Posted on 04/04/2015 1:59:27 PM PDT by Steelfish
The Resurrection & The Eucharist by Fr. Rodney Kissinger S.J. (Former Missouri Synod Lutheran) http://www.frksj.org/homily_ressurection_and_the_eucharist.htm There is an important connection between the Resurrection and the Eucharist. The Eucharist IS the Risen Jesus.
Therefore, the Eucharist makes the Resurrection present and active in our lives and enables us to experience the joy and the power of the Resurrection. The Resurrection is the reason for the observance of Sunday instead of the Sabbath. According to the Gospel it was early in the morning on the first day of the week that the Risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.
It was also on the evening of that first day of the week that the Risen Jesus appeared to the Apostles when Thomas was not present. Then a week later, on the first day of the week, he appeared again when Thomas was present.
So the Apostles began to celebrate the first day of the week, Sunday, as the beginning of the re-creation of the world just as they had celebrated the Sabbath as the end of the creation of the world. Originally the Liturgical Year was simply fifty-two Sundays, fifty-two celebrations of the Eucharist, fifty-two celebrations of the Resurrection. Today the Eucharist is still the principal way of celebrating the Resurrection and proclaiming the Mystery of Faith: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
As we have seen the joy and the power of the Resurrection is not found in the empty tomb or in the witness of some one else it is found only in a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus. The Eucharist, the Risen Jesus, gives us an opportunity for this personal encounter. Will all who receive the Eucharist have a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus? Yes they will. Unfortunately, not all will recognize the Risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene had a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus but did not recognize him. She thought it was the gardener. It was not until she recognized Jesus that she experienced the joy and the power of the Resurrection. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus and thought that it was a stranger. It was not until they recognized him in the “breaking of the bread” that they experienced the joy and the power of the Resurrection.
The Eucharist is also a pledge of our own resurrection. “I am the living bread come down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The Eucharist tells us that in death life is changed not ended. It is not so much life after death but life through death. Death is the door to life. This takes away the fear of death and gives us consolation at the death of a loved one.
The Eucharist also continues the two fold effect of the Resurrection which is to confirm the faith of the Apostles and to create the Christian Community. These are two sides of the same coin. To believe is to belong. Community was an integral part of the life of the first Christians. They were of one mind and one heart. When the Apostles asked the Lord to teach them how to pray, he taught them the “OUR Father.” In the Creed we say, “WE believe.” It is a personal commitment made in the community of believers.
The Eucharist also confirms the faith of the recipient and is the principle of unity and community. Without the Christian Community we lose our roots and our identity and our ability to survive in our culture which is diametrically opposed to Christ.
Through the Eucharist the Risen Jesus continues his two fold mission of proclaiming the Good News and healing the sick. Every celebration of the Eucharist proclaims the Good News and heals the sick. The Liturgy of the Word proclaims the Good News and the Liturgy of the Eucharist heals the sick. If people were healed simply by touching the hem of His garment how much more healing must come from receiving His Body and Blood?
How ridiculous it is then when people ask, “Do I have an obligation to go to Mass on Sunday?” If obligation is going to determine whether or not you go to Mass forget the obligation. You have a greater problem than that. Your problem is faith, you don’t believe. You don’t believe that the Eucharist IS the Risen Christ.
You just don’t realize the connection between the Resurrection and the Eucharist. In just a few moments we will receive the Eucharist and once again have an opportunity for a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus.
Let us ask for the faith to recognize him in the “breaking of the bread” so that we are able to say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” and in so doing experience the joy and the power of the Resurrection.
The transubstantiation takes place only at the Celebration of Mass. This is where the risen Savior is, in the consecrated bread and wine. Such was the practice BEFORE the Bible was assembled and ha been for over 2000 years.
If you think about it, Jesus willingly steps into the role of humble servant once again as we “behold the Mystery.”
Was on FB this morning and saw “resurrection biscuits”. You make biscuits, or rolls, with a marshmallow inside. The marshmallow explodes and disappears leaving a biscuit that is empty inside. I can’t wait to try it.
I know, I am weird. ;^)
Try peeps
I saw it too. Like Easter bunnies this is innocent stuff. No harm, no foul.
But even before the Bible was assembled by the Catholic Church in AD 382, as theologians inform us, the early disciples celebrated the Mss of the Eucharist. For in the Eucharist, Christ lives: body, blood, soul, and divinity under the appearances of bread and wine.
Without a belief in the Eucharist, the Resurrection is nothing more than a feel-good story. The kind of stuff enjoyed by feet stomping congregants of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, “Bishop” TD Jakes, Joel Osteen etc, the likes of those attending mainline Protestant denominations whose services are officiated by married gay and lesbian pastors.
Like the Catholics have Dolan, Pelosi, Biden, Francis, and that whole list of popes all Catholics are like them right?
You are misdirecting. We are not talking about how “individuals” conduct their personal lives, but rather how they worship their faith. This is a doctrine issue.
Yet another example, in spectacular shallow Bible Christianity!
The Church went “off-track?” Yes, the Holy Spirit suddenly took flight.
Maybe you ought to read up on what the early Church Fathers wrote.
In the year 110 A.D., not even fifteen years after John’s Book of Revelation was written, while on his way to execution St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:
“Where the bishop is present, there let the congregations gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church”. The Church believes that when the bishops speak as teachers, Christ speaks; for he said to them: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk 10, 16).
St. Paul in his letters also warns the faithful to hold fast to the tradition they received: “We command you, brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to avoid any brother who wanders from the straight path and does not follow the tradition you received from us” (2 Th 3, 6).
The tradition of the Catholic Mass as theological and historical scholars will tell you (of course, we don’t expect Bible Christians to be familiar with any of that, would we?) was celebrated by the early disciples of Christ and the Church fathers.
By the time John wrote Revelation 85% of the churches were teaching false doctrine. Why would I trust anyone later then that?
Unless Fr. Kissinger went to one of the old Communion-once-every-three-months LCMS churches, he didn’t need to become a Jesuit to understand the necessity of the Eucharist—not that it’s a problem, I just hope he is an orthodox and not a heterodox Jesuit :-)
Seriously, in my 26 years in the LCMS I have seen the churches in my area, and the ones where my son has lived (IN, IL, WI), returning to their roots in relation to the Eucharist, going from once-a-quarter or once-a-month to every Sunday. Some of it came from the laity experiencing Lutheran versions of Cursillo in the 80s and 90s, also from younger members wanting the strength of Christ that comes from the receiving of Christ. What makes me pleased with this is that the pressure to expand the providing of the Eucharist has come up from the laity, not something that was imposed upon the laity by the clergy.
THis is presented without evience.
CB, if you're going to refer us to Revelation, where St. addresses seven churches in Asia, and 6 of the 7 come in for reproach due to the falling-off of their faith, there's nothing in these passages to suggest that these were the only seven Christian Churches on earth, nor even that they were statistically representative.
No mention, in the "Seven Churches" section, of the five Patriarchal Sees ---- Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome--- and neither does the "Seven Churches" section mention whether St. John's criticism bore fruit, and whether they repented.
In all seven cases the admonition is included, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches". The letters all conclude with an appeal to hold fast and to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Each church is promised that everyone who conquers will be rewarded by Christ.
Only a Jonah-like, run-away-from-God, rebellious figure would not believe that the "Seven Churches" could repent like Nineveh, or not even want the /Seven Churches/Ninevites to repent.
All Churches at all times need to be called closer to Christ.
"Ecclesia semper reformanda."
I have always had a high degree of respect for the LCMS and I have always detected a large measure of Catholic-Lutheran harmony there.
Truth be told, such towering theologians of the caliber of Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, and Benedict (whose works are studied in colleges and universities around the world), to say nothing of such Catholic intellectual giants like Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, would find Protestantism today has been reduced to a crude caricature of what Christ taught his disciples, what they learned, and practiced, and what was handed down through to the successors of St. Peter.
Today Protestantism and Episcopalianism as are many mainline Evangelical denominations in a state of evil rut by claiming scriptural warrant for the ordination of married gays and lesbian pastors. But the rot had its inception from the very beginnings of Protestantism where it soon collapsed into warring offshoots and factions.
Thus one can hopscotch across town through half a dozen corner street Bible-Christian churches: a First Baptist; a First AME; a First Presbyterian; a First Methodist; a First Unitarian; a first Emmanuel until one settles in a congregation that is more in line with one’s “own” interpretations of scripture.
In short, every Tom, Dick, and Harry and their “milkmaid” (a term used by Luther himself) gets a freelance hand to know the Word of God and ironically from a Bible whose canonical texts were first infallibly authenticated under Petrine authority in the Synod of Rome AD 382.
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: He 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.”
That infallibility and the authority to teach ONE truth as Christ commanded in His Great Commission to “go Forth and TEACH all nations” This is to teach ONE truth and assured to Peter: “And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.”
Why Protestant pastors will not accept Petrine authority may have its reasons elsewhere. Should they do so, they will have to close up their ministries and with that goes their lucrative source of income which they have amassed for themselves and their families.
Easter Service becomes a vapid sunrise picnic on the beach singing “Alleluias””Hosannas” holding hands and doing an early morning Kumabaya. Little do they understand, that without belief in the Eucharist there is no Easter, there is no Resurrection to believe. Indeed, it is a travesty of a service. As John 6:53 recounts:
“Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.”
John in 11:53 complements this when Christ told Martha:
“Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live.”
Even renowned Protestant theologians and pastors have believed this central feature and converted to Catholicism. Here are three examples:
1. Ulf Ekman, the founder of Scandinavia’s biggest Bible school, with a congregation of some 4000 individuals, converted to Catholicism because his theological inquiry confirmed for him the indispensability of the Catholic sacraments.
2. Francis J. Beckwith, a “born-again” evangelical, a tenured professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex, was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians resigned and joined the Catholic Church. One blogger likened it to Hulk Hogan’s defection from the World Wrestling Federation to the rival World Championship Wrestling league.
3. Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, was a pre-eminent Lutheran theologian in America. He knew his Bible-text and history like no other Protestant. When he converted to Catholicism he said, “I have long believed that the Roman Catholic Church is the fullest expression of the church of Christ through time.”
The Bible Christians here on FR are reduced playing neophyte “internet” theologian by telling us how Paul tried to “correct” Peter etc., or this or that, or attacking the Eucharist, or the Sacraments; or Marian devotions with incoherent and out-of-context reference to scripture. This is the shallow nonsense of Bible Christians and why now scores of Protestant theologians have decamped at great personal sacrifice and consider Protestantism awash in sheer rubbish.
Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, “[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it” (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
Don’t take my word. Here’s one original source. St. Irenaeus:
“It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about” (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).
live digital source please.
The Resurrection Appearances Chronologically Arranged
Are There Discrepancies in the Resurrection Accounts? If so, Can They be Resolved?
URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI - EASTER 2012
Saint Gregory the Great’s Sermon on the Mystery of the Resurrection
Pope Benedict XVI warns of moral 'darkness' as he celebrates Easter Mass
Easter Changes Everything
New Catholics a sign of Easter blessing for church (in Oregon)
On Easter Joy -- General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI
The Christ of the Folded Napkin
Reflection on Hope and New Life After the Easter Feasts (Thomas Rosica, CSB)
Easter Time [Eastertide or Easter Season]
Risen Christ opens for a us a completely new future says the Pope at Easter Mass
Man Who "Died" 5 Times Is Becoming Catholic (Thousands to Enter Church at Easter)
On the Resurrection-Pope Benedict XVI
Octave of Easter, Pope Benedict XVI
The Double Alleluia
Easter Sunday
Eastertide Overview
Our 'Great Sunday' (Season of Easter) [Editorial Column]
Happy Easter: The Tomb is Empty! The Warrior of Love has conquered!
Homily Of His Holiness Benedict XVI (Holy Saturday Easter Vigil, Saint Peter's Basilica)
Pope to Baptize Prominent Muslim
Holy Saturday (Easter Vigil)
The Exultet
The Dark before Dawn
Easter and the Holy Eucharist(Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)
Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil
Easter Day and Easter Season
THE EASTER LITURGY [Easter Vigil] (Anglican and Catholic Rites)
Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil
Poles visit symbolic Christ's Graves on Holy Saturday
Easter Vigil tonight
HOMILIES PREACHED BY FATHER ALTIER FOR EASTER VIGIL FROM 2002-2005
2 Paschal Candles; Lights On at Vigil And More on Washing of the Feet
RCIA and Holy Saturday
The Time Of Easter or Eastertide -- Easter Seasosn
Easter Day and Easter Season
Easter Reflections -- 50 Days of the Easter Season
The Blessed Season of Easter - Fifty Days of Reflections
This is a great post. I’m reading along and thinking-—wow!-—Belloc, Chesterton, Newman,—not forgetting Sts. Iraeus, Augustine, Aquinas...these all my saint-brothers in the Church.
I am wondering if by chance you pray the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office). Most of the daily Offices include writings from our Early Church Fathers that are priceless. I have been forever blessed since I began praying the Office many years ago.
Again, thank you for this post-—and many others of yours on this forum.
You are so kind. No, I have not read the Liturgy of the Hours. But you make me want to get it. I plan on getting a book of Pope Benedict’s reflections called :Benedictus” for each day: they are, I am told gems of intellect and faith. Give this a try.
http://www.stlukeproductions.com/benedictus
Then why exactly do you think Christ chose those seven to address?
>>No mention, in the "Seven Churches" section, of the five Patriarchal Sees ---- Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome---<<
Perhaps because Jesus considered them inconsequential?
Christ called "towering theologians" in His day snakes and vipers.
Better tell them yes if you "buy" RC theology.. not going is a "mortal sin" and they will log to hell if they do not
Law/ Law? Law/....Works /works works
Jesus died in vain on Friday and raised to life today in vain
1 Cor 15:1-4...Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
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