Posted on 07/23/2022 6:13:43 PM PDT by marshmallow
Denver Newsroom, Jul 14, 2022 / 18:00 pm (CNA). A poll released this week found that of Catholic likely voters in the U.S., half believe in the Real Presence of the Eucharist, and 37% go to confession at least annually.
RealClear Opinion Research conducted an online survey of 1,757 Catholic likely voters June 15-23. Conducted in English and Spanish, the poll carries a 95% credibility level of plus or minus 2.58 percentage points.
The poll asked Catholic likely voters about their religious beliefs and practices, and their political engagement.
The survey found that 37% of the respondents go to confession at least once a year, while 28% go less than annually, and 35% never do.
Half of respondents said that they “believe in the real presence of the Eucharist.” Thirty-eight percent said they do not believe this, affirming that “the bread and wine are symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ,” while 12% said they don’t know whether they believe in the Real Presence.
It is a revealed truth that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly, really, and substantially present in the Eucharist.
It is likewise de fide that the sacrament of penance is necessary for salvation to those who, after baptism, fall into mortal sin. Annual confession is a precept of the Church, and the Code of Canon Law states that “after having reached the age of discretion, each member of the faithful is obliged to confess faithfully his or her grave sins at least once a year.”
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicworldreport.com ...
As a Protestant this is one of the wedge issues with Catholics. Even Eastern Orthodox don’t agree with this doctrine.
Just when I start getting soft on my resistance to Catholicism, thinking maybe Catholics might be saved too, the church decides to renew efforts to reinforce this teaching.
It is just bread and wine, a symbol, a reminder of our Lord’s sacrifice. Not his actual flesh and blood.
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; (1) for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
So....half of Catholics are actually protestants.
And all of us sinners.
Sure hope for them they who don’t confess tgeir sins are worthy as the repentant Peter when receiving the Eucharist.
If this only indicated a symbolic presence, St Paul would not be able to say that:
“Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.” (1 Cor 11:27)
If it’s a symbol then to hell with it.
But it’s not. It’s the pinnacle of salvation.
“It’s the pinnacle of salvation.”
“By grace are ye saved through faith.”
“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”
You are mistaken with the Eastern Orthodox:
We believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other Mysteries, ... but truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin Mary, was baptised in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received up, sitteth at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which, as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world.Further [we believe] that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remaineth the substance of the bread and of the wine, but the Body Itself and the Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine; that is to say, under the accidents of the bread. (Synod of Jerusalem, Decree XVII, 1672.)
You are mistaken about the Orthodox teaching. We believe in the real presence — that is truly the Body and Blood of Christ— but we define it differently from the way Roman Catholics do. Orthodoxy finds your position anathema. I guess, by your reckoning, we won’t be saved either. The good news is that you don’t get to decide that.
Seriously? Here is the Orthodox prayer before communion, straight from the OCA website:
I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. I believe also that this is truly Thine own pure Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood. Therefore I pray Thee: have mercy upon me and forgive my transgressions both voluntary and involuntary, of word and of deed, of knowledge and of ignorance. And make me worthy to partake without condemnation of Thy most pure Mysteries, for the remission of my sins, and unto life everlasting. Amen.
Of Thy Mystical Supper, O Son of God, accept me today as a communicant; for I will not speak of Thy Mystery to Thine enemies, neither like Judas will I give Thee a kiss; but like the thief will I confess Thee: Remember me, O Lord in Thy Kingdom.
May the communion of Thy Holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of soul and body. Amen.
Still think the Orthodox "don't agree"?
It is just bread and wine, a symbol, a reminder of our Lord’s sacrifice.
Then Jesus died to replace one set of symbols with another. Actually, he died to set us back a step; the Jews believed that God was present in a special way in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, but your take on Christianity deprives us even of that.
And then there's 1 Cor 11:27-30.
And the words of a man who knew the Apostles and died being mauled by lions in the arena for the faith:
[Gnostic heretics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer,21 because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death22 in the midst of their disputes ... It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of [them] -- Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, ca AD 110
And then once you believe in him, you need to do as he said. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life within you” — that part.
Actually, the Orthodox do agree with this doctrine.
Nope. No works are involved.
“Not by works of righteousness that we have done but according to his mercy he saved us.”
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Holy Communion can only be taken by those who are saved. But taking Communion is a WORK. Salvation comes first, then Communion.
In John 6:53 Jesus is speaking metaphorically to the people (the “multitudes”) who were following him around basically to get a free meal. He was trying to get their focus off physical food and on to spiritual food.
Well, as it’s a point of doctrine it should be 100% if you call yourself “Catholic”.
So you are a literalist in this regard? and it has nothing to do with his statement, in a nutshell, that he who has faith in his bodily sacrifice, will live forever?
So did the Apostles eat bread or eat Jesus? Not being a smart ass, but, he’s right there in front of them offering a piece of bread and wine correlating it to his (future) bodily sacrifice. Why is the actual presence in the catholic mass but it wasn’t when he was alive offering the bread and wine, and not his actual flesh and blood???
Mark for later.
Every Eucharist is a miracle. Truth is not an abstract concept but Christ Himself in the Eucharist.
“Just when I start getting soft on my resistance to Catholicism, thinking maybe Catholics might be saved too, the church decides to renew efforts to reinforce this teaching.”
Ah, so only people of YOUR religious persuasion can be “saved?”
It is not just faith in his bodily sacrifice but in Jesus Christ himself, which means believing in all that he taught us.
Note also that by rejecting the plain meaning of our Lord's words Protestants show that they actually do not believe in sola Scriptura. Nothing in the Bible itself gives any indication that these words are not to be taken literally. Protestants can only offer extra-biblical rationalizations for rejecting the plain meaning of these words, thus placing Protestant tradition over the authority of the Bible.
I think most of the one’s who don’t believe it don’t understand it, along with sketchboy.
And
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (John 6:57)
It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. (John 4:32-34)
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. (James 1:21)
If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. (1 Timothy 4:6)
And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)
Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. (Jeremiah 15:16)
For the Holy Spirit only and always taught that that spiritual life was obtained by receiving the word of the gospel, and never shows this was by actual physical ingestion of anything, and that one "lives by" (upon) God's word as well, having first by repentant faith in the gospel and then by effectually feeding upon the word of God and thus obeying it. For while the Lord's supper is nowhere referred to as spiritual food anywhere interpretive of John 6 (Acts thru Rev.), the word of God is what is taught as being spiritual nourishment, being that which is called "milk" and "meat" (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:13; 1Pt. 2:2) by which believers are "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up, and with the preaching of which being the primary active function of pastors, whereby they "fed the flock." (Acts 20:28,32) Thanks be to God.
According to the Catholic contrivance of the Lord's supper, that, regardless of appearance and behavior, each and every particle is the "true body and blood of Christ" that was crucified on Calvary, under the mere appearance of bread and wine, even though by all material tests the bread and wine is just what it appears to be (claimed special miracles aside) - as would the true incarnated body of Christ.
Which manifest physicality Scripture emphasizes in contrast to a christ whose appearance did not correspond to what He physically was (Luke 24:39; 1 John 1:1-3; 4:2-3; John 5:6; 2 John 7)) - until the Eucharistic host begins to manifest (appearance now being critical) decay/corruption (which is consistent with what it actually is), at which point Christ is said to no longer locally be present under that form.
Rather, not discerning the Lord's body (1 Corinthians 11:29) contextually refers to not recognizing others as members of that body who were bought by His sinless shed blood - even ignoring such as shameful (1 Corinthians 11:22) - which body is one bread (1 Corinthians 10:17) thus not effectually remembering His death and not actually coming together to eat the Lord's supper, while in disunity hypocritically claiming to do so, thereby bringing judgment.
Now it is time for me to get some sleep. Be back tomorrow, by the grace of God. Meanwhile see link.
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