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.
Difference is, Jesus knew it was still bread...
12. "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 perishes, but for that which endures 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 you believe in Him whom He has sent." This is then to eat the meat, not that which perishes, but that which endures unto eternal life. To what purpose do you make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten already.
As Augustine says, Believe and you have already eaten the flesh and blood of Jesus...
14. "And Jesus said unto them, I am the Bread of Life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes in me shall never thirst." "He that comes to me;" this is the same thing as "He that believes in me;" and "shall never hunger" is to be understood to mean the same thing as "shall never thirst." For by both is signified that eternal sufficiency in which there is no want.
19. "As the living Father has sent me," says He, "and I live by the Father; so he that eats me, even he shall live by me." He says not: As I eat the Father, and live by the Father; so he that eats me, the same shall live by me. For the Son, who was begotten equal, does not become better by participation of the Father; just as we are made better by participation of the Son, through the unity of His body and blood, which thing that eating and drinking signifies. We live then by Him, by eating Him; that is, by receiving Himself as the eternal life, which we did not have from ourselves.
The eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood, 'signifies', according to Augustine...
Couldn't be more clear from Augustine...Eating the bread and wine 'signifies' eating the flesh and blood...That's the ritual...And by believing in Jesus Christ, you have already drank and eaten...
Lol! You just do not get it. Your analogy is very strange to me. But thanks for caring. I do believe in some way you really care. I have to go out. Have a great day. Cheers!
We see the Catholic vernacular even from thousands of years ago. But our seperated christian friends just do not know what they are looking into as written in true meaning. It is amazing he uses a Catholic bishops words that are taking out of context. Lol! It literally comes almost off the page like something written today as a Catholic writing. Cheers! I have to leave the house device. Free republic does not come across as good read on a small device.
FR is infested with the Jimmy Swaggart crowd so trying to explain to them the real presence is like talking to a wall.
They all know better than Paul and all the other apostles and 2,000 years of Catholic Doctrine. After all the church fathers had to be Jimmy Swaggart fans.
“the Eucharist should not be understood as literal human flesh... but it IS the literal Body of Christ”
......................................................................
It’s amusing to watch you bend yourself into a pretzel like this. According to the Roman Catholic view, it IS the literal flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. You can’t say that just because it looks like bread and wine, that it isn’t literally the body of Christ. That’s my view! The bread is just the “form,” but the substance is literally Christ’s body.
“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.”
I’ll let Augustine, from paragraph 12, do it himself:
“To what purpose do you make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and you have eaten already.”
“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.”
“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.”
Presumably, every Sunday you hold Christ in your hands.
” 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
Read it again and again until it computes.
“Sermon 227 is sadly not online (that I can see) but I think I’ve demonstrated enough,”
You’ve demonstrated your ability to assert that things agree with you when they actually don’t.
The next time you are dumpster diving on anti-Catholic websites for new material you should take a few minutes and visit a credible website to learn the difference between Substance and Property. Right now you look pretty foolish to the educated among us.
Peace be to you
“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...”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801099.htm
Here’s the entire commentary on Psalm 99 in full. Notice how bad the ellipses are. It’s made to make us think they were referring to adoring the Eucharistic bread and wine. Instead, Augustine is literally referring to Christ’s actual body, which must be received through faith, which he discusses immediately after (in fact, I quoted the part that comes immediately after already). The larger context was his trying to make sense of the line “fall before his footstool,” which Augustine understood as worshipping the Footstool, which represented a problem for him. And thus Augustine renders the Earth God’s footstool, on the basis of another line of scripture which defines it that way, and from Earth Christ’s body was formed (since man is made from the dust of the Earth, and Mary came from Adam, and Christ from Mary). Therefore, Augustine brings it back to Christ’s body as what is praised and should be worshipped. It is the body of Christ that we must “fall before.”
It’s a bit goofy to explain it. You just have to read it for yourself. That’s why the RCC quote is so heavily ellipsed. They didn’t understand most of it, but wanted to trick people into believing that it somehow supported them.
You wrote:
“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?”
So, according to your logic, Jesus must only be a man. According to your logic He can’t be man and God. Do you actually think these things through before you post them?
“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.’
Your analogy fails because your daughter is neither and angel nor a princess. Clearly the bread was bread. Clearly Jesus made it His flesh. He said so.
“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.””
Again, then Jesus can only be a man or God. According to you He can’t be both.
“But you’re free to think it’s corpuscles and ligaments and such.”
Myocardium actually. http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Why didn’t you simply admit that earlier? Sheesh.”
I did. And we call it the Body of Christ. We refer to it just as Christ did.
He called it His body. He clearly knew it was His flesh. He said it was His body.
“The next time you are dumpster diving on anti-Catholic websites for new material”
So you confess that Augustine’s writings are anti-Catholic. That’s where I’ve been doing my reading.
“Right now you look pretty foolish to the educated among us.”
You’re like that guy who catches Tuco in the bathtub and just talks and talks and talks, giving Tuco the time to shoot. “If you’re going to shoot, shoot, don’t talk!” was Tuco’s advice. You should take it! Your talk is cheap.
This is being sophomoric. This is a question for YOU. So that YOU know that Christ was telling the Truth either to the Jews of His day or to us today. But then again, all other Christian sects revel in “Christianity lite” and cannot absorb the full meaning of the teachings of the Church over 2000 years while the wild mushrooms around, tens of thousands of them, wither and die.
It is only anti-Catholic when cited out of context and accompanied by an interpretation counter to St. Augustine's body of work, reflecting the thoughts and motives of the poster.
“It is only anti-Catholic when cited out of context and accompanied by an interpretation counter to St. Augustine’s body of work, reflecting the thoughts and motives of the poster”
I’m getting pretty sick of always having you telling me what my “thoughts and motives” are. If I’m wrong, show me how I’m wrong. Don’t just constantly accuse me as you do.
No one is picking on you. All posts are intended to reflect the thoughts and motives of the poster. If you don't want to communicate those stick to caucus threads. This is an open forum. If you can't run with the big dogs stay on the porch.
“If you can’t run with the big dogs stay on the porch.”
“Why do you ready your teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.”
I’ll stay on the porch with Augustine, and you can speculate about my thoughts and motives all you like.
But, now that it is clear that Sion is the city of God; what is the city of God, but the Holy Church? For men who love one another, and who love their God who dwells in them, constitute a city unto God. Because a city is held together by some law; their very law is Love; and that very Love is God: for openly it is written, "God is Love." 1 John 4:8 He therefore who is full of Love, is full of God; and many, full of love, constitute a city full of God. That city of God is called Sion; the Church therefore is Sion. In it God is great....
Zion is the Catholic church...Oh brother...And based on what??? Nothing, but tradition...
I hate to post this entire thing here since I'm sure no one will read it...But,,,
11. "O magnify the Lord our God!" Psalm 98:9. Again we magnify Him. He who is merciful even when He strikes, how is He to be praised, how is He to be magnified? Can you show this unto your son, and cannot God? For you are not good when thou dost caress your son, and evil when you strike him. Both when thou dost caress him you are a father, and when you strike him, you are his father: thou dost caress him, that he may not faint; you strike him, that he may not perish. "O magnify the Lord our God, and worship Him upon His holy hill: for the Lord our God is holy." As he said above, "O magnify the Lord our God and fall down before His footstool:" now we have understood what it is to worship His footstool: thus also but now after he had magnified the Lord our God, that no man might magnify Him apart from His hill, he has also praised His hill.
What is His hill? We read elsewhere concerning this hill, that a stone was cut from the hill without hands, and shattered all the kingdoms of the earth, and the stone itself increased. This is the vision of Daniel which I am relating. This stone which was cut from the hill without hands increased, and "became," he says, "a great mountain, and filled the whole face of the earth." Daniel 2:34-35 Let us worship on that great mountain, if we desire to be heard. Heretics do not worship on that mountain, because it has filled the whole earth; they have stuck fast on part of it, and have lost the whole. If they acknowledge the Catholic Church, they will worship on this hill with us. For we already see how that stone that was cut from the mountain without hands has increased, and how great tracts of earth it has prevailed over, and unto what nations it has extended. What is the mountain whence the stone was hewn without hands? The Jewish kingdom, in the first place; since they worshipped one God. Thence was hewn the stone, our Lord Jesus Christ....
That stone then was born of the mountain without hands: it increased, and by its increase broke all the kingdoms of the earth. It has become a great mountain, and has filled the whole face of the earth. This is the Catholic Church, in whose communion rejoice that you are. But they who are not in her communion, since they worship and praise God apart from this same mountain, are not heard unto eternal life; although they may be heard unto certain temporal things. Let them not flatter themselves, because God hears them in some things: for He hears Pagans also in some things. Do not the Pagans cry unto God, and it rains? Wherefore? Because He makes His sun to rise over the good and the bad, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Matthew 5:45 Boast not therefore, Pagan, that when you cry unto God, God sends rain, for He sends rain upon the just and the unjust. He has heard you in temporal things: He hears you not in things eternal, unless you have worshipped in His holy hill. "Worship Him upon His holy hill: for the Lord our God is holy."...
All this proves is that Augustine liked to toke a bowl now and then, perhaps...
An account of the dream revealed by Daniel to Nebuchadnezzer...As it turns out, the end kingdom is the Catholic religion...The old saying is; 'you just can't make this stuff up'...But by God they did...Amazing...
And what do they base this idea on??? Tradition, fables, fairy tales or whatever you want to call it... And so then the footstool is the earth, which also is the Kingdom of the Catholic religion...Daniel didn't know that but Augustine and them popes got it figured out...
What a convoluted mess this is...Augustine says this, I fear not to worship the footstool of my Lord, because the Psalm bids me, "fall down before His footstool."
Nobody in Psalms or anywhere else says to worship a footstool...It says,
Psa 99:5 Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy.
Worship AT his footstool...Maybe Auggie didn't realize he needed bi-foculs...And here's more about the footstool...
And the Scripture tells me, "the earth is My footstool." In hesitation I turn unto Christ, since I am herein seeking Himself: and I discover how the earth may be worshipped without impiety, how His footstool may be worshipped without impiety. For He took upon Him earth from earth; because flesh is from earth, and He received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because He walked here in very flesh, and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation; and no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped: we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord's may be worshipped, and not only that we sin not in worshipping it, but that we sin in not worshipping. But does the flesh give life? Our Lord Himself, when He was speaking in praise of this same earth, said, "It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing."...But when our Lord praised it, He was speaking of His own flesh, and He had said, "Except a man eat My flesh, he shall have no life in him." John 6:54
Some disciples of His, about seventy, were offended, and said, "This is an hard saying, who can hear it?" And they went back, and walked no more with Him. It seemed unto them hard that He said, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you 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 says not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learned that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learned. 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 says unto them, "It is the Spirit that quickens, but the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63 Understand spiritually what I have said; you are not to eat this body which you 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.
But good ole' Auggie's got it down pat on the Eucharist tho...
So there...No Eucharist for Augustine...
Augustine doesn't believe you and neither do I...
It was spiritual...Just as when Jesus said he has the water that will keep you from every being thirsty again...It was spiritual...Just as when Jesus said whoever comes to me will never hunger...It was spiritual...
We don't understand your Catholic Church...We don't understand the Bible...We don't understand your Catechism...We don't understand Augustine...Yep, we're just a bunch of dummies...
But hey, you didn't answer my sophmoric question...Would those guys have come back had Jesus explained that he was talking spiritually and not physically???
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