The Eucharist: The Body of Christ? ("Respectful Dialogue" thread)

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.

Would you like to explain to those who are having the vapors about unworthy priests celebrating Mass who the Donatists were and why they were considered heretics by the Calvinist Cranmer?

A big part of the entire priest/eucharist/pope controvrsy is that no matter how many times we say it, the Protestant, by and large, insist that we think a Pope or priest is worthy of his office or order.

We don't. They won't hear it or believe it this time either, but we don't.

They rant about sin and merit and how we're Pelagians, while we say that no one could possibly, of his own act and merit, be worthy of the priesthood.

Yep, I'd say "hate." it is clear that the MISSION is to abuse and lies are then trumped up about us and our factual defenses , are ignored because it's so much easier to abuse us for stuff we don't teach or do than stuff we do.

So please tell us about the worthiness of ministers and the nature od Donatism. They may believe it coming from you.

I have never heard of this belief before.

That's not surprising. Neither had I. It is simple logic that I was puzzled over for 33 years until I started going back to some of the early church writings to finally understand. God did not make the fall to happen but He certainly put in motion the events that would eventually allow the fall-not unlike God putting into motion the events that lead to the ruin of Egypt with Moses.

The concept of "free will" is a man-centered bogus term that is poor theology, at best, and denies God the glory that is due Him in rising us to a newness of life.

Chapter V Of Providence

I. God the great Creator of all things does uphold,[1] direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things,[2] from the greatest even to the least,[3] by His most wise and holy providence,[4] according to His infallible foreknowledge,[5] and the free and immutable counsel of His own will,[6] to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.[7]

II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly;[8] yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.[9]

III. God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means,[10] yet is free to work without,[11] above,[12] and against them,[13] at His pleasure.

IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men;[14] and that not by a bare permission,[15] but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding,[16] and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends;[17] yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.[18]

V. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled;[19] and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.[20]

VI. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous Judge, for former sins, does blind and harden,[21] from them He not only withholds His grace whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon in their hearts;[22] but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had,[23] and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin;[24] and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan,[25] whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God uses for the softening of others.[26]

VII. As the providence of God does, in general, reach to all creatures; so, after a most special manner, it takes care of His Church, and disposes all things to the good thereof.[27]

-Westminster Confession of Faith

Adam's sin was no different than any sin you or I have ever done. As stated in the Confession, God makes use of our failings for His holy and unknown reasons, just as He did with Adam. This is the way it was designed although we cannot comprehend why. It all goes according to God's plan-not the free will of man.

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