Posted on 04/27/2008 3:36:18 AM PDT by markomalley
The Catholic Church teaches that in the Eucharist, the communion wafer and the altar wine are transformed and really become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Have you ever met anyone who has found this Catholic doctrine to be a bit hard to take?
If so, you shouldn't be surprised. When Jesus spoke about eating his flesh and drinking his blood in John 6, his words met with less than an enthusiastic reception. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (V 52). "This is a hard saying who can listen to it?" (V60). In fact so many of his disciples abandoned him over this that Jesus had to ask the twelve if they also planned to quit. It is interesting that Jesus did not run after his disciples saying, "Don't go — I was just speaking metaphorically!" How did the early Church interpret these challenging words of Jesus? Interesting fact. One charge the pagan Romans lodged against the Christians was cannibalism. Why? You guessed it. They heard that this sect regularly met to eat human flesh and drink human blood. Did the early Christians say: "wait a minute, it's only a symbol!"? Not at all. When trying to explain the Eucharist to the Roman Emperor around 155AD, St. Justin did not mince his words: "For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him . . . is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus."
Not many Christians questioned the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist till the Middle Ages. In trying to explain how bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, several theologians went astray and needed to be corrected by Church authority. Then St. Thomas Aquinas came along and offered an explanation that became classic. In all change that we observe in this life, he teaches, appearances change, but deep down, the essence of a thing stays the same. Example: if, in a fit of mid-life crisis, I traded my mini-van for a Ferrari, abandoned my wife and 5 kids to be beach bum, got tanned, bleached my hair blonde, spiked it, buffed up at the gym, and took a trip to the plastic surgeon, I'd look a lot different on the surface. But for all my trouble, deep down I'd still substantially be the same ole guy as when I started.
St. Thomas said the Eucharist is the one instance of change we encounter in this world that is exactly the opposite. The appearances of bread and wine stay the same, but the very essence or substance of these realities, which can't be viewed by a microscope, is totally transformed. What was once bread and wine are now Christ's body and blood. A handy word was coined to describe this unique change. Transformation of the "sub-stance", what "stands-under" the surface, came to be called "transubstantiation."
What makes this happen? The power of God's Spirit and Word. After praying for the Spirit to come (epiklesis), the priest, who stands in the place of Christ, repeats the words of the God-man: "This is my Body, This is my Blood." Sounds to me like Genesis 1: the mighty wind (read "Spirit") whips over the surface of the water and God's Word resounds. "Let there be light" and there was light. It is no harder to believe in the Eucharist than to believe in Creation. But why did Jesus arrange for this transformation of bread and wine? Because he intended another kind of transformation. The bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ which are, in turn, meant to transform us. Ever hear the phrase: "you are what you eat?" The Lord desires us to be transformed from a motley crew of imperfect individuals into the Body of Christ, come to full stature.
Our evangelical brethren speak often of an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus. But I ask you, how much more personal and intimate can you get? We receive the Lord's body into our physical body that we may become Him whom we receive! Such an awesome gift deserves its own feast. And that's why, back in the days of Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope decided to institute the Feast of Corpus Christi.
BTW have you ever heard it sung, any time, any place, without the doxology?
Protestants beliefs in this, like many things are broad and varied.
What I found incomprehensible in the Presbetyrian church I attended was this... they do not believe in transubstantiation.. the eucharist is nothing more than symbolic.. but the church has a Pastor who had not yet been ordained, so the once a month that they had the eucharist, they had to bring in an ordained minister to perform the actual blessing of the bread and wine.
Now this to me makes no sense, if it is not transubstantiated, what does it matter if the person blessing the objects is fully ordained or not? Since the belief is they are not truly being transformed in any manner and are just representative.
And as a life long Catholic, going back after the service and seeing the children tossing the left over bread to each other trying to catch in each others mouths and tossing it up in the air to try to catch in their own mouths etc etc etc... was unfathonable.
Just one of many reasons, I only humored my wife on attending that church very briefly before returning home.
It is one thing to theorize about the Eucharist, and another thing to celebrate it. In the Episcopal church in which I was raised, we celebrated it once a month (”low” Episcopal). In the one to which I returned in my forties, we celebrated it weekly (”high” Episcopal), and also had lay ministers who took it to the elderly and ill. In the Catholic church, of course, I can attend daily celebrations.
But, I am not at all familiar with the practices of other Protestant denominations. Can you enlighten me?
I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that the Lord saw fit to strip the RCC of it's secular power. :)
Personally I've never seen any such thing, but I did know in my youth, altar boys who claimed to drink the church's wine and then add water to it so the priest wouldn't know. So now you have adultered wine for Communion, how does that work?
In the Unitarian Church I attend we celebrate communion once a month as a respectful remembrance of Jesus.
Christ saves us spiritually by His physical offering which has been "completed" and accepted by God as paying for all the sins of His flock.
And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.Luke 7:29-35For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!
But wisdom is justified of all her children.
REDTETRAHEDRON: That's the Catholic Church's teaching.
Would that were true.
But that is not what the Roman Catholic church teaches since Rome maintains there is no salvation outside those who offer and partake of the Eucharist on a continuing, "perpetual" basis. There is so much error within the RCC understanding of the Lord's Supper it is difficult to narrow it down...
1324 The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." 1377 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. 1382 The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood... 1383 The altar, around which the Church is gathered in the celebration of the Eucharist, represents the two aspects of the same mystery: the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. This is all the more so since the Christian altar is the symbol of Christ himself, present in the midst of the assembly of his faithful, both as the victim offered for our reconciliation and as food from heaven who is giving himself to us. 1323 "At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet 'in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.'"
Again, the "victim" has already been offered and accepted by God as fulfilling the Scriptures and paying in full for all the sins of the elect.
The altar is not Christ. Christ is Christ who now sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.
The sacrifice of the cross is not ongoing and being "perpetuated;" it is finished (John 19:30.)
The sacrifice of the cross is a historical event. It occurred once almost 2,000 years ago outside Jerusalem (Mark 15:21-41.)
Christ cannot be made present in His death for He has risen and is "alive forevermore." (Rev. 1:17,18; Romans 6:9,10.)
And as Hebrews 9:24-28 tells us, Christ presented the sacrifice of Himself to the Father "once at the consummation of the ages."
No "other Christ" has the ability to change bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. That opinion is wizardly alchemy and something the Bible-believing Christian should reject as "vain jangling," or worse.
Thank you. Those verses affirm the Reformers’ position regarding the efficacy and administration of the Lord’s Supper.
Incomprehensible?... The wafer becoming Jesus Flesh, to be consumed by the Flesh, for Fleshly purposes, in a Fleshly ceremony.. is quite carnal.. God is Spirit and those that worship him MUST worship in spirit and truth..
The Eucharist MOCKs the Holy Spirits ministry.. as a doofus.. For "they" say the Holy Spirit transmutes the bread into flesh.. in a magical totem.. as a talisman..
The whole play of the Eucharist is playing church like children.. with a "pretend" character of Jesus.. Its the Holy Spirit that is treated violently.. Ostensibly ignored.. and made sport of..
It is not. It is Christ's instruction. You have trouble, with it, but this is nothing new.
Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard; and who can hear it? John 6:61
The priests were supposed to say "when" as the wine was poured, but they never said "when" until it was filled to the brim. lol.
True
...to be consumed by the Flesh...
Incomplete.
...for Fleshly purposes...
False.
...in a Fleshly ceremony...
Incomplete.
The Eucharist MOCKs the Holy Spirits ministry.. as a doofus..
Ridiculous.
Never? Until it was filled to the brim?
Sounds like a tall tail. By this telling, at his every observation, the cup was filled completely to the top. Riiight.
It IS true. We can't be held responsible for those with a morbid fixation for controversy.
No... bread becoming flesh(literally) is rididulous.,..
The Roman Catholic Church does not need the Holy Spirit..
And can and DOES operate effectively without him..
And probably don't WANT the Holy Spirit.. Except in effigy..
The Holy Spirit is a Spirit and NOT Flesh.. The RCC is Flesh and NOT Spirit.. Sad to say I believe most Protestant Churchs are also Flesh and not Spirit.. Where the Holy Spirit is ABSENT ALSO..
Only for those who learned their polemical style whilst jumping rope on the schoolyard.
The rest of us recognize the complete absence of intellectual integrity that resorts to such adolescent postulates.
False and quite absurd.
The RCC is Flesh and NOT Spirit...
You're just throwing grenades.
"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.
Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 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. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." -- John 6:58-66
Christ is not the actual, physical bread, but the spiritual bread. And all whom the Father has given to Christ will understand this spiritual truth and believe this spiritual fact and know their salvation is by Christ on the cross alone.
Christ also said, "I am the door" (John 10.)
Does that mean Christ was made of wood and splinters and nails? Or is Christ the spiritual door His sheep walk through?
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