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.
>>Then the question becomes, “Why did the CATHOLIC CHURCH use the phrase “born again” in it’s approved Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible that it translated itself?”<<
There they go again…knowing better than their supposed ‘infallible’ magesterium. The Fromans here make themselves out to be an authority unto themselves. Yet love to call everyone else ‘mini popes.’
Amen.
**boatbums, a few questions for you:**
Why should he answer you, when all we get back from you is teaching attributed to your approved ‘church fathers’? Teachings that are, many times, contrary to those of Jesus Christ, Peter, John, and Paul.
Why answer you when you don’t answer points such as these below from my post to you on another thread?
You say this, leaving yourself WIDE open for rebuttal:
**To deny the Eucharist, you will have to REFUTE:
1. Scripture itself. John 6:53**
Why do you stop there, and not include 6:63? Is it the same reason that you folks don’t include verse 6 in your interpretation of Revelation 12:1-5?
You folk say that the ‘eucharist’ is how you get Christ inside. Jesus Christ takes John 6:63 even further in John 14:16-20, where he teaches his disciples that...”ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.......AT THAT DAY ye shall know that I AM in my Father, and ye IN ME, and I IN YOU”.
Further proof of the Spirit, which dwells in every cell of Jesus, being what Christ was talking about being inside of believers, is the emphasis the apostles put on being born of the Spirit.
If the Lord’s Supper was literal flesh and blood, why no detailed teaching of it in Acts? Did the ‘first pope’ drop the ball?
If it is so literal, why did Paul only give a written detailed description of the Lord’s supper to the Corinthians, and not to the other churches that he wrote to?
(when he wrote to the Romans, he hadn’t even been to Rome yet. Why no Lord’s supper instructions to them?)
Don’t you think that if it’s so literal, and for salvation, that it would have been hammered home several times in Acts and the Epistles?
Does the ‘theological Einstein teach this:...
Jesus drops in on the home town, after preaching and performing miracles elsewhere, preaches in the synagogue, and astonished the very people he had spent AT LEAST 18 YEARS growing up and living among. (He was 12 when Mary forgot him when leaving Jerusalem. Don’t know how many years he had lived in Nazareth after being brought out of Egypt.)
The people in Nazareth knew Joseph, Mary, Jesus, and his siblings well enough to be confounded as to how Jesus was so incredibly different from the rest of them.
I’m sure the ‘theological Einstein’ teaches followers to pray to Mary. Does he teach followers to pray to the Centurion that asked Jesus to “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed”? Does the expope teach followers to pray to the woman from Canaan? Jesus Christ praised both of those souls as having great faith. Surely those two would be as good at intercessing as Mary.
Does the ‘theological Einstein’ teach that the seating of Bathsheba next to her son, Solomon, in her act of intercessing for Adonijah, as symbolic of Mary? If so, does he teach that that solitary case proved that Bathsheba was not supposed to be intercessing in such matters? (Adonijah could have gone direct in his request, if he knew it was legit, with no need of an intercessor. But he knew it wasn’t.)
**Instead, you may go ask your eminent Lutheran and Episcopalian theologians why they converted to the Catholic Church after a lifetime of serious study, scholarship, teaching, and preaching?**
That just proves to me why Jesus chose working class stiffs to mold into preachers and teachers of the Word of God. The calling of highly educated Paul to the ministry was a complete teardown and rebuild job, only keeping his vast knowledge of the Law and Prophets.
As I have said, the phrase ‘God the Son’ was NEVER used by Jesus Christ nor his apostles. Of the almost 50 examples of the using of the phrase ‘the Son of God’, not only did Jesus Christ say that of himself, but his disciples, Martha, Satan and his demons, and various others.
If your church organization is so correct in it’s claim of preserving the Word of God, then why don’t they observe the description set forth by the Word, instead of modifying it, to harmonize with their Godhead opinion, and ‘mother of God’ fantasy?
When Jesus calmed the storm (Matt. 14:22-33), ALL those in the ship “worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”
Two chapters later (Matt. 16:16) Peter, one of those in the ship earlier, witnessed, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Any (so-called) successor to Peter is NOT going to modify the defining of Jesus Christ.
You stand firm on a declaration of “ONE TRUTH”, but support the change of defining Jesus Christ, as though Jesus, Peter, John and Paul didn’t quite get it right.
Your church’s “ONE TRUTH” should agree with the “ONE TRUTH”, which is the testamony agreed to BE the “ONE TRUTH” found in the written Word.
If your “ONE TRUTH” doesn’t agree with the written “ONE TRUTH”, that you have declared that YOUR church compiled and preserved, then you have succeeded in building a church that rivals anything the Pharisees could have built.
I couldn't agree more. It's truly heart breaking.
Hoss
I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted: I said in my haste, All men are liars. What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people, In the courts of the LORD'S house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LORD.
This is not true, because you are not distinguishing between Sacred Tradition, which comes down to us from Apostolic times, and 'little-t' tradition which is just customary usage.
All of the Churches founded in the Apostolic era had and have Sacred Tradition. This can easily be verified, because all of them ---including not only the Roman Catholics, but also and especially the "Uniate" churches of the Chaldeans, Melkites, Maronite, the Orthodox, the non-Byzantine churches of the East (such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Eritrean Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Egyptian [Coptic] Church) --- also called Oriental Orthodox --- you'll find all of them have deacons, priests,and bishops ( Sacred Hierarchy); you'll find all of them have Sacred Liturgy and Sacraments; all of them venerate, and invoke the intercessory prayers of Mary and of the Saints who have gone on before us; all of them trace back to the Apostolic period when the Epistles and Gospels were being written, and they were learning from the very lips of the Apostles.
This includes Churches that are not now in communion with either Rome nor Constantinople.
The further down you dig; the further back you go; the further "Protestantism" recedes in your rear-view mirror.
17 I willl sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord
Except what you call the mass is not a "thanksgiving sacrifice for a completed act.. it is the re-sacrifice of Christ over and oner for the forgiveness of sins..
Rome has no completed act to thank God for
Jesus cannot be re-sacrificed. He has overcome death and is free from death forever. The Mass is that self-same sacrifice, unique, numerically singular, unrepeatable. We are brought in contact with eternity, outside of time and space, and with "the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world…" (Rev 13:8).
Who told you that falsehood, that it is re-sacrificing Jesus over and over, I would like to know?
This is false. Honestly, RnMomof7, why do youwrite stuff like this?
This makes it a "super"natural rebirth making "from above" the preferred translation.
....all of them venerate, and invoke the intercessory prayers of Mary and of the Saints who have gone on before us; all of them trace back to the Apostolic period when the Epistles and Gospels were being written, and they were learning from the very lips of the Apostles.
Your implication is that this was handed down from the Apostles from one to the other with complete uniformity. This does not, however, appear to be true.
Case in point:
Earliest date of writing on perpetual viriginity: protoevangelium of james 120 AD......a book not considered for canon by the early church. some of the requirements for canon was that the book had to have been associated with an apostles and it had to be accepted by the church. Why did the church not accept this??
Earliest date of writing on assumption: 377 AD by St Epiphanius of Salamis. (doing some reading on his background......he was a "peach" of a guy it sounds like)
Earliest date of writing of immaculate conception: 5th C AD by Theodotus, Bishop of Ancrya (this was the earliest I could find that specifically used the word immaculate).
What say you? If you have better source, I'd like to read them.
Bookmarked; thank God for your input.
And why do churches have to be in "communion" with R or C?
Don't recall seeing that in the New Testament.
Thank you for the research. I would offer Jesus was leading Nicodemus to Ezekiel 36 in discussing the new birth:
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. 23 And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord,” says the Lord God, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. 24 For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.
25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. 29 I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. 30 And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. 32 Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!”
33 ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. 34 The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. 35 So they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ 36 Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it.”
The original Chaldean church was inluenced greatly by Nestorius who didn't buy into Mary worship...They were at big odds with Rome...They pretty much disbanded and became extinct by the 7th Century...Later on Christians churches started up again under different names but were given the Chaldean name by the Catholic religion...In the 16th Century they joined with Rome...
The Melkite church supposedly started in Antioch, Syria...The first apostle there was Paul the apostle as the bible tells us...And Paul certainly did not teach anything about a 'priesthood'...Or anything resembling a Catholic religion...The bible does not teach Catholicism...
The further down you dig; the further back you go; the further "Protestantism" recedes in your rear-view mirror.
Actually, the more one digs, the more skewed Catholic history becomes...
However, in transubstantiation it is claimed that the bread is no longer bread even though the properties are the same. And which is not what the Lord's Supper accounts say, and is contrary to the plain and literal interpretation that RCs assert they hold to.
For plain and literal interpretation of "take eat, this is my body," and "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," has no precedent in a miracle in which anything literally physical is somehow changed even though its properties remain the same. That would be like telling a person blind person they can now see even though they have no literal sight. Nor can the Eucharist cannot pass thru a wooden door like a mysterious changed resurrected body can.
Instead of finding a precedent and explanation in Scripture, Catholicism's explanation is basically found in pagan philosophy.
From a RC monk:
Neoplatonic thought or at least conceptual terms are clearly interwoven with Christian theology long before the 13th century...
The doctrine of transubstantiation completely reverses the usual distinction between being and appearance, where being is held to be unchanging and appearance is constantly changing. Transubstantiation maintains instead that being or substance changes while appearance remains unchanged. Such reversals in the order of things are affronts to reason and require much, not little, to affirm philosophically. Moreover, transubstantiation seem to go far beyond the simple distinction between appearance and reality. It would be one thing if the body and blood of Christ simply appeared to be bread and wine. But I don’t think that is what is claimed with “transubstantiation.”
Aristotle picked up just such common-sense concepts as “what-it-is-to-be-X” and tried to explain rather complex philosophical problems with them. Thus, to take a “common-sense” concept like substance–even if one could maintain that it were somehow purified of Aristotelian provenance—and have it do paradoxical conceptual gymnastics in order to explain transubstantiation seems not to be not so anti-Aristotelian in spirit after all...
That the bread and wine are somehow really the body and blood of Christ is an ancient Christian belief—but using the concept of “substance” to talk about this necessarily involves Greek philosophy (Br. Dennis Beach, OSB, monk of St. John’s Abbey; doctorate in philosophy from Penn State; http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/30/transubstantiation-and-aristotle-warning-heavy-philosophy)
And nowhere in Scripture is spiritual life obtained via literally eating anything physical, but obtaining spiritual qualities by eating flesh of departed loved ones was found among pagans.
In contrast, only the metaphorical interpretation easily conflates conflates with the rest of Scripture, and John in particular, both in its use of metaphorical language for eating and drinking and in the means of obtaining spiritual life.
One is occasionally startled to find some scientist claiming to have put all the resources of his laboratory into testing the consecrated bread; he announces triumphantly that there is no change whatever, no difference between this and any other bread. We could have told him that, without the aid of any instrument...If our scientist had announced that he had found a change, that would be really startling and upsetting. .
Yet RCs often invoke purported miracles of a host that has done just that, actually becoming physical flesh, and thus this priests argument is an argument against them.
Sorry, the verse does not say what you are implying...It does not say Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world...It was those whose names that are not written in the book of life...
Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And how do we know that??? We reject Catholic tradition and compare scripture with scripture...
Rev 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
The sacrifice of Jesus is not an ongoing thing...It's over...You have absolutely nothing to support your idea of a continuing sacrifice...
We are not to celebrate the Crucifixion of Jesus...We are to hang our head in shame as we remember it...We are to celebrate Jesus' ascension...
I already have. You asked for chapter and verse that says "the Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice," but as said, it is abundantly evidenced that the word of God/the Lord was normally written, even if sometimes first being spoken, and that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.
And which also testifies (Lk. 24:27,44; Acts 17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23, etc.) to writings of God being recognized and established as being so (essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation), and thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.) is .
And just so we are all clear on the meaning of the word DEFINITION.. noun 1. ... making something definite, distinct, or clear:...2. the formal statement of the meaning...3. the condition of being definite, distinct, or clearly outlined:
You forgot to include your source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/definitions. But that is a strawman premise, as neither Caths nor SS adherents hold that for something to be Scriptural then it must then it must be definite, distinct, or clearly outlined or a formal statement, as such would exclude many arguments put forth by your comrades for doctrine we both concur on and especially for those we do not, from perpetual ensured magisterial infallibility to prayer to created beings in Heaven and more.
Therefore once again you are simply engaging in sophistry.
But that SS is taught in Scripture in principal and the collective weight of precepts has been shown to you - to which more can be added by God's grace if object - thus strawmen or sophistry is all that RCs have left. Which would But that SS means all doctreine
You are wrong. I will pray for you as well s the rest of the non-Catholics.
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