Posted on 02/03/2015 5:32:17 PM PST by 9thLife
The "Real Presence" of Jesus in the Eucharist is rooted in Christ's own teachings.
When Jesus taught about the Eucharist, he spoke with a profound realism. At the Last Supper, he didn't say, "This is a symbol of my body." He said, "This is my body…" And when he gave his most in-depth teaching on the Eucharist, he spoke in a very realistic way — in a way that makes clear that the Eucharist is not just a symbol of Jesus, but is his flesh and blood made sacramentally present.
Let's enter into that dramatic scene, known as "The Bread of Life Discourse" in John's Gospel chapter six. Jesus had just performed his greatest miracle so far, multiplying loaves and fish to feed 5,000 people. The crowds are in awe. They declare him to be the great "prophet who is to come" and want to carry him off to make him king (John 6:14-15).
But the very next day, Jesus says something that sends his public approval ratings plummeting, something that makes those same raving fans now oppose him. Even some of his own disciples will walk away from him. What does Jesus say that was so controversial? He taught about partaking of his body and blood in the Eucharist. Jesus first says, "I am the bread of life…the true bread come down from heaven" (John 6:35). And he makes clear that he is not bread in some vague, figurative sense. He concludes, "…and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6:51).
The people are shocked at this. They say, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (John 6:52).
The Jews listening that day don't take Jesus as speaking metaphorically, as if we are to somehow only symbolically eat of his flesh. They understand Jesus very well. They know he is speaking realistically here, and that's why they are appalled.
Now here's the key: Jesus has every opportunity to clarify his teaching. But notice how that's precisely what he doesn't do. He doesn't back up and say, "Oh wait…I'm sorry…You misunderstood. I was only speaking metaphorically here!" He doesn't soften his teaching, saying "You just need to nourish yourself on my teaching, my wisdom, my love." Jesus does just the opposite. He uses even more graphic, more intense language to drive his point home: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). And he goes on to underscore how essential partaking of his body and blood is for our salvation.
"He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (6:54-55).
In fact, Jesus now uses a word for "eat" that has even greater graphic intensity — trogein, which means to chew or gnaw — not a word that would be used figuratively here!
This is not the language of someone speaking metaphorically. Jesus wants to give us his very body and blood in the Eucharist. In fact, Jesus now uses a word for "eat" that has even greater graphic intensity — trogein, which means to chew or gnaw — not a word that would be used figuratively here!
So challenging is this teaching that even many of Christ's disciples are bewildered, saying "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (John 6:60). Indeed, Christ's words on the Eucharist were too much for some of them to believe. Many of his disciples rejected Jesus over this teaching and left him (John 6:66). And Jesus let them go. He didn't chase after them, saying, "Wait! You misunderstood me." They understood quite well that Jesus was speaking about eating his flesh and blood, and they rejected this teaching. That's why Jesus let them go.
So it's clear that Jesus wants to give us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. But we still must ask, why? In the Jewish, Biblical worldview of Jesus' day, the body is an expression of the whole person and the life is in the blood. So by giving us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, Jesus is giving his very life to us, and he wants to unite himself to us in the most intimate way possible. He wants to fill us with his life and heal us of our wounds, strengthen us in his love change us to become more and more like him. That's the life-transforming power of the Eucharist in our lives. In Holy Communion, we have the most profound union with Our Lord Jesus Christ that we can have here on earth.
But his suffering, bleeding and dying was not once in time??? It continues to this day???
You must be a different Denomination Catholic...Most of them tell us it is the priest who offers up Jesus as a sacrifice to his father...
And again, where do you find the connection between that and eating his flesh and blood???
Perhaps because we Christians, whether Catholic or Orthodox or Evangelical or Lutheran or Anglican or Baptist or Methodist call Jesus Christ our Lord, GOD and savior.
So just to undo any miss understanding I do not believe that the bread and wine is actually turned into the body and blood of Jesus but only represents them.
I doubt if there is any one on freeper that I can not agree on some things but disagree with on others..
The Eucharist is part of the Mass.
As a former Catholic, you should know that.
A significant issue here is just how the bread is said to be, or become the "body of Christ".
The Orthodox typically, for many long centuries did not assign sacerdotal powers to their own priests who would be said to "confect the sacrifice", and generally avoid doing so today...
Almost identical you say?
Ok...I can go with that...in part.
Would you care to elaborate on what differences there are? Or would doing so (honestly) possibly impugn too much upon the claims of Rome for it's own so-called priests to as they say -- "confect", or shall we say, effectively change the stones into being bread the bread into being the (as they say) actual body of Christ.
While you are at it, define "actual".
Did the apostles eat the real actual flesh of Christ ?
Drinking blood was a sin to the Jews.. so was Jesus telling them to sin?
Jesus preformed a miracle where thousands were fed bread. He then went away from the crowd.
The crowd followed him, but not because they sought Christ as teacher or Savior, not because they knew he was the Christ, but because they wanted to get their stomachs full of bread.
Read the rebuke of Christ to them
Jhn 6:25 And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
Jhn 6:26 Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
It was then He began to teach that they were looking for a miracle that would fill their stomachs ( as did the nation of Israel in the desert) and not for His presence or teaching. They only wanted their temporal needs met.
Jhn 6:27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
Jhn 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jhn 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Jesus laid out that salvation was by FAITH, and that Faith was a work of the Father
Then then decided to put Christ to a test ...Give us PROOF. It was THEY that brought up the manna (bread) Not Christ
Jhn 6:30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
Jhn 6:31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Jesus clarified where salvation comes from;
Jhn 6:32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven
He was pointing out that the "bread from heaven " that kept their fathers only gave them physical life.. HE on the other hands was sent from the Father to give them eternal spiritual life.
They did not "get it" they were looking for REAL bread to give them physical life as had happened in the desert, they were looking for tangible bread like manna, justy as they were looking for an earthly savior not a divine salvation.
Jhn 6:34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
Jesus then patiently explained to them that His flesh is life for the world.. His crucified body was what was going to bring eternal life, not a temporal one
Jhn 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Jhn 6:36 But I said unto you,That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
Jhn 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Jhn 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
Jhn 6:39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
Jhn 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
The entire message is on salvation by faith .
The listeners did not get it , they were hung up on another point .
Jhn 6:41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
Jhn 6:42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?
Notice the focus of the crowd was not on Him being the BREAD or eating Him but that He said he came down from heaven ( a claim of divinity )
Jhn 6:43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.
Jhn 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jhn 6:45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
Jhn 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Jhn 6:48 I am that bread of life.
Jhn 6:49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
Jhn 6:50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
Jhn 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Jesus here declares that the manna was a TYPE of Christ.. The manna gave physical life, His flesh is for the eternal life of men
Jhn 6:52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?
Jhn 6:53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Jhn 6:54Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Jhn 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Jhn 6:56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
Jhn 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
Jhn 6:58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
Keep in mind He had already taught at some length that He that believed on Him would be saved. He has already taught that the man that is taught by the Father comes to him and are saved. So to interpret this as other than a metaphor of being saved by His soon to be broken body and his shed blood, by internalizing the fact of the atonement in faith is not a good reading and it is not the understood by the new church
Jhn 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard [this], said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this?
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
THIS IS A CLAIM OF DIVINITY, that was blasphemy to the Jews ,now see their reaction
63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64 But there are some of you that do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.
65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
Men can not save themselves GOD has to grant it to them
66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
It was not the bread, that they understood that as an analogy, that Jesus was saying He was like the manna that fed their ancestors. But then He made it clear that he had come from the Father and would return there.
67 Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"
68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."
Now does Peter talk about the bread? NO he addresses what the others left over, the divinity of Christ, Peter heard the message that one would be saved by BELIEVING in Christ as He had taught in this discourse.
It opened because the crowd wanted PROOF, a SIGN, and so they asked for food. Jesus made the transition to the manna because of the demand of the crowd for food to prove what he said. This discourse is on faith without signs , it is on being saved by faith.
Jhn 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent
Jhn 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. Jhn 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
PETER HEARD WHAT CHRIST WAS TEACHING. HE MADE A PROFESSION OF FAITH, HE DID NOT ASK FOR BREAD back, and walked no more with him.
They did not like hearing that salvation had to be given them and much like the manna in the desert, it was totally a gift of the Father. They could not do anything on their own to earn it, they only had access to it by faith ( remember the Jews could only gather enough manna for the one days meals, and for 2 days on the day before the sabbath, they had to have faith in God to provide what was necessary for their life) . The idea that salvation was all of God and not found in law keeping was blasphemy to the law oriented Jews that felt their salvation was based on their will, their law keeping etc
To make an attempt to make this a teaching on the Lords supper misses the mark. Christ was still alive and in His flesh and he was, by your reckoning , telling them to do something they could not do because the Lords Supper had not been instituted yet,it is a spiritual eating and drinking that is here spoken of, not a sacramental.
This was clearly a metaphorical teaching to Jews looking for a Physical savior like Moses, and for physical bread to meet their physical hunger. Jesus always used symbols that the Jews understood to make spiritual points.
It was a sin for Jews to partake of blood.. did you notice that not one of those at the last passover questioned Jesus about this? Jesus was sinless.. Do you think He sinned at the last supper ..drinking His own blood and encouraging others to do the same?
They understood that it was an analogy. He was replacing the 3rd Passover cup ( the third cup is called the cup of redemption, where God says: “I will redeem you.”)
On this day He was telling them the passover type would be fulfilled and would be instead a memorial of His sacrifice
God is the God of Satan too
Satan can not act without the permission of God
Catholics need to get and read a bible
Christ died once for all ... He finished redeeming the elect..
From your "1st pope"
1 Peter 38For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison.
And from the church Catechist …Heb 9;27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.
no
Catholics, Orthodox (both Eastern and Oriental), and the Church of the East believe that in the Eucharist the bread and wine are objectively changed and become in a real sense the Body and Blood of Christ; and that after consecration they are no longer bread and wine: the consecrated elements retain the appearance and attributes of bread and wine but really are the body and blood of Christ.[3] This has been expressed by declaring that Christ is present in the Eucharist, “truly, really, and substantially”.
The vast majority of protestants on the otherhand do not observe the Last Supper, making fun of Catholics or other PROTESTANT faiths like Lutherans that do make this part of their services. Protestantism is the most elementary, watered-down version of Christianity in the world.
no one lied to you, that's exactly what you did..ate a wafer and drank some wine in remembrance of Christ....Catholics don't do that...they consume the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ...see the difference??
uhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's not the Catholics that dropped books from the Bible....
Sad to say for the RC’s that don’t know where Satan speaks to God, that this was the lesson I taught tonight from a well known curriculum for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (special needs). Many of them already knew the story, although many did not. Those that did not do not function at a very high level, or are new Christians. How can someone who is supposed to attend mass every week and claim the entire bible is read NOT know this or where it is? Sad.
Personally, I’m not big on Satan.
There was and is not (given cosmological distances) a shred of evidence for Satan in the universe before humans began to abstract information with their minds, while OTOH there was...and is abundant evidence for God therein.
IMHO, Satan disassembles monotheism. But I’m a Torah believer, who sees such manifestations therein as God himself.
Besides...I am already well enough acquainted with the similarities.
What I was aiming inquiry towards was this part of previous comment;
Notice the "almost identical"?
The inquiry which I presented was not focused upon what similarities there may be, but instead was towards consideration of what differences in historical application as for attitudes and practice which can be found chiefly (as far as I can tell) in what is from doctrinal perspective most highly stressed --- and perhaps more particularly -- what is not.
As for many of those whom may be identified as 'Orthodox', they certainly do not have a long history of lining them like little birdies, pushing a wafer into the wide-open mouths of those kneeling in front of them, even as many (most?) Orthodox persuasions do utilize something of a narrow-cupped, long handle spoon/ladle affair to place the consecrated bread into the mouths of the faithful, after that bread has been dunked into the consecrated 'cup' (of wine). Yet that is perhaps something of a modern practice also, differing from previous times when individuals would approach, be handed portion of the broken loaf, then themselves dip the bread into the cup, or else drink directly of it, though that be a more ancient practice, and at that, most often within small congregations...
These things are the outwards generalities, wherein my inquiry was more as towards the differences of doctrinal approach, which I did touch upon briefly while also originally (to yourself here, on this thread) presenting the inquiry.
If that is not some confession towards the validity of what Lutherans often term the Lord's Supper, then what use would that be?
These other [capitalized] Protestant faiths possibly alongside Lutherans (for you did say "like Lutherans" seeming to be using them as representative example rather than singular "Protestant") often in their own ways partake in Holy communion (as this sacramental remembrance is also spoken of).
Are their communions valid -- or not?
If not, from Romish perspective, then what's the use of talking about it?
One could say that about a lot of folks --- but not honestly while at the same time ignoring all those whom you may regards as identifiably "Protestant", yet for whom their own faith is anything but "watered down", and to top it all off, do that sort of short-shrift, casually pronounced injustice while at the same time ignoring those [Roman] Catholics who themselves have yet to themselves discern, what those of the Reform camp referred to as "Real Presence".
That "presence" is truly one of Spirit (discernible in that manner, alone) even as seemingly, it is His Spirit which inhabits/becomes the bread, in an actual sacramental sense -- much as 4th century epiclesis explicitly invites the Lord's Spirit to inhabit/become, or perhaps even better yet(?) simply be the bread of thanksgiving remembrance, thus in that manner, corporately as a body, those assembled together as Church may commune with Him and His Spirit, even as they commune also with one another.
See there? I just defined "actual" as best as I myself understand that to apply, although what definition is provided does admittedly need to be gleaned from the context...
I had inquired about that word also, yet what did I receive in reply but; no real answers at all, accompanied by rather needless denigration and accusation -- while it is myself who is doing the work of "teaching" as for this very doctrine.
Just "wow".
Jesus was a Capricorn
He ate organic food
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes
Long hair, beard and sandals
And a funky bunch of friends
Reckon we'd just nail him up
If he came down again
'Cause everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on
Who they can feel better than at any time they please
Someone doin' somethin' dirty decent folks can frown on
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me
Source?
In other words, you don't know...
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