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.
It took me a long while to realize this fact once I became serious about learning about my faith in God. There seems to be some sect or group of Christians that assert the original manuscripts of Scripture were written in Hebrew, and then later into Greek. Some even assert that there was a conspiracy to hide this fact and that's why we don't have old copies of Hebrew (NT) manuscripts today.
I've never been able to figure out which group or sect this is though. I think it's the "Church of God" types and subtypes, but it might be the 7th Day Adventists too. I'd really like to know which group does teach this (so I can properly warn against them).
After all, again, I was exposed to this teaching early on in my faith (re)formation; it caused me a lot of confusion. I'd like to spare others of this needless, conspiracy fueled delusion. At least when anyone is in the state I was in, exploring their new found faith. Such error could cause someone to seriously miss the mark, if one takes it seriously and then builds one's faith on such a faulty premise.
Of course He was. Scripture spells that out very clearly.
You asked, “Which Scripture passage states that Jesus himself consumed the bread after he blessed it and gave it to his disciples?”
CynicalBear provided the answer in comment 48. Do you care to listen to the words of Scripture, which describe Jesus and His disciples celebrating a very special Passover, or do you prefer to believe the heresy that the bread was LITERALLY Jesus’ body?
The Apostle Paul understood that the bread and wine were tokens to remember Christ’s death and resurrection, but were not His literal flesh and blood. Consider 1 Cor. 11:26, in which Paul refers to the bread as ... “bread.”
You are perhaps the first self-identified Roman Catholic to consider me fully a member of the Body of Christ.
Please feel free to explain just exactly how the incarnation happened. Feel free to provide as many details as you can. Did Divine sperm combine with human ovum making Him half human and half divine. Did He just magically take over Mary's womb as a zygote. Also please cite a source that backs up your contention.
There is no indication that Jesus "changed" the bread and wine at the Passover meal into his Body and Blood - he simply said that "they are."
So The second person of the Trinity that used mud to make a blind man see could not change bread and wine into His body and Blood.
The Son of the Living God who created the entire universe out of NOTHING could not change bread and wine into His body and blood.Keeping in mind that Jesus said that he and the Father are one: The God who created man out of the mud on the ground could not change bread and wine into His body and Blood. The God who created woman out of the rib of that same first man could change the bread and wine into His body and blood.
That is your story and you want to stick to it.
Jesus also said he was a lamb. And a door. Jesus did use metaphor to explain who He was and what He did.
Let’s reflect on the death and resurrection of Jesus, and not get sidetracked thinking that we’re munching on Jesus’ skin. It’s about the efficacy of Jesus’ work on the cross, not about our eating His skin or muscle.
News flash for you:
The congregation at Corinth began with Jews that evangelised the Greeks.
The last sign given was the sign of the prophet Jonah (3 days and three nights in the belly of the fish) and there were to be no more signs given by Yehova.
Signs are now all from the adversary.
Matthew 24:
[23] Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
[24] For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew GREAT SIGNS AND WONDERS; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
[25] Behold, I have told you before.
[26] Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
[27] For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
[28] For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Wine that over ferments or becomes contaminated turns to Vinegar.
There Are three stages: 1) Mustum, which is pre-fermetnation. 2) Wine, which is the fermented product. and 3) Vinegar, wine that has turned or been contaminated.
Ask any Chemistry teacher or chemist.
>> “ There seems to be some sect or group of Christians that assert the original manuscripts of Scripture were written in Hebrew, and then later into Greek. Some even assert that there was a conspiracy to hide this fact and that’s why we don’t have old copies of Hebrew (NT) manuscripts today.” <<
.
Through the work of Karaite Jewish scholar Nehemiah Gordon, that is now all solidly proven fact.
Unfortunately, even through all of that research in the ancient Dead Sea scrolls, Nehemiah is still not yet fully convinced that Yeshua is the messiah. Please pray for him!
>> “Wine that over ferments or becomes contaminated turns to Vinegar” <<
.
A common misunderstanding.
The chemistry of wine making is such that it must first become vinegar.
The wine that later again becomes vinegar is that which has been over exposed to heat, light, and oxygen, so that it becomes oxidized.
Yeshua was offered drink twice; once by the Romans, of vinegar with gall, which he spat out, and later good vinegar which he took, then gave up the spirit.
I think that's the point here, the central point that should be discussed but is being missed. The "evidence", is precisely as the Church claims and that is, with this teaching as others where this claim is made to whit: the consensus of the Fathers. For example, St. Justin the martyr is quite clear in his writings that he subscribes to the idea of transubstaintiation even if he doesn't use the word. And he was earlier than St. Augustine if course (not that that shows anything per se, but that clearly St. Augustine knew about Justin). I think that would be conclusive proof on the part of the Protestant critic: if one could demonstrate that St. Augustine rejected St. Justin's teaching on the matter (by naming the saint by name), that would be undeniable. Indeed, from a Catholic perspective, that he doesn't, does not bode well for the critic who uses St. Augustine as a fellow critic of Catholicism.
All above is a personal digression on my part so please if you focus on anything of this post focus on this: the larger point being ignored is precisely that it's entirely possible everywhere St. Augustine speaks (or appears to speak) of the Eucharist as merely symbolic, he is actually teaching that it is not meant to be thought of as actual, human flesh or blood. That is, he is actually teaching a primitive form of transubstaintiation himself. (Which is that the bread and wine don't change "in appearance" but rather in substance.). There is nothing in the Saint's writings to contradict this. (At least that I've seen so far).
This is the claim of Tradition. Let me close with a word about that here: it (Tradition) is properly understood as a teaching passed down through the ages. From teacher to student unbroken from the time of the Great Teacher Himself. So when this is divorced from either the proper interpretation of Scripture or EVEN from the readings of the ECF's, all manners of doctrines and beliefs can creep into the mind.
It truly does come down to this: One either rejects what the Church teaches, in favor of what one wishes to believe, or not. THIS is where real faith manifests. This is also why it can be said that faith is truly a method of knowledge, based in the true "I", and not on any other power of the world, because there truly is not any reason separate from the "I" to accept what the Church teaches.
It is only in being truly honest with oneself that one can truly see how the Church answers every truly authentic human need, that is, She truly fills the infinite desire that God made us to possess.
Without such awareness, there is no need for the Church and her teachings (or really, we bury and substitute that true need with other things, such as our own inventions), and thus, the writings of men like St. Augustine (one of the greatest converts to the Church by the way his personal story is certainly worth reading on its own), even his writings can come to mean whatever one wishes, in such a sea of discord. A sea born from one truly not aware of his own God created humanity.
Alright, thanks. I’ll look into it just as a matter if course but I’m admittedly starting from a skeptical point of view.
Got any good places to start checking on this claim?
Thank you for your wonderful post(s) & explanation(s), they have helped me a great deal, wishing you all the Blessings of the Body of Christ...
Since I think you already knew that, I wonder why you choose such a flip, dismissive way to flick away His words. I don't consider it's getting "sidetracked" that when hearing Jesus' words, I say "Amen."
I don't, however, want to extend this as an argument. I am just so grateful for what He has given us. I feel wonder and joy.
Paul wasn't at the Last Supper...
Why don’t you believe Jesus’ words?
I believe Jesus words when he told Paul to not call any man father...And to avoid those religionists who wear long robes...And those who like to sit in the head position like your pope??? Why don't YOU believe Jesus???
I believe every word in the bible...I also know when Jesus was talking spiritually...Why don't you???
Also remember that St. Paul was writing before any Gospels were written.
You have no evidence of that...Another fable put out by your religion...
It's not the crime, but the cover up. Protestantism depends heavily on denying the Septuagint, and with it the deuterocanonicals, are inspired. It is pretty embarrassing to many of them that when St. Paul spoke of the Bereans being noble and judiciously searching Scripture (Acts 17:11) and infamous Protestant apologetic of all Scruipture being God breathes, (2 Timothy 3:16) he was referring to the Septuagint with the deuterocanonicals.
Peace be with you
I don’t know of anyone who denies the OT was written in Hebrew originally; I was referring to a group if people who believe the NT also was originally in Hebrew. From what I’ve found of this “Nehemiah Gordon”, it doesn’t seem he would be very interested in the NT.
If the elements retain the “physical properties of bread and wine,” then why can’t we agree that it *is* bread and wine?
Let us reflect on Christ’s efficacious death and triumphant resurrection through the celebration of Communion.
Scripture also says the Eucharist is His flesh. He said it Himself: This is my body.
See how that works?
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