The Resurrection & The Eucharist

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.

How on earth (and in heaven also) can this;

This stuff isn't "partial divinizing": nobody is "partially divinizing" Mary.

square with;

"... Mary was therefore predestined to be the spiritual mother of many offspring"

I say to you that such is an impossibility, regardless of the spiritual imagery witnessed and written about/described by the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation.

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Yet now we must call "Mary" our own mother, thinking of her even as a Heavenly, spirit mother?

For the time being you may spare yourself needing present repetition of the foot-of-the-cross;

"The tiny remnant--- the

Church --- consisted of those at the foot of the Cross. ..."

sort of thing, for I have seen that already and was working towards commenting in reply to that, yet checked back to the thread here before final 'post'.

Instead of going over all the various details again and again and again, wherein each time objection is raised there is reply which turns to yet other aspects of alleged "converging lines of evidence" (as if they can give each other enough cover to fully justify the ways in which the various aspects of Marionist apologetic presents them to be, singularly and by turn) let us instead compare the pair of assertions.

I say this in part for reason that upon examination of the alleged evidences nearly none of them can fully enough stand alone to be "as they are being presented to be". As soon as challenges are raised, after some amount of glossing over the substance of the objections, there's that turning towards making mentions of all the other alleged-to-be converging evidences.

By-passing, or at least momentarily setting aside that painfully time-consuming process we could (should) instead isolate and compare the two highlighted [above] assertions.

Let's take a look at just where we have ended up. What is the result of all that progression from one little Lilly pad of justification (for Marionism) to another? Have we reached a far shore of the pond yet?

To be generous(?) to your own self personally, I will grant that it is not you yourself who originated this dual-track sort of *thinking about Mary* which seemingly is to my own eyes, a having things both ways at once ---- which would lead persons of intellectual integrity and sanity to experience cognitive dissonance when examining and comparing the assertions highlighted [above].

Yet all the apologetic which has been steadily (and rapidly) churned out over the last week or so to justify or else explain Marionism has yet to rectify the two assertions.

And those (highlighted, italicised above) statements are not so much error on your own part as they are fair enough representation of the state of RC theology (and attendant apologetic) in regards to "Mary".

So again (and thank you for this finally being boiled down to it's essence) let us freeze-frame the two competing and logically exclusionary conceptual components that you have presented to us.

Can a circle be squared?

In mathematical methodology, iirc it cannot be done, even in only calculation of area.

One can get close, even exceedingly close, close enough to define parameters far finer than achievable in material realm using presently available machining and methods -- yet still not ever reach finality of exactitude due to inherent mathematical characteristic of π (pi).

Yet we are not speaking towards geometric forms and mathematical calculations here, but instead are speaking of the difference between;

a merely created being (Mary, herself) being able to now "spiritually" give birth from heavenly places (where she is assumed to now be).

AND

the objection that she has not been elevated (by the praises of men) into becoming ---if not fully divine, then some form or semblance of divine, such as possibly expressed as semi-divine or else demi-goddess (not to be confused with Demiurge save in mystical sense of divine motherhood, divine "public worker" perhaps).

Reliance upon scratchings (or else 'mural') from catacombs as some actual form of "converging line of evidence" to make up for the howling wasteland void and lack for there being hyper-ized Marionism extant within history & Church record (other than from Gnostic sources, lol) in the centuries preceding the Council of Ephesus, is to stretch the more basic and original Judeo-Christian construct to a breaking point.

To now attempt to make the case that the earliest centuries Church regarded her as Mother from on High to them all, is as beyond imaginative semi-lunacy as it also incorporation of past paganistic ways of *thinking about* heavenly realms, having progressed from her being Mother of the Incarnate Christ, towards fully making of Mary into being as divine entity --- Our Lady, Our Heavenly Mother (up in the Sky);

"...intercede[ing] before her Son in the fellowship of all the saints, until all families of people, whether they are honored with the title of Christian or whether they still do not know the Saviour, may be happily gathered together in peace and harmony into one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity." [Lumen Gentium § 69]

Tacking on "for the glory of God" sort of thing still does not limit her there from having been promoted to something of rank of Chief Junior Grade, little "g" goddess, ranked lower only to the "persons" of the Trinity, logically, conceptually and theologically speaking.

It seems to me that all which is holding back making Mary fully into divine entity, is something alone lines of that small 2-letter word "as" which I myself employed while speaking of Mary in the paragraph above the quote from Lumen Gentium;

Such a thin cord it is holding that boat to a mooring. My sailor's eye tells me ---enough wind, and that line is a-going to part, for a surety.

All that's left is to finalize the hyper expansion of "regard" and emulation (for Mary).

Mediatrix of all Graces is the next step in progression towards more fully & officially making her a 4th person of the Trinity, if in all but openly declared, clearly defined proclamation and name.

Meanwhile, this same Church(?) whom in past centuries was persuaded that one known as Arius was a danger for merely contemplating (and openly asserting) there was a time when Christ did not exist, now not only countenances increasingly hyper regard for "Mary", but actively promotes it.

Can not there be a difference between one (anyone) being with God the Father (there hid in Christ?) from some point partway, or arising from within eternity -- to then remain with Him into say, the remainder of eternity?

This sort of question also touches upon how within Roman Catholicism there has been (here of late) increasing contemplation of entering into and touching upon "eternity" and thus stepping into a stream which --- in present day imaginations --- seems to not only flow FROM the Temple but is one in which a person could, uh, veritably, swim upstream and be present in "eternity" --- going both forwards and backwards, and yet again standing in any one place, all at the same time.

Should we not leave that sort of Omnipresence to the One Eternal God --- alone?

Yet here we are now --- not residing elsewhere in mystic stream, one in which "Mary" is said to have been (at particular point in "time") assumed up into the heavenlies, and now (after that somewhat late date?) is to be "mother" of all whom would come to the Lord. Herself if Spirit Mother would need to have swum upstream as it were --- to give birth to those "of the church" whom preceded her own creation & existence. Or else say goodbye to Moses and all the prophets, forever discarded for having not been 'born of Mary'.

We need not a Heavenly mother per se, there is simply no place for a Heavenly Mother ----> any more than one was alluded to in the book of Genesis chapter 5 verse 2

"Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created."

Or if one prefers http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/5

"he created them male and female. When they were created, he blessed them and named them humankind."

Mary cannot be Our Heavenly Mother ---unless --- Mary has now assumed a portion of the role which God the Father Himself, himself having no gender (sexual identity as it were) from the beginning creation of mankind accomplished Creation of all that there is with assistance from --- no one, period, dot.

Just how far

Into the Mystic

shall we go?

We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won
As we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic
And when that fog horn blows
I will be coming home, mmm mmm
And when the fog horn blows
I want to hear it
I don't have to fear it
I wanna rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will float
Into the mystic

How far can we go before loosing our moorings
premature of the tidal flow we need carry us
safely over the reefs and into the Trades, and those
winds (Spirit) hold, carrying us to the
next harbor

That one truly Safe Harbor
to abide there forevermore after

we actually arrive

There

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AMEN!