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.
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,
The devil is in Rome's details, for while the "words of consecration that Caths claim to take literally state, "Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me," (1 Corinthians 11:24)” and “Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins," (Matthew 26:27-28)
And Scripture emphasizes the manifest physicality of the incarnated Christ of Scripture in contrast to a docetist Christ or gnostic Christ of the anti/alterchrist spirit whose manifest appearance did not correspond to what He physically was:
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life," (1 John 1:1)
"This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth." (1 John 5:6)
"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." (1 John 4:2-3)
Yet what Rome means when it teaches,
at the words of the priest bread and wine are “substantially changed into the true and proper and being corporeally present whole and entire in His physical "reality.” (Mysterium Fidei, Encyclical of Pope Paul VI, 1965) "the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,"(CCC 1365) with His human body and human soul, with His bodily organs and limbs and with His human mind, will and feelings. (John A. Hardon, S.J., Part I: Eucharistic Doctrine on the Real Presence) Thus the statement, "Consequently, eating and drinking are to be understood of the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally.” (Catholic Encyclopedia>The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist)
This does not mean the bread and wine are literally transformed into actual literal human flesh with its manifest properties as Christ's incarnation required, but it is imagined that that at the moment of the completion of the words of consecration by the priest (and only by ordained priests) then the bread and wine no longer exist, while the "Real Presence" of Christ's body that these elements are changed into (which change is said to be occur outside of time) only exists until the bread or wine - which again, are held to no longer exist - begin to (visibly) decompose, as Aquinas affirms (Summa theologiae, III, q. 77, a. 6) as well as others: "The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ." (CCC 1377; Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1641)
And which nt only means that "If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh." (Dwight Longenecker, "Explaining Transubstantiation") ; but that this christ only exists under that form ".. until the Eucharist is digested, physically destroyed, or decays by some natural process." (The Holy Eucharist BY Bernard Mulcahy, O.P., p. 32) Thus persons with celiac disease can suffer adverse effects to the non-existent gluten in the Eucharistic host) and wine (which one could get drunk on in sufficient quantity) takes place (as with mold, digestion, etc.), in which case "Christ has discontinued His Presence therein." (Catholic Encyclopedia>The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist) Meaning neither the bread and wine - which at least appear and would test to be what they materially are as would the real body of Christ in His incarnation - actually exist, but when a non-existent host begins to visibly (and paradoxically sight here is a stipulation) then Christ also no longer exists under that form. That metaphysical contrivance is what the plain "literal" Catholic interpretation is, resulting in a christ that is actually akin to Gnostic thought, while the only Christ in Scripture is one that was manifestly physical.