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.
Was it?
You are a doody-head, and one day God will mash you like a bug.
Consider yourself warned.
(and now I will have something to laugh about if I wake up in the night.)
Seriously, but only for a minute:
Human sin is such that we can use anything as a way to avoid God. Anything. Even Jesus Himself
He, however, is dedicated to busting us wide open.
My prayer is that He will win and we will lose. And I am confident my prayer will be answered.
And so to bed.
No. The Hebrew word for covenant is "shiva" which is also the number seven. Seven is a sign of covenant. When one makes an oath, in Hebrew, he is said to have "sevened" himself. It's not numerology, it's a recognition of God's Grace at work through successive covenants.
Sorry, but God doesn't make mistakes.
I didn't say God made a mistake... Adam did. He and his heirs paid the price. To say that God intended man to fail as part of His plan from the beginning is to fail to understand free will and to put one's faith in predestination.
God devised another plan, and that nearly was goofed up except for Noah.
No. God's salvation for man was begun with the protoevangelium. The line of Seth was set apart for God. When they intermarried with the other lines, God acted to preserve His promise in Noah. Man is still the one making mistakes.
The biggest mistake occurs with the children of Israel in the desert. They were intended to be a priest-nation to go out to the world and make disciples of the nations. However, they returned to their idols and broke the covenant while Moses was on the mountain. God gave them correction and removed the priestly role from the nation to the tribe of Levi. Then when they failed to enter Canaan at God's command for fear of the inhabitants, God put them to wandering until that wicked generation was gone.
The next generation failed even greater than their parents at Baal-peor and then the second law (Deuteronomy) was given by Moses (instead of by God as was the law of the covenant).
Through it all, God was faithful to His promise and carried out His perfect plan in spite of imperfect people.
Notice the and, "eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood", "ye eat this bread, and drink this cup,". There is no either/or in the commands. The bread is one thing and the wine is another. Where is the license to do just one of them? It looks like it is an "all or nothing" situation.
Jhn 6:53-56, "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. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him."
Matt. 26:26-28, "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins"
Mark 14:22-24, "And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many."
1 Cor. 11:23-27, "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."
Is the bread the actual flesh of Christ and is the wine the actual blood of Christ?
Finding something fascinating is different from finding it 100% always 100% accurate and true.
Group-think is not remotely a reliable route to solid Biblical Truth. Had it been, Soddom and Gomorrah would have rained fire and brimstone on Lot and family.
Sounds like that old RCP2 problem about
SAME VS DIFFERENT.
Y’all really need help with that. Most sad to observe.
Is the bread the actual flesh of Christ and is the wine the actual blood of Christ?
Yes. More precisely, we believe in the Real Presence in the consecrated host and wine of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Is the bread the actual flesh of Christ and is the wine the actual blood of Christ?”
“Yes”
If it is the actual flesh and the actual blood then we digest it as we would actual bread and actual wine, right?
This is not transformation, but transubstantiation. The accidents of bread and wine remain. Thus, the answer is no.
is not at all necessary for rejection of great chunks of the RC edifice.
As I've articulated a number of times hereon . . . EVEN IF [which I don't for a microsecond believe] . . . yet EVEN
The RC edifice HAD [which it hadn't] started out anointed with the fiesty pebble as head . . .
The anointing left the building early on.
imho, one of the main reasons the RC edifice has to pontificate at such intensity and great length about the PRESENCE in the wafer and wine
Is because HOLY SPIRIT'S PRESENCE has been relegated to a few micro pockets here and there in the vast edifice . . . .
while the political ecclesiastical magicsterical power mongers go merily on their way creating dogma out of black holes and maniacal magicsterical fantasies.
Propagandizing the faithful into believing the wafer and wine are as magical as Mary's hankies works pretty well to maintain a death grip on the RELIGIOUS serfs.
And, I can readily believe that God's gracious enough, that on occasion, He, Himself blesses the relatively few uniquely authentic folks in the vast edifice with a spiritual shot in the arm for their devotion TO HIM in such meditative rituals.
The RC edifice rubberized histories, rubberized 'Scriptures' and rubberized dictionaries will never be very convincing, to me.
The BEHAVIOR of the RC edifice from it's founding around AD400 to the present is further reason to maintain rather reflexive revulsion for great chunks of the edifice based on simple objective observation.
And, it would seem, appear
on a long list of others, as well.
Real Presence was accepted Christian belief until Zwingli’s errors. Even Luther believed.
Ahhhhhhh . . .
A new addition to the rubberized RC edifice library . . .
—RUBBER HISTORIES,
—RUBBER ‘SCRIPTURES,’
—RUBBER DICTIONARIES,
—RUBBER LOGIC BOOKS,
—RUBBER MATH (A ‘FEW’ = 66)
and now . . . drum roll . . .
—RUBBERIZED GRADING CRITERIA.
The RC edifice is as
FAR FROM
being Christ’s church as any Protty RELIGIOUS club and a lot further than many.
Ping me when you want to post like an adult.
Excellent points.
However, RUBBERIZED REALITY
has long been about the only reality the RC edifice dealt in.
INDEED.
Holy Spirit is faithful in behalf of God’s truth in all those with a true heart after God.
“The accidents of bread and wine remain. Thus, the answer is no”
How can you digest “accidents” since they are only perceived by the senses and are not substance?
I entirely agree.
He left Paul with his thorn.
He scattered folks through their human flaws as Scripture indicates in the NT.
He clearly—for those with eyes to see—was NOT interested in setting mortals up yet again in yet another flawed bureaucratic political power mongering idolatrous edifice to replace the one Christ railed against so fiercely.
God is NOT an idiot!
He rent the curtain between God and man. He did NOT set up some Magnificent Magical Earth-Mother Mary caricature to replace that 2 foot thick curtain with a Pike’s Peak pile of Mary’s hankies between man and God nor for man to scale the heights of to reach God.
What a quaint fantasy.
Remotely conceivable. Hardly more.
And, in terms of one’s spiritual walk . . . worth 0.000%
Exactely... The Holy Spirit IS the package.. Without him you have the dead letter.. Merely consonants and grunts.. Like a ceremony, tradition or Amulet/Talisman/Totem masked as rote prayer..
= = =
INDEED!
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