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.
The scriptures I posted DID refute your supposed facts...Apparently you can't stand the fact that God wrote his scriptures to the average person for our understanding while he ignored the self proclaimed intellectuals of the world...
No, it did not. Playing internet theologian is very dangerous. Go consult the real eminent Protestant theologians who spent a lifetime of scholarship, teaching and writing books and who indeed set out to prove Catholicism false, and then converted to Catholicism. You simply have not explained how by cracking open the page of the Bible (whose books were infallibly assembled as the true Word of God by the Catholic Church), by each invoking the Holy Spirit, and that yet everyone and their grandmother can come to different and often contradictory conclusions. This is shallow Bible Christianity that no one today takes seriously today except for congregants in Joel Osteen. Rev. Wright, the AME Churches and all the other corner street pastors
Here’s your dilemma Sir.
You keep saying that God wrote to the “average person” but this does not make it self explicable. If so we would not have thousands of different Christians sects each claiming their belief to be this is what “God wrote.”
This is why God commanded Peter and His apostles to go forth and teach...” and to make sure that His teaching is ONE truth, Christ established ONE Church. He gave this Church the infallible authority to sort out the various writings that existed at the time, and to assemble the writings that were authentic into the canonical texts. There were also several things that Christ said and did that were not recorded in writing. This was the great oral tradition that the Church fathers used to infallibly assemble and interpret the texts. Without this Petrine authority the texts would be suspect. This was the faith of saints, monastics, martyrs, and stigmatists for eleven centuries before the Reformation that has since “spawned a cluster of heresies.”
What Bible Christians need to do is to go out of the shallow end of theological inquiry by not using disparate pieces of scripture and instead have a complete faith. The Church has a Credo for all peoples and for all times. Non-Catholic Christians on the other hand can go shopping from corner street pastor to mega pastor until they find a belief they are “comfortable” with. When mainline Lutheran and Episcopalian Churches began ordination of gay and lesbians pastors- apparently according to Scripture this was allowed, or so they believed what “God wrote” - many of their congregants left while others joined them.
In short, each person gets to interpret the Word of God as he/she sees fit forgetting for a moment that it was the Church that not only assembled, infallibly, the Word of God, but also has with it the great unwritten oral tradition. What scriptures confirms that Christ said and did but was not written.
So much for the average person understanding what “God wrote.” This is why we have a single Catholic Church, and why we regard all other Christian faiths as heretical in the sense in which that term is properly understood. Try reading Hillaire Belloc, “The Great Heresies.”
There is no evidence that Peter ever went to Rome, nor that he founded the church there, (it was already well established when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans,about AD 57),either from the bible or from other historical documents. Neither is there evidence nor proof that the leadership of the church here on earth was ever supposed to go through Peter to his “successor”.
Read 1 Timothy and Titus as to the qualifications for an elder or deacon, the only two offices clearly established for the church.
The bible is the results of the Holy Spirit moving on men who were yielded to Him and by the evidence that the gospels and letters were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
So, it is the end of the story, unless you want to dispute with the bible and history, or to stick to your dogma.
The books in the Bible did not fall form the skies. Based on infallible Petrine authority the books in the Bible were assembled by the early Church fathers by the first Synod of Rome around AD 384 and later these texts were again ratified in subsequent Councils of the Church. That infallibility did not suddenly evaporate ELEVEN centuries later with the Reformation that in Hilaire Belloc’s famous phrase “spawned a cluster of heresies” with each Tom, Dick, and Harry and the corner street vendor claiming to crack open the pages of the Bible and tell us “his”/””her’ version of the truth.
All this internet theology is for shallow Bible Christians. This debate was ended some 2000 years ago. It begins and ends with Petrine authority.
OK, I know how we got the bible that we have today, NO it did not just magically appear, I know all this, but “Petrine authority” had nothing to do with it. The books had already been collected into a type of book, along with some other writings before any of the counsels had met. The Jewish scriptures had already been established a thousand years earlier at least.
The manuscript evidence that we have for the bible affirms its reliablilty, for the NT alone, there are about 25,000 pieces of manuscript evidence in fragments, partial books and whole books. The OT has about 10-15,000 pieces of manuscript evidence too.
The RCC does on have a corner on the market regarding our bible, (meaning the bible you and I and all Christians use)
Again, the bible is useful for all doctrine, teaching, discipline, and righteousness that the man of God will be throughly equiped for any occasion to give a reason for the hope that lays within us (believers)
Why do you insist on implying that my theology is shallow? how is it shallow?? That I do not believe in the dogma and traditions of the RCC? It that is why? If it is, you have some real issues to deal with and they are not with me. You need to get a bible and read it for yourself.
What you say is historically inaccurate.
It was not until the Synod of Rome (382) and the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) that we find a definitive list of canonical books being drawn up, and each of these Councils acknowledged the very same list of books. From this point on, there is in practice no dispute about the canon of the Bible, the only exception being the so-called Protestant Reformers, who entered upon the scene in 1517, an unbelievable 11 centuries later.
Once again, there are two fundamental questions for which one cannot provide answers that are consonant with Sola Scriptura: A) Who or what served as the final Christian authority up to the time that the New Testament’s canon was identified? B) And if there was a final authority that the Protestant recognizes before the establishment of the canon, on what basis did that authority cease being final once the Bible’s canon was established?
An “Extra-Biblical” Authority Identified the Canon of the Bible.
Since the Bible did not come with an inspired table of contents, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura creates yet another dilemma: How can one know with certainty which books belong in the Bible – specifically, in the New Testament? The unadulterated fact is that one cannot know unless there is an authority outside the Bible which can tell him. Moreover, this authority must, by necessity, be infallible, since the possibility of error in identifying the canon of the Bible would mean that all believers run the risk of having the wrong books in their Bibles, a situation which would vitiate Sola Scriptura. But if there is such an infallible authority, then the doctrine of Sola Scriptura crumbles.
Another historical fact very difficult to reconcile with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is that it was none other than the Catholic Church which eventually identified and ratified the canon of the Bible. The three councils mentioned above were all councils of this Church. The Catholic Church gave its final, definitive, infallible definition of the Biblical canon a the Council of Trent in 1546 – naming the very same list of 73 books that had been included in the 4th century.
If the Catholic Church is able, then, to render an authoritative and infallible decision concerning such an important matter as which books belong in the Bible, then upon what basis would a person question its authority on other matters of faith and morals?
Protestants should at least concede a point which Martin Luther, their religion’s founder, also conceded, namely, that the Catholic Church safeguarded and identified the Bible: Luther wrote: “We are obliged to yield many things to the Catholics – (for example), that they possess the Word of God, which we received from them; otherwise, we should have known nothing at all about it.”
The reader must note that the Catholic Church does not claim that by identifying the books of the Bible it rendered them canonical. God alone is the author of canonicity. The Catholic Church instead claims that it and it alone has the authority and responsibility of infallibly pointing out which books comprise the Biblical canon already authored by God.
Sorry Catholics. It was a done deal long before there ever was a Catholic Church.
Sorry Protestants. It was infallible Petrine authority that was responsible for assembling the writings of God while the same Petrine authority rejected other writings. Quote all you want, you are quoting from a bible put together with the infallible authority granted to Peter and his successors an authority solely given to His ONE Church and one that did not suddenly vanish eleven centuries after the Synod of Rome in AD 382
Well, there is fallacy to start off. First of all that "infallible" part is simple blasphemy. Second the whole pope lineage thing is made up from spurious writings and made up stories. It starts with the first in line from Peter. This Linus guy can't even be proven to be a church leader anywhere historically. Third, there was no single head of any group of churches until at least the third century.
God entrusted the Jews with His word. Jesus chose Jews as His disciples. God preserved His word for all generations as He promised. For some group of fallible humans to attempt to take credit is akin to taking glory from God. That same "magisterium" you claim to be infallible incorporated paganism which God clearly condemned and called whoring around with other gods. Israel was punished often for exactly that. Catholics should take a hint from history.
You need to go tell that to eminent Protestant theologians who have spent a lifetime of study and converted to Catholicism. Today except for the shallow Bible-types who attend the mega congregations of Osteen or flock to hear types like Rev. Wright and Billy Grahams etc or the snake-handling Bible readers are just the kind of crowd that serious scholars and theologians don’t take seriously.
Funny, isn’t it, that that scripture records that Christ did and said many things that are not in the Bible and all these “Word” of God got lost in the ether.
Before the Bible there was the infallible Church and so it will be until the end of time. This is why today more and more Protestant scholars are junking the nonsense of Protestantism (with its thousands of brands) and converting to the Church.
Those Colleges do turn out strong Bible toting conservatives don't they. And example would be someone like Dolan right?
>>Before the Bible there was the infallible Church<<
Infallible you say!!! Catholics have sure created a lot of infallibility haven't they. You do have scriptural proof that the Catholic Church is infallible right? Has anyone informed God that He's not the only infallible entity?
Of course, God is the infallible authority. But God insisted on ONE truth and made sure the books in the Bible and his spoken words and acts that were not written, were preserved as ONE truth and so He founded ONE Church that instructs ONE credo for all generations and all peoples.
The ONE truth is found in scripture. The Catholic Church perversion of that truth is atrocious.
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