your altar in heaven in the sight of your divine majesty so as we receive communion at this altar. . .we may be filled with every grace and blessing.” We join the liturgy of Heaven that showers its grace upon earth.
We need to be personally close to Christ for our spiritual survival, but this is not at all an individualistic concept. As John Paul II exhorted us: “The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith and open to make amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world.”
So alongside our reaching for an ever deeper appreciation and awe for the Body and Blood of Christ – which is already countercultural in our confused time – we have to learn something about the effects of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
One of them is that “our unity is the fruit of Calvary, and results from the Mass’s application to us of the fruits of the Passion, with a view to our final redemption.”(Henri de Lubac) So being Christian depends on our actually being open to the mystery at the heart of our redemption, the life, death and resurrection of Christ. In fact, our whole approach to the Body and Blood of Christ will be a good indicator of whether we even grasp the central mystery of our faith in love.
Relearning our faith so that it is not individualized (the Protestant position), but rather something that, as Christ’s own Church, joins us more deeply to Christ and each other is predicated on our approaching the Blessed Sacrament as Thomas Aquinas did. The individualism that we have been schooled in for years – and that comes to us in TV shows, in the speeches of politicians, in how we conceive of school and work – will take serious effort to overcome.
It represents a grave distortion of the social way of life for which we were created. Vatican II taught the simple truth that: “God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
We cannot expect to steep ourselves in the individualism of the culture and then regard our subsequent attitudes as Catholic. These are two irreconcilable realities. And to think otherwise is to imagine that there is no particular truth in Catholicism.
To deny the Church as the Body of Christ is to deny who Jesus Christ is, the one who is God incarnate and present among us in a special way, as we celebrate today.
"Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.”
I am truly amazed. You do not even know what is being declared. Only a Catholic christian could tell you. You are just short of knowing. But never to full meaning. He does not mean what you are trying to imply.
At the end Augustine declares by using the word celebrated like a Catholic -which means consecration of the bread into the body. -Yet it must be spiritually understood. He is talking about what we have today. If someone walks into the Mass to have Communion without understanding the real presence he can not have the eucharist. That is what it means. What gerry picking nonsense. Amazing.
“Post #35 does not refute, it confirms that the Eucharist is the True Presence of the Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.”
You didn’t even address anything I wrote. What do I care if you just parrot what your church believes, when you don’t even attempt to defend it? Either address my post or don’t, but don’t just blandly repeat what caused the post in the first place. This robotic “defense” of doctrine (really, it’s more like a mantra of repetition) by the RCC is very revealing.
That’s the first time I have ever had anyone disown St. Paul.
You are mistaken. I believe St. Paul was telling the truth. I don’t know why you don’t believe him, though.......strange.....
So who, exactly, was Melchizedek.
He ministered to Abram even before God changed his name to Abraham.
Way Old Testament reference.
There isn’t much information about Melchizedek, but I believe he was a pre-figuration of Christ.
Remember with God there is not timeline as we know it.
Not for those who actually know what they are talking about. St. Augustine is a doctor of the Church. His writings affirm, comment and reflect on the Sacred Traditions, but are not themselves Tradition. Additionally, not everything he wrote was on Tradition. Mindless quotations of him in response to every doctrinal issue because to some he is perceived in some circles as a proto-Protestant is foolish to those familiar with his entire body of work and the evolution of his teachings.
Peace be with you
Not only that, but more specifically (from post 32),
Paul also said, "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself" (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). "To answer for the body and blood" of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide.
How could eating mere bread and wine "unworthily" be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.
So as the Catholic bible states it, if you are guilty of the body and blood, that means you have to answer for the body and blood and is like homocide...
But apparently, if you kill Jesus worthily, you're not guilty...
Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them.
It only stands to reason then that if answering for the body and blood is homocide, 'participation' in the blood of Christ must be the killing of Christ worthily...Since they are offering up the dead sacrificial Christ to the Father, they must kill him first...
“At the end Augustine declares by using the word celebrated like a Catholic”
Well that’s a pretty pathetic defense. So you see the word “celebrated,” and so you assume that it must mean he believed that it was REALLY Christ who was being consumed? Instead of the celebration of the Eucharist that ALL Christians already do? Aren’t you just projecting your own man-made beliefs onto someone who lived something like 1,600+ years ago? And aren’t you IGNORING everything he said to wrest one SINGLE word out of it? What about all the parts that said they “RESEMBLE” the reality, but are NOT the reality, they only SIGNIFY the reality, that Christ is NOT consumed. How much clearer do you want it? Where’s your EVIDENCE besides your blind faith in your Pope that Augustine was just KIDDING in all those quotes?
“His writings affirm,”
This has already been disproven, see post #78.
” Additionally, not everything he wrote was on Tradition.”
It’s amazing how you backpedal mid-post. I guess you want to have it both ways.
St. Paul says: “handed on”
Not by the Church
Not by St. Paul
But “handed on” by Jesus himself at the Last Supper.
Why don’t you believe Jesus’ words?
Also remember that St. Paul was writing before any Gospels were written.
This is the first account (in the Bible). Other accounts of the first Masses are given by the early church fathers. St. Justin, Martyr is most specific.
“Why don’t you believe Jesus’ words?”
Why do you disbelieve Christ’s words? He made it quite clear that those who believe in Him have eaten and drunk of Him already. See post #35.
Jews have universally identified Melchizedek as Shem, son of Noah. Melchizedek is a title that means ‘righteous king’.
Shem and his grandson Eiver taught God’s laws as known to Adam and Noah. The story of Melchizedek is Shem transferring responsibility for teaching God’s will to his descendant the righteous Abraham.
One of the reasons they are called Hebrews (’Ivri’ in the Hebrew language) is because they were associated with the teachings of Eiver.
It says “This is my body that is BROKEN for you”
Please don’t change the words to make a catholic lie out of the truth.
Also, Yeshua himself said “this do as a REMEMBRANCE of me.”
The catholic lie has people believing that they can buy salvation from a fake priest. There are no priests, and even when there were, they could do nothing for anyone’s salvation.
If you think that the bread and wine are for salvation, then you have partaken unworthily, and earned death.
That's OK. I didn't expect you to understand.
Lots of celebrations for the pride of men, but nothing for the feasts that Yehova ordaned.
Fake feasts for everyone; hollow feel-good indulgeances.
The catholic church satisfies those that wish to purchase a get out of hell free card through ritual practice.
Logic will sway none of them.
Physician Tells of Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano -Verifies Authenticity of the Phenomenon
BLOOD TYPE FOUND IN ICONS IS SAME AS IN SHROUD OF TURIN AND 'LANCIANO MIRACLE'
Eucharistic Miracle: Lanciano,Italy-8th Century A.D.
That is per the archaic KJV. All recent translations do not say broken.
Peace be with you
The original Hebrew says broken.
And you respect satan’s signs and wonders?
Why do you say that? Did you read any of the Lanciano links?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.