Why Did You Choose “Catholic? (Why do adults become Catholics?)

CE.com ^ | January 27th, 2012 | George Weigel

[Salvation]

Why Did You Choose “Catholic?”

January 27th, 2012 by George Weigel

Why do adults become Catholics?

There are as many reasons for “converting” as there are converts. Evelyn Waugh became a Catholic with, by his own admission, “little emotion but clear conviction”: this was the truth; one ought to adhere to it. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote that his journey into the Catholic Church began when, as an unbelieving Harvard undergraduate detached from his family’s staunch Presbyterianism, he noticed a leaf shimmering with raindrops while taking a walk along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass.; such beauty could not be accidental, he thought—there must be a Creator. Thomas Merton found Catholicism aesthetically, as well as intellectually, attractive: once the former Columbia free-thinker and dabbler in communism and Hinduism found his way into a Trappist monastery and became a priest, he explained the Mass to his unconverted friend, poet Robert Lax, by analogy to a ballet. Until his death in 2007, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger insisted that his conversion to Catholicism was not a rejection of, but a fulfillment of, the Judaism into which he was born; the cardinal could often be found at Holocaust memorial services reciting the names of the martyrs, including “Gisèle Lustiger, ma maman” (“my mother”).

Two of the great nineteenth-century converts were geniuses of the English language: theologian John Henry Newman and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. This tradition of literary converts continued in the twentieth century, and included Waugh, Graham Greene, Edith Sitwell, Ronald Knox, and Walker Percy. Their heritage lives today at Our Savior’s Church on Park Avenue in New York, where convert author, wit, raconteur and amateur pugilist George William Rutler presides as pastor.

In early American Catholicism, the fifth archbishop of Baltimore (and de facto primate of the United States), Samuel Eccleston, was a convert from Anglicanism, as was the first native-born American saint and the precursor of the Catholic school system, Elizabeth Ann Seton. Mother Seton’s portrait in the offices of the archbishop of New York is somewhat incongruous, as the young widow Seton, with her children, was run out of New York by her unforgiving Anglican in-laws when she became a Catholic. On his deathbed, another great nineteenth-century convert, Henry Edward Manning of England, who might have become the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury but became the Catholic archbishop of Westminster instead, took his long-deceased wife’s prayer book from beneath his pillow and gave it to a friend, saying that it had been his spiritual inspiration throughout his life.

If there is a thread running through these diverse personalities, it may be this: that men and women of intellect, culture and accomplishment have found in Catholicism what Blessed John Paul II called the “symphony of truth.” That rich and complex symphony, and the harmonies it offers, is an attractive, compelling and persuasive alternative to the fragmentation of modern and post-modern intellectual and cultural life, where little fits together and much is cacophony. Catholicism, however, is not an accidental assembly of random truth-claims; the creed is not an arbitrary catalogue of propositions and neither is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It all fits together, and in proposing that symphonic harmony, Catholicism helps fit all the aspects of our lives together, as it orders our loves and loyalties in the right direction.

You don’t have to be an intellectual to appreciate this “symphony of truth,” however. For Catholicism is, first of all, an encounter with a person, Jesus Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And to meet that person is to meet the truth that makes all the other truths of our lives make sense. Indeed, the embrace of Catholic truth in full, as lives like Blessed John Henry Newman’s demonstrate, opens one up to the broadest possible range of intellectual encounters.

Viewed from outside, Catholicism can seem closed and unwelcoming. As Evelyn Waugh noted, though, it all seems so much more spacious and open from the inside. The Gothic, with its soaring vaults and buttresses and its luminous stained glass, is not a classic Catholic architectural form by accident. The full beauty of the light, however, washes over you when you come in.

 

George Weigel is author of the bestselling books The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of the Church and Letters to a Young Catholic.

This column has been made available to Catholic Exchange courtesy of the Denver Catholic Register.

 

[ADSUM]

I firmly believe that the Holy Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. This is a teaching of the Church.

The Real Presence

---

The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts that in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, soul and divinity—under the appearances of bread and wine. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists frequently attack this doctrine as “unbiblical,” but the Bible is forthright in declaring it (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29; and, most forcefully, John 6:32–71).

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-real-presence

Irenaeus

“If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?” (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

[johngrace]

? "63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life."

There are two meanings to flesh in this part of scripture. Flesh equals Human. As in Human thinking not Spiritual thinking which is Above Human. God's way not Human way.

Ver. 64. The flesh profiteth nothing. Dead flesh, separated from the spirit, in the gross manner they supposed they were to eat his flesh, would profit nothing. Neither doth man's flesh, that is to say, man's natural and carnal apprehension, (which refuses to be subject to the spirit, and words of Christ) profit any thing.

But it would be the height of blasphemy, to say the living flesh of Christ (which we receive in the blessed sacrament, with his spirit, that is, with his soul and divinity) profiteth nothing. For if Christ's flesh had profited us nothing, he would never have taken flesh for us, nor died in the flesh for us. --- Are spirit and life. By proposing to you a heavenly sacrament, in which you shall receive, in a wonderful manner, spirit, grace and life. These words sufficiently correct the gross and carnal imagination of these Capharnaites, that he meant to give them his body and blood to eat in a visible and bloody manner, as flesh, says St. Augustine, is sold in the market, and in the shambles;[3] but they do not imply a figurative or metaphorical presence only.

The manner of Christ's presence is spiritual and under the outward appearances of bread and wine; but yet he is there truly and really present, by a change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of his body and blood, which truly and really become our spiritual food, and are truly and really received in the holy sacrament.

--- The flesh[4] of itself profiteth nothing, not even the flesh of our Saviour Christ, were it not united to the divine person of Christ. But we must take care how we understand these words spoken by our Saviour: for it is certain, says St. Augustine, that the word made flesh, is the cause of all our happiness. (Witham) --- When I promise you life if you eat my flesh, I do not wish you to understand this of that gross and carnal manner, of cutting my members in pieces: such ideas are far from my mind: the flesh profiteth nothing. In the Scriptures, the word flesh is often put for the carnal manner of understanding any thing.

If you wish to enter into the spirit of my words, raise your hearts to a more elevated and spiritual way of understanding them. (Calmet) --- The reader may consult Des Mahis, p. 165, a convert from Protestantism, and who has proved the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist in the most satisfactory manner, from the written word. Where he shows that Jesus Christ, speaking of his own body, never says the flesh, but my flesh: the former mode of expression is used to signify, as we have observed above, a carnal manner of understanding any thing.

From Haydock's commentary

[anglian]

26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

26:29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.

[mdmathis6]

What you don’t get is the fact that when you say “I do get it...” you have in fact missed it! You cannot say like the Apostle Paul did towards the end of his life..”I have run the race, I have fought the good fight...” That is what you are claiming! In all of your postings, you come across as a smug, “I have all the answers and you don’t for i have ascended into the Catholic third heaven, whether in body or in the spirit, who knows, hearing words not lawful for men to hear” kind of fellow.

That’s what I mean when I say, you have missed it all completely! Then again, give some folks a posting pseudonym and and permission not to have to post under their real names and any sort of behaviour can become possible.

I have had respectful disagreements with other Catholics, and some do feel they have to operate under aliases, i get that...but I oppose bullying and belittling. If you are so “righteous and up on the “truth” as you put it, then you’ll sign your real name to your postings and not hide from the “consequences of “fighting for the truth” as you put it!

Paul didn’t go to Mars hill and sign off as “Blindedbythe Light #777” when he preached to the Greeks after all...he put his whole person and reputation into it!

I’m also mindful of the fact or “truth” that for centuries the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Roman Catholic churches were the two pillars from which Christianity was spread into the world and were indeed the only “light” of the world thru 14 centuries or so. Tares grow with wheat and by the 15th century the tares were choaking out the “truth” in the Catholic and Orthodox churches in such a way that the work of Christ on Earth was threatened hence the Reformation. God planted new off shoots so that the light of Christ could continue to be preached in the whole world. That is also “truth”...sorry you can’t handle that aspect of the truth...which is that the true church is the whole body of Spirit filled believers everywhere, across time and dimension.

I’d consider becoming Catholic, should there ever be such a revival that the Catholic Chruch gets close to what it was in the earliest of its history...even getting back to 325ad practises would be a tremendous improvement!

[verga]

Let me repeat this..."Words actually mean things." Like God's Word? Meaning what He says and saying what He means? Like not adding to or taking from His Word? (I know your response will be 'but that's the Book of Revelation, not the entire Bible'), to which I will respond 'Well, the RCC has added to and taken from God's Word for what, 2000 years now? And just what kind of eutopian paradise kingdom have you all restored for Christ to return to? Read Rev. 17 to see a preview of adding to or taking from God's Word.

Yes, words DO actually mean things. Corrupt and deceitful words yield corruption and deceit. Those words aren't found in the Bible. They are found in the RCC doctrines and Catholic Catechism though. Just one reading of the Bible and comparison with the Catholic Church teachings will prove that beyond question.

Nice try at reading my mind, sadly you have no clue where the conversation is going. Grunthor made the statement that all he needed was Jesus. I pointed out that his church had added to Jesus, in the form of Bibles, hymnals, etc.. So if you all want to accuse us of something (adding to the word of God) then you had better be aware that you have added to it as well. We just added more and better things.

[verga]

The fundamental truth of sola scriptura is the sufficiency of scripture.

Catholics believe that the Bible is Materially sufficient while protestants are under the mistaken impression that it is formally sufficient. there is a huge difference there. Try and find out exactly what you are arguing against.

[dsc]

“Sufficiency does not mean barely enough”

So you say. In practice, however, the very core of sola scriptura is, “This is enough, in my human judgment. I reject everything more.”

“Everything I need for life and godliness has already been given to me”

Really? I call that pretty bold talk from somebody who falls short just like the rest of us.

But there again you’re saying, “I can get by on $400 a week, so God can take his $10 million a week and keep it.”

God isn’t stingy. He doesn’t want you to refuse all but one part of the blessings He offers.

“... through the knowledge of Him ... which knowledge is contained in the scriptures ... in this nothing is lacking, ...”

I’m not sure, but you seem to be stringing together quotations from something to make them seem to mean something they don’t. The first phrase is found in 2 Peter 1:3. The others are in neither the Douay-Rheims nor the King James.

Sola scriptura is supported nowhere in any valid version of the Bible.

“that is very far from “barely enough.”

Compared to what God offers it’s eking out salvation on a shoestring. It’s tightrope walking after refusing a safety net. It’s pride.

“How’s that?”

Do you suppose that everything Jesus ever said, ever taught, is recorded in the Bible? Have you checked to see just how much of His speech is in there? At the last supper, for instance, He said nothing of import that isn’t reported in the Gospels? Really?

Things are passed down by word of mouth. Things are made clear by the Holy Spirit, Our Lord, Our Lady, and the saints. Protestants accept about 2% of what there is to know about Christianity.

“If you need more than what is contained in the scriptures, that is a slap in His face.”

Buncombe. We all fall short, and therefore need every blessing that God dispenses. Further, if God wishes to bless us, who are you to say you don’t need what He offers?

“What specifically is it that He wants me to have that is not in the scriptures?”

There is a scriptural basis for everything Catholic that you reject. It is only a tendentious and self-serving reading of the scriptures that allows people to think otherwise.

One of the most important things He wants you to have is access to 2,000 years of the intellectual work product of the brightest, holiest men that the world has produced. You might start by chipping away at the surface of that.

As G. K. Chesterton wrote, “There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences; and especially nearly all errors. The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them.”

There is absolutely no way that any single human being could develop, in a single lifetime, one one-millionth of the understanding that is to be found in Catholic writings.

[dsc]

“Try and find out exactly what you are arguing against.”

I’m just too tired to respond to that in any other way than a resounding “kiss my butt.”

I know precisely what these protestants are arguing about sufficiency.

[rwilson99]

If you don’t question the Septuagint... you might be a Catholic... as most of your Protestant brothers discount the inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books in the OT.

I applaud your understanding of John 1, I hope and pray it extends to John 6 as well.

[johngrace]

It comes from the wine which is from the fruit of the vine. Just like the blood blessed from wine, the fruit is still from the fruit of the vine(Original source). The original source is the fruit of the vine.

Haydock's commentary: "Though the Sacramental cup might also be called the fruit of the vine, because it was consecrated from wine, and retains the likeness, and all the accidents, or qualities, of wine."

MATTHEW 26:

26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the[b] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

HAYDOCK"S WHOLE COMMENTARY ON THIS VERSE:

Ver. 29. I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine. In St. Luke, (xxii. 15, 16,) Christ said to his disciples; I earnestly desired to eat this Pasch with you before I suffer; (or this paschal sacrifice) for I say to you, that, from this time I will not eat thereof, till it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. These expressions seem to import no more, than that it was the last time he would eat and drink with them in a mortal body. And if, as some expound it, Christ, by the generation of the vine, understood the consecrated cup of his blood, he might call it wine, or the fruit of the vine; because he gave them his blood under the appearance of wine; as St. Paul calls the body of Christ bread, because given under the appearance of bread. (1 Corinthians xi. 26.) (Witham) --- Fruit of the vine.

These words, by the account of St. Luke, (xxii. 18,) were not spoken of the sacramental cup, but of the wine that was drunk with the paschal lamb. Though the Sacramental cup might also be called the fruit of the vine, because it was consecrated from wine, and retains the likeness, and all the accidents, or qualities, of wine. (Challoner) ---

As St. Paul calleth the body of Christ bread, so the blood of Christ may still be called wine, for three reasons:

1. Because it was so before; as in Genesis xi.[ii.?] 23, Eve is called Adam's bone; in Exodus vii, Aaron's rod devoured their rods, whereas they were not now rods but serpents; and in John ii, He tasted the water made wine, whereas it was now wine not water.

2. Because the blessed Eucharist retaineth the forms of bread and wine, and things in Scripture are frequently called from their appearance; as Tobias v, the archangel Raphael, is called a young man; and Genesis xviii, three men appeared to Abraham; whereas they were three angels.

3. Because Jesus Christ in the blessed Sacrament is the true bread of life, refreshing us in soul and body to everlasting life. (Bristow) --- Drink it new, after a different manner most wonderful and hitherto unheard of, not having a passible body, but one clothed with immortality; and henceforth no longer in need of nourishment.

Thus he brings to their minds the idea of his resurrection, to strengthen them under the ignominies of his passion, and eats and drinks with them, to give them a more certain proof of this grand mystery. (S. Chrysostom, hom lxxxiii.)

[Zuriel]

The RCC baptises in “the name (singular, in Matt. 28:19) of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The apostles understood that ‘name’ to be Jesus, and proceeded to baptise everyone in that name. Your a father, a son, and a husband, but that’s not your name.

An unscriptural baptism may make one a member of an organization, but, the baptism found in the book of Acts shows souls being added to the biblical church.

[johngrace]

26 *And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat: This is my body. 27 And taking the chalice he gave thanks: and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. 28 For this is my blood of the new testament which shall be shed for many, for the remission of sins.

The Institution of the Holy Sacrament.

Ver. 26. And whilst they were at supper. Jesus Christ proceeds to the institution of the blessed Eucharist, that the truth or reality may succeed to the figure in one and the same banquet; and to impress more deeply upon our minds the remembrance of so singular a favour, his last and best gift to man.

He would not institute it at the beginning of his ministry; he first prepares his disciples for the belief of it, by changing water into wine, and by the miraculous multiplication of the loaves. --- Whilst they were, &c. before they parted: for by St. Luke (xxii. 20.) and 1 Corinthians (xi. 25.) the blessed sacrament was not instituted till after supper. --- Jesus took bread, and blessed it. St. Luke and St. Paul say, he gave thanks. This blessing and giving thanks, was not the consecration itself, but went before it. See the Council of Trent, session xiii. chap. i. (Witham) --- This is my body.

He does not say, this is the figure of my body---but, this is my body. (2d Council of Nice. Act. vi.) Neither does he say in this, or with this is my body, but absolutely this is my body; which plainly implies transubstantiation.

(Challoner) --- Catholics maintain, after the express words of Scripture, and the universal tradition of the Church, that Christ in the blessed sacrament is corporally and substantially present; but not carnally; not in that gross, natural, and sensible manner, in which our separated brethren misrepresent the Catholic doctrine, as the Capharnaites did of old; (John vi. 61, 62.) who were scandalized with it. ...

If Protestants, in opposition to the primitive Fathers, deny the connection of the sixth chapter of John with the institution, it is from the fear of giving advantage to the doctrine of transubstantiation, says Dr. Clever, Protestant bishop of Bangor. --- This is my body. By these words, and his divine power, Christ changed that which before was bread into his own body; not in that visible and bloody manner as the Capharnaites imagined. (John vi.)

Yet so, that the elements of bread and wine were truly, really, and substantially changed into the substance of Christ's body and blood. Christ, whose divine power cannot be questioned, could not make use of plainer words than these set down by St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul to the Corinthians: this is my body; this is my blood: and that the bread and wine, at the words of consecration are changed into the body and blood of Christ, has been the constant doctrine and belief of the Catholic Church, in all ages, both in the east and west, both in the Greek and Latin churches; as may be seen in our controvertists, and particularly in the author of the books of the Perpetuity of the Faith.

The first and fundamental truths of the Christian faith, by which we profess to believe the mystery of the holy Trinity, i.e. one God and three divine Persons, and of the incarnation, i.e. that the true Son of God was made man, was born, suffered and died upon the cross for our salvation, are no less obscure and mysterious, no less above the reach of human capacity, than this of the real presence: nor are they more clearly expressed in the sacred text.

This change the Church hath thought proper to express by the word, transubstantiation: and it is as frivolous to reject this word, and to ask where it is found in the holy Scriptures, as to demand where we read in the Scriptures, the words, trinity, incarnation, consubstantial to the Father, &c. --- Luther fairly owned that he wanted not an inclination to deny Christ's real presence in the sacrament, by which he should vex and contradict the Pope; but this, said he, is a truth that cannot be denied:[3] The words of the gospel are too clear.

He and his followers hold, what is called impanation, or consubstantiation; i.e. that there is really present, both the substance of the bread and wine, and also the substance of Christ's body and blood. --- Zuinglius, the Sacramentarians, and Calvinists deny the real presence; and hold that the word is, (est) importeth no more, than it signifieth, or is a figure of Christ's body; as it hath been lately translated, this represents my body, in a late translation, or rather paraphrase, 1729. I shall only produce here the words and reasoning of Luther: which may deserve the attention of the later reformers. [4]"Who," saith Luther, (tom. vii. Edit. Wittemb. p. 391) "but the devil, hath granted such a license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? or, that is is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposeth upon us by these fanatical men. ... Not one of the Fathers, though so numerous, ever spoke as the Sacramentarians: not one of them ever said, It is only bread and wine; or, the body and blood of Christ is not there present. Surely it is not credible, nor possible, since they often speak, and repeat their sentiments, that they should never (if they thought so) not so much as once, say, or let slip these words: It is bread only; or the body of Christ is not there, especially it being of great importance, that men should not be deceived. Certainly in so many Fathers, and in so many writings, the negative might at least be found in one of them, had they thought the body and blood of Christ were not really present: but they are all of them unanimous." Thus far Luther; who, in another place, in his usual manner of writing, hesitates not to call the Sacramentarians, men possessed, prepossessed, and transpossessed by the devil.[5] --- My body.

In St. Luke is added, which is given for you. Granted these words, which is given, may bear this sense, which shall be given, or offered on the cross; yet as it was the true body of Christ, that was to be crucified,so it was the same true body which Christ gave to his apostles, at his last supper, though in a different manner. --- The holy Eucharist is not only a sacrament, but also a sacrifice, succeeding to all the sacrifices of the ancient law, which Christ commanded all the priests of the new law to offer up. Luther was forced to own, that divers Fathers, taught this doctrine; as Irenæus, Cyprian, Augustine: and in his answer to Henry VIII. of England: The king, says he, brings the testimonies of the Fathers, to prove the sacrifice of the mass, for my part, I care not, if a thousand Augustines, a thousand Cyprians, a thousand Churches, like that of Henry, stand against me. The Centurists of Magdeburg own the same to have been the doctrine of Cyprian, Tertullian, and also of Irenæus, in the end of the second age; and that St. Gregory of Nazianzen, in the fourth age, calls it an unbloody sacrifice; incruenti sacrificii. (Witham)

This is my body.

To shew how these words have been interpreted by the primitive Church, we shall here subjoin some few extracts from the works of some of the most eminent writers of the first five centuries.

First Century.

St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, who was a disciple and contemporary with some of the apostles, and died a martyr, at Rome, in a very advanced age, An. 107, speaking of certain heretics of those times, says: "They abstain from the Eucharist and from oblations, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins." See epis. genuin. ad Smyrnæos. --- He calls the Eucharist the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, by which we always live in Christ. --- In another part he writes: "I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and for drink, his blood." Again: "use one Eucharist; for the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ is one, and the cup is one in the unity of his blood. There is one altar, as there is one bishop with the college of the priesthood," &c.

Second Century.

St. Justin, the philosopher, in an apology for the Christians, which he addressed to the emperor and senate of Rome, about the year 150, says of the blessed Eucharist: "No one is allowed to partake of this food, but he that believes our doctrines are true, and who has been baptized in the laver of regeneration for remission of sins, and lives up to what Christ has taught. For we take not these as common bread, and common drink, but in the same manner as Jesus Christ, our Saviour, being incarnate by the word of God, hath both flesh and blood for our salvation; so we are taught that this food, by which our flesh and blood are nourished, over which thanks have been given by the prayers in his own words, is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus." Apology ii. in fin. he calls it, Panem eucharistisatum ton arton eucharistethenta, the bread blessed by giving thanks, as he blessed and miraculously multiplied the loaves, eulogesen autous.

Third Century.

St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who suffered martyrdom in 258, says: "the bread which our Lord delivered to his disciples, was changed not in appearance, but in nature, being made flesh by the Almighty power of the divine word."

Fourth Century.

St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, who was born in the commencement of the 4th century, and died in 386, explaining the mystery of the blessed Eucharist to the newly baptized, says: "Do not look upon the bread and wine as bare and common elements, for they are the body and blood of Christ; as our Lord assures us. Although thy senses suggest this to thee, let faith make thee firm and sure. Judge not of the thing by the taste, but be certain from faith that thou has been honoured with the gift of Christ's body and blood. When he has pronounced and said of the bread, this is my body, who will after this dare to doubt? And when he has assured, and said, this is my blood, who can ever hesitate, saying it in not his blood? He changed water into wine at Cana; and shall we not him worthy of our belief, when he changed wine into blood?

Wherefore, let us receive them with an entire belief, as Christ's body and blood; for under the figure of bread, is given to thee his body, and under the figure of wine, his blood; that when thou hast received Christ's body and blood, thou be made one body and blood with him; for so we carry him about in us, his body and blood being distributed through our bodies." (St. Cyril, catech.) --- St. Ambrose, one of the greatest doctors of the Latin Church, and bishop of Milan, who died in 396, proving that the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, is really possible to God, and really takes place in the blessed Eucharist, uses these words: "Will not the words of Christ have power enough to change the species of the elements? Shall not the words of Christ, which could make out of nothing things which did not exist, be able to change that, which already exists, into what it was not? It is not a less exertion of power to give a new nature to things, than to change their natures. Let us propose examples from himself and assert the truth of this mystery from the incarnation.

Was it according to the course of nature, that our Lord Jesus Christ should be born of the Virgin Mary? It is evident that it was contrary to the course of nature for a virgin to bring forth. Now this body, which we produce, was born of the virgin. Who dost thou seek for the order of nature in the body of Christ, when our Lord Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. (St. Ambrose, lib. de initiandis, chap. ix.)

Fifth Century.

St. Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, who died in 407, does not speak less clearly on this subject. "He," (i.e. Jesus Christ,) says the holy doctor, hom. l. in Matt. "has given us himself to eat, and has set himself in the place of a victim sacrificed for us." And in hom. lxxxiii.: "How many now say they could wish to see his form, his garments, &c.; you wish to see his garments, but he gives you himself not only to be seen, but to be touched, to be eaten, to be received within you. Than what beam of the sun ought not that hand to be purer, which divides this flesh! That mouth, which is filled with this spiritual fire! That tongue, which is purpled with this adorable blood!

The angels beholding it tremble, and dare not look thereon through awe and fear, on account of the rays, which dart from that, wherewith we are nourished, with which we are mingled, being made one body, one flesh with Christ. What shepherd ever fed his sheep with his own limbs? Nay, many mothers turn over their children to mercenary nurses; whereas he feeds us with his own blood!" --- On another occasion, to inspire us with a dread of profaning the sacred body of Christ, he says: "When you see Him exposed before you, say to yourself: this body was pierced with nails; this body which was scourged, death did not destroy; this body was nailed to a cross, at which spectacle the sun withdrew his rays; this body the Magi venerated."

--- "There is as much difference between the loaves of proposition and the body of Christ, as between a shadow and a body, between a picture and the reality." Thus St. Jerome upon the epistle to Titus, chap. i. See more authorities in the notes on St. Mark's Gospel, chap. xiv, ver. 22, on the real presence, and also in the following verses and alibi passim.

Ver. 27. Drink ye all of this. This was spoken to the twelve apostles; who were the all then present; and they all drank of it, says Mark xiv. 23. But it no ways follows from these words spoken to the apostles, that all the faithful are here commanded to drink of the chalice, any more than that all the faithful are commanded to consecrate, offer and administer this sacrament; because Christ upon this same occasion, and as I may say, with the same breath, bid the apostles do so, in these words, (St. Luke xxii. 19,) Do this for a commemoration of me. (Challoner) --- It is a point of discipline, which the Church for good reasons may allow, or disallow to the laity, without any injury done to the receiver, who according to the Catholic doctrine of the real presence, is made partaker of the same benefit under one kind only; he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John vi.)

... When our adversaries object to us, in opposition to the very clear and precise proofs we produce from the primitive writers of the doctrine of the real presence, that is called sometimes bread, a figure, a sign; we reply, that they can only mean that the outward forms of bread and wine, which remain after consecration, are a figure, a sign, a commemoration. They nowhere teach that the consecrated species are barely figures or signs, and nothing more. On the contrary, with St. Cyril above quoted, they say: "Let your soul rejoice in the Lord, being persuaded of it, as a thing most certain, that the bread, which appears to our eyes, in not bread, though our taste do judge it to be so, but the body of Christ: and that the wine which appears to our eyes, is not wine, but the blood of Christ" (Myst. catech. 4, p. 528); and with St. Gregory of Nyssa, born in 331, "the bread, which at the beginning was common bread, after it has been consecrated by the mysterious word, is called, and is become, the body of Christ."

And with St. Paulinus, in the same age, "the flesh of Christ, with which I am nourished, is the same flesh as that fastened to the cross; and the blood, with which my heart is purified, is the same blood that was spilt upon the cross."

Ver. 28. This is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins. The Greek text in St. Luke shews that the words shall be shed, or is shed, cannot, in construction, be referred to the blood of Christ shed on the cross, but to the cup, at the institution of the holy sacrament.

This cup (says Luke xxii. 20,) is the New Testament in my blood; which cup[6] shall be shed, or is shed for you. St. Paul also saith: this cup is the New Testament in my blood. And if any one will needs insist upon the words, as related by St. Matthew and St. Mark, the sense is still the same; viz. that this cup was not wine, but the blood of Christ, by which the New Testament was confirmed, or alliance betwixt God and man. --- For many. St. Luke and St. Paul, instead of many, say for you. Both are joined in the canon of the mass.

Euthymius says, for many, is the same as for all mankind. This new alliance was made with all, and the former with the Jews only. (Witham) --- As the Old Testament was dedicated with blood in these words: This is the blood of the Testament, (Hebrews ix. 20,) so here is the institution of the New Testament, in Christ's blood, by these words: This is the blood of the New Testament, which God contracts with you, to communicate to you his grace and justice, by the merits of this blood, which shall be shed for you on the cross; and which is here mystically shed for many, for the remission of sins: for the Greek is in the present tense in all the three evangelists, and in St. Paul, 1 Corinthians xi, and the Latin Vulgate of St. Luke, xxii. 19. Hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis datur: didomenon, klomenon ekchunomenon.

FROM HAYDOCK COMMENTARY , ____

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Thank you for the wonderful Scripture, A-G. It sustains and renews us.

[johngrace]

"in the name of Jesus Christ"

Jesus is the Same name which is The Name Of The Father and Son and THE Holy Spirit.

The Church knows before God it is Jesus. So Does God. Because it is the Name that has us know the triune God. So it is more formal. So what. Do you limit that God does not understand it. LOL!!

It is like using a German, Spanish and Russian name of Jesus. He knows what it means which is his son Jesus. Stop limiting God.

MATTHEW 28:

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

[Grunthor]

I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[Grunthor]

So everyone that was baptized a Catholic is a Catholic no matter what?

[Alamo-Girl]

You are in the best of "hands:"

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. - I John 2:27

Thank you for sharing your testimony and concerns, dear Just mythoughts!

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed. Thank you for sharing your testimony, dear mdmathis6!

[lastchance]

How would you explain such to a person who did not have even a Pagan understanding of faith? You are faced with someone who is convinced that radical Atheism has the best answers to explain the world. How do you get them to listen to you and at least consider that the Bible is inspired? How do you introduce them to Christ?

They have no common language of faith so how do you reach them?

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, it does. Praise God!!!