Posted on 02/13/2021 8:18:22 AM PST by HypatiaTaught
Good morning my conservative FRiends.
I am reaching out to hopefully get an answer to my lifelong question of a central belief in the Christian faith, especially the Roman Catholic faith.
Background: I grew up in a very Roman Catholic family. I am number 10 of 13 children, 8 boys, 5 girls. Mom also had 2 miscarriages which in truth, she became pregnant with 10 boys rather than the 8. Mom had 15 pregnancies in 17 years.
We went to Mass every Sunday and all the holy days. Mom actually taught Catechism to the community and was a very loving soul.
My question since the age of eight and remains 50 years later, why do we have the belief of actually having to eat the body of Jesus Christ?
I am a very logical person, but this concept of consuming the flesh of God's son to obtain salvation simply doesn't make sense. I get that he died for our sins and was sacrificed. I know the history of sacrifices 2000 years ago. Tribes sacrificed lambs, goats and other livestock. But why the eating of his body or any human body? We don't eat humans. I don't even eat animals any more, for digestive purposes. Maybe I am the only one who finds this tenant extremely disturbing.
Yes, but no normal man would use the female pagan philosopher name of ‘Hypatia’.
So that limits us to the other two gender categories.
:)
Good try at a false witness. I have not been drinking anything with alcohol in it. You must be a Catholic to take such a low road.
It appears you have arrived at your own answer prior to even asking the question.
I don't believe your family history or that you were ever a Catholic.
I pray that those who are misled will be shown the Truth. I’ll leave it at that.
Yep, it’s PURELY symbolic. We have the Lord’s supper, ONLY, in remembrance of Him. It IS that simple.
Actually "living water" was first used in Jn. 4, in which the Lord used the physical in order to lead the women to the spiritual, and rather than being like a typical American, she pursued the issue and was provided with the spiritual answer of believing on Jesus to receive this water,
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. (John 4:14-15)
The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. (John 4:25-26)
And which answer was a result of her continuing with the Lord, despite Him pointing out her sin, and which continuing is a spiritual principal in John in order to receive more light.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:31-32)
Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them. (John 12:35-36)
Yet we need more revelation to better understand how we receive this living water, which your text of John 7 partially provides, and more is later given, showing that the Holy Spirit is given as a result of believing the gospel. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9)
For we see many examples of the Lord speaking in an apparently physical way in order to reveal the spiritual meaning to those who awaited the meaning, which, as elsewhere, the Lord revealed to true seekers.
In Jn. 2:19,20, the Lord spoke in a way that seems to refer to destroying the physical temple in which He had just drove out the money changers, and left the Jews to that misapprehension of His words, so that this was a charge during His trial and crucifixion by the carnally minded. (Mk. 14:58; 15:29) But the meaning was revealed to His disciples after the resurrection.
Likewise, in Jn. 3:3, the Lord spoke in such an apparently physical way that Nicodemus exclaimed, "How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" (John 3:4)
And in which, as is characteristic of John, and as seen in Jn. 6:63, the Lord goes on to distinguish btwn the flesh and the Spirit, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," (John 3:6) leaving Nicodemus to figure it out, requiring seeking, rather than making it clear. Which requires reading more than that chapter, as with Jn. 6, revealing being born spiritually in regeneration. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9; Eph. 1:13; 2:5)
And which means that had those carnally-minded Jews in John 6, who were looking for physical food, had continued on in seeking the spirtual meaning, then they would understood, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me," (John 6:57) and "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63) For "just how did Christ live by the Father"? The answer is that the manner by which the Lord lived by the Father was as per Mt. 4:4: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Thus for the Lord Jesus who lived by every word of God, the doing of His will was "meat." For once again using metaphor, the Lord stated to disciples who thought He was referring to physical bread,
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. (John 4:34) And likewise the Lord revealed that He would not even be with them physically in the future, but that His words are Spirit and life: “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:62-63)
And which is the only meaning that comports with the rest of the NT. For Lord Holy Spirit only and always taught that that spiritual life was obtained by receiving the word of the gospel, and never shows this was by actual physical ingestion of anything, but that one "lives by" (upon) God's word as well, first by repentant faith in the gospel and then by feeding upon the word of God. For while the Lord's supper is nowhere referred to as spiritual food anywhere interpretive of John 6 (Acts thru Rev.) the word of God what is taught as being spiritual nourishment, being uniquely called "milk" and "meat" (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:13; 1Pt. 2:2) by which believers are "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up. (Acts 20:32)
And even STILL, what he said was LITERALLY true, in addition to its symbolic meaning, because when he said, “Anyone who drinks of the water which I shall give shall live eternally,” water is a part of the eucharist/communion/lord’s supper and by turning that water into his blood (which is also water), so yes, he does give us water, which also becomes he himself, in the absolute physical, observable sense.
Now this is really off the rails. As in addition to what I just said, nowhere is anyone ever told to or shown having to take part in the Lord's supper in order to receive the Holy Spirit. In fact nowhere is the Lord's supper clearly mentioned in Acts unless such communal meals as "breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart" (Acts 2:46) refers to this. And other than the simple mention of "feast of charity" in Jude, then 1 Co. 10,11 is the only place the LS is mentioned and is the only place in which some sort of actual description is given. And with no mention of any priest officiating and offering it as a sacrifice to be consumed to obtain spiritual life, while contextually the "body" that was not discerned is that of the body of Christ, the church, as briefly explained in post 125 by the grace of God.
Moreover, if Catholics really took Jn 6:53,54 literally and as a imperative requirement just like other "verily, verily" statements, then they must exclude baptized Prots who deny Catholic Eucharistic theology (with its non-existent transubstantiated bread and wine) as being Christians in whom Christ dwells. Contrary to V2.
in the absolute physical, observable sense
But which really does not exist. But really can grow old. But do not make a deal about appearance as regards nature, except that molecular decay does not count as meaning Christ is no longer present under the appearance of bread, for you have to see it to believe it. Then.
>> Nor did the Lord or Scripture ever refer or example the true Christ in His incarnation as having an appearance that did not conform to what He materially was, but in fact He and Scripture emphasized the manifest physicality of Christ in contrast to the a christ whose appearance that did not conform to what He materially was. <<
Well, first, you’re wrong. He came to Saul, and no-one could see him. Even when he did appear on the road to Emmaus, the disciples couldn’t recognize him: he was there in the flesh and they could not discern his presence until they had received Supper with the Lord. And while he allowed Thomas to feel his human flesh, he told the women at the tomb, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the father.”
Wrong again, for the context is that of the incarnated Christ in His encounters on earth, not some sort of vision which somehow (or someplace if not in Acts 9) Saul had, and even then it was not with an inanimate object as your bread is. And as re. the disciples on the Emmaus road, "their eyes were holden that they should not know him," (Luke 24:16) yet even if due to disguise (cf. Mark 16:12), yet as said, the Lord did not have an appearance that did not conform to what He materially was, like a piece of bread, or that He suddenly became physical when He said, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. (Luke 24:39) Nor is there anything said that this non-physicality was the case with Jesus and the women at the tomb who were not told to not touch Him. Which could mean "cling" as perhaps 1 Co. 7:1 (it is good not to touch a women) does. For your wafer-Jesus to work you must have a much different manifest Jesus than the one who told disciples to handle Him as proof that He was the Lord, and one that is akin to your inanimate object as your bread is.
You left out John 6:53 "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." (John 6:53)
Thus if you really take Jn 6:53,54 literally and as a imperative requirement just like other "verily, verily" statements, then you must exclude baptized Prots who deny Catholic Eucharistic theology (with its non-existent transubstantiated bread and wine) as being Christians in whom Christ dwells. But the Holy Spirit only and always taught that that spiritual life was obtained by receiving the word of the gospel, and never shows this was by actual physical ingestion of anything, but that one "lives by" (upon) God's word as well, first by repentant faith in the gospel and then by feeding upon the word of God. For while the Lord's supper is nowhere referred to as spiritual food anywhere interpretive of John 6 (Acts thru Rev.) the word of God what is taught as being spiritual nourishment, being uniquely called "milk" and "meat" (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:13; 1Pt. 2:2) by which believers are "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up. (Acts 20:32)
Why, at the age eight, did you not ask your Mom? After all, according to your "story", "Mom actually taught Catechism to the community and was a very loving soul".
One other thing.....As Christians we ARE ‘the body’ of Christ through His good Spirit that indwells us from the time of our Salvation.
“Now you [collectively] are Christ’s body, and individually [you are] members of it [each with his own special purpose and function].”......1 Corinthians 12:27
Yep...They needed the blood to show the sacrifice (death) was complete...
But NOW, we have ONE sacrifice to supplant all others...Done one time to cover all future blood sacrifices...
To make God accessible to us without needing a priest to intercede for us...The veil has been ripped apart...We have instant and immediate access to God without any more blood sacrifices or priests...
You want proof?
Send me your email and I can send you a family photo, newspaper article about our family in the Orange County Register, California and my baptismal and holy communion certificate.
St Barbra’s in Westminster, CA is where we went to church.
What Protestants lack is the apologetic tradition, several books of the Bible, and frankly, the depth of theologies like St Thomas Acquinas, St Francis of Assissi, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe Protestants have path to heaven...and not all Catholics are o the path to heaven. But, the holiness, depth of theological knowledge, history, etc. were irresistible to me as God pulled me to His Church.
Sola Scriptura basically claims salvation is in man’s hands and any interpretation of the condensed Bible will do. Would be difficult to argue otherwise as there is no authority to say which of the many thoisands of interpretations are correct. There is also the fact that God gave us His laws and guides both scriptural and through tradition. The Catholic church has the original from the source interpretations.
The Catholic educates, feeds, provides health care to more people than any other entity on earth.So many millions foing God’s good works...beautiful thing.
Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?Isaiah 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
“Actually “living water” was first used in Jn. 4,...”
All very true, but in no way in conflict with anything I wrote. There seems a very common thing on FR, where one person says, “A” and another says, “B” as if B is the negation of A, without demonstrating that A and B cannot be true.
“Yet we need more revelation to better understand how we receive this living water, which your text of John 7 partially provides, and more is later given, showing that the Holy Spirit is given as a result of believing the gospel. (Acts 10:43-47; 15:7-9)”
Again, you here insist without basis that because C follows A, C cannot follow B.
“For we see many examples of the Lord speaking in an apparently physical way in order to reveal the spiritual meaning to those who awaited the meaning, which, as elsewhere, the Lord revealed to true seekers.
“In Jn. 2:19,20, the Lord spoke in a way that seems to refer to destroying the physical temple in which He had just drove out the money changers, and left the Jews to that misapprehension of His words, so that this was a charge during His trial and crucifixion by the carnally minded.”
Was not the Temple actually destroyed? In fact, before Rome demolished the rocks that comprised it, the Temple was already functionally destroyed: “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split”
Where you keep insisting that because something has material meaning, it cannot have a spiritual meaning and where it is spiritual meaning, and where it has a spiritual meaning, it cannot have a material meaning. But you keep citing examples where it is very plain that it has both meanings.
The Nicodemus example is great! Nicodemus doesn’t mistake the physical for the spiritual; he mistakes the very meanings of words! Jesus uses here an idiom that exists in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic... The idiom is sort of preserved in English, but English grammar forces one to choose one of two meanings, and Protestants have chosen to translate it according to Nicodemus’ misunderstanding. Jesus says a man must be “born over.” He means “born from above,” not “born a second time” as he makes very clear in John 3:5-7, where he speaks of being born from Heaven.
And yet still, once introduced, Catholic bibles didn’t purge this Protestant translation because it’s NOT heresy, it only leads to heresy from out-of-context proof-texting. Indeed, the act of baptism/chrismation is indeed being born “anew.”
Your use of “my meat is to do the will of He who sent me” simply cannot be associated with consuming the eucharist/lord’s supper/communion, even though that lousy translation makes a modern English ear want to associate it with “my flesh.” Meat, here, means sustenance, or even more closely, what someone craves. In modern Greek, the word now even means “stink,” “rot,” or even “fetish.”
Ans. It is the true Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, given unto us Christians to eat and to drink, as it was instituted by Christ Himself.
Where is it so written?
Ans. The Holy Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, together with St. Paul, write thus:
“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread: and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my Body, which is given for you: this do, in remembrance of Me.
“After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it: this cup is the new testament in my Blood, which is shed for you, for the remission of sins: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
No one cares that your Church has created its own religion but I think what really urks people is that you take OUR scriptures out of the bible and twist and turn and distort them to justify YOUR religion...So what exactly does Jesus tell his disciples to do??? In rembrance of him???
“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread: and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my Body, which is given for you: this do, in remembrance of Me.
“After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it: this cup is the new testament in my Blood, which is shed for you, for the remission of sins: this do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
Jesus took bread,
He broke it,
Gave the bread to his disciples,
And told them to eat it, in remembrance of him...
Jesus took the cup,
Gave it to the disciples,
And told them to drink it and then told them,
As often as you drink this, do it in remembrance of him...
We are to do this because it is a symbol of His sacrifice that we are never to forget...The 'Do This' has absolutely nothing to do with turning wine into blood...
Why did you omit placing in red the words, “This is My body?” Because your religion would denude poor souls of genuine comfort.
“This is My body.”
No amount of maipulation or avoidance will change these words of Christ when He instuted the Supper.
Well I disagree with you some. I claim those patriarchs as our own. Up to and during the reformation, I see Rome as the one that fell away and the Protestant side as the true church going forward. So I do claim the apologetic tradition.
I will not fault any charitable works done by the RCs and have publicly defended them numerous times for that. Well, I will say the secular drug enabling soup kitchens and pushing socialist stuff such as we have here are not biblical charity but Protestants can do the same and anyway it is their money they can do as they will. Overall their charitable work over the centuries has been commendable and often inspiring.
As for holiness I am sorry but although many individual RCs have been personally appearing to be holy the heirarchy is simply the opposite. Bad stuff. And again the history I claim as our own.
I don’t not think it’s quite true to say any version of a condensed Bible will do. The belief that it is the true and perfect word of God perfectly preserved by Him for us pertains to the original manuscripts (Hebrew, Greek). Any Protestant scholar will admit that our interpretation is by nature limited. Yet we trust that the Lord makes it plain enough for us and we are careful to not add a jot or a tittle, as they say.
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