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 video in post 37 explains it very well.
The Last Supper was the First Mass where He gave us His Body and Blood. His sacrifice in dying on the Cross is recreated in the Mass where He gives Himself to us and pays the price for our sins.
He gives us food and drink for our eternal life and this becomes a way to bring the union of God and His people back to how it was before original sin.
It seems fitting that Satan enticed Adam and Eve to sin by eating a forbidden fruit(food), and Jesus gives us His Body and Blood as food for our eternal life.
While not stated in the video, Jesus completed the Old Covenant, and began the the New Covenant. The old mosaic laws in regard to food, etc was no longer required to be followed. Jesus ended the sacrifice of animals from the Old Testament. While there was a letter to the gentiles (possibly a compromise so that the old Jewish laws were not required to be followed by gentiles) in Acts not to eat blood. I do not feel that this pertains to Christ’s words to eat His Body and Blood. Christ would not tell us to sin. It seems to be an used as an excuse by non Catholics that do not have the Real Presence.
My opinion is infallible from Jesus and the Catholic Church.
Of course, anyone who isn't desperately trying to deny the words of Christ Himself without admitting they're calling Christ a liar by doing so sees the difference between "this is" and "I am" as used in Scripture.
Amen! I agree. We know because God said it that He has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (I Cor 1:27). He doesn't call the wise of this world or the mighty. He does this to shame the wise, to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before Him. I think it's rather telling how some people have nothing to back up why they believe something other than, "That's what my religion teaches." or "That's just what we believe." (I get that one quite a bit.)
If you ask me, I'd feel pretty stupid if all I had to explain why I believed something was, "Because people smarter than me believe it."....but that's just me. ;o)
LOL! You have your own fallible opinion about the fallible teachings of your fallible church about what Jesus THE infallible word says.
Not selective at all. I am familiar with a vast amount of Augustine's writings. This is representative of it, and confirms his view that he considers believing in Christ the fulfillment of those verses you cited.
He also believes in limited atonement- irresistible grace- total depravity- final perseverence- and much more.
Your Saint is what we today would call Calvinists. But, before Calvin, we would have simply been called Augustinians.
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:32-40)
What you posted confirms the real presence in the Eucharist. Thanks for the help
Sure, Augustine believed, with Presbyterians and Lutherans, that Christ is spiritually present with us in the Lord's Supper. He didn't believe in Transubstantiation, or that grace is conferred through physically eating anything.
From your sermon 227:
“What you can see passes away, but the invisible reality signified does not pass away, but remains. Look, it’s received, it’s eaten, it’s consumed. Is the body of Christ consumed, is the Church of Christ consumed, are the members of Christ consumed? Perish the thought! Here they are being purified, there they will be crowned with the victor’s laurels. So what is signified will remain eternally, although the thing that signifies it seems to pass away. So receive the sacrament in such a way that you think about yourselves, that you retain unity in your hearts, that you always fix your hearts up above. Don’t let your hope be placed on earth, but in heaven. Let your faith be firm in God, let it be acceptable to God. Because what you don’t see now, but believe, you are going to see there, where you will have joy without end.” (Augustine, Ser. 227)
You've been through this rodeo many times with me already, right? You must know by now you can't bluff your way through this?
The Real Presence is a long established teaching of the Catholic Church and Jesus.
If you were a true follower of Jesus,Why wouldn’t you want to physically be in the presence of Jesus Christ and receive Him in Communion and receive His graces?
Why do you deny the Real Presence of God?
Ever asked yourself that question?
If Christ Himself says, "you shall not have life in you" that's the same as saying you haven't come to Christ as He requires you to. You may have done all sorts of things that make your Self and Self Alone feel good but you haven't done what Christ commanded and requires.
I hope those who deny the words of Christ Himself really enjoy the strong delusion of their "no life in you" life while they can because it leads to hearing "I never knew you" from the same Jesus Christ who clearly says that without eating His flesh and drinking His blood you have no life in you.
Denying the real presence in the Eucharist is a perfect example of following Eve rather than Christ.
As for context, anyone who spouts huge volumes of trash based on out of context Scripture (shoud I also mention their throwing out and totally ignoring important portions of the Old Testament?) the way the anti-Catholic crowd on FR do has to be trying to make a joke when they even mention context.
John 3:16 being the perfect example for anyone who dares to bother reading all of what Christ said including the multiple mention of deeds as proof of belief.
have a nice day
Right! So we must take “your” interpretation of St. Augustine over those of other eminent theologians including Protestants who converted to Catholicism. As I have said before, these discussions all begin and end with Petrine authority.
It’s not for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to offer their own sophomoric internet drive-by musings. Just as the early Church fathers assembled the books they believed is the Word of God - we call the Bible, this authority did not suddenly evaporate.
Catholics have ONE Credo and then there is everything else under the sun for non-Catholics to choose from that ranges from the David Koreshs’ and Jim Jones’ to the vapid “preachings” of Billy Grahams and Joel Osteens.
And since we’ve been on this rodeo before may be in your comprehensive reading of Augustine you just may have missed this: No intention to cal your bluff.
“Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands” (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).
“I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).
“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (ibid., 272).
Rodeo no more!
It's not an interpretation. Augustine interpreted the text and directly cites the verse "this is the work of God, that you believe on whom He sent", and applies this to the fulfillment of eating the body of Christ "without teeth and stomach." This is not ambiguous. It may simply seem that way to you, because you have a blind faith that a Church Father can't contradict what Rome teaches. You are so certain of this faith that you don't even understand what it is you are quoting or what you are trying to prove with them.
Your faith in men is horribly misplaced.
Not the “sola” :) O Sole mio! :)
In the Sacrament, our Confessions further teach, the same Jesus who died is present in the Sacrament, ...and here
Q. In communion, do we commune with the sacrificed body and blood of Jesus, or the resurrected body and blood of Jesus? A. The answer to your question is that we receive in, with, and under the bread and wine the true body and blood of Christ shed on the cross, Jesus ChristDifferent from the Catholic belief, but still Lutherans believe in the REAL presence in the Eucharist
oh and dartuser — so it’s not only the Roman Catholic, but also the Lutheran and some Anglicans and Methodists and some Reformed like the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ besides the Eastern Orthodox, the Coptic Church, the Armenian Church, the Syrian Church, the Assyrian Church of the East — the majority of Christendom in fact have held to this belief
Otherwise, where there is no spiritual understanding, and the Spirit himself speaks not through the preacher (though I set no limits to the preacher; for the Spirit can teach better than any Postills or Homilies) the end of it will be that every man will preach what he likes; and, instead of the Gospel and its exposition, they will be preaching once more about blue ducks! There are further reasons why we keep the Epistles and Gospels as they are arranged in the Postills, because there are but few inspired preachers who can handle a whole Gospel or other book with force and profit.As Luther told Zwingli
“I do not ask how Christ can be God and man and how His natures could be united. For God is able to act far beyond our imagination. To the Word of God one must yield. It is up to you to prove that the body of Christ is not there when Christ Himself says, ‘This is my body.’ I do not want to hear what reason says. I completely reject carnal or geometrical arguments…”Zwingli was the one who decided that human reasoning was enough to read the biblical texts. Zwingli’s view on the sacraments has permeated Presbyterian and Reformatted attempts to rewrite the bible to fit human reasoning.
Luther believed that just as the body of Christ was necessary for salvation, so a physical presence of Christ was important for the Lord’s Supper. Luther saw Zwingli’s ideology as one that denied Christ’s true humanity.
DCCLVII. I wish from my heart Zwinglius could be saved, but I fear the contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned. God’s judgment is sure and certain, and we may safely pronounce it against all the ungodly, unless God reserve unto himself a peculiar privilege and dispensation. Even so, David from his heart wished that his son Absalom might be saved, when he said: ‘Absalom my son, Absalom my son;’ yet he certainly believed that he was damned, and bewailed him, not only that he died corporally, but was also lost everlastingly; for he knew that he had died in rebellion, in incest, and that he had hunted his father out of the kingdom.
Martin Luther, Table Talk Number 2387 a-b, as quoted in Frans Funck-Bretano, _Luther_, 1939, p.319
After three days of hotly debating with Martin Luther in Marburg the nature of the Eucharist, Huldreich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, gripped Luther’s hands and said: “Here we’re fighting. Doctor Martinus, but, thank God, one nice day we both will be dead and then in Heaven we shall know the Truth, walking with the great sages, with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle . . .”
“Doctor Zwingli,” Luther interrupted him rudely, “They were pagans; they were not baptized; they are roasting in the everlasting fires of Hell.”
“But they were good men, were virtuous and followed their consciences.”
“If you talk like this, you’re not a Christian—and I regret to have wasted my time with you,” Luther snapped back
Who, but the devil, has granted such license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture?
Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? or, that is is the same as it signifies?
What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposes upon us by these fanatical men.
Not one of the Fathers of the Church, though so numerous, ever spoke as the Sacramentarians: not one of them ever said, It is only bread and wine; or, the body and blood of Christ is not there present.
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