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.
We are NOT talking here of personal sin, We are speaking of formal doctrine. It’s no small wonder that the Catholic Church has the greatest number of converts from avowed atheists to members of every religious denomination on this planet including a former Rabbi of Rome who converted to Catholicism. The greatest literary giants from Hillaire Belloc to GK Chesterton, to scientists, Nobel laureates, poets, sculptors, painters, philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, and yes, martyrs and saints.
The “sola scriptura” crowd forgets that the books in the Bible were chosen by the Church Fathers. As St. Augustine remarked “If it weren’t for the Catholic Church, I wouldn’t be a believer.” What the curse of the Reformation wrought was not only the tens of thousands of wild mushrooms sects, but also spawned “low-information” Christians like the obese housewife in Dallas who attends a third-rate mega Church which is more entertainment and Sunday fun than the consecration of the Holy Eucharist. Better yet to attend a rock concert. All noise and pablum signifying nothing.
The great works of Benedict XVI, (called the theological Einstein of our times) like “Iesus Dominus” is not for stupid minds. Folks who have no clue of Bible interpretation based on Scripture, the sacred oral traditions, and divine revelation, each end up being their “own” religion. No need for evidence just look around the pastors and attendees from the local neighborhood Foursquare Church, to Sunrise Churches, to the idiotic televangelists from Bishop Jake to Osteen, all seeking a slice of “low-information” Christians.
It certainly didn’t seem metaphoric to the Jewish people who were listening to His sermon. They were quite troubled, and many ended up departing from Him because of this message. Jesus didn’t even take 0His Apostles aside and offer an explanation, like He did with many of the Parables.
The Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ under the APPEARANCES of bread and wine. The accidents of the physical structure of the bread and wine remain the same. Just like the threads in a fabric. The physical structure retains the same molecular properties. When you drink too much of the wine (consecrated or not) you’d become inebriated. That is a given. When you eat an apple, its physical substance changes as when you eat the consecrated host.
But the “trans-substantiated” Eucharist now represents the Christ actually coming into your soul. This is why those in a state of grave sin must refrain from taking the Eucharist. This is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:29
(Douay-Rheims Bible)
“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.”
the "tran-substantiater" now IS the Christ.
Indeed it does ... except, you bolded the wrong text. DO THIS is not a suggestion; it is a command.
John 6:30 begins a colloquy that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum. The Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they might believe in him. As a challenge, they noted that "our ancestors ate manna in the desert." Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. "Give us this bread always," they said. Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst." At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.
Jesus first repeated what he said, then summarized: "‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’" (John 6:51–52).
His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally—and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (John 6:53–56).
Notice that Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said, no attempt to correct "misunderstandings," for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had, if they mistook what he said, why no correction?
On other occasions when there was confusion, Christ explained just what he meant (cf. Matt. 16:5–12). Here, where any misunderstanding would be fatal, there was no effort by Jesus to correct. Instead, he repeated himself for greater emphasis.
In John 6:60 we read: "Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’" These were his disciples, people used to his remarkable ways. He warned them not to think carnally, but spiritually: "It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63; cf. 1 Cor. 2:12–14).
But he knew some did not believe. (It is here, in the rejection of the Eucharist, that Judas fell away; look at John 6:64.) "After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66).
This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If it had all been a misunderstanding, if they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t he call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically.
But he did not correct these protesters. Twelve times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have "to eat my flesh and drink my blood." John 6 was an extended promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper—and it was a promise that could not be more explicit.
So, what did the early christians believe? Ignatius of Antioch, who had been a disciple of the apostle John and who wrote a letter to the Smyrnaeans about A.D. 110, said, referring to "those who hold heterodox opinions," that "they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (6:2, 7:1).
orty years later, 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 66:1–20).
You worship God in your way and keep your comments to yourself or share them with some Christian-hating muslim who will take joy in what you say.
You need to explain this to frwdude, not to me. :)
But if the Eucharist were as central to Christian life and belief as the RCC contends, and if the RCC reportedly chose all of the books that went into Scripture, why are the New Testament writings so completely devoid of mention of this practice and the importance of implementing it?
The text that you mention in which Christ calls himself the True Manna from Heaven proves nothing of the truth of transubstantiation. If that were the case, then anyone who eats of the Eucharist only once would "never hunger" again - would never have need of consuming the bread and wine a second time. But the RCC REQUIRES that the Mass be celebrated again and again and that communion is necessary again and again to accumulate grace - not for as yet uninitiated converts, but for existing adherents, even if they had taken communion a thousand times before. It can never be enough. So, what Christ meant by being Manna had to have been a spiritual metaphor, no less real than the eating of bread, but permanently effective in a one-time act of obedience.
I'm doing none of those things of which you accuse me.
“That the priest can somehow “produce God””
This is not exactly what the Church professes. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The priest is merely the instrument through which this happens.
The Eucharist is a mystery that can never be fully explained in words. But God as the Creator of all things can do more than we can possibly imagine. If the Word can become flesh; if He can feed 5,000 men with five barley loaves and two fish, with 12 wicker baskets full left over; if He can bring us Salvation by dying on the cross, can be raised from the dead, and can be lifted into heaven, why is it so hard to believe what He so clearly and repeatedly declared in John 6?
Nothing can "become" the Body of Blood of Jesus that wasn't before. Saying so makes light of the Incarnation.
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."
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. 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.
Is the Bible the sole "teaching from God?" No. The Bible Itself states that their are "oral" teachings and traditions that are to be carried on to the present-day (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Timothy 2:2; Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:24-25). These teachings are what the Catholic Church considers "Sacred Apostolic Tradition." This type of "Tradition" never changes because it was passed down by the Apostles themselves. It is not the same as the man-made traditions condemned in Scripture. The man-made traditions condemned in Scripture were those of the Jewish Pharisees. In fact, as Christians, we are suppose to disassociate ourselves from persons who do not follow Apostolic Tradition (2 Thessalonians 3:6). If oral tradition is not to be followed, why did St. Paul state Christ said something that is not recorded in the Gospels (Acts 20:35)? St. Paul must have "heard" this saying, not read it from any Gospel or "Scripture," thereby, proving that some things Christ said were not recorded in the Gospels (John 21:25) and were passed on orally among His disciples instead, but were just as valid as anything written since St. Paul himself used one of these oral passages in one of his own epistles.
Why would it be any different, if not infinitely MORE blameable, with the images of our Lord, if we treat them with contempt?
I respect your belief. My Mom, my sister and my daughter do not believe in the true presence. They are devout Christians who truly believe in Jesus, and it is my prayer that God grants that they can come to Jesus. In fact, I’m not sure that Peter believed at the time what Christ was saying; that he did not understand how they could eat the body and blood of Christ.
But Peter came to understand at the last supper. In the Last Supper narrative, when Jesus took the bread, it was not His body. He said the blessing, then said “This is my body.” This to me is a strong indication that Jesus changed the bread into his Body. It was not His body, He said the blessing, then it was His body. From what I understand, Peter, the other apostles, and the early church elders came to the same understanding.
But you can believe what you want. I pray that God grants that you and I can both come to Jesus.
“He continues: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me” (John 6:57). The Greek word used for “eats” (trogon) is very blunt and has the sense of “chewing” or “gnawing.” This is not the language of metaphor.”
Let’s see:
Joh 6:26-29 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. (27) Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. (28) Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? (29) Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Presumably, when Christ says “labour... for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life,” it refers literally to the Eucharist. But then the Jews ask him “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” in response to this statement; instead of answering “Get a Priest to feed you bits of my body!”, Christ replies “believe on him whom he hath sent.” Thus, to believe is to eat His body and blood, just as faith joins you to His body. Not literally, but spiritually.
Augustine favors this view, commenting on the same lines of scripture:
“They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.” (Augustine, Tractate 25)
In response to the Jews walking away, since they took him literally (the Roman Catholic view), Christ replies, as if to explain:
Joh 6:61-63 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? (62) What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? (63) It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Christ declares that His body is returning to “where He was before.” This He does to draw them from the carnal sense and to think spiritually. He continues, “the spirit... quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.” Christ points them back to the faith He commanded previously in verse 29, and does not encourage them to take a bite out of Him right then and there. If the “flesh” profiteth nothing for meat and drink, and if the flesh that did profit was crucified on the cross, resurrected, and then taken up to heaven and glorified, how does it follow that eating Christ’s flesh and blood literally actually does profit? Therefore, the “profit” is in the clear command Christ gave to believe. “Why dost thou prepare thine teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.”
I’ll also add that Christ also offers to the Samaritan woman “living water,” by which a person should drink and have everlasting life. Yet, the RCC does not offer a sacrament of living water for people to drink.
Joh 4:10-14 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. (11) The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? (12) Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? (13) Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: (14) But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Christ speaks of drinking this living water, yet did not actually give her literal water nor ever prescribed it. What He commanded was faith and spiritual worship, which you see later in His discourse with the woman. Augustine makes the same observation, connecting John 6 with John 4.
“You expected, I believe, again to eat bread, again to sit down, again to be gorged. But He had said, Not the meat which perishes, but that which endures unto eternal life, in the same manner as it was said to that Samaritan woman: If you knew who it is that asks of you drink, you would perhaps have asked of Him, and He would give you living water. When she said, Whence have you, since you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep? He answered the Samaritan woman: If you knew who it is that asks of you drink, you would have asked of Him, and He would give you water, whereof whoso drinks shall thirst no more; for whoso drinks of this water shall thirst again. And she was glad and would receive, as if no more to suffer thirst of body, being wearied with the labor of drawing water. And so, during a conversation of this kind, He comes to spiritual drink. Entirely in this manner also here.” (Augustine, Tractate 25)
Therefore, your position exists by taking a few words of scripture out of context, but ignoring the entire chapter and almost the entire book of John, which everywhere points the believer to faith for gaining eternal life, and not physically eating or drinking flesh, blood or water to have eternal life. Christ Himself explains to His apostles the true meaning of His discourse, of which the RCC utterly ignores.
| So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. | All who came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not heed them. | I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. John : 10:7-9 |
| Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious; | |
| and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. | |
| For it stands in scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be put to shame." |
And yet they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread.
Luke 24:13-35
Thanks for the illuminating dissertation, puny. Very good.
Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
“1Peter: 2-4-6”
Are you trying to say that believers are supposed to offer the ‘sacrifice’ of the Eucharist?
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ our High Priest is offered by Himself, and only once.
Heb_10:12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
The sacrifice offered by the faithful is... ourselves. Our devotion to God, the faith in our hearts, and the praise on our lips.
Rom_12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Heb 13:15-16 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (16) But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
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