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, I said what I said.
It was not said with resentment.
It was, for me, a factual observation.
“Respectful dialogue” is the responsibility of all who participate.
I think I understand this very well.
Like you, I do not "cotton" to sheep pens. I reckon once we've been out in the green pastures and still waters of Psalms 23, we don't long for the pens anymore. LOLOL!
To God be the glory!
I like that, a lot.
I've never been to St. Peter's - but I'd love to see it. It was quite an honor to grow up in San Antonio and be able to visit all the missions in that area and to visit San Fernando Cathedral and attend services all around. I reckon my appreciation for the "large structure" is more because of its reach than its center.
There was indeed a time when I was a penned up sheep..
But after hearing the Lords voice to COME OUT of there..
I sheepishly did sneak out afraid at first.. but not now..
NOW I frolic like a lamb.. watched over by the Shepherd not the Hierling..
To the persons whose beliefs you spent a paragraph discussing.
And thank you again for all those Scriptures - they are glorious! I confess a particular joy in Isaiah 45:21 repeated here:
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I [am] God, and [there is] none else.
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth [in] righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall [one] say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: [even] to him shall [men] come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. - Isaiah 45:21-25
As a Trinitarian you should. Since the Lord's Supper should be celebrated only with those who share a common understanding of what it is the LCMS practices 'close' or 'closed' communion to avoid having our brothers and sister who don't discern the Real Presence from eating and drinking judgement upon themselves.
From the same source:
snip/'in accord with the simple words of Christ's testament, we hold and believe in a true, though supernatural, eating of Christ's body and drinking of his blood, which we cannot comprehend with our human sense or reason. Here we take our intellect captive in obedience to Christ, as we do in other articles also, and accept this mystery in no other way than by faith and as it is revealed in the Word.'
Well spit it out.. no one here will scourge you(probably)..
Cryptic reponses say nothing.. you appear to be HIDING(intellectually)...
AMEN!
The Old Testament is predicated on the physical, and the insufficiency of the physical.
The New Testament is predicated on the spiritual, and the sufficiency of the gift of the Holy Spirit to renew our minds and cleanse our lives in order for us to spiritually-discern that we are now spiritual beings who have been spiritually saved by Jesus Christ.
Sadly, the concept of transubstantiation aligns with Rome's attempt to return men to the physical realm where good works and relics and confession booths and priests who are "another Christ" are supposedly what saves the sinner.
Instead, we have Scripture which tells us...
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" -- Titus 3:5
It's understandable that some men would want to control other men by stipulating that they are the gatekeepers of the Holy Spirit and that the only means of providing salvation is through the administration of the Lord's Supper. The RCC teaches that it is only by the priest's invocation of specific words and only at the precise elevation in height of the bread and wine do these materials morph into the actual blood and body of Jesus Christ. And further, that ingestion of this transmuted material is the only means of procuring salvation.
All of which contradicts Hebrews 10...
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin." -- Hebrews 10:11-18"And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
Christ's sacrifice has been offered and accepted by God as perfect and complete. "It is finished." All the sins of His flock have been forgiven by Christ's work on the cross. Our job is to do as He said, "Do this in remembrance of me," so that we keep His completed sacrifice always in our grateful minds and hearts.
The errors of transubstantiation are manifold. It keeps our eyes on the physical, when our eyes and hearts and minds should be on the spiritual.
It denies the completed work of Christ on the cross.
It gives the power and purpose of the Holy Spirit over to "another Christ."
Perhaps the easiest way to refute the error of transubstantiation is to recall that Christ also called Himself the "door." And yet do we physically walk through Christ, or do we spiritually walk through and by and for Jesus Christ?
(from a Protestant) Yes. It was.
I have been pondering a similar thing we "teach" our kids in church. We tell them that when we confess our sins and ask forgiveness, "in God's eyes" our sins are gone. We tell them that when God looks at us He doesn't see our sins. I've stopped a class before and said, look if our sins are gone in God's eyes, they are gone. Period. If He looks at us and doesn't see "our" sin, then there's nothing there. What we perceive as reality doesn't make something real.
Scripture tells us a lot of stuff that doesn't match what we see or feel. We are born again. Our sins are as far from us as the east is from the west. He cleanses us of unrighteousness. This is His body, take and eat. His kingdom is at hand. The church is His body.
I wish I saw those things more clearly than I see "reality".
Amen. I just said that very same thing. Pretty obvious, isn't it?
Metaphors and echos of Yah'shua in those verses. Amain !
The Holy Eucharist is both.
Being symbolic doesn't equate to not being important or not being holy. In 1 Corinthians Paul was addressing HOW and in what circumstances early Christians were partaking of this important ceremony.
1Co 11:20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.
1Co 11:21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
1Co 11:22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.
In 1 Corinthians 1:27 Paul was pointing out that there was a holy purpose and meaning to the bread and wine and that by not understanding it's purpose and meaning, as the Corinthians clearly didn't, they were defiling Passover and it's meaning. He wasn't making a theological statement about the whether or not the bread was really Christ's body.
It was a ‘hard saying’. I believe in the real Presence. One either has that faith or not.
A baby feeds off its mother’s body. In the same sense Jesus nourishes believers as part of the Body of Christ.
I understand your point of view.
I don’t think some of our interlocutors are capable or desirous of discussing differences without showing disrespect. I don’t think they know or want to know about the kind of argument in which both sides lose to the truth. And seem neither to know or to care to know about the politeness and gentleness with which deeply held beliefs must be discussed if understanding is to be possible.
Mocking of the Holy Spirit is not your average "CRIME"...
It could be said that it is UNforgivable..
So then transubstantiation is a grave error COSTING salvation..
NOT accomplishing it.. Maybe, anti-salvatory...
Even athetists don't make THAT ERROR(probably)(most of them)..
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