Posted on 05/30/2005 12:57:09 PM PDT by NYer
The Catholic Church teaches that in the Eucharist, the wafer and the wine really become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Have you ever met anyone who finds this a bit hard to take?
If so, you shouldn’t be surprised. When Jesus spoke about eating his flesh and drinking his blood in John 6, the response was less than enthusiastic. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (V 52). “This is a hard saying who can listen to it?” (V60). In fact so many of his disciples abandoned him that Jesus asked the twelve if they also planned to quit. Note that Jesus did not run after the deserters saying, “Come back! - I was just speaking metaphorically!”
It’s intriguing that one charge the pagan Romans lodged against Christians was that of cannibalism. Why? They heard that this sect met weekly to eat flesh and drink human blood. Did the early Christians say: “wait a minute, it’s only a symbol!”? Not at all. When explaining the Eucharist to the Emperor around 155AD, St. Justin did not mince his words: "For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him . . . is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”
Not till the Middle Ages did theologians really try to explain how Christ’s body and blood became present in the Eucharist. After a few theologians got it wrong, St. Thomas Aquinas came along and offered an explanation that became classic. In all change that we normally observe, he teaches, appearances change, but deep down, the essence of a thing stays the same. Example: if, in a fit of mid-life crisis, I traded my mini-van for a Ferrari, abandoned my wife and kids to be a tanned beach bum, bleached and spiked my hair, buffed up at the gym, and took a trip to the plastic surgeon, I’d look a lot different. But for all my trouble, deep down I’d still substantially be the same confused, middle-aged dude as when I started.
St. Thomas said the Eucharist is the one change we encounter that is exactly the opposite. The appearances of bread and wine stay the same, but the very essence of these realities, which can’t be viewed by a microscope, is totally transformed. What starts as bread and wine becomes Christ’s body and blood. A handy word was coined to describe this unique change. Transformation of the “sub-stance”, what “stands-under” the surface, came to be called “transubstantiation.”
What makes this happen? The Spirit and the Word. After praying for the Holy Spirit to come (epiklesis), the priest, who stands in the place of Christ, repeats the words of the God-man: “This is my Body, This is my Blood.” Sounds like Genesis 1 to me: the mighty wind (read “Spirit”) whips over the surface of the water and God’s Word resounds. “Let there be light” and there was light. It is no harder to believe in the Eucharist than to believe in Creation.
But why did Jesus arrange for this transformation of bread and wine? Because he intended another kind of transformation. The bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ which are, in turn, meant to transform us. Ever hear the phrase: “you are what you eat?” The Lord desires us to be transformed from a motley crew of imperfect individuals into the Body of Christ, come to full stature.
Our evangelical brethren speak often of an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus. But I ask you, how much more personal and intimate than the Eucharist can you get? We receive the Lord’s body into our physical body that we may become him whom we receive!
Such an awesome gift deserves its own feast. And that’s why, back in the days of Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, the Pope decided to institute the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Since you assert this occurs at every Mass, why would any Catholic label such an event a 'miracle'. Afterall, since it is so commonplace and intuitively sensed by every member of Roman Catholicism, why would anybody be surprised by this event? Unless, of course this is merely an intent to decieve.
I understand the Blood to be the Blood of the New Covenant. The reception of which seals one's bond to the covenant member. When tempted to turn stones into bread for bodily consumption, our Lord and Savior responded, Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. How much greater might the consumption of bible doctrine on a daily basis be understood as that bread which is also the body of Christ, inculcated in our thinking processes, which thereby provides us His life.
Per Wesley's notes: And when they had sung the hymn - Which was constantly sung at the close of the passover. It consisteth of six psalms, from the 113th to the 118th. Psalms 113:1&c.
Read chapters 2 and 3 in the Book of Revelation.
Also read what Christ said as He sat there in the flesh at the Last Supper. He didn't tear off some flesh and drain some of His blood into the cup, did He? He was literally sitting there.
1Cr 11:23-26
23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the [same] night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake [it], and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also [he took] the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.
The frequent remembrance of His sacrifice on the cross by the Body of Christ has been a unifier of Christians throughout the ages.
Pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance, then pray for acceptance of His answer.
The difficulty is that we're taught, "God is Spirit. Those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
Spirit IS literal, it is reality, it has actual existence every bit as much (and moreso) actualness as does any other realm, to include this realm we call physical. Since God is Spirit, the spiritual realm precedes.
Anything that is spirit is real. Therefore, Jesus saying, "these words are spirit and they are life" about eating His body and drinking His blood should enable us to understand why Jesus was able to say, "this IS my body....blood."
It is spiritual language describing a spiritual reality.
Isaias 9:18-20; 49:26
Micah 3:3
2 Sam 23:15-17
Rev 17: 6, 16
are all examples of symbolically eating another's flesh and blood. It means to persecute and assault.
bttt
ping
It appears to me the only authority you do not accept is the one established by Jesus:Matt 16:18.
I am confused by your post. Can you flesh it out? Do you believe what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eucharist? If not, what is your belief and how did you arrive at it? Thank you
The Catholic Church is correct when it teaches that the bread & the cup "is my body....my blood."
The reality is not physical. The reality is spiritual because Jesus himself said it was spiritual. (When speaking of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, Jesus said "These words are spirit and they are life.")
Physical reality is simply a subset of greater reality....and in that greater reality, spiritual reality is prior to physical reality. For God created the physical universe (in the beginning, God created...), and "God is Spirit..." Therefore, spiritual reality appears to precede all other realities.
So, it is perfectly honest to insist that "this is my body...this is my blood" is describing spiritual reality. The "is" is important. As Paul says, when we participate in the Lord's Supper we are participating with Christ. And the real power of that reality is demonstrated in the warning Paul gives. So powerful is the reality that when one participates "unworthily" that person has even become ill, sometimes even passed away. (1 Co 10-11)
In the Greek translation of John Chapter 6, the first time Jesus uses the word "eat", it comes from a Greek word which means "consume". The second time he uses the word "eat", it comes from a Greek word which means "to gnaw upon".
I apologize - I don't have the specific words handy (does someone else know what they are?). But Jesus was clearly stating that the consumption would be physical, not symbolic. The only other times when there is an inference made to "devouring" in the Bible involves a symbolic expression of enmity. E.g., David fearing his enemy would "devour his flesh". David wasn't talking about cannibalism, he was talking about being captured and destroyed. So the use of the verb "eat" could not have been symbolic, in that the only appropriate symbolism of that time involving the eating of flesh was one of enmity and physical destruction.
Further, Jesus' use of the words, "Amen, Amen" (truly, truly), should not be taken lightly. He wanted to be taken literally - quite literally. Don't forget, this is the same Christ who spent the majority of his ministry teaching in parables (symbolic stories) about things ranging from the mundane to the profound. With "such a difficult saying", why wouldn't he present the teaching as a parable, knowing it would alienate so many people when presented in literal fashion? Parables were His modus operandi. He would not be a "good" shepherd, but a "poor" one if He knowingly allowed a good portion of the flock to be dispersed because He did not couch a so-called "symbolic" teaching of the Bread of Life in terms that the people could understand and accept? It doesn't compute. It's a hard hurdle to get over - it says so in scripture - but Jesus laid down the gauntlent, and whereas Peter accepted the teaching with faith, Judas turned away with the other hardened disciples (John 6:66)
You mean like the "miracle" of birth which has taken place a few hundred billion times in the history of humankind? Or is the creation and birth of life just another trip to the doctor from your perspective?
circa 150 A.D.: St. Justin Martyr,
First Apology, 66
St. Justin is talking about the Mass, and he has described the consecration and communion. Then he says
We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins annd for regeneration, and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor as common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our flesh and blood is nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnated Jesus.
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