But I did not call you "stupid" or "a liar", although you accused me of that (being a liar) and myself being stupid or ignorant enough to need a lecture, from "catechism for beginners" and the like. I can easily enough find that sort of thing on my own.
In the note (private message) you called me a liar (while complaining I did the same to you). Now you drag that accusation here. What is up with that? Are there two sets of rules? One for me, another for you? Or is it more there wiggle room based on technicalities? Uh-huh. right. The technicalities and conditional exemptions are a two-way street also.
I told no lies. The RCC has in fact long taught "do penance" as in "acts of contrition", etc. And in past times, self-flagellation has been practiced, although I did not say that is was "taught". So -- no lies there. You falsely accused me, while telling me that "Satan was the father of lies" etc. I truly do resent the evident double -standard.
I did say another gave me an honest answer, while you were seeming to duck the issue (concerning what changed and what didn't as to the "species" of the bread and wine, during or after "transubstantiation") giving me instead reams of "instruction" which I did not ask for, nor either need. Since I was myself quoting from official RCC source --- why in the world would you think more of the same would answer the question --- which was NOT "what does the RCC teach" or say about it. Duh.
Yes, as I made mention of "body" in my own last reply to you, it should be obvious that I saw what it was about, without having to again be instructed or corrected --- rather than any questions answered.
In my own previous comment to you here, there was a question from me explicitly mentioning "body". That was opportunity for you to provide simple confirmation, to which you may have then given more narrow application from a wider discussion (instead of sending me back in a string of comments to sift it out for myself, then needing to guess about it, all while FR was acting up and not allowing me full access to threads. Only a few comments were appearing) but I got snooty sounding snark, run-around, mis-direction, "it's all my fault for asking" type of answer instead.
The rest of my own previous comment can be seen to revolve around application of the term "body". How was that context meant to apply, to that note of correction to metmom, that she missed a usage? Was there some deliberate act of ill-will or intent on her part? It came across to me that you were alluding that there was.
Unless there has been further commentary after this reply to which I send reply, you still don't state any point plainly, in regards to that one particular comment which you addressed to metmon. What I see now addressed to me, comes across as a bunch of self-justifying blather. I'm not interested in those portions.
Just what was the reason for pointing out metmon missed a usage? Was that a "gotcha" moment or something?
Again, all I said was that I did receive an honest answer from another. If it is then assumed Iwas calling anyone "a liar", well, that's not my doing. But my mention of another having supplied direct honest answer, was in comparison to the dodgy/lecturing combo I was getting from you in place of direct answer. As far as "stupid" I didn't say that or call you that either --- but if there was anything like an "equivalent", you yourself told me you were unqualified to enter into the discussion, mixing in at that point, mention of various Latin usages and the like, --- when my own comments were quoting from official Vatican source, English language version proceeding from Council of Trent, with all of this concerning the description of "transubstantiation".
All of which left me to consider, either --- the answers I received previous to the private message (which had a sentence or two buried within a plethora of commentary, your own and from another, the latter which touched upon the issue briefly) were a form of a dodge --- or you possibly didn't understand the question. In that lengthy private message, much as your previous comments on that thread, it was scarcely addressed at all (not at all by your own self, in your own words) though in the private note, touched upon briefly (before discussion of it in that text backed off like some self-scalded dog from mentioning it any further) in the large block of material you quoted from, having sent that my way.
Metmom seems to have understood what I was saying in the comment to which you here reply. She didn't seem to think I was far afield from "context". Because, I wasn't.
So spare me the sermons, along with the lectures 'from on high', which include around their margins clearly implied message of what a bad person I am (forms of accusation) given while complaining about being accused yourself, all while also giving me the "do unto others" sermon. It's just too much to take...
Re-read that once again? It was more insulting to me in private, with less rational justification for being so than anything I sent to you in public. Would you care for me to go over in detail and show you what I mean? I already wrote a reply -- but where to send it? Back to you? I could post the whole "private message" pile on that other thread...would that make you happy? It would have been better to have sent it openly...but what? That couldn't have been done, because of the "personal" nature of it, including comparing me to devil himself? Is that it?
Yes, your private note there did concern itself much about my so-called tactics. Evils I was not in actuality fully guilty of (things were stretched to make the accusations fit) coupled with much self-justification on your own part for whatever you say and do, along with information containing *some* partial answer, presented to me in lecture/instructional format like I was some raw RCIA prospect. I am not one of those. I already know the Lord, and am not now requiring some additional hand-held introduction to Him. Instead, I was asking a question concerning how; due to changing understanding of word definition & usage, conditions can lead to ill-defined conceptual understandings of just what is being said to transpire in regards to transubstantiation.
That the question makes many uncomfortable, is not my problem -- or yours either really, since neither of us created or wrote the words to describe the transformational process.
You sent me long note concerning what I was doing wrong in my own reactions to what I saw as avoidance of the question, but all that too, revolving around, was connected to and had arisen from this particular issue -- of "the body".
There is much talk about it, but scarcely much of it, frankly to the point (when the going gets difficult). Everything else in the world seems spoken of instead, when the questioning becomes too specific, and the "control" of the language otherwise used in RCC description, is not simply meekly submitted to. Anything and everything but direct answer then is supplied... Like discussion of -- what a bad guy I am.
However, I can make a more generalized statement to you here in this thread.
Huh? You brought up what you accused me of in the private note, TWICE in the same comment to which I am replying on this thread. I did not drag those precise elements here. You did. If in answer to my own mention of the note, then since select portions are now more fully here, should not I be allowed to address what you bring concerning it, here? Or, am I to now have my hands tied behind my back, while you bring out the same accusation twice over again? No, I get to discuss it too, just as you have. And while we are at it, just as you brought element from there which I did not, then doesn't that open the door for yet more of the same? Or is it here too, that two sets of "rules" must be applied?
If you only knew how far off the mark most of what you said to me (in that private note) was and is. Additionally, in a sense (slim as the rational may be) I am not dragging a discussion from "another thread" here, in that those comments were not made by you openly "on another thread", but instead, by "private message" which I would have addressed (and possibly dismembered publicly) if it had been made publicly.
As to issue you may have thought "cute" to there raise;
How many dead have you raised? How many has the pope raised (any pope)? Have you any idea of what is involved in that? Have you ever encountered the power & might that can not only do that work, but is intent upon it? I have. At a funeral home! Almost thirty years ago.
You told me --- what? From memory of that note; Go to a funeral home, try to raise the dead, then after failing, go back home and in humility and read the scripture passage which states clearly for us all, that my thoughts are not as God's thoughts, that His are high above my own? Do you think I do not know that passage...or have never considered it in the context in which you there put it? I am many long years ahead of you, in this regard, and eventually that power of Revival may yet visit me again, possibly arise from within me, for I do have the Spirit upon me, to preach the gospel to the poor. If so --- and Revival arises, then I do hope and intend upon not being as shy as I was before, for I was quite overwhelmed by the suddenness of the Spirit and what I perceived as it's potential, and not just a little frightened too, by the suddenness of the presence, the perceived business or intent of the Spirit in that tome and place, along with the raw power. I can not describe it, there are no words for it.
Taken suddenly by the awareness of the presence, and the seeming intent, I admit I immediately had slipped into "doubt" mode, thinking things like "she has had an autopsy! she's already been embalmed!" and..."she had been in serious pain for years previous to her death -- what if it just brings her back to that state?"
Additionally, since I was less than sure of what was going on then, than I have been better able to determine or at least make some educated guesses towards later (I'm still working on it--- looking for Him to show me, for I do know the human mind ain't never going to "figure out" God and His ways) I didn't consider myself at all qualified to be taking part in something so serious as raising someone back to life, in this realm, just because I sensed the presence (and very powerfully so -- no mistake here --- and certainly not just my imagination-- I'm not that powerful, or 'smart' either). So instead, while gazing upon her wizened visage, as she lay there in her casket during our church service for her there in the mortuary, with many from the church we were all members of gathering there for that reason, I put a finger to my lips as if to silently say to her "shssh. just let this be our secret". What a cowardly cop-out, huh? What would you have done, if discerning that the same Spirit which had been sensed previously, quite powerfully, the first time as "death and doom" for a man (who did die, just as I warned him of) sensed again as suddenly and as powerfully as the first encounter, all without any warning, entirely unexpectedly "sensed", but this time with opposite intent? I could barely wrap my mind around the first go-round. Then this second occurrence, going fully the other direction? All I knew at the time, is this was a powerful spiritual presence with a resolute determination which was frightening to me. I mean...who has contemporary to our own times, working knowledge and prior direct experience with such powers of Spirit? Though I was around twenty years old at the time, I had not been raised "in the church" so to speak, and had been baptized only a year or so previously. What to "do" with these powerful forces, how to respond? I am no expert --- but now, with having learned *some* other about the realm of Spirit, I do "have a clue", at least to what the Spirit when after that cause (Revival, possibly Resurrection) "feels" like. Do you?
Before she died, this woman had prophesied to me that I would pay for her funeral --- all by myself. At the time she said that --- it made no sense to me whatsoever, for reasons too numerous to fully cover here. But it did come to pass, almost twenty years after the fact, just as she had told me that God had shown her.
A month or two before she died, she pointed to me, picking me out from among a group of people, saying "you. God has revealed something about you to me. Come here I want totalk to you." Being as was such a noob,and I knew she really did know things of Spirit, I gulped, even dreading hearing about something "revealed" about myself.
I was nobody special to her. There were many other people there,soome who knew her quite well,and a few of them loving her very much. She was quite the character.
I don't think she even knew my name, nor had we spoken directly to one another but only briefly a few times, for previous to this she had been very ill for a year or so, and rarely left her room much due to the unrelenting pain she was experiencing. I was told that her autopsy showed her to have had gallstones the size of grapefruit. Ouch.
Otherwise, getting back to her prophesy, I was just one member out of more than a hundred members at the time (and one of the most junior and insignificant of members) of a ministry that she had much been part founder of, as co-founder of sorts, with her husband. Also, a minister whom they had ordained some years previously, was the one who baptized me, interestingly enough myself at that moment receiving baptism of the Holy Ghost also. I didn't quite expect that part, and was thinking that would likely come later, after I had done a more thorough housekeeping/repentance (and was able to stick to it, proving my own worthiness --- which of course is impossible to do).
Receiving the Holy Spirit at baptism is not the only way the Spirit can be bestowed upon a person of course, but it is one way. I have heard testimony of others that the same had occurred with themselves. But here I digress again...sorry.
Almost twenty years later, at the urging, or should I say by the revelation from God that he wanted that funeral bill paid, did that prophesy of Rachel's to me come true, though I had forgotten her having said it, with that not coming back to mind until some time (perhaps a week or a few? possibly a month) after I had paid the fees.
It came about like this; one morning upon awakening, but before I had opened my eyes, God came on real strong, showing me how he felt about it (for I was not given words) but instead was allowed to sense some significant anger He had about it, and that He wanted the bill payed. He did not order me to do it. But He did show me very clearly how He felt about...or perhaps I should say...He showed me what He wanted me to know about how He "felt" and thought about it? With Him, there is always more, and He does seem to reveal only that which He chooses to, to whom, when and where suits Himself. Your own mileage may vary. It could be more along the lines of "happy, happy, happy", and still be Him. With the corollary being also, that just because a thing is not "happy" or joyful, or lovingly hopeful soundingto our own understandings, does not mean that what was conveyed was not from Him. I add this for reason that each time I have shared the type of information which I just have --- someone always comes along and says to me something like "that can't be God. God is Love. That proves you don't know God at all" etc.
The heat of it, what He revealed to me, my own perceiving them to be as His thought and emotion too, was enough for me to expend something like three-fourths of all the money I had at the time, putting it into the funeral director's hand later that same day, cash money. Arising from bed, I knew what I was going to be doing that day, at least in part.
I owned but little else at the time. Some clothes. An old pick-up truck. A motorcycle (nothing fancy or pricey). A few tools. A few hunting rifles, only one of them worth more than about $200 (I might get $350 for that one, if I was lucky) No real estate. No savings account. No stocks or bonds. A sleeping bag and a tent. A few fishing poles and some large ice-chests. Odds and ends of junk in storage. I was grateful the bill was in 1981 pricing. If it had been 2001 pricing, I probably wouldn't have been able to manage it, even if I had sold everything I could...
I do not think it wise to do as you suggested in your private message for me to do... to go into a funeral home and "try" to raise the dead there... but will instead, if the Spirit comes again or rises to my discernment, even if just sensing as a wisp of a vapor, I do think I should sing out, pray pray pray even if needing be still standing in place, say something, agree with the intent even if very faint, and urge the Lord, even beg Him -- anything I have to say or do, and the dead will quite possibly come back to life, if the Spirit follows through on the [latent] intent which I was given ability to discern that day, these almost thirty years ago now.
Why me and not some other possible even arguably "more suitable" vessel? I have no single idea, but more like a grab-bag, and none of them because I'm just so darned "spectacular" or smart or deserving, or "super-duper spiritual" or any horse-feather self-image idea like that. Leaving this to be not because of my own self, but for His own reasons, all of them together only understandable by His own singular self, for we do not see the biggest picture such as He does, having within Himself knowledge of all things from the beginnings to the ends of them...
But it's not over.... I've already had a dead bird come back to life, right in my hands, as answer to prayer, not a prayer thought spoken or prayed at that precise moment, but a short time previously. The prayer was along lines of; "God...was what you gave me recently, in relation to and in regards to the power of Revival which I encountered at Rachel's casket-side?" (many years previous). The prayer was answered in detail.
I had prayed also "if this be so, then let me come upon a small animal freshly dead..." to see if this power of Revival was within or somehow available to myself, asking also for Him to blind my memory at that time of encountering said "small animal, or bird" for having prayed this prayer, so I wouldn't be consumed with doubt, or some form of performance anxiety, thinking what is more normally an impossibility be all reliant upon myself singularly, and for Him to use my own natural inclinations, moving upon me to approach and move or remove the animal..."and have it came back to life, in my hands." Well guess what? It happened. Having the thing suddenly start flapping it's wings was very startling. At first I thought--- it must have just been stunned. That can happen with birds.
This bird wasn't just laying peacefully in the road, but instead was wings askew in a small riotous heap, one wing thrust crookedly upwards, the rest of the bird a disorganized pile in the middle of the road. It had lain there for a perhaps a couple of minutes visible in my own eyesight, before I was near to it to pick it up. I could see that it hadn't been run over yet, and thus squashed, or I wouldn't have bothered getting out of the vehicle. As soon as I saw the thing, while yet blocks away as I drove nearer and it was able to be determined for a certainty what it was (and not just some rubbish, as from a distance I had considered possibility of, even as at first sight from blocks away) had arise within myself desire to move the poor thing out of the street. I had decided I would stop adjacent to where it lay, leaving my old truck parked in the travel lane of the street, and move the bird to the curb on the side of the street which was away from or opposite residential frontage. That side backed a commercial area, with there being a fence set back from the curb some 5 to 8 feet, leaving a dirt walking path on that side of the street. It was there I thought I would place the bird, to let ants and other insect desiccate the carcass a bit more gracefully than being turned into messy road-pizza near the middle of the street, right in front of somebody's house...
I had prayed also, right at the end of the prayer -- "and let there be a witness!". Well, there was one. That detail too (and a bit more than spoken of here) was answered.
I had stopped near an intersection to move the bird. The "witness" was across the intersecting cross-street. Piney Way, I think it was. I was on Pacific Street. Morro Bay, California, having driven up from Main Street.
I had scooped the bird up with both hands, having also somewhat dreaded the task, being as birds can have nasty mites and/or carry disease--- I otherwise make it a practice to not touch them.
Having taken only a few steps from near the middle of the road, and still in the Westbound lane of the road, the bird suddenly sprang to life and began energetically flapping it's wings, trying to get away. For a brief period, it seemed stuck to my hands. Spreading my fingers (so as to not be unwittingly pinching feathers or a bird foot between them without noticing I was doing so, thus keeping the bird trapped even as I was wanting very much to be rid of it, as it's wings were brushing my arms and face too in all the flapping struggle) I thrust my hands upwards in attempt to toss it into the air. I had to repeat that action several times before it finally got free and flew away.
Before I had even stopped my old rusty pickup (in order to remove the bird to the side of the road) I had noticed a man whom I took to be a resident of the property on which he was standing (one the other side of the intersection) for I had seen him there at times previous. He was fooling around in the yard there near a lightly built, longitudinal wooden rail fence. I took little note of him, being as on approach from a few blocks away I was concerned more about the possibility of other traffic coming along and complicating the desired removal of the bird from the street. The truck lacked a functioning parking brake, and the location was on an incline. I would need stop the motor then let out the clutch with the truck in gear, get out, do what was needed, then get back in, go through the motions of restarting, all of which could take enough time to leave me blocking the road and obstructing traffic, both with my truck (which for whatever reason I was hesitant to pull towards the curb, part of it being time consideration, the other being there was a car already parked somewhere along there which would have made it where I would need pull to the side and ahead, then back up to park, and that I didn't want to disturb residents there with parking maneuvers being as those houses along that portion of the block had scant set-back from the street too) and my own body when I would be standing in the other lane, crossing back and forth, in effect briefly blocking all travelhad any vehicle gone up or down the street, or had turned from Piney Way or the next block to the West, which is Monterey St, if memory serves.
With those things in mind kind of all at once, I took little further notice of the man there, until after the bird had gotten free and flown from my hands, he said in an accusatory tone, "I saw that!".
Having been first very suddenly surprised by the bird coming to life as it were, and having had some momentary trouble getting it out of my hands, I was startled all over again by the man's words, but more for reason of his tone of voice. Thinking myself "accused", even feeling like I had done something wrong, I replied "it must have just been stunned". He said, again in a harsh tone, "that bird was dead! I know it was dead!"
Right then it hit me. I remembered the prayer in that instant. And he was my witness! So not so shy this time, or feeling at all guilty I had done something wrong, in similar "beyond being certain" tone and manner he had been speaking toward me, I then said forcefully to him "You are my witness". His reaction made me sort-of laugh, for he began to immediately back away, even shrink away, shaking his head "no" to the very thing he had just a few seconds previous had been speaking so harshly of with a matter-of-fact assurance that didn't just border on arrogance, but had owned it.
So do you still think it wise (as you seemingly did in your private message) to tell me I should go to a funeral home, try to raise the dead by my own power, then after failing to get'R done, crawl off home to find humiliation in scripture? No thanks, deary. For the first portion of that process, I'd rather avoid tempting God like that. For the latter, uh, well duh, like they say... but you know what? Given the history of what He has shown me in the spiritual realm, He possibly would cut me a bit of slack if I tried experimenting (with the former). How about you? Would he do the same for you, if you tried to raise the dead under your own steam, but failed?
What's that? What am I hearing...someone may be saying they wouldn't attempt it? BUT you proscribed it for me to try to do. Well alrighty then...
When you have yourself done the work (raised the dead) --- then come and tell me all about it. I'd love to hear of it. Perhaps it will happen for you some day. Don't count Him out. He's in the Revival business, in a way...He could use even you, right? I do also wonder, if we do not see more of that sort of thing, even the miraculous, for as soon as such occurs, what does human nature lead mankind to do but try to imitate or force a re-occurrence by way of "doctrine" & posturing on the one hand, while gilding the lily so to speak, on the other? Or to mistake God's grace and Goodness towards us as ratification of our own typically limited if not distorted perceptions of Him? It is possible much for these sort of reasons He does appear to hide His own hand as it were, masking His own interventions. It is for our own good (it seems to me) that He does so.
I do wonder if what was once pressed into me by God, (yet another portion of my own testimony) now years later due to my own sins and failures, have now been given over to another, since I'm presently such a failure. Even if the gift (whatever it was I received by His hand) not having been taken away from myself (due to my own failings and outright sins), I've long been wondering if my own failure to get what has been gifted to me, "into gear" or operation, so to speak, be something I may have to give answer for, as in a "why didn't you keep yourself holy enough while waiting for the time?" sort of responsibility. Or along lines of "why did you not more carefully protect and nurture that which was so powerfully thrust within yourself, even by the hand of God, for you did sense and "feel" as it were, your own soul crease or fold inwardly at that moment, sensing also God the Father on the other side of what was being thrust upon you, with it being Him who was doing the pushing" ...of whatever that was which was so suddenly without prior warning pressed into me, even into my 'soul'.
I describe that occurrence like that (in part, for there are other aspects which can be spoken of too)...for it seems to me upon later reflection, that although I have previously spoken "I was touched by the hand of God" on that day, the contact was possibly only that which was pressed into me (right into the center of my chest, is where I sensed it) with it being Him doing the pushing. Not that I am a vending machine or something, but one can drop or push a coin into such a machine without necessarily coming into bodily contact with the machine itself. Which leaves it possible He didn't exactly touch me. It was concerning that gifting I;m now talking about, which I had prayed---"does this have something to do with that power of revival, the power which I was allowed to sense was the power to raise the dead back to life, for that was the intent I encountered at Rachel's casket", although I did not step up and try to myself somehow assist or help, leaving no one that I know of raised from dead that day.
Still, there was an intent of Revival. Should I be stood at judgement for not having participated in the reviving of the dead back to life that day? That would make about as much sense as expecting a third grader to be able jump in the cab of a tractor trailer and "float" the shifts into and out of gears without grinding and banging them. Those gear boxes are not synchronized. Pushing in the clutch, actually takes some skill to be done properly and effectively in those rigs. Doing it wrong, just makes things worse, in that it makes it impossible to get it into gear. So like a third grader, though I sensed powerful movement...I just stood there, doing nothing.
If you had had these things (and much more) occur to your own self, you just might have been doing some wondering along the same lines as I have...
Do you have anything like that hanging over your head? I do. But you tell me I should go and review how His thoughts are higher than my own? Of course His are higher, powerful too. My own in comparison? bleech, not so shiny, kind-of grayish murky-like, loosely formed and difficult to keep tabs on. Not so wonderful. If a thought comes to my own head, it is immediately subject to being regarded with some internal suspicion, for I trust no man if I can avoid doing so --INCLUDING my own self! Aye-yi-yi...if you had any real idea of just who I am, and how difficult it can be to be me (internally) then you might leave off the incessant schoolmarm act, and stop trying to teach me all about stuff I already know some things about directly, by personal experience. But I'm not the only one who knows a thing or two, and is self critical, and harshly judgmental towards one's own self at the same time. That sort of thing, He did come to deliver us from I do believe, leading us to paths of greater peace, resting and refreshing from time to time, wonderfully and gently by His Spirit. We don't need to be "miracle workers". He has that part well taken care of.
What was that which Peter spoke? Silver and Gold have I not. But what I have I give to you...right? So somehow, someday, I must give it, even that which I have been myself given. Meanwhile, just abide until He returns, not neglecting consideration that He indeed shall.
Returning back to my own inward questioning concerning the powerful & miraculous things of the Lord I have been given grace to know of, to have confirmed within as being real, I do wonder if I have dawdled far too much, have made too many mistakes in the interim, and have not worked enough towards my own greater sanctification and preparation --- thus this great and powerful gift, this singular coin has become all but buried too deeply, with my own self having in effect hidden it, with the result being that what I had come to believe concerning my self having been at one time at least, desired to be used by God in conjunction with His own powers of Revival, to have been passed to another for reason of my own lack of providing Him in return enough positive result for His own investment. Yet, your own (in that private massage where you chewed me up) by bringing up the subject of Reviving the dead, does give me some hope, that there may yet be time enough for myself to see the dead come back to life.
I should thank you for that, huh?
Thankyou for that candid post BD! God sometimes just plain freaks us out!
First of all, here's a link to the post you made which we are referring to here, in case anybody else would care to read it to obtain context:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-relig ion/3046031/posts?q=1&;page=601#629
Now, here (below) is my private FReepmail note to you back then (08/01/13) in it's entirety, including Frank Sheed's excellent explanation. (I apologize in advance to other posters here for its lengthy aspect, and urge you to just skip over this post completely if you're not interested.) In this FReepmail note, I did NOT call you a liar -- I just said that calling "self-flagellation" a "doctrine of the Church" is a falsehood. I also did not say you were the devil, but only that all falsehoods come from the "father of all lies" (even if a person expressing such a falsehood may not be aware it is a falsehood). If you really believe that it IS a doctrine of the Church, you are merely mistaken about it, not intentionally lying about it, but nevertheless, it is still a falsehood. And I was not trying to insult you in that note by talking about the Resurrection, but rather pointing out that we do not understand ANY of God's Mysteries fully. (By the way, BlueDragon, did I understand the gist of what you were saying correctly --- that you raised a bird from the dead?)
Anyway, here is my real private FReepmail feedback note to you, BlueDragon, from 08/01/13.
Re: Does the Catholic Church Teach "Doctrines of Demons?"
To BlueDragon | 08/01/2013 3:52:18 PM PDT sent
You post to me here is unbelievable! I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being dishonest and stupid in the same post before, like you’ve done here. Why don’t we just take another look at the real facts, and forego the baseless and scurrilous name-calling?
Among other things you said in your post, you said, “No, I understand the terms well enough, and they were not exactly “Latin” terms, for it was Aristotelian philosophical terminology which was employed by Aquinas, which explanation those at Trent borrowed from”.
You DO know that Aquinas wrote EVERYTHING in Latin, and those Church Council documents were ALL initially written in Latin, don’t you? There are many English translations of those books and documents available today, and they all differ according to who is doing the translations.
I merely told you that I was not one to be able to discuss with you the wording of Latin original documents translated into the archaic English language spoken in the 1500’s (as I know very little Latin, and have not studied those Latin documents and am not an expert in them). Like I told you in my post, a Church history professor who knows Latin at a good Catholic University or Seminary would be a much better person to go to have an intelligent discussion about that.
You also said “I am a person -— not an opportunity for internet advertisement of Roman Catholic promotional materials.” BlueDragon, you obviously did not read ANY of the references I provided for you. None of those references were any kind of “internet advertisement of Roman Catholic promotional materials”. Try reading them, and you will know that without any doubt, and won’t say such ridiculous things again (if you are an honorable person).
The first references I gave you were texts with Biblical quotes from Jesus. You made it clear in your reply-post that you did not want to read those quotes from Jesus again for some reason.
The next reference I gave you was to a neutral (non-Catholic) “wikipedia” page that gave a brief explanation of how Catholics view the Eucharist, as well as how the Orthodox Churches view it, how the various major Protestant denominations view it, and so forth. They also provided a couple brief, quick summaries of how a few Early Church Fathers viewed it, which is exactly how the Catholic Church still views it today, and exactly how Jesus Christ taught it right from the beginning. (There is NO difference whatsoever— check it for yourself.)
The next reference was to a page showing a chapter of a book by a noted Catholic teacher where you can see quite clearly what the Catholic Church teaches about transubstantiation and the “Real Presence” (as far as it is understood by us limited human beings). It is a very valuable and helpful reference I was sharing with you so you could see precisely the extent of our Catholic understanding of that great mystery, and you called it a mere worthless advertisement. If you care to have the decency to check that reference for yourself this time, I will post that page at the bottom of this “private mail” post, and you can try really reading it this time.
The next two references I provided for you were to both the online and the printed versions of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, where you can learn exactly what the Catholic Church teaches, including what the Church teaches about the Eucharist. (The online version of the Catechism is searchable.) You read it if you seriously, honestly want to find out exactly what those Catholic Church teachings are. It is NOT a “commercial” to anyone who has actually, honestly read it. (You don’t have to agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church as spelled out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but at least you will actually know what those teachings really, truly are, and not continue to believe some wildly inaccurate caricature of them.)
Regarding the Church’s teachings about some of these mysteries (like the Eucharist) you used the term “Purposely ‘fuzzy’” in reference to those teachings. Does that mean you don’t believe St. Paul when he said we currently see everything “through the glass darkly”? God does not teach humans everything there is to know about ANYTHING (especially His Holy Mysteries), and you would do well to learn that unequivocally. You (and I) can ALWAYS learn more about ANY of the Mysteries of God — we will NEVER understand them completely.
For example, if you begin to think that you know everything there is to know about the mystery of the “Resurrection”, just take a stroll into the nearest funeral parlor, and try raising one or two of the dead people there from the dead. Then sheepishly go home and read this from the Bible, and absorb it with great humility:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
God only reveals a VERY SMALL amount of knowledge about ANYTHING to humans.
You also said, “All the other medieval “do penance” self-flagellation type of thing which ‘some’ Roman Catholics of old (and still to this day?) engage in, or else seek to assert that others must continually do, to somehow earn His favor, to make us good enough by being punished enough -— well, those sort of things ARE the “doctrines of demons”, to work the subject title of this FR thread into this reply... “
BlueDragon, those kinds of strange things are most certainly NOT doctrines or teachings of the Catholic Church. That is a blatant falsehood, and you know where all falsehoods come from, don’t you? What individuals do privately by their own choices should NEVER be confused with the real doctrinal teachings of the Church, so please don’t get those things mixed up.
- - - - - - -
In the future BlueDragon, if you cannot post a post to me on FR without shamelessly impugning my integrity and honesty, or insulting my intelligence, please do not post to me. That kind of garbage is entirely uncalled for, and should never be posted on FR (or anywhere else frankly). (I will extend that same courtesy of not posting to you again as well.)
However, if you do honestly want to learn what the Catholic Church’s teachings are about transubstantiation (and how they relate to Aquinas and to classical philosophy), I will include in this “private mail” not just the link this time, but the actual chapter from that “Frank Sheed” reference I gave you.
You can (of course) read it or not. That’s your call.
Here is that chapter:
" "
THEOLOGY FOR BEGINNERS F. J. Sheed
Chapter 18—Eucharist And Mass
The Real Presence
The Blessed Eucharist is the Sacrament. Baptism exists for it, all the others are enriched by it. The whole being is nourished by it. It is precisely food, which explains why it is the one sacrament meant to be received daily. Without it, one petition in the Our Father—”Give us this day our daily bread”—lacks the fullness of its meaning.
Early in his ministry, as St. John tells us (ch 6), Our Lord gave the first promise of it. He had just worked what is probably the most famous of his miracles, the feeding of the five thousand. The next day, in the synagogue at Capernaum on the shore of the sea of Galilee, Our Lord made a speech which should be read and reread. Here we quote a few phrases: “I am the Bread of Life”; “I am the Living Bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world”; “He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him”; “He that eats me shall live by me.”
He saw that many of his own disciples were horrified at what he was saying. He went on: “It is the spirit that quickens: the flesh profits nothing.” We know what he meant: in saying they must eat his flesh, he did not mean dead flesh but his body with the life in it, with the living soul in it. In some way he himself, living, was to be the food of their soul’s life. Needless to say, all this meant nothing whatever to those who heard it first. For many, it was the end of discipleship. They simply left him, probably thinking that for a man to talk of giving them his flesh to eat was mere insanity.
When he asked the Apostles if they would go too, Peter gave him one of the most moving answers in all man’s history: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” He had not the faintest idea of what it all meant; but he had a total belief in the Master he had chosen and simply hoped that some day it would be made plain.
There is no hint that Our Lord ever raised the matter again until the Last Supper. Then his meaning was most marvelously made plain. What he said and did then is told us by Matthew, Mark, and Luke; and St. Paul tells it to the Corinthians (1 Cor 10 and 11). St. John, who gives the longest account of the Last Supper, does not mention the institution of the Blessed Eucharist; his Gospel was written perhaps thirty years after the others, to be read in a church which had been receiving Our Lord’s body and blood for some sixty years. What he had provided is the account we have just been considering of Our Lord’s first promise.
Here is St. Matthew’s account of the establishment: “Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said, Take ye and eat: This is my body. And taking the chalice he gave thanks: and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.”
Since they deal with the food of our life, we must examine these words closely. What we are about to say of “This is my body” will do for “This is my blood” too. The word is need not detain us. There are those, bent upon escaping the plain meaning of the words used, who say that the phrase really means “This represents my body.” It sounds very close to desperation! No competent speaker would ever talk like that, least of all Our Lord, least of all then;. The word this;, deserves a closer look.
Had he said, “Here is my body,” he might have meant that, in some mysterious way, his body was there as well as, along with, the bread which seems so plainly to be there. But he said, “This is my body”—this which I am holding, this which looks like bread but is not, this which was bread before I blessed it, this is now my body. Similarly this, which was wine, which still looks like wine, is not wine. It is now my blood.
Every life is nourished by its own kind—the body by material food, the intellect by mental food. But the life we are now concerned with is Christ living in us; the only possible food for it is Christ.
So much is this so that in our own day you will scarcely find grace held to be Christ’s life in us unless the Eucharist is held to be Christ himself.
What Our Lord was giving us was a union with himself closer than the Apostles had in the three years of their companionship, than Mary Magdalen had when she clung to him after his Resurrection. Two of St. Paul’s phrases, from 1 Corinthians 11 and 10, are specially worth noting: “Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord”; and “We, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread”—a reminder that the Eucharist is not only for each man’s soul but for the unity of the Mystical Body.
I can see why a Christian might be unable to bring himself to believe it, finding it beyond his power to accept the idea that a man can give us his flesh to eat. But why should anyone want to escape the plain meaning of the words?
For the Catholic nothing could be simpler. Whether he understands or not, he feels safe with Peter in the assurance that he who said he would give us his body to eat had the words of eternal life. Return again to what he said. The bread is not changed into the whole Christ, but into his body; the wine is not changed into the whole Christ, but into his blood. But Christ lives, death has no more dominion over him. The bread becomes his body, but where his body is, there he is; the wine becomes his blood but is not thereby separated from his body, for that would mean death; where his blood is, he is.
Where either body or blood is, there is Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity. That is the doctrine of the Real Presence.
Transubstantiation
Besides the Real Presence which faith accepts and delights in, there is the doctrine of ransubstantiation, from which we may at least get a glimpse of what happens when the priest consecrates bread and wine, so that they become Christ’s body and Christ’s blood.
At this stage, we must be content with only the simplest statement of the meaning of, and distinction between substance and accidents, without which we should make nothing at all of transubstantiation.
We shall concentrate upon bread, reminding ourselves once again that what is said applies in principle to wine as well.
We look at the bread the priest uses in the Sacrament. It is white, round, soft. The whiteness is not the bread, it is simply a quality that the bread has the same is true of the roundness and the softness. There is something there that has these and other properties, qualities, attributes—the philosophers call all of them accidents. Whiteness and roundness we see softness brings in the sense of touch. We might smell bread, and the smell of new bread is wonderful, but once again the smell is not the bread, but simply a property. The something which has the whiteness, the softness, the roundness, has the smell and if we try another sense, the sense of taste, the same something has that special effect upon our palate.
In other words, whatever the senses perceive—even with the aid of those instruments men are forever inventing to increase the reach of the senses—is always of this same sort, a quality, a property, an attribute no sense perceives the something which has all these qualities, which is the thing itself.
This something is what the philosophers call substance the rest are accidents which it possesses. Our senses perceive accidents; only the mind knows the substance. This is true of bread, it is true of every created thing. Left to itself, the mind assumes that the substance is that which, in all its past experience, has been found to have that particular group of accidents. But in these two instances, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the mind is not left to itself. By the revelation of Christ it knows that the substance has been changed, in the one case into the substance of his body, in the other into the substance of his blood.
The senses can no more perceive the new substance resulting from the consecration than they could have perceived the substance there before. We cannot repeat too often that senses can perceive only accidents, and consecration changes only the substance. The accidents remain in their totality—for example, that which was wine and is now Christ’s blood still has the smell of wine, the intoxicating power of wine. One is occasionally startled to find some scientist claiming to have put all the resources of his laboratory into testing the consecrated bread; he announces triumphantly that there is no change whatever, no difference between this and any other bread. We could have told him that, without the aid of any instrument. For all that instruments can do is to make contact with the accidents, and it is part of the doctrine of transubstantiation that the accidents undergo no change whatever. If our scientist had announced that he had found a change, that would be really startling and upsetting.
The accidents, then, remain; but not, of course, as accidents of Christ’s body. It is not his body which has the whiteness and the roundness and the softness. The accidents once held in existence by the substance of bread, and those others once held in existence by the substance of wine, are now held in existence solely by God’s will to maintain them.
What of Christ’s body, now sacramentally present? We must leave the philosophy of this for a later stage in our study. All we shall say here is that his body is wholly present, though not (so St. Thomas among others tells us) extended in space. One further element in the doctrine of the Real Presence needs to be stated: Christ’s body remains in the communicant as long as the accidents remain themselves. Where, in the normal action of our bodily processes, they are so changed as to be no longer accidents of bread or accidents of wine, the Real Presence in us of Christ’s own individual body ceases. But we live on in his Mystical Body.
This very sketchy outline of the doctrine of transubstantiation is almost pathetic. But like so much in this book, what is here is only a beginning; you have the rest of life before you.
The Sacrifice of the Mass
Upon Calvary Christ Our Lord offered himself in sacrifice for the redemption of the human race. There had been sacrifices before Calvary, myriads of them—foreshadowings, figures, distortions often enough, but reaching out strongly or feebly towards the perfection of Calvary’s sacrifice.
These represented an awareness in men, a sort of instinct, that they must from time to time take something out of that vast store of things God has given them and give it back to him. Men might have used the thing for themselves but chose not to; they offered it to God, made it sacred (that is what the word sacrifice means). In itself, sacrifice is simply the admission that all things are God’s; even in a sinless world this would be true, and men would want to utter the trust by sacrifice. With sin, there was a new element; sacrifice would include the destruction of the thing offered—an animal, usually.
We can study these sacrifices, as they were before Calvary at once perfected and ended them, in the Temple sacrifices of the Jews, the Chosen People. The whole air of the Old Testament is heavy with the odor of animals slain and offered to God. The slaying and the offering—immolation and oblation—were both necessary elements. But whereas the offering was always made by the priests, the slaying need not be done by them; often it was the work of the Temple servants. For it was not the slaying that made the object sacred, but the offering. The essential thing was that the priest offer a living thing slain.
With Christ, we have said, sacrifice came to its perfection. The priest was perfect, for Christ was the priest. The victim was perfect, for he was the victim too. He offered himself, slain. But not slain by himself. He was slain by others, slain indeed by his enemies.
What he did was complete, once for all, not to be repeated. It accomplished three things principally—atoned for the sin of the race, healed the breach between the race and God, opened heaven to man, opened it never to be closed. His is “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for those of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:1).
With such completion, what was still to be done? For something was still to be done. Christ is still in action on men’s behalf, as the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us. Jesus has entered “into heaven itself, that he may appear now, in the presence of God for us” (9:24). He is “always living to make intercession for us” (7:25). What still remains to be done is not an addition to what was done on Calvary, but its application to each man—that each of us should receive for himself what Our Lord won for our race.
The “intercession” just spoken of is not a new sacrifice but the showing to God of the sacrifice of Calvary. The Victim, once slain, now deathless, stands before God, with the marks of the slaying still upon him—”a Lamb standing, as it were slain” (Rv 5:6).
We are now in a better position to understand the Sacrifice of the Mass. In heaving Christ is presenting himself, once slain upon Calvary, to his heavenly Father. On earth the priest—by Christ’s command, in Christ’s name, by Christ’s power—is offering to God the Victim once slain upon Calvary.
Nor does this mean a new sacrifice, but Calvary’s sacrifice presented anew—in order that the redemption won for our race should produce its fruit in us individually.
In the Mass the priest consecrates bread and wine, so that they become Christ’s body and blood. Thus the Christ he offers is truly there really there. The Church sees the separate consecration as belonging to the very essence of the Mass. It is a remainder of Christ’s death—and he had told his first priests at the Last Supper that, in doing what he had just done, “they should show forth the death of the Lord, until he come (1 Cor 11:26). They should show forth Christ’s death, remind us of his death, not, of course, kill him, any more than he had killed himself on Calvary.
The priest offers the sacrifice. But we are, in our lesser way, offerers too. Twice we are told so in the Ordinary of the Mass. We have already seen how after the Consecration the priest says, “We thy servants but also thy holy people [plebs tua sancta] . . . offer . . . a pure, holy and immaculate Victim.” To see ourselves merely as spectators at Mass is to miss the opportunity to take our part in the highest action done upon earth.
One element in the Mass remains to be mentioned. We, united with Christ’s priests, have offered Our Lord to God. And God gives him back to us, to be the Life of our life. That is what Holy Communion means. God, while retaining Christ for his own, also shares him with us. So that God and man, each in his own way, receive the slain and risen God-man.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 18 — Eucharist and Mass
Theology for Beginners (c) 1981 by F. J. Sheed (from online EWTN web page)