Posted on 02/13/2021 8:18:22 AM PST by HypatiaTaught
Good morning my conservative FRiends.
I am reaching out to hopefully get an answer to my lifelong question of a central belief in the Christian faith, especially the Roman Catholic faith.
Background: I grew up in a very Roman Catholic family. I am number 10 of 13 children, 8 boys, 5 girls. Mom also had 2 miscarriages which in truth, she became pregnant with 10 boys rather than the 8. Mom had 15 pregnancies in 17 years.
We went to Mass every Sunday and all the holy days. Mom actually taught Catechism to the community and was a very loving soul.
My question since the age of eight and remains 50 years later, why do we have the belief of actually having to eat the body of Jesus Christ?
I am a very logical person, but this concept of consuming the flesh of God's son to obtain salvation simply doesn't make sense. I get that he died for our sins and was sacrificed. I know the history of sacrifices 2000 years ago. Tribes sacrificed lambs, goats and other livestock. But why the eating of his body or any human body? We don't eat humans. I don't even eat animals any more, for digestive purposes. Maybe I am the only one who finds this tenant extremely disturbing.
Communion is simply a way of remembering the sacrifice made by Jesus when he was crucified.
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Yes. But why can’t we remember him without EATING him.
I remember many things. I don’t have to do something that is normally viewed as cannibalism.
Personally, I don’t understand the belief in transubstantiation.
The Lord’s Supper was started as a change in the Passover meal. When we look to the origins of Passover, it was done so that the Israelites would annually remember how God rescued his people out of slavery. When Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me”, he was restating the initial instruction that they were to do this to “remember how I brought you out of Egypt.” Essentially, Christians were to carry on the tradition but recall their delivery from sin, the one thing that keeps all humanity captive.
With all due respect to my Catholic brothers and sisters, this is a symbolic act. To instruct Jewish apostles to eat of a body would be to ask them to sin because it broke their own laws. I believe that Jesus gives us some clues as to what he was referring to when he spoke of it as his body and his blood in John 6:25ff. It equates to how God supplied manna while Israel was in the desert. Truthfully, our salvation comes to us free of charge, a gift from heaven, God incarnate, Emmanuel. This is the idea of the Lord’s Supper. No longer do we need to follow rituals and laws to be saved. Rather, we are to believe in the one whom “he has sent.” John 6:29. By eating of the bread and drinking of the wine, we remember God’s provision.
As you have already deduced, I am not Catholic. However, I understand that none of us have a lock on the truth. I believe it is okay to research these things on your own and trust in God to provide you the answers. If he is anything, he is trustworthy and won’t let you stray if you are seeking him.
High level view:
These are sacraments. The RCC has seven. Protestants 2
A sacrament is the use of earthly means for covey a heavenly gift. It connects the physical with the spiritual
In baptism you are washed of your sins
In Conmmunion we become one with the savior.
He tells us he sacrifice was perfect and complete for atonement (it is finished He says on the cross) but he commands us to do this in memory of Him for as oft as you Eat of this bread and drink of this cup you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes again
Catholics are transubstaniation which means that the host becomes physically the body and the blood
Lutherans like me proclaim the real presence of the body and blood in with and under the bread and the wine. To us it’s a distinction without difference. To our catholic friends it’s a major doctrinal issue.
But the bottom line is this. We are commanded by our Lord to remember him in the communion feast. Which is a foretaste of the feast to come.
John 3:16, and the thief on the cross.
Didn’t he make it clear that he wasn’t speaking of eating his literal flesh? The flesh profiteth nothing!
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I agree. I use to tell my mom, I think this eating of his body is not literal.
But her and the Catholic Church states it is to be taken literally.
Good one!! Thank you for the correction and the laugh.
What was vicious?
Well, you aren’t in the Catholic caucus so I can answer from the Protestant perspective.
Jesus does talk in scripture about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Some turned away from Him for saying that. Protestants don’t deny He said it.
“ 41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?
43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.
44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48 I am that bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 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.
64 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.
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.”. John 6
If this were all there were about it in the Bible I might be of the RC view! But it’s not. We use scripture to interpret scripture and we use the whole thing. We see often Jesus speaks in metaphors, for example, “I am the vine and you are the branches,”. “I am the door.” This does not mean He is made of wood or swings in a hinge. These are metaphors.
So we know He uses metaphors. We also see the institution of the first communion at Passover:
“ 19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke 22 and elsewhere, also referenced by Paul).
Here we see Jesus standing there and handing our bread and wine and saying it is His body and blood test He is standing there intact. So obviously He is using metaphor.
So we Protestants do indeed take communion as He instructed, in remembrance of Him, not believing that the bread or wine physically turns into something else but that they are a metaphor that He instituted for us to use until He returns.
Thank you and I agree.
What?! Your mother has her own church?!
Or did you mean to write:
"But she and the Catholic Church state it is to be taken literally."
?
Regards,
Millions of Protestants say Yes we are saved by grace
Rush has a name for people like this... “seminar callers.”
Maybe too metaphysical, but since God made matter and the universe and our human forms, there must be some sanctity to the actual matter of Jesus’s body. Multiple dimensions is a crude analogy, but let’s say we can’t imagine our spiritual sinfulness but in another ‘dimension’ our corrupt sinful bodies would be horrible to see. Yet that matter will be resurrected and purged of sin. We can’t see the purity of Jesus’s body in the Host, but in that other ‘dimension ‘ our tangible bodies commingle. We also believe laying on hands tangibly affects our physical and spiritual bodies, as apostolic tradition.
The passage when Jesus says, “I will not drink of this wine again until you’re all with me together in heaven” makes me literally cry with joy. It reminds me of a mother sending her kid away for college (or war)and saying, “We won’t make (insert special dish here...I think gnocchi) until you’re back home safe with us.”
One doesn't have to be an atheist democrat to ask the question.............
Why can't you give him an answer?
The give away is in the meaning of the posters name.
I'm not Catholic and certainly never would be given some of the doctrines of the Catholic church and the fact the present Pope is communist.
But, no communion service at protestant churches I've engaged in had implied that the congregation is eating Jesus' body. It is simply a way of remembering the suffering Jesus went through on the cross.
I reject your premise. It's either based on lies from non- Christians or some perverted doctrine without the Catholic church.
Jesus didn’t do all that he did merely to replace one set of symbols with a different set, sorry.
Clearly not a ‘him’. Either a ‘her’ or an ‘it’.
Thank you for the grammar correction.
Any other thoughts?
For the record, I am a woman. At least the last I checked. LOL.
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