Posted on 02/23/2016 8:17:35 AM PST by Salvation
In the epistle for the Second Sunday of Lent (Phil. 3:17-4:1), St. Paul laments those whom he calls enemies of the cross of Christ: For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ (Phil 3:18).
What does it mean to be an enemy of the cross? And how do people end up in this condition of being inimical to the very thing and the very One who alone can save them? St. Paul not only laments the situation, but shows how they get into this condition. He does so in a very succinct way, in one verse, as we shall see below.
But first, let's rescue the word enemy from too narrow an understanding. In modern (American) English the word "enemy" tends to be associated with a distant foe, perhaps one with missiles aimed at us or armies ready to conquer us. It is often reserved for those who threaten our life or are opposed to us in the most extreme ways. In practice it is considered almost impolite to refer to difficult people who oppose us in some way as enemies.
Enemy comes from the Latin inimici. And while inimici is best translated "enemies," its roots are in (not) + amicus (friend). So our enemies are those who are not our friends, who oppose our values, who do not wish us well or stand ready to assist us.
This understanding helps us to grasp that enemies may be very close to home, not merely on distant shores. Enemies are not just those who plot the most serious hostilities against us. Thus, when Jesus tells us to love our enemies He has more in mind than just a distant group in some foreign land. He is also referring to those who are near--even within our own families--who are not friendly, who oppose us or the things and people we value.
So when St. Paul speaks of those who are enemies of the cross of Christ, he is not just referring to those who go around tearing crucifixes off walls or demanding that crosses be removed from public property. In his very brief description, St. Paul emphasizes an opposition that escalates from mere worldliness to the outright idolatry of comfort and pleasure. Indeed, if we take St. Paul seriously and are honest with ourselves, some of us who have crucifixes in our homes and march in processions with the crucifix before us as we sing "Lift High the Cross" might find that we are in some opposition to the cross.
So let's take a deeper look at St. Paul's description of the enemies of the cross of Christ. St. Paul describes the inimical stance of some in a fourfold way: Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things (Phil 3:19).
St. Paul, like many ancient authors, states the result first, followed by the causes. Because that is not the usual way to present a point of view, in the reflection that follows I am going to reverse St. Paul's order. By reversing his order, I will try to show how things can escalate so that one can become an enemy of the cross.
The text says, For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things (Phil 3:18-19).
St. Paul describes the escalation that can make a person more and more an enemy of the cross of Christ.
I. Foolish Preoccupations -- The text says that the enemies of the cross are characterized by having minds set on earthly things.
Of the threefold origin of temptation (the world, the flesh, and the devil), the world is understood not so much as a physical place in which we live, but as a mindset, a collection of thoughts, priorities, premises, values, and goals that are opposed to God and His Word. The fundamental values and priorities of this world include the amassing of possessions, power, prestige, and pleasure. Goals such as autonomy and instant gratification, and views rooted in materialism, secularism, anthropocentrism, secular humanism, utilitarianism, and utopianism are emphasized.
There are many in this world who not only accept these flawed premises and values, but also advance them. They do this because when one follows the world's agenda, one is frequently rewarded with wealth, access, popularity, and approval.
But we were not made for these things. The finite world cannot satisfy the infinite desires that are within us. The world may well grant us temporary comforts and benefits, but in the end it takes everything back and assigns us to a stone-cold tomb.
For this reason, having our minds set on earthly things is a foolish preoccupation. Scripture says,
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:15-17).
In a world that tells us to "scratch where it itches," there is going to be a cross of self-denial and of trusting God, who teaches us that we are made for more than mere trinkets. The world and devil promise pleasure now and then send you the bill later. The Lord speaks to sacrifice and discipline now and points to the fruits and blessings that come later.
To refuse this and insist exclusively on pleasure now is to become an enemy of the cross of Christ, who warns us to refuse to give our hearts over to the false promises and passing pleasures of this world. We are to crucify our excessive passions and desires (Gal 5:24). We are not to conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, so that we may be able to test and approve what God's will is (Rom 12:2).
Historically, this has meant the cross and suffering for Christians who live this way. The world and the consensus it desires (and often demands) does not take lightly the rejection inherent in true Christianity. The long legacy of persecution and hatred of Christians demonstrates this. It is one thing to choose to live our values in a personal way, but it is quite another to stand opposed (as we must) to the excesses and errors of the world and to seek to snatch others from its illusions and false promises. Marketers, industrialists, politicians, advocacy groups, ideologues, and the like all depend on a widespread "buy-in" in order for their products, projects, and schemes to advance. If we are not easily manipulated by the fears, anxieties, and guilt that the world uses to separate us from our love and loyalty to God, and our basic sense of truth, we are "off-message." We must, therefore, be silenced, either by pressure to conform or through shame. And if these do not work, then persecution: the cross.
But Scripture warns us that such crosses must be endured. Jesus says, If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John 15:19-20). And St. James adds, You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).
Many Christians find resisting the world and its errant demands a cross too difficult to bear. It is easier to cave in to the world's demands, to "go along to get along." This can be done in a thousand little ways through small and growing compromises, or in larger, clearer ways in which one denies truths of the faith in order to receive the praise of men and the blessings that come with conformity to the ways of the world.
To the degree that this happens in our life, we subtly and increasingly become enemies of the cross of Christ. We refuse the self-denial that is necessary and foolishly set our mind on worldly things, which can neither save nor satisfy.
II. Festive Perversions -- The text says of the enemies of the cross that they glory in their shame.
As people deepen their alliance with the ways of the world, their initial compunction is gradually and steadily eroded by rationalization and by surrounding themselves with teachers who tickle their ears (2 Tim 4:3). St. Paul speaks of those who, on account of their sinfulness, suppress the truth. Claiming to be wise, they become fools as their senseless minds are darkened (Rom 1:18, 21).
And as the darkness deepens, not only do they move further away from repentance, but they actually glory in their shame. Of their lack of shame over sinful acts. St. Paul says, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Rom 1:32).
And thus today we live in times of "gay pride" parades and the celebration of "gender diversity." Further, there are movies that glorify mob violence and political corruption and glamorize all sorts of evil. Some forms of music celebrate rebellion, hatred of authority, and misogyny. "Greed is good" was the theme of a movie about Wall Street in the late 1980s.
Being an enemy of the cross of Christ deepens in this stage. Not only are the crosses of self-control, self-discipline, and living within limits set aside due to human weakness, but now there is a prideful "doubling-down" in which one declares that what God calls sin ought instead to be celebrated.
This gradually becomes an outright mockery of the cross of Christ because it would seem to say that Jesus died for nothing, that the sins He died to save us from are not only not sins but are actually things worth celebrating.
These enemies of the cross see any limits as unreasonable. And if this weren't bad enough, as their inimical stance to the cross deepens they celebrate their rejection as a virtue of which to be proud. Their glory in their shame is a twisted and deformed version of tolerance; anyone who does not join in their celebration is guilty of one of the few sins left in their worldview: intolerance. Traditional biblical morality now becomes a form of hate, of intolerant bigotry.
This leads to a de facto rejection of God, at least the true God of Scripture:
III. Fallen Passions -- The texts says of the enemies of the cross, their god is their belly.
At some point the enmity toward the cross grows deep enough that the passions and pleasures of the world reach a godlike status, and indulging them becomes in effect a form of idolatry. All human beings struggle at some level with unruly passions and desires. But as long as we struggle and engage in the battle we are still clinging to the cross. Having rejected the cross by outright glorying in their shame, enemies of the Cross now begin to imbue their sins with a kind of godlike quality.
We know how easily money can become like a god to some; they give their whole life over to its acquisition. For them it is the most worthy and valuable thing they have. It is at the center, where God properly belongs.
In the sexual arena the idolatry is more subtle, but it is still evident in the way some talk. Consider that many today attribute their sexually irregular state to God Himself. They say, "God made me this way" and speak of sins and sinful desires as a gift from God. Some equate their desire with the very voice of God; the simple fact that they have a desire must mean that God put it there, and if God put it there it must be good.
In this way a fallen and disordered desire is thought to come from the very voice and will of God, and should therefore be accorded the reverence and obedience due to God Himself.
In this third stage, those who entertain such notions have entered idolatry's clutches. In effect, they reinvent God and ignore His actual revelation in Scripture and Sacred Tradition. But a reinvented god is not the one, true God, and to worship and obey such a false god is idolatrous.
IV. Final Place -- The text says of these enemies of the Cross: their end is destruction.
Only the true Christ and His true cross can save. Those who stand opposed to the cross embrace a poor destiny indeed. An old litany says, "Sow a thought, reap a deed. Sow a deed, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny." And so we see how our stances deepen within us, either for or against God.
It is therefore a serious matter to permit enmity for the cross to grow within us in any way. It begins with simple weakness and aversion to the more difficult and narrow way of the cross. Then we begin to surround ourselves with teachers who assure us that our sins aren't all that important or even that we can outright celebrate our sins. This then leads to a growing form of idolatry in which we reinvent and reimagine God, going so far as to call our sinful desires godly. The final stage is destruction, for a fake god, an idol, cannot save us. Only the One true God, who told us to take up our cross daily, can save us.
Beware the tendency to become an enemy of the cross of Christ. Spare us, O Lord, from our foolish tendency to substitute false religion. With St. Paul and all the saints may I be determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified
The bread and the wine of the Eucharist, for example, are spoken of as literal body and blood of Christ and also “food indeedâ€
Awwww! Now you've gone and rammed your figurative head right into a logical brick wall again, in both cases. The Kingdom of Heaven--the visible churches--is very real. And the bread and wine of the Remembrance Supper are still very real food, symbols not only of Jesus' body and blood given for the remission of sins, but anticipatory of the Wedding Feast of The Lamb, yet to come.
Now that you have understood the paradigm of a very real cross as a metonymy for Calvary and all it means, yet refused the way out of the totally illogical transubstantial tangle, and gone right back into nonsense, you have no excuse. You were given a crystal clear irrefutable example of the relationships, and made the right choice. Now you've taken yourself right back into irrationality.
It's plain for every Bible student to see, yet you reject common sense. There is none more blind than those who are engaged in neurotic determined irrational hysteria, rejecting the plain sense of Jesus' teachings and the biblical context.
One day the fragile bubble of your false confidence will burst, and then where will you be?
Don't think you will have an excuse . . . now who is an enemy of the gospel of the cross? (rhetorical, please)
The Eucharist is not a symbol. Nowhere in the scripture is is called symbol. Now, a picture of the Eucharist, or perhaps some grapefruit and cracker snack in some heretical communities of faith, — these are symbols, just like the Mount Soledad cross is a symbol.
This brings me great sorrow for you, but not respect for your approach to theology.
This is the sad end of the lesson, and you do not seem to have learned by it.
So long . . .
I believe in what the Holy Scripture says, not in your “lessons”. Drop the Protestant lies and you, too, may be saved.
I wish you did, but you don't. The problem is that either (1) you are not aware that you don't believe in the message carried by the written Word, or (2) you deliberately ignore the lessons brought to you by them.
. . . not in your "lessons".
Jesus taught, taught His disciples to teach, and commanded them to recruit students (disciples), to formally induct them as permanent servants of The Christ, and to teach them how to make disciples who can also themselves effectively teach yet more disciple-students, using the same spiritual teaching methods that Jesus used, employing both literal and figurative-literal language as He did, when promulgating and interpreting Scripture.
This is called "the great commission" and is the only method which Jesus Messiah authorized to initiate and build His Church through every age. This was to be carried out, individual by individual, disciple by disciple, generation by generation, age to age, millennium to millennium, until He comes to wrap up this process, cause it to cease, and sequester the group of true believers, living and dead, to join Him in administering His Kingdom of Righteous and Peace.
However, this church-building process is still going on amongst His true called believers. It is the way I was recruited, saved, baptized, and trained to teach, using the Holy Scripture truths to personally instruct truth-seekers. I gave you a lesson using unassailable scriptural methods with scriptural references, and you refused the lesson as well as the teacher. Others, observing, have not. They are Bereans. You are of the mindset of the Thessalonikans or worse, doubting, and with a closed mind of rejecting Bible truth. Nevertheless, let's continue:
Crowds came to hear Jesus, among whom were His selected students (Mt. 13:1-2). He gave them all a lesson on the transmission of The Faith, using the parable of the sower, seed, and seedbed (Mt. 13:3-8). All listened with their physical ears, but none heard with their spiritual "ears." though He abjured them:
"Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (v. 9).
His disciples perceived that he had used a parable, and asked why. So He took them aside, and instructed them in the concept of figurative symbolisn, and how to use it in effectively and efficiently teaching a Bible principle, a Holy Truth of The Faith.
In this training session, the use of the figurative-literal parable is explained to the prospective future discipler-teachers. The "sower" is equated with (symbolizes) a man whose task is to announce the imminence of the Kingdom of Heaven as a herald; "sowing" represents making the announcement; "the seed" is equated to (symbolizes, represents) the Word (logos, doctrine) of the Kingdom; "ground" stands for the mind and heart upon which the seed--the logos of the Word --"falls"; "rocks" represents the dull sterile surface that does not sustain germination of the "seed"; the "birds" represents the agents of the Adversary who snatch away, eat, digest, defecate, and fertilize the soil with a corrupted form of the "seed," (like oats going through a horse); "soil" speaks of an open fertile mind and heart upon which the "seed" can "germinate" (be heard and understood) and begin to grow; and "thorns" identifies the worldly busyness and materialism that completely occupy the "hearers," choking out the impact of doctrine and preventing further growth.
But furthermore, and most important to the value of the "sowing" process, is that the "seed" fall on "good ground" (an open mind and heart that searches the scriptures daily to see if it be so, then absorbs and integrates it if the seed is good), grows (becomes spiritually viable), and matures into replicating itself in "fruit" (Mt. 13:23) "more fruit" (Jn. 15:2), and "much fruit" (Jn. 12:24; 15:5,8). As a prototype of the many lessons, and of the methods of teaching those lessons, Jesus made His disciples thoroughly conversant in adopting those methods, and understanding the use of figurative-literal language to illustrate the meaning of the culture of the New Covenant, as he was preparing its future Teacher/Apostle/Disciple-makers (Mt. 13:11-33). Jesus made it clear there, and in Luke 8, that those who do not, or will not hear, will not be a part of the Kingdom of God. None understood, not being accustomed to the use of figurative speech as the vehicle, and not given God's gift of "hearing," no matter who is speaking the Audible Word--the hrema--of God, the Sword of the Spirit, by which The Faith creates more faith. But for those who are Bereans, who do have an open mind, who do hear and understand the parables of Jesus and apply them, these hearers are educable. Jesus capitalized on this.
"All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world" (Mt. 13:34-35 AV).
From this training saturated with rich figurative illustrations, it was so utterly obvious to his chosen, intimate disciples that when He referred to Himself as the Bread from Heaven (Jn. 6:32-36), the use of "bread" is a figurative-literal term in which ,interpreted literally, He is the Spiritual Food, personified, which for all time satisfies spiritual hunger for the Word of God. For the spiritually hungry one, coming to Jesus (for redemption, fellowship, and service) is a an act of symbolically being spiritually fed and hence filled for all time. Similarly, the decision to utterly and completely trust Him is the same as symbolically having one's spiritual thirst forever slaked (Jn. 6:35).
Thus to His own disciples later on in John 6, as well as at the Last Supper, eating of His Flesh and drinking of His Blood was absolutely of the nature of symbolic figurative-literal meaning and interpretation. The peripheral wannabe sensation-seeking disciples whose minds were closed, who did not hear and understand, and who thus mistook His words to be literal in the eating and drinking of Him, walked no more with Him (Jn. 6:66) on the basis of misapplication of Jewish law; and therefore remained under condemnation (Jn. 3:18).
And so it is today. Those who still insist that those words of Jesus were literal and of no symbolic significance, are of the same class as those who heard and heard and did not understand, who saw and saw and did not perceive; lest they would listen, view and without saving faith try to escape God's wrath that will be visited upon faithless humans.
And after being shown this from a saving, Scriptural viewpoint, you still have the arrogant gall to incriminate me as a prevaricator and heathen:
"Drop the Protestant lies and you, too, may be saved."
First of all, I am not a Protestant or Reformer. I am a believer in the Person, Work, Doctrine, and Shed Blood of Jesus of Nazareth, Who is the Jewish Messiah and LORD of both Jews and Gentiles as defined in the New Testament. I am a discipled Herald (click here) of the Life-Giving Gospel of Christ. Peter, and Paul.
From what I see, FRiend, your statements strongly intimate that you might be of the class of spiritually deaf and blind, who cannot grasp the deep things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14), to whom what I have just told you is foolishness, who cannot discern spiritual things, and who reject God's gracious offering of salvation by faith alone. I would not have it that way but, of course, the choice is up to you.
I pray that God will give you the gift of faith, and the ability to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God, which the ravens have snatched away from you and defecated on.
Beware, my FRiend, beware. And be a little humble.
Concur, Hallelujah and God Bless.
All these generalities about occurrences of allegorical speech in the Holy Scripture do not negate the fact that The Eucharist is spoken about in the scripture as radically not allegorical.
Keep up the good work bro.
Yes, Anna, we understand the Catholic take on it and that it isn’t the same as evangelical takes on it (I say takes, since there is the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation).
But please don’t set up a strawman. Evangelicals take the act of partaking in communion as metaphorical. That isn’t quite the same as allegorical. Even if we disagree, we can at least be as honest as possible about what we are disagreeing about.
Maybe I’m a crypto-Lutheran, going mostly to Baptist churches, because I think there’s something to the consubstantiation theory. That somehow, Christ heightens His own presence in a special way at and around the presence of the Holy Communion. I used to be relatively insensitive to Holy Communion but over the years it grew and grew on me. Yes it is a metaphor; no, taking it is to do something more than display a metaphor, it is somehow to imbibe the spirit of Christ afresh as well.
Consubstantiation makes the most sense to me. A lifelong conservative Lutheran, we have always been taught that IN WITH and UNDER the elements of bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present. When He instituted His supper and said This is my Body, the is would be implied in the greek and not necessary to specifically add. However the disciple that wrote the Gospel specifically added the IS for emphasis.
Transubstantiation leads to errors - my body and digestive tract receive bread and wine and handle them as any other bread and wine. Anyone with intact senses can see and taste that bread and wine are still present after the elements are consecrated. We do not worship or adore the elements, although they are treated with respect.
However we fully believe what Christ says about His Supper - that He physically touches us and nourishes us in His Supper with His own Body and Blood. How can this be? I do not know, but I don’t need to know how a radio works to use it either. I would not expect to fully comprehend one of God’s greatest gifts to us.
But to say it is merely metaphorical or allegorical I think is to lose some of the richness of the Sacrament.
Frankly... I think Protestants should be bold to be Protestants even if Catholics “damn us to hell.” I don’t hide behind terminology. What in heaven’s name is going on here at the Communion... we ought to at least try to answer that.
And I have arrived — if somewhat uncomfortably because there is no theological home for it other than taking the biblical description as a double meaning, a divine pun — at something close to what Luther believed. There’s both a metaphor AND a solid connection of some kind to Christ going on here. It could be the most important point of all is missed, however; just DO it and let it be what God has made it to be. God never asked us to make people jump through theological hoops. Maybe we can trust Him enough to do it right if we do what He asked us to do.
And the most interesting thing to me is, we don’t need to preach any doctrine beyond what the bible says. We just need to do it with the intent that we are carrying out the Lord’s instructions. The Lord takes care of the rest.
Christ unto us is spiritual food, and He remains so whether or not we are gathered in a place to worship. Somehow there seems to be an extra measure of this present at the communion, and the perception of this has grown on me over the years. To say that this is not intended by the Lord would be, to me, a mistake.
I don’t know who Anna might be. Ann is my wife, but she rarely reads FR.
The Catholic view, based on the uninterrupted patristic teaching and on the Holy Scripture, is that the Eucharist contains, as a miracle, the real presence of Christ in it. In that it is different from other holy objects such as crosses, icons, or pictures of the Eucharist, or, for example, non-consecrated elements a seminarian might manipulate in order to train.
That is the fundamental distinction. So far as splitting hairs between symbolic or allegorical or metaphorical, I am not game, for it is neither. If these shades of counter-biblical heresy are important to you, discuss among yourselves.
That is because the words of Christ recorded during the Last Supper, or anticipating the gift of the Eucharist in John 6, or explanations of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, or recognition of Christ in the “breaking of the bread” on the road to Emmaus all point to a miraculous reality that needs to be discerned, rather than allegory, metaphor, or symbolism, which all Christ employed when teaching through parables or using idiomatic language.
It sounds like so much theological gymnastics to me.
Maybe the most telling sign that it is theological gymnastics, is that you say the priest administering it has to declare not just “this is His body” but an actual transubstantiation, otherwise you don’t have a valid communion. The making of this extra claim is a step absent from the bible narrative.
Patristic writings are often very devout, but they have never equaled scripture in status and often appear distorted so as to exalt the churchmen.
Amen to your post.
And loosen up a bit. Anna is of course a nickname for annalex. I’ve been called Red and don’t get all gnarled up about it.
I agree. If that is your views, them's the views. I can at least respect a firm conviction. At the same time, I realize that there are multiple distinctions in the Protestant domain, but for us Catholics (I include Orthodox) they are minor and we cannot be expected to keep track of them.
Since you mention damnation, let me clarify. The Catholic view is that declarative faith alone does not save. If a Muslim or an Atheist imitates Christ in his works, then he can be saved, no matter what theories he has in his head. Certainly a Protestant can even more so be sanctified through his works and through the love of the Holy Scripture. It's the heart not the label that matters to Christ, Who in His sovereign will can save anyone. People should convert to the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church not because it automatically would give them salvation, but because they will be in more frequent company of Christ and that will shape their soul for the better, and prepare them better for their eventual judgment.
The spiritual danger of Protestantism is that it is based in many parts on denial of Christ. He comes across in the Protestant teaching as someone Who does not mean what He says, always evasively allegorical, failing to build up His Church till 1500 years after the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the disciples. The denial of the historical continuity of the Catholic and Orthodox churches is denial of the productive work of the Holy Spirit, a serious blasphemy. It is not the opinions, it is the spirit of opposition to the authentic Churches of antiquity that is wicked. Not all Protestants suffer from it, but many do.
I believe in an “acceptive faith.” It’s the only kind that makes sense.
Now, sooner or later this is going to produce a declaration. Either this side of glory or the next one. But I don’t put the cart before the horse and say that the declaration produces the faith. And actually, neither do serious Protestant reformers. Please avoid strawmen here.
Your thesis is interesting because I’ve been inching up on the gospel to a group of Hindus, who are actually more spiritually aware than a lot of nominal Christians I have met. My plan, inasmuch as there is one, is to show the blessings of God and then reveal Jesus Christ as the source. They sure do not refuse the blessings, and have seemed to show interest in my account of the origin.
Oh, also it is on account of my Protestant beliefs that I can accept that people in Catholic and Orthodox congregations can be believers.
But we don’t soft pedal it when we say a lot of them are just believing in men, not in Christ. And we aren’t being hypocrites here because that’s a big problem in the evangelical segment of Christendom too. Baptists, Methodists, etc. will freely tell you there are going to be congregants who miss heaven because of failing to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe in going where the Lord has sent me, not based on worries about the pontifications of Orthodox or Catholic. I have no problems accepting any bible based congregation as authentic, even if you don’t, because this is the personal message of the Founder of the faith.
Visit a Catholic Mass one day. The Eucharistic prayer is, of course, a prayer that is spoken on behalf of the faithful present and has a few variations. However, the Eucharist is consecrated by a close paraphrase of the words of Christ:
Take this, all of you, and eat of it:
for this is my body which will be given up for you.
Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
for this is the chalice of my blood,
the blood of the new and eternal covenant.
which will be poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.
Surely you recognize the scripture behind each word.
Transubstantiation is a theory favored by Catholics, but it is not itself the doctrine of the Real Presence. Transubstantiation is one way to explain how what is bread and wine according to every physical test is nevertheless the Presence of Christ. The Orthodox don't explain the Real Presence at all; Lutherans offer a variation called co-substantiation. The transubstantiation is based on the medieval, even Aristotelian concept that things have substance and they have appearance (called more precisely in medieval philosophy "accidents"). Usually, the appearance follows substance, but there is nothing that by logical necessity ties accidents to substance. "Transubstantiation" is simply a way to say that in the Eucharist the appearance of bread and wine do not change, but the substance change. This is supported by the Emmaus episode when Christ breaks bread and then the disciples see Him.
The early Church did not teach transubstantiation but it taught Real Presence. St. Paul teaches Real Presence in 1 Cor. 11:29. Transubstantiation is a way to explain a miracle in rational terms. Maybe a next generation's Stephen Hawkins comes up one day with something in string/multiverse/quantum entanglement theory that explains how one thing becomes another internally but not externally, perhaps gradually the Church will accept that explanation as she accepted St. Thomas'. That will change very little, if it happens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.