The History of Eucharistic Adoration Development of Doctrine in the Catholic Church

Belief in the real, physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist grew out of the teaching of the evangelists and St. Paul. They made it plain to the apostolic Church that the Eucharistic elements were literally Jesus Christ continuing His saving mission among men.

1 posted on 11/21/2006 1:47:33 PM PST by stfassisi

To: Salvation; NYer

I know this is long,but I feel its important for some Catholics to understand the history of our Lords greatest miracle.

Can you add to your ping list please?

2 posted on 11/21/2006 1:51:11 PM PST by stfassisi ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"St Francis Assisi)

I believe I'll just sit this one out.

Anybody want to have a pool on when we start getting arguments about atonement, sacrifices, once and for all, and idolatry?

3 posted on 11/21/2006 2:10:25 PM PST by Mad Dawg (Now we are all Massoud)

On one occasion a sick woman touched the hem of His garment. "Immediately," relates St. Mark, "aware that power had gone out from Him, Jesus turned round in the crowd and said, 'who touched My clothes?"' The woman was instantly healed. Significantly, Jesus told her, "your faith has restored you to health."

In the Eucharist is the same Jesus Christ who healed the sick women-Jesus felt power go out from Him when the women touches his clothes.

Power is still going out from HIM, for those who come to Him in His Eucharistic presence,

Jesus is still working miracles thru the Eucharist just has He has done over 2000 years ago,but ONLY,ONLY for those who have the faith to believe!

4 posted on 11/21/2006 3:17:25 PM PST by stfassisi ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"St Francis Assisi)

Belief in the real, physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist grew out of the teaching of the evangelists and St. Paul.

That is simply not true. Read Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death until He comes."[ICor 11:26]

The eating of the bread and drinking of the wine meant just the opposite of the physical presence --- a proclamation of His one-time death on Calvary "until He comes again". Think about it.

5 posted on 11/21/2006 4:35:06 PM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)

Here is something for you to read and think about.
from
http://www.ewtn.com/faith/Teachings/euchc2.htm
The Catholic Church claims that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, that the sacrifice of calvary is repeated at every Mass, and that he gives Himself to us in Holy Communion as food unto eternal life.

With this in mind, let's look at Scripture. Luke 22, verse 15, our Lord says, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you." So we are assured that the Last Supper in the Upper Room was a Passover meal. In Mark 14, verses 22 through 26, we hear the words of institution, "And as they were eating He took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and said, 'Take, this is my body.' And He took a cup and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them and they drank all of it and He said to them, 'This is my blood of the New Covenant which is poured out for many. Truly I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'"

You could also say it this way: that if the Passover isn't finished until Calvary, I would suggest that Calvary is really begun in the Upper Room with the Eucharist. When does Jesus' sacrifice really begin? Well, He insists on the fact that His life is not being taken away from Him. He is laying it down. Now in the trial, in the passion, it's being taken away; but in the Upper Room, prior to all of that, Jesus lays it down. He says, "This is my body. This cup is the blood of the New Covenant."

What happens when you differentiate and separate body and blood? You signify death. When your body and your blood are separated, death begins. That's obvious, I think. So Jesus is symbolically and actually beginning the sacrifice. St. Augustine has said that Our Lord held himself in his own hands and commenced the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover as He was transforming the old. Calvary really began in the Old Testament Passover being celebrated in the Upper Room, when the Eucharist was instituted and the Passover Eucharist of the New Covenant really isn't over until Calvary, when He says, "It is finished."

No wonder St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 5, "Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us." Therefore, what? Therefore we don't have any more sacrificial offerings or ceremonies or feasts and so on to celebrate because all those ceremonies are outdated and done with? No. He says, "Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed; therefore, let us keep the feast." And he goes on to talk about how we take out the leaven of insincerity and we have this unleavened bread. What's he talking about? Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed; therefore, we've got to achieve the whole goal of that sacrifice, the second half is communion where we eat the lamb.

Now you can't eat a lamb cookie in Egypt. If you didn't like lamb, you couldn't have your wife make lamb bread, little biscuits in the shape of a lamb and say, "God, you understand, we just can't stand the stuff." No, you do that, your firstborn would die. You had to eat the lamb. Jesus Christ has said to us, "My flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life."

Let's turn to John 6 and see the context in which he says that. John 6, verse 4 tells us, "Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews was at hand." So everything that transpires within John 6 is within the context of the Passover. Jesus is talking to them now. At the time of the Passover, after multiplying these loaves, ending up filling twelve baskets with the fragments from the five barley loaves, He uses that as his point of departure for one of the most important sermons that He ever preaches and also one of the most disastrous from a human perspective.

He goes on talking about this bread and He goes on talking about Moses in context with that bread. For instance, in verse 32, "Jesus then said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' They said to him, 'Lord, give us this bread always.'" Welfare state! "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall not thirst.'" And He goes on talking about this some more. The Jews would then murmur at him in verse 41 because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven."

They're thinking, "What is He talking about? This guy is Joseph's son. How does He say, 'I've come down from heaven?'" They only look at it from a human perspective. They don't see that He's the divine Son of God. Verse 47, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.'"

How often did they eat the manna? Every day. How often do we receive the Bread of Life? Every day. This is not a once for all sacrifice, like many anti-Catholics allege in the sense that Christ is sacrificed and now there's nothing more to be done. Jesus Christ is sacrificed as priest and as victim, as lamb and as firstborn son and as the Bread of Life, he gives himself to us as well as the unleavened bread of the Passover meal, which commenced, of course, the whole feast of unleavened bread the week after the Passover celebration. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, the unleavened bread of God which came down from heaven which the Israelites received every day, the manna of the New Covenant.

Christ through the Holy Spirit makes himself available as the Lamb of God to be consumed continuously. That's the whole point of the Resurrection, incidentally. The Holy Spirit raises up that body and glorifies it so supernaturally that body and blood which is glorified may be internationally distributed through the elders and priests of the Church so that all of God's children can be bound back to the Father in the New Covenant sacrifice of Christ. He didn't die again. He's not bleeding and he's not suffering. He's reigning in glory and giving us his own flesh and blood.

Where do you get that? From the Old Testament -- the manna, the Passover, the sacrifice as it's described on Calvary as it's initiated in the Upper Room and as he states right here in verse 51. "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." Jews stop, wait a second. Hold the phone. "John, what do you mean 'my flesh?'" Verse 52, "The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'" Cannibalism, paganism, barbarism, sin in the highest degree.

So did Jesus say to them, "I didn't mean it, guys. I was just kind of, you know, using hyperbole or metaphor." No. He actually intensifies the scandal. He actually raises the obstacle even higher. "He said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood,' which Leviticus condemns, the drinking of blood, 'unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.'"

He said that four times in four different ways.

In verse 60, "Many of His disciples when they heard it said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?'" That is an understatement. "Jesus, however, knowing in Himself that His disciples murmured at it" (the disciples, the followers, the spiritual proteges, not just the crowd now, the disciples themselves are taking offense at this and murmuring and grumbling), "said to them, 'Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the son of man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.'"

What words? That you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood, those words.

In 63 we discover why Christ's flesh and blood will be so powerful and animating for supernatural life. Verse 66, "After this, many of His disciples drew back...." We get the impression that the vast majority of them said, "This is just too much." "...and no longer went about with him. And Jesus turned to the twelve;" he didn't apologize. He didn't say, "Now that we're down to twelve, I'll tell you what I really meant." He didn't say that at all. In fact he is perfectly willing for this obstacle to remain scandalous even to the twelve. "Do you also wish to go away?" But "Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?'" Almost implying we would leave if there was somebody else that we could trust more than you because what you said is rather baffling. But he says, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God."

So we have reason to believe that this sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover begun in the Upper Room and consummated on Calvary and ultimately as 1st Corinthians 5 suggests continued and celebrated as a climactic communion on the altars of the Church around the world when we receive the Eucharist in Communion. All of this is right from the Bible but you've got to know your Bible. You've got to know John. You've got to know Matthew, Mark and Luke. You've got to know Exodus. You've got to know the Psalms. You've got to know Corinthians and you also have to know Revelation.

6 posted on 11/21/2006 5:08:24 PM PST by stfassisi ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"St Francis Assisi)

What Church do you attend and belong to?

7 posted on 11/21/2006 5:22:41 PM PST by stfassisi ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"St Francis Assisi)

8 posted on 11/21/2006 7:34:14 PM PST by Dajjal (See my FR homepage for new essay about Ahmadinejad.)

But you didn't deal with what Paul said about the Communion supper. He said in ICor:11:26 that when we partake in it, we show the Lord's death until He comes. If He is in the bread and wine, then he is already come and is right there, but Paul says that He isn't there, and our partaking in it is a memorial until He comes. Isn't that what Paul is saying here?

9 posted on 11/22/2006 8:33:33 AM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)

First thing to remember is our Lord promised us this...
His promise: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt 28:20).

Saint Paul goes in to say that the one who eats unworthily is "guilty of the body and blood of Christ" (1 Cor 11:27).

One year before the last supper,Jesus delivered these stunning words to His followers...
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him (John 6:53-56).
In John 6:50-58 Jesus says six times that His hearers must eat His flesh and drink His blood. It is clear that His audience understood Him literally; they were scandalized by these words. But the Lord made no move to correct their understanding; rather, He simply reiterated His teaching more strongly. Elsewhere, when the disciples or others wrongly took Him literally, He explained His figurative meaning to them (see, for instance, John 3:1-15 and Matt 16:5-12). In another Gospel passage, we are told that Jesus always explained the true meaning of His hard teachings at least to His own disciples (Mark 4:34). But in this case, He challenged even the Twelve that they could leave if they could not accept this teaching (verse 67).

Do you believe it is possible for a person to be very alive with divine grace, vitally alive, brimming, tingling, vibrating, bursting with God's life in his soul? Yes or no? the answers of course is an emphatic YES
This, in homely language, is what the Savior promised those who believed in His Real Presence. He assured them and, therefore, assures us, that we shall be not only alive, but filled with His life, full to brimming and flowing over with strength and power and wisdom and peace and all manner of holiness. This is what sanctity is all about. It is the muchness of the good things of God. It is the more and more and still more of the life of God in our souls. More still, He promises that, provided that we believe in Him in the Eucharist, He will sustain this life in our souls into eternity. In other words, being alive now we shall never die. And most marvelous, He will even make this life pour from our souls into our bodies risen from the grave on the last day and glorified by the vision of God. No wonder the Eucharist is called panis vitae, the Bread of Life. It is that, and let us remind ourselves, and here is the condition, one condition, that before we eat this bread with our lips, we take it by faith into our hearts. Indeed, unless we first have faith, we shall, as Paul tells us, "eat it to our malediction." Only believers can benefit from this Bread of Life, only believers can profit from the Blessed Sacrament, and only believers can grow in spirit by partaking of the Eucharist depending always on the measure of their faith. Those who believe deeply in the Real Presence will benefit greatly from the Real Presence; those who believe weakly will also benefit accordingly. The Eucharist is capable of working miracles in our lives. So it can – after all, the Eucharist is Jesus. He worked – change the tense – He works miracles, but as it depended then (remember, Christ could not work miracles in certain places for lack of faith), the same now. It depends on the depth and degree of our faith.

On a final note,every single early church father(without one single exception) believed Jesus was truly present in the Eucharist.

There is a mountain of evidence and typology to support our Lords greatest miracle,the Eucharist,but for me I can honestly tell you that Jesus in the Eucharist has worked miracles in my life and miracles in the lives of people I know and have prayed for, so you see I,m living proof.
Take a look at all the Saints and you will see that the Eucharist is vital for true miracles.

Take a look at all the miracles around the world
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/engl_mir.htm

10 posted on 11/22/2006 12:21:54 PM PST by stfassisi ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"St Francis Assisi)

But Paul in I Corinthians 11:26 tells us that Communion is a memorial proclaiming the death of Jesus "until He comes".

Therefore Jesus isn't present in the bread or wine. You do believe Paul, don't you?

The "drinking of His blood and eating of His body" must therefore apply to something else other than Communion, right?

11 posted on 11/22/2006 2:39:49 PM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)

1 Cor. 11:26 - Paul teaches that as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death. This means that celebrating the Eucharist is proclaiming the Gospel.
Now forward to 1 Cor. 11:27-29 - in these verses, Paul says that eating or drinking in an unworthy manner is the equivalent of profaning (literally, murdering) the body and blood of the Lord. If this is just a symbol, we cannot be guilty of actually profaning (murdering) it. We cannot murder a symbol. Either Paul, the divinely inspired apostle of God, is imposing an unjust penalty, or the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ.

Uncle Chip,
Why do you refuse to tell me what denomination or Church you belong to?
If you want to continue ,you need to provide this information,so I know who I,m dealing with.

I,m busy with family currently, so I would appreciate not having my time wasted.

12 posted on 11/22/2006 3:17:28 PM PST by stfassisi ("Above all gifts that Christ gives his beloved is that of overcoming self"St Francis Assisi)

Post #6 was more than an adequate reply to your question.

13 posted on 11/22/2006 3:51:44 PM PST by Running On Empty

To: stfassisi; Running On Empty

1 Cor. 11:26 - Paul teaches that as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death. This means that celebrating the Eucharist is proclaiming the Gospel.

I agree with you that partaking of the bread and wine as Paul says is a proclamation of the "Lord's death until he comes."

But Paul does not say that we are proclaiming the Lord's deaths[plural]. Paul says "death"[singular] not "deaths"[plural]. The Catholic position is that Jesus is sacrificed every day at every mass at every Catholic Church on the globe which means "deaths"[plural] and a lot of them.

Paul says that we are proclaiming a single event, a single death that happened only once in history --- the Lord's death[singular] on Calvary, period.

And the words: "until he comes" follow in that same verse, even in my Catholic Family Bible, indicating clearly that Jesus is not present right there in the bread and wine. The very act of partaking of the bread and wine indicates that He is not present. His absence from our presence because of His death on Calvary is what is being proclaimed until the day when returns as He promised.

As far as "eating and drinking unworthily", it is those who demean the singular death of Jesus on Calvary and its efficacy who are eating and drinking unworthily. They are the ones who demean the value of that one death by their words and deeds to the demeaning effect that His one sacrifice was not enough to save sinners but needs to be followed up again and again day after day place after place ad infinitum without end. They are the ones who do not see the "worth" in that one singular death 2000 years ago, but continue to eat and drink unworthily. Food for thought.

14 posted on 11/22/2006 7:11:12 PM PST by Uncle Chip (TRUTH : Ignore it. Deride it. Allegorize it. Interpret it. But you can't ESCAPE it.)

But Paul in I Corinthians 11:26 tells us that Communion is a memorial proclaiming the death of Jesus "until He comes". Therefore Jesus isn't present in the bread or wine.

That is a non sequitur, because the Second Coming is not the same kind of coming as transubstantiation.

-A8

15 posted on 11/22/2006 7:23:32 PM PST by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)

In the last chapter of Luke, we are told that the disciples , along the road to Emmaus, did not recognize Jesus as He joined them and explained Scripture to them, but their "hearts were burning in their breasts" during that discourse with Him, and because of this they begged Him to "remain withn them". He assented, and when they were at table, they recognized Him at the breaking of the bread", at which time He disappeared. Yet, He remained with them, in the breaking of the bread. All this points to the form of liturgy still in practice--the Liturgy (public worship) of the Word proclaimed (Scripture)and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (Thanksgiving)--the Word made flesh now transubstantiated. This is what we believe as Catholics and for all faithful Catholics, all the dotted i's and crossed t's won't change this belief.

Count me among those.

16 posted on 11/22/2006 7:53:50 PM PST by Running On Empty

To: Siobhan; Canticle_of_Deborah; NYer; Salvation; sandyeggo; american colleen; Desdemona; ...

17 posted on 11/22/2006 8:31:44 PM PST by Pyro7480 ("Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world." - Pope Blessed Pius IX)

Excellent article. I was looking for some research on this!

18 posted on 11/22/2006 8:43:50 PM PST by Antoninus (I refuse to vote for a liberal--regardless of party.)

The Catholic position is that Jesus is sacrificed every day at every mass at every Catholic Church on the globe which means "deaths"[plural] and a lot of them.

That is not true. The Catholic position is indeed that in the mass Jesus is offered in sacrifice every day around the world, but that sacrifice is the one sacrifice (and therefore only one death) that occurred on Calvary. The mass is a participation in Christ's sacrifice on Calvary, not a re-sacrifice.

When you are in a position of not knowing much about something, the best way to approach it is to ask questions, instead of presuming to teach and correct those who do know about it.

-A8

19 posted on 11/22/2006 9:09:19 PM PST by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)

20 posted on 11/22/2006 9:13:16 PM PST by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)

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