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.
If “This Is My Body” was meant only in a figurative way, then by your lights Christ misdirected the Jews and should have corrected Himself and told the Jews that He didn’t really mean to say what the Jews thought Christ said when he said this:
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 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?’ So Jesus said to them, “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 6:48-56).
“If “This Is My Body” was meant only in a figurative way, then by your lights Christ misdirected the Jews and should have corrected Himself “
He did, see post #35 again and reply to what I wrote on that point. Or, rather, what Christ said on that point.
Though, it’s not really correct to say Christ had to “correct” Himself. He was pretty clear from the beginning, as is He is everywhere in the Gospel of John. Though He did explain that the reason why they couldn’t understand Him (and this is true not just for the Jews, but for all unbelievers) was because it was not given to them to understand.
Joh 6:64-65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. (65) And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Unless God draws us, no one can believe.
Wow! I knew there were stories like this out there.
Now, on to St. Augustine’s statements which very strongly support the opinion that He held to the Real Presence in the Eucharist:
IV. From Ott, Ibid.:
1) The bread which you see on the altar is, sanctified by the word of God, the body of
Christ; that chalice, or rather what is contained in the chalice, is, sanctified by the word of God, the blood of Christ. {Sermo 227; on p.377}
2) Christ bore Himself in His hands, when He offered His body saying: “this is my
body.” {Enarr. in Ps. 33 Sermo 1, 10; on p.377}
3) Nobody eats this flesh without previously adoring it. {Enarr. in Ps. 98, 9; on p.387}
4) Referring to the sacrifice of Melchizedek (Gen 14:18 ff.):
The sacrifice appeared for the first time there which is now offered to God by
Christians throughout the whole world. {City of God, 16, 22; on p.403}
Ott cites other references or beliefs of St. Augustine:
a) Interpretation of Jn 6:51b-58 as referring to the Eucharist {p.374}
b) Christ was both the sacrificing Priest and the sacrificial Gift in one Person {City of God, 10, 20; Ep. cf. 98, 9; on p.406}
c) The sacrifice of the Mass is that foretold by Malachi [1:10-11] {Tract. adv. Jud. 9, 13; on p,406}
d) The Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice bringing about remission of sins and the conferring of supernatural gifts {De cura pro mortuis fier. 1, 3; 18, 22; Enchir. 110; on p.413}
V. William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, v.3, ed., tr. Jurgens, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1979:
5) He took flesh from the flesh of Mary . . . and gave us the same flesh to be eaten
unto salvation . . . we do sin by not adoring. {Explanations of the Psalms, 98, 9; on p.20}
6) Not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ’s
body. {Ibid., 234, 2; on p.31}
7) What you see is the bread and the chalice . . . But what your faith obliges you to
accept is that the bread is the Body of Christ and the chalice the Blood of Christ.
{Ibid., 272; on p.32}
8) Christ is both the priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily sacrifice of the Church. {City of God, 10, 20; on p.99}
9) Not only is no one forbidden to take as food the Blood of this Sacrifice, rather, all
who wish to possess life are exhorted to drink thereof. {Questions of the Hepateuch, 3,
57; on p.134}
VI. Hugh Pope, St. Augustine of Hippo, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1961 (orig.
1937):
10) The Sacrifice of our times is the Body and Blood of the Priest Himself . . .
Recognize then in the Bread what hung upon the tree; in the chalice what flowed from
His side. {Sermo iii. 1-2; on p.62}
11) The Blood they had previously shed they afterwards drank. {Mai 26, 2; 86, 3; on
p.64}
12) Eat Christ, then; though eaten He yet lives, for when slain He rose from the dead.
Nor do we divide Him into parts when we eat Him: though indeed this is done in the
Sacrament, as the faithful well know when they eat the Flesh of Christ, for each
receives his part, hence are those parts called graces. Yet though thus eaten in parts
He remains whole and entire; eaten in parts in the Sacrament, He remains whole and
entire in Heaven. {Mai 129, 1; cf. Sermon 131; on p.65}
13) Out of hatred of Christ the crowd there shed Cyprian’s blood, but today a
reverential multitude gathers to drink the Blood of Christ . . . this altar . . . whereon a
Sacrifice is offered to God . . . {Sermo 310, 2; cf. City of God, 8, 27, 1; on p.65}
14) He took into His hands what the faithful understand; He in some sort Bore Himself when He said: This is My Body. {Enarr. 1, 10 on Ps. 33; on p.65}
15) The very first heresy was formulated when men said: “this saying is hard and who
can bear it [Jn 6:60]?” {Enarr. 1, 23 on Ps. 54; on p.66}
16) Thou art the Priest, Thou the Victim, Thou the Offerer, Thou the Offering. {Enarr.
1, 6 on Ps. 44; on p.66}
17) Take, then, and eat the Body of Christ . . . You have read that, or at least heard it
read, in the Gospels, but you were unaware that the Son of God was that Eucharist.
{Denis, 3, 3; on p.66}
18) The entire Church observes the tradition delivered to us by the Fathers, namely,
that for those who have died in the fellowship of the Body and Blood of Christ, prayer
should be offered when they are commemorated at the actual Sacrifice in its proper
place, and that we should call to mind that for them, too, that Sacrifice is offered.
{Sermo, 172, 2; 173, 1; De Cura pro mortuis, 6; De Anima et ejus Origine, 2, 21; on
p.69}
19) We do pray for the other dead of whom commemoration is made. Nor are the souls of the faithful departed cut off from the Church . . . Were it so, we should not make commemoration of them at the altar of God when we receive the Body of Christ.
{Sermo 159,1; cf. 284, 5; 285, 5; 297, 3; City of God, 20, 9, 2; cf. 21,24; 22, 8; on 69}
20) It was the will of the Holy Spirit that out of reverence for such a Sacrament the
Body of the Lord should enter the mouth of a Christian previous to any other food.
{Ep. 54, 8; on p.71}
It is difficult to conceive of anyone denying that St. Augustine believed in the Real Presence (or the Sacrifice of the Mass) after perusing all of this compelling evidence. His other symbolic utterances have been sufficiently explained and are easily able to be synthesized with the above beliefs. St. Augustine is indeed an “insufficient witness” to Protestant belief in a symbolic, or “dynamic” Eucharist.
“1) The bread which you see on the altar is, sanctified by the word of God, the body of
Christ; that chalice, or rather what is contained in the chalice, is, sanctified by the word of God, the blood of Christ. {Sermo 227; on p.377}”
“You know that in ordinary parlance we often say, when Easter is approaching, Tomorrow or the day after is the Lord’s Passion, although He suffered so many years ago, and His passion was endured once for all time. In like manner, on Easter Sunday, we say, This day the Lord rose from the dead, although so many years have passed since His resurrection. But no one is so foolish as to accuse us of falsehood when we use these phrases, for this reason, that we give such names to these days on the ground of a likeness between them and the days on which the events referred to actually transpired, the day being called the day of that event, although it is not the very day on which the event took place, but one corresponding to it by the revolution of the same time of the year, and the event itself being said to take place on that day, because, although it really took place long before, it is on that day sacramentally celebrated. Was not Christ once for all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? And yet, is He not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so that the man who, being questioned, answers that He is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, declares what is strictly true? For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ’s body is Christ’s body, and the sacrament of Christ’s blood is Christ’s blood.” (Augustine, Letters 98)
Augustine explains that in “common parlance” he seems to speak literally that the Lord’s passion is the following day, or that “this day is the Lord risen.” He connects this manner of speaking to the Eucharist, and declares that it is “in a certain manner” the body of Christ, based on its bearing the name of the “reality” they resemble, even though, like the Passion, Christ is not really raised up. Thus, when Augustine speaks of the Eucharist being the body of Christ, he means it from the standpoint of what it symbolizes, but not that it is actually a part of Christ’s real physical body placed on the altar. It is simply a manner of speaking.
In fact, from Augustine’s perspective, it is not just Christ on the altar, but all Christians:
“That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ.†2 That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive. You see, the apostle says, We, being many, are one loaf, one body (1 Cor 10:17). That’s how he explained the sacrament of the Lord’s table; one loaf, one body, is what we all are, many though we be. In this loaf of bread you are given clearly to understand how much you should love unity.” (Augustine, Serm. 227)
Notice how the little snippets from your website leave out all this context. Here’s more support, from sermon 227 which you quoted:
“What you can see passes away, but the invisible reality signified does not pass away, but remains. Look, it’s received, it’s eaten, it’s consumed. Is the body of Christ consumed, is the Church of Christ consumed, are the members of Christ consumed? Perish the thought! Here they are being purified, there they will be crowned with the victor’s laurels. So what is signified will remain eternally, although the thing that signifies it seems to pass away. So receive the sacrament in such a way that you think about yourselves, that you retain unity in your hearts, that you always fix your hearts up above. Don’t let your hope be placed on earth, but in heaven. Let your faith be firm in God, let it be acceptable to God. Because what you don’t see now, but believe, you are going to see there, where you will have joy without end.” (Augustine, Ser. 227)
Augustine is quite clear that the body of Christ is not consumed. In fact, his entire argument here is that the bread itself symbolizes the Christian directly. In other words, it is US who are offered on the table, though we are not literally transubstantiated into bread. Therefore he says that Christ is not consumed, AND His Church, since both are symbolized on the table.
I would recommend, actually, reading the entire sermon, as it reveals a great deal into Augustine’s views on the various sacraments. By his definition, sacraments and symbolism is the same thing. Hence, he can have a “sacrament of the Holy Spirit” which is the oil, also mentioned in that same sermon.
“Then came baptism, and you were, in a manner of speaking, moistened with water in order to be shaped into bread. But it’s not yet bread without fire to bake it. So what does fire represent? That’s the chrism, the anointing. Oil, the fire-feeder, you see, is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit.” (Same as above)
Another, the sacrament of the kiss of peace:
“After that comes Peace be with you; a great sacrament, the kiss of peace. So kiss in such a way as really meaning that you love. Don’t be Judas; Judas the traitor kissed Christ with his mouth, while setting a trap for him in his heart. But perhaps somebody has unfriendly feelings toward you, and you are unable to win him round, to show him he’s wrong; you’re obliged to tolerate him. Don’t pay him back evil for evil in your heart. He hates; just you love, and you can kiss him without anxiety.” (Same as above)
Where’s your sacrament of kissing by the way? And do you think that peace is transubstantiated into a kiss? Or is the Holy Spirit transubstantiated into the oil? This makes it clear that when Augustine speaks of Sacraments, he uses the word to mean something that is symbolic that we should meditate upon for a higher truth. Thus, the oil, which is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit, helps us think about the regenerating power of the Spirit. The sacrament of the Kiss of peace should bring our Christian duties we owe to one another to mind, though “peace” is not transubstantiated into the kiss. And the Eucharist should bring to mind the duty we have towards Christian unity, as well as the Christ who sacrificed Himself on the cross and rose again.
Here’s more quotes in general, interpreting the Eucharist as Protestants do today:
“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)
“Let them come to the church and hear where Christ is, and take Him. They may hear it from us, they may hear it from the gospel. He was slain by their forefathers, He was buried, He rose again, He was recognized by the disciples, He ascended before their eyes into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of the Father; and He who was judged is yet to come as Judge of all: let them hear, and hold fast. Do they reply, How shall I take hold of the absent? how shall I stretch up my hand into heaven, and take hold of one who is sitting there? Stretch up thy faith, and thou hast got hold. Thy forefathers held by the flesh, hold thou with the heart; for the absent Christ is also present. But for His presence, we ourselves were unable to hold Him.” (Augustine, Tractate 50)
“It seemed unto them hard that He said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you:” they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, “This is a hard saying.” It was they who were hard, not the saying; for unless they had been hard, and not meek, they would have said unto themselves, He saith not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learnt that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learnt. For when twelve disciples had remained with Him, on their departure, these remaining followers suggested to Him, as if in grief for the death of the former, that they were offended by His words, and turned back. But He instructed them, and saith unto them, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” 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.” NPNF1: Vol. VIII, St. Augustin on the Psalms, Psalm 99 (98)
Notice that your website just quotes small little snippets that they assert prove that Augustine believed in transubstantiation. When you quite more of the context, things change a great deal.
It is funny I read that whole thing I do not see what you claim to see. Very interesting. Semantics. Lol
Could you answer this? What does your name tag imply? Cheers!
“15) The very first heresy was formulated when men said: “this saying is hard and who
can bear it [Jn 6:60]?” {Enarr. 1, 23 on Ps. 54; on p.66}”
By the way, on a lark I thought I’d see what the “heresy” was, and realized that the citation was wrong. In fact, it’s so bloody goofy it’s almost impossible to find it. I had to do the site:(website) trick to find it, and it was even written entirely different when I did find it. Here it is:
“His discourses have been softened above oil, and themselves are darts Psalm 54:21. For certain things in the Scriptures were seeming hard, while they were obscure; when explained, they have been softened. For even the first heresy in the disciples of Christ, as it were from the hardness of His discourse arose. For when He said, Except a man shall have eaten My flesh and shall have drunk My blood, he shall not have life in himself: they, not understanding, said to one another, Hard is this discourse, who can hear it? Saying that, Hard is this discourse, they separated from Him: He remained with the others, the twelve. When they had intimated to Him, that by His discourse they had been scandalized, Will ye also, He says, choose to go? Then Peter: You have the Word of life eternal: to whom shall we go? Attend, we beseech you, and you little ones learn godliness. Did Peter by any means at that time understand the secret of that discourse of the Lord? Not yet he understood: but that good were the words which he understood not, godly he believed. Therefore if hard is a discourse, and not yet is understood, be it hard to an ungodly man, but to you be it by godliness softened: for whenever it is solved, it both will become for you oil, and even unto the bones it will penetrate.” (Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 55)
It was actually on Psalm 55, and the whole Enerration 1, Psalm 54, total gibberish! The first exposition is on Psalm 1, the 54th on Psalm 54, which, of course, was incorrect. The only thing correct about it was the 22, which was the paragraph number.
In this exposition, Augustine, unfortunately, did not define the heresy. So, on top of the quotations I have already given from Augustine on John 6, here’s more:
To believe is to eat of the bread of Christ, and no man can receive this faith except He is drawn by God:
“Wherefore, the Lord, about to give the Holy Spirit, said that Himself was the bread that came down from heaven, exhorting us to believe in Him. For to believe in Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again. A babe within, a new man within. Where he is made new, there he is satisfied with food. (12) What then did the Lord answer to such murmurers? Murmur not among yourselves. As if He said, I know why you are not hungry, and do not understand nor seek after this bread. Murmur not among yourselves: no man can come unto me, except the Father that sent me draw him. Noble excellence of grace! No man comes unless drawn. There is whom He draws, and there is whom He draws not; why He draws one and draws not another, do not desire to judge, if you desire not to err.” (Augustine, Tractate 26)
You wrote:
“Jesus “consecrated” the wine and transformed it into blood in verse 28, our verses in question come right after. Therefore, AFTER the concescration, Christ referred to the fruit of the vine as... fruit of the vine, and not blood.”
Again, we refer to the Eucharist as “BREAD” - in the Mass - AFTER the consecration. We do just as Christ did.
If someone was referred to as a “princess,” an “angel,” and a “daughter” ... wouldn’t you assume that the least supernatural description is the most accurate? In other words, I call my daughter a princess and an angel, but she is not literally either a princes or angel; she is my daughter.
Similarly, Scripture refers to the bread as both “body” and “bread.” One of those is literally true: that what Scripture labels as “bread” is, in fact, “bread.”
But you’re free to think it’s corpuscles and ligaments and such.
You wrote, “Again, we refer to the Eucharist as ‘BREAD’ - in the Mass - AFTER the consecration.”
Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Why didn’t you simply admit that earlier? Sheesh.
This cut-and-paste stuff simply isn’t serious theology in an attempt to undercut the core belief of the Catholic Church, a belief founded on Christ’s own words, the early Christian tradition, the various Church councils that examined the historic and apostolic practices, and learned doctors of the Church, its saints and martyrs and a stellar flood of theological giants upto and including Benedict XVI.
You never answered the question why Christ did not correct Himself what the Jews understood Him to say when He was speaking about His body and blood as the real physical body and blood which is what His apostles and the Jews believed.
Read in full context and with no prejudice against the Church teaching on the matter, it's clear St. Augustine believes in the real presence. This is just another instance (Like in his 98th letter that you quoted from) where the Saint is saying that the Eucharist should not be understood as literal human flesh (like some kind of flank steak), but it IS the literal Body of Christ, understood in a "spiritual sense". Read ALL of paragraph 8, not just YOUR "snippet" to understand what I just wrote is what is being taught by the Saint.
Tractate 25, again in its entirety>. Here, read all of paragraph 12, all of it, with an open mind and then come back and dare say St Augustine believed in some kind of "ONLY symbolic" form of the Eucharist.
Tractate 50 has simply nothing to do with the teaching of the Eucharist so it's quite intellectually dishonest to try to use it to apply it to that teaching. I'll leave the proof of that to a simple examination of it on the New Advent website linked to previously.
Elsewhere you quote from Tractate 26, so a word on that here/. #26, again in full context.> Again, read the WHOLE thing, not just paragraphs 1 & 2, PORTIONS of which you quote. Pay particular attention to paragraphs 19 and 20 ( if the whole thing is too much to read ) and again, dare come back and tell me St Augustine is some kind of proto-Protestant.
Sermon 227 is sadly not online (that I can see) but I think I've demonstrated enough, to the intellectually honest lurker and others, that your quote mining not withstanding, St Augustine remains as solidly Catholic as the Church has always recorded.
But go ahead, don't let that (or me) stop you from insisting that we Catholics don't know what our own Church fathers and/or Tradition state. Go ahead, persist in that fantasy if you really need.
Rather than invalidating his explanation of the wine becoming his Blood, Catholics believe that he is reinforcing the depth of the Eucharist here by linking his Body and Blood to this passage:
That's why Catholics need to wake up...It doesn't matter what Catholics believe or teach...What matters is 'what did God actually say'??? And Gods says it is fruit of the vine...NOT blood...Sorry, your teaching is false...
That's quite a post...
As is common knowledge among those that care to know, there are two sets of those seven letters by Ignatius...Weird huh??? One set has no Catholic references whatsoever...The other set is interlaced with all kinds of Catholic stuff...
It is now widely known that the Catholic filled letters are forgeries from about 250 years after the original non-Catholic set was aledgedly penned...Many scholars doubt their authencity as well...
This big list you just posted is nothing more than one person copying the previous one over the centuries...It's just as meaningless as Ignatius' Catholic letters...
And these forged letter are what your religion is based on...And the charade continues...
Why, so they might come back???
I thought this was interesting...
5) He took flesh from the flesh of Mary . . . and gave us the same flesh to be eaten unto salvation . . . we do sin by not adoring. {Explanations of the Psalms, 98, 9; on p.20}
Mary's flesh was rotton...And so was her blood...Mary's flesh and blood was no different than yours or mine...
Did Jesus' have Mary's blood??? It caused Jesus to age...It couldn't have been eternal blood...
If Augustine actually said this, he clearly didn't hold the current Catholic view of the Eucharist...
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