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.
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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