Posted on 04/27/2008 3:36:18 AM PDT by markomalley
Ireland is Catholic, what more need be said ;-).
Technically “Roman Catholic” is wrong. The Church is the Catholic Church. There is a Roman (or Latin) Rite within the Catholic Church. The Anglicans started to call the Catholic Church the “Roman Catholic Church” because they continued to argue that they were Catholic also. The label has come into common use, but it is not the name of the Church.
God Bless
The funny part about this is that it isn't just the Roman Catholic Church when we're talking about this topic, the Eucharist. This doctrine impacts multiple, multiple groups within Christianity. To include, the Eastern-Rite Catholics (which are not Roman Catholic), the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, the Assyrian Orthodox, the Coptic Church, the High-Church Anglicans, a major portion of the Lutherans, and others. (Those are the groups who believe that there is a literal change to the bread and wine)
When you consider the groups who consider there to be a literal, but spiritual only, change, the net is considerably wider.
(That's the reason I chose this topic rather than another, as parochialism aimed strictly at the Latin Rite Catholics actually hits a whole bunch of other folk)
What interpretation actually gives the Catholic Priests the ability to perform these miracles at will? Even Christ was quick to say that of Himself he was nothing as it was the Father that doeth the works...
Jesus NEVER said Peter was the Rock...He never even implied it...
He said 'upon THIS rock...He DID NOT say 'upon YOU (Peter)...
Jesus CLEARLY was referring to Himself...
Try this - When you eat bread and drink wine or, ant food for that matter, it becomes your body. Nature transforms it, Jesus did it in a miraculous way.
You’re right, of course. Thanks for the reminder! (I won’t blame the Anglicans for my error, since they’re Guinness-drinking FRiends :-).
It rubbed me wrong the first couple times I saw it (long before this), but I don't find it a problem now either. I'm just suggesting that if we all try to use terms that everyone finds non-offensive, it allows us to actually discuss the issue at hand instead of fighting over vocabulary.
p.s.: FR's spell-checker says 'edifice' is right, for what it's worth.
Good suggestion. I’ll try to find a way to work that in during the next few weeks.
You said: Jesus CLEARLY was referring to Himself...
I respectfully, but strongly, disagree.
I’m not saying that no miracles have occurred since then, only that they are not the common place deal where a handful of folks consistently “facilitate” them as back then. Jesus told the apostles to go out and do these things, yet He also made sure that they knew it was God the Father that actually made them happen, not them and not even Him. Show me someone who purports to do miracles today and I’ll show you one of Satan’s helpers.
Thank you for sharing your personal interpretation of Scripture.
You said: What interpretation actually gives the Catholic Priests the ability to perform these miracles at will?
The premise of your question is wrong. I sense you are misinformed. Catholic priests do no perform miracles.
During the Mass (and Divine Liturgy in the eastern Church), it is Christ who changes bread and wine into His body, blood, soul and divinity, as He did at the Last Supper. It is a sacramental representation of the once and for all sacrifice.
I agree with the concept, but one can't ever be sure what *some* poster might or might not find offensive. I think there's NOTHING that SOMEBODY won't take offense at. If we're going to have an "everybody calm down" thread designation, part of the assumption might be to take offense less quickly. In the case we're discussing, I really think another poster could have used the same words without comment, the offense being to some extent based on the poster's known positions.
(Now "edifice" looks right. Maybe it was just the capital letter. Or I need a nap.)
Ping
When I specify Roman Catholic, it is because I can only begin to speak about Roman Catholicism, and do not want to misspeak about the beliefs of our “non-Roman” Catholic friends, insofar as their beliefs differ.
Are you saying, then, that all physical healings believed (by a few or many) to be miraculous are in fact Satanic? Or a situation such as Pastor Richard Wurmbrand's "Sermons in Solitary Confinement" being heard, contemporaneously, by a Christian in Canada ... that was Satanic?
Perhaps I totally misunderstand you.
Please consider the following:
1Cr 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
1Cr 11:23ff For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
Of course, the John 6 passage exists, as well. But it is curious that St. Paul would use the above words if he understood the Eucharist to be merely a symbol. It seems that the mocking of the Holy Spirit would be those who disregarded the scriptures on the subject, not those who heed them.
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