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To: Campion; RnMomof7; All
You guys relentlessly pick and choose the passages from the Fathers you think support your position. You don't, for example, cite Augustine when he says that it is a sin *not* to adore the consecrated Host.

You are referring to this quote from your link:

"...I turn to Christ, because it is He whom I seek here; and I discover how the earth is adored without impiety, how without impiety the footstool of His feet is adored. For He received earth from earth; because flesh is from the earth, and He took flesh from the flesh of Mary. He walked here in the same flesh, AND GAVE US THE SAME FLESH TO BE EATEN UNTO SALVATION. BUT NO ONE EATS THAT FLESH UNLESS FIRST HE ADORES IT; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lord's feet is adored; AND NOT ONLY DO WE NOT SIN BY ADORING, WE DO SIN BY NOT ADORING." (Psalms 98:9)

Augustine is not speaking here literally of the Eucharist, but of Christ, as he says in other places that the symbol only bares similarities with the real thing, but is not the real thing. He did not believe in transubstantiation. He held to suprasubstantiation, that Christ is spiritually present in the Lord's Supper within the faith of the believer; nor did he hold that the act of eating the symbol was what saves, but rather whoever believes in Christ is saved, even before eating or drinking anything:

“They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already. (Augustine, Tractate 25)

The eucharist, for Augustine, was a spiritual communion with Christ which calls us to cherish unity with the body (for we also are the "bread and wine"), to appreciate Christ's sacrifice and to look towards heaven for our future blessings.

I have a large number of quotations to back every statement I have made here up, if you ask me to.

102 posted on 01/24/2015 12:58:34 PM PST by Greetings_Puny_Humans (I mostly come out at night... mostly.)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans

Great work!


105 posted on 01/24/2015 1:03:37 PM PST by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans

That is correct.. there was no “doctrine” on that at that time ..


119 posted on 01/24/2015 1:33:11 PM PST by RnMomof7 (Ga 4:16)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans; Campion
You're right that Augustine didn't believe in "Transubstantiation" as the Church teaches (defines) it today, but this isn't very concerning as the dogma wasn't defined in his time. The fact remains that he believed the Eucharist was more than a mere symbol, as many who use the quote you cited insist. From his "City of God"...

"...to our martyrs we build, not temples as if they were gods, but monuments as to dead men whose spirits live with God. Neither do we erect altars at these monuments that we may sacrifice to the martyrs, but to the one God of the martyrs and of ourselves; and in this sacrifice they are named in their own place and rank as men of God who conquered the world by confessing Him, but they are not invoked by the sacrificing priest. For it is to God, not to them, he sacrifices, though he sacrifices at their monument; for he is God's priest, not theirs. The sacrifice itself, too, is the body of Christ, which is not offered to them, because they themselves are this body. Which then can more readily be believed to work miracles? They who wish themselves to be reckoned gods by those on whom they work miracles, or those whose sole object in working any miracle is to induce faith in God, and in Christ also as God? They who wished to turn even their crimes into sacred rites, or those who are unwilling that even their own praises be consecrated, and seek that everything for which they are justly praised be ascribed to the glory of Him in whom they are praised? For in the Lord their souls are praised. Let us therefore believe those who both speak the truth and work wonders. For by speaking the truth they suffered, and so won the power of working wonders. And the leading truth they professed is that Christ rose from the dead, and first showed in His own flesh the immortality of the resurrection which He promised should be ours, either in the beginning of the world to come, or in the end of this world."

Here. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120122.htm Book 22, Chapter 10.

A Sacrifice offered by a priest at an altar erected in memorial for a Saint. Two Catholic dogmas right there (the "Real Presence", although admittedly not the dogma of Transubtantiation, but still not a mere "symbol", and the Communion of the Saints.)

121 posted on 01/24/2015 1:34:42 PM PST by FourtySeven (47)
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