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.
Yes, it IS one of the tenets of faith that should be important to both Catholics and Protestants.
Well, I’m not the one who tossed them out of the Holy Bible. Those who did must have discerned something wrong with them.
I don’t laugh at the church. I weep over it.
Only if He grants it.
Suppose your child[ren] want to give you a birthday present. They say, "Papa, don't open your eyes until we say you can, promise?"
And you say,"I promise."
Then what if I said, "I didn't know children had the potential to restrain or constrain their parents."
I'm not making an entire case out of this. I'm just saying that what looks like constraint or restraint might be what the people involved think is more like children trusting their Father to keep His Word.
Have some Sleepytime tea, see a specialist in the morning.
Water is always added to the wine as the "elements" are prepared. The explanation is that in those days nobody drank wine straight. And then there are lovely (well, to me, anyway) symbolic interpretations superimposed on the mixing of water and wine. But the Sacrament is not invalidated by the addition of water to wine. If somehting else was added it would be at least irregular.
While I don't want to make TOO much of it, it might be good to remember that we are laughing at boys claiming to have committed dishonesty, breach of trust, and theft about things which they were pretending to their parents and priest to hold sacred. That seems a little sad to me.
It sounds as if God had a plan, Adam muffed it, God devised another plan, and that nearly was goofed up except for Noah. Sorry, but God doesn't make mistakes. God is perfect with a perfect plan running in the perfect way. Adam fell because that is the way God made it to happen according to His perfect will. God sentenced the entire human race to an eternity of hell and damnation for God is perfection and cannot tolerate any sin in the least little way. He doesn't throw out His hands to give us a hug and say, "That's OK." (This should give us pause when we tell that "little white lie".)
All your examples of people through time shows how God's grace is extended to show His perfect love for His creation. God didnt' "start over" with Noah. God saved Noah in the same way as He saves any of us, through His grace. Noah and the destruction of the world was just as much a part of God's perfect plan as anything else. Christ refers back to Noah as an example of the hardness of the people's hearts. Do you think that might have been a deliberate example?
Maybe to you it sounds that way.
Sorry, but God doesn't make mistakes.
No, He doesn't. Why do you project them onto His works?
How about the Roman Catholic church I attended where the common people only got the wafer while the professionals got the wafer and the wine. If the command is to eat and drink and your salvation depends on it, seems like some are getting the short end of the soteriological stick.
Not so. You've made a judgment about Catholicism without all the facts.
How do the millions of RCs know if the Lord grants the power of turning Christ into food to the “priest” at every mass? What happens to them if He hasn’t and they partake of the elements?
Backwards, at the least.
Do you have a better interpretation for the writings of which I refer? I’d be interested in hearing about my misinterpretations.
Is it your belief that when one eats the bread one is eating the actual flesh of Jesus and when one drinks the wine one is drinking the actual blood of Jesus?
MALFORMED?
Most plausibly traced back to the stimulus.
Man, oh, Manischewitz! Do you ever not understand Buddhists OR the Rosary!
DO you KNOW any Buddhists? Any real live, sho' 'nuff Zennies? Have you enjoyed the poetry of Basho, Issa, Ryokan? Nothing mechanical there.
And the Vajrayana types, the Tibetans, the ones who use prayer wheels: I only know a few but this is a vital bunch of people, given to much laughter. A lot of fun.
And as for the Rosary, all I can say is don't judge the outward appearance. (A little Old Testament lingo there ...).
A daily Rosary (except for a really good reason) is part of the Dominican deal, and all I can say about today's Rosary (sorrowful mysteries) is that when it was done I felt like I had run the 440 while being pelted with rocks (or petrai, I forget which ...)
I'm serious. (well, serious for me.) Please don't dismiss it too readily. SURE someone can 'endure' the rosary, and tell himself that "Well, I said it in a group, so I get an indulgence, so there." And that's just sad. But today, well, I don't know. It was rugged today, it felt as rugged as the cross on which our Lord was crucified, by the time I got to the last "mystery": Jesus is crucified and dies.
Before you just blip us all out, it's time for another Catholic joke (or the same old one again):
A lady is praying a Rosary before a statue of the Virgin. Suddenly our Lord appears, and says,"My child."We know, believe me, that Marian devotion, and especially, the Rosary can be perverted. We're the ones telling the joke, after all. But the fault here is not with the Rosary but with the woman.She mumbles on, "and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, ..."
Jesus says, a little louder,"My child, it is I who speak to you."
..."pray for us sinners now and at the hour ..."
Jesus says for the third time,"My child! Your piety and faithfulness have not gone unnoticed. I am here to give you my blessing. Hear me!"
The woman frowns, puts down her beads, and says,
"Be quiet! I'm talking to your mother."
A Catholic once said to me,"It takes a lot of manure to grow roses." I'll risk being manure if somewhere roses will grow.
If you remove the notion of predestination from the interpretation and instead focus on the free will of man, it becomes obvious: we continue to fail God and He continues to give us another chance. He is perfect and we are not.
We don’t know. We trust. We have the grace of faith.
Many thanks for your kind replies. Have faith in Christ - not men “standing in” for Him. Faith in Christ alone is sufficient, because it’s the object one’s faith that matters; not the faith itself.
Not at all, unless you’ve started calling yourself “the stimulus.”
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