Posted on 10/14/2007 12:38:48 PM PDT by Iscool
The Mass: From Mystery to Meaning>br> by James G. McCarthy
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As an altar boy Jim McCarthy was impressed by the mass as performed in his parents' church. But he did not understand what it meant.
Until he started to read the Bible.
In this booklet Jim tells how he gradually found the true meaning of what lies behind the mass. He hopes that this short study will help others to understand better what the Lord Jesus meant when He said, This do in remembrance of Me.
Mr. McCarthy now lives in California with his family.
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The Mass:
From Mystery to Meaning
I was upset as I waited for Mass to begin. As a boy, I had gone to Mass together with all my family. The ten of us sat in a long row. Those were happy days. Today I sat alone. Then it was enough just to go to Mass; now I wanted to know God.
I prayed, "God, are you here? My religion is so hard to understand. I have come every Sunday for twenty-three years. The nuns were my teachers for eight years. Priests taught me for another four years. I should know you by now. God, please help me to find you and to understand the Mass."
As Mass began, I carefully studied the priest's every action. Maybe today I would know the Mystery of the Mass. The priest repeated the same sacrament I had seen a thousand times. No, I realized, today would not be different. I needed someone to help me.
Help From God
My Catholic Bible was in my lap. This was the first time I had brought it to church. At my First Holy Communion, a neighbor gave me a beautiful, red leather Bible. I never read it. I did not think I could understand it.
Just three months ago, I had gone with a friend to a Bible study. People were reading and discussing the Bible. They understood it. I began to read mine. It was not as difficult as I had thought.
Jesus was the greatest teacher. He spoke to ordinary people like me. He told stories about farming, fishing, and baking to help people learn about God. He used ordinary things to explain difficult truths.
Could the Bible help me to understand the Mass? Yes, God would teach me through his book.
When Mass ended, I went home and began to read the story of the Last Supper. It was there that the Church says that Jesus started the Sacrament of the Mass. As I read, the Mass took on new meaning which brought joy to my heart. I should have read the Bible sooner!
One of Two Ways
Even at the Last Supper Jesus used ordinary things to make great truths clear. Jesus said, "I am the true vine." (John 15:1). Jesus was not a real vine. He was using a vine as an example. Jesus is like a vine. We are like his branches. A vine brings life to its branches. He brings life to us.
Then he picked up a loaf of bread and broke it. He said, "This is my body." (Matthew 26:26) Was Jesus saying that his body was like the bread? Was he using bread as a symbol to stand for and represent his body?
Never before had I thought of it in that way. The Catholic Church taught me that the bread is not a symbol. It teaches that the priest changes the bread into the real body of Jesus. He turns the wine into the blood of Christ. The bread and the wine become the Son of God.
The Catholic Church says the bread changes: on the outside, it still looks like bread; on the inside, it becomes the body of Jesus.
But what did Jesus mean by his words? I looked closer. When Jesus took the bread, he said, "This is my body." The word is can be understood in two ways.
Usually the word is shows that two things are the same. For example, a young man showing his first car to his family might proudly state, "This is my car." This is how the Catholic Church understands Jesus' words. The bread is Jesus.
The word is can also mean that one thing represents or stands for another thing. Consider the same young man as an example. Later that day at dinner, he must tell his father how he crashed his new car. As he talks, the son moves the knives, forks, and spoons to show how the accident happened. Then he picks up one spoon and sadly states, "This is my car."
Though the young man said the same words twice, each time his family knew exactly what he meant. They understood him, because they heard all that he said.
Or think of a man showing his friends a picture of his son. He takes a photograph from his pocket and says, "This is my boy." No one thinks that his son is a piece of paper, they know at once what he means.
It seemed that Jesus' words at the Last Supper should be taken the second way. Jesus seemed to be using the bread as a symbol to stand for his body. I knew that to understand Jesus' words, I had to read all that he said at the Last Supper.
The Purpose of the Bread and Wine
Jesus took the bread and broke it. He said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me. (1 Corinthians 11:24)
The Catholic Church says that the priest turns the bread into the body of Christ. Then he offers Christ as a sacrifice. The Second Vatican Council calls the Mass the offering of the spotless victim. (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, sec 48) The Mass is a real sacrifice. The Catholic Church teaches that the Mass continues or carries on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The Mass is supposed to remove the guilt of sin for the living and the dead. The Church says that those who go to Mass will grow in grace.
I could not find these things in the Bible. Jesus never called the Last Supper a sacrifice. Instead he said, "Do this in remembrance of me." There is a big difference between remembering someone and sacrificing him. If the bread is to remind us of Jesus' body, then it is a symbol.
I decided to talk to a priest. Maybe he could help me to understand.
A Visit to the Priest
The priest greeted me warmly, but seemed uneasy when he saw my Bible. I asked him, "Did Jesus say that the bread becomes him or that it is a symbol of him? Does Jesus tell us to sacrifice him or to remember him?"
He smiled. I could tell that this was not the first time someone had asked him these questions. He seemed to understand my problem.
The priest began to explain the teaching of the Catholic Church. I stopped him. "I already know what the Church teaches," I said. "The problem is that I cannot find it in the Bible. Jesus never says that the bread becomes him. It seems to me that what he meant is that the bread represents him. Jesus never called the Last Supper a sacrifice."
Again he answered quickly, "You cannot understand the Mass by just reading the story of the Last Supper. You must learn the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter six. There he promises Holy Communion, the sacrament in which Jesus is present in the bread and wine."
The priest opened my Bible. He read Jesus' words, " 'Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.' (John 6:54) It is important to receive Holy Communion if you hope to get to heaven," the priest warned.
I thanked him for helping me. As soon as I was home, I began to study the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. I needed to know all that Jesus said in this passage, not just one or two statements. It excited me to think that I would soon understand the Mass. But what I found shocked me.
The Bread of Life
In John 6, Jesus is talking to the Jewish leaders. He tells them that they must believe in him. (John 6:29) They ask Jesus for a sign to prove his claim of being God. They tell him that Moses proved that he was God's prophet by bringing bread down from heaven. They were saying, "Bring bread down from heaven, and we will believe you."
Jesus answers, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)
Jesus was not saying that he is bread, but that he is like bread. At that time, bread was the main food. Jesus was using bread as an example. As our bodies need food to live, our souls need Jesus to live. He did not want them to eat him. No, he told them to come to him and to believe in him.
When I found the words of Jesus which the priest had read to me, I studied them carefully. They were almost the same as an earlier statement of Jesus. I decided to write the two statements down and line up the parts that were the same. It looked like this:
John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Each part lined up perfectly. Now I was certain. Jesus was using eating and drinking to teach the Jews. He wanted them to know how important it is to believe in Him. Jesus was using the eating of bread to represent believing in him. He was not talking about Holy Communion. He was talking about faith.
Now I knew why the Catholic Church's teaching on the Mass was so different from what I was reading. The Church said Jesus was talking about eating when he was teaching about believing. It had mistaken the example for the truth!
The Jews would not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Neither could they see that he was using eating to explain believing. They complained and left.
Jesus let them go. Then he asked the twelve Apostles, "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Peter was the first to answer, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. Peter knew that Jesus was speaking of faith.
If Peter understood Jesus, then why does not the Roman Catholic Church? I went back to the beginning of the church to find the answer.
The History of the Mass
The history of the early church is written in the Acts of the Apostles. This book is in the Bible. It is part of the New Testament.
The first Christians met in homes on Sundays. The Bible says that they met to break bread. (Acts 2:42) They also studied the teaching of the Apostles, prayed, and encouraged each other. The Book of Acts says nothing about what happens to the bread and wine.
The Mass is not found in the Apostles' Creed. This is a statement of the Christian faith from the second century after Christ. Neither is the Mass in the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.).
The Catholic Church did not always teach what it does today about the Mass. Church leaders argued about it from the ninth through the twelfth century. Not until 1215 A.D. at the Lateran Council, did the Catholic church officially state that the bread turns into the body of Christ.
In the sixteenth century, the Catholic Church was still defining and explaining the Mass. This was a time when many Catholic priests left the Church, because they thought it was teaching error. The Catholic Church held the Council of Trent to answer the questions raised by these priests. The Catholic Church said that anyone who did not believe in the Mass, as they taught it, was cursed.
The Second Vatican Council (1963-1965) called the Mass the most important part of preaching the gospel. (Vatican II, Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, sec 5) But that is not what Paul thought, for he said what was most important, but he did not even mention the Mass. In the New Testament Paul said, "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you,... For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins,... that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day...." (I Corinthians 15:1-5)
Through the years and the centuries, the simple gathering of the early Christians had gradually changed.
The first Christians wept as they watched Jesus die. They rejoiced when they saw him alive, risen from the dead. They stood in awe as they watched him go up into the sky." They knew that when he arrived in heaven he received a throne at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 1:3-13)
When these first Christians met on Sundays, they would not have thought of Christ as still on the cross. Why should we? Why should we re-sacrifice him at every Mass? I could not find the answer, and so I returned to the priest.
Continuing or Finished?
"You have confused yourself by reading the Bible," said the priest in a kind voice. "The Mass is a real and true sacrifice, but we do not put Christ to death again. With God all things are in the present time. The Mass makes the cross present for us today. We celebrate the sacrifice of Christ which is ever present in the mind of God. The Mass is not a re-sacrificing of Christ, but carries on his first sacrifice."
"Why do we want to carry it on?" I asked. "As he died, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' (John 19:30) The Word of God says, 'We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.' (Hebrews 10:10) The Sacrifice of the Mass reminds me of my sin and guilt. (see Hebrews 10:1-3) The early Christians celebrated Christ's finished work on the cross and his resurrection. God sees his Son as risen and on a throne in heaven. He is not still on earth hanging on the cross. The Apostle Paul tells us, 'Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.' (Colossians 3:1-2) Where does it say that Christ is still on the cross in the mind of God?" I asked.
"You are upsetting yourself, my son," replied the priest. "The Mass is a mystery. Accept it by faith."
He wanted me to believe something which God said was not true. I decided that I would listen to Jesus and the Apostles. They never called the Last Supper a mystery. Christ's sacrifice on the cross could not be both finished and continuing.
Common Sense
I went home and again read the story of the Last Supper. I tried to imagine what it must have been like that night in the upper room. What did the Apostles think when Jesus took the bread, said, "This is my body," and broke it? He was right there with them. They could hardly have thought that the broken bread was Jesus.
If the bread turns into the real body of Christ, then we would be eating human flesh. We would be drinking human blood. God commanded the Jews not to drink blood. (Leviticus 17:10-11; Acts 15:29).
I always believed that the bread turned into the body of Christ. Yet, it still looked like bread. It tasted like bread. It felt like bread. It must be bread.
What kind of miracle is that? When God does a miracle, things happen! God has never expected people to blindly believe something has happened when all outward signs show that nothing has happened.
The Catholic Church insists that the bread changes. Inside it is Christ's body, but outside it looks like bread. This is nonsense. The way something looks on the outside is because of what it is in the inside
Broken for Me
What I was thinking frightened me. I remembered the priest's warning, "It is important that you receive Holy Communion if you hope to go to heaven."
All my life I went to Mass to receive grace. I took the sacraments. I kept the Ten Commandments the best that I could. I thought I would go to heaven.
That is not what God says in the Bible. There I read, "There is no one righteous, not even one.... there is no one who does good, not even one.... Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:10, 12, 20, 23).
When I read this I knew I was not good enough to go to heaven. I was a sinner. God's Word says that "the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) The punishment for sin is death, suffering in hell forever.
I read of the final judgment in the last chapters of the Bible. God has a record of all that we have done. Each person will be judged. God will look up each person's name in the Book of Life. If his name is not there, he will be thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15)
The only ones going to heaven are those whose names are found in the Book of Life.
How could I get my name into the Book of Life? We are all sinners. The punishment for sin is death. Therefore we all must be going to hell. How can anyone go to heaven?
The answer came as I thought again of Jesus with the bread in his hands at the Last Supper. "Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it." (Mark 14:22) He broke the bread! The broken bread must be a symbol of his death on the cross.
Why did Jesus die on the cross? The Apostle Peter gives the answer, "Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." (1 Peter 1:18) The Lord Jesus Christ died to pay the punishment for my sins. He paid with his own life. (Mark 10:45). His life was taken in exchange for mine. That is why Jesus said, "This is my body, which is for you." (1 Corinthians 11:24).
I considered Christ dying on the cross for my sins, and I realized how bad my sins really were. I became ashamed of my sins. What a fool I had been to think that I was good enough to stand before a holy God. Nothing I could do would pay God back for my sins.
What is God's way to heaven? Jesus said, "I am the way." (John 14:6). "Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:40). Jesus said, "Repent and believe the good news!" I knew that the good news was that Jesus has already paid for my sins.
I prayed to God, "Father, please forgive me for being so proud to think that I was good enough to go to heaven. I am a sinner. I want to turn away from my sins and follow Jesus. Thank you for sending your Son to die for my sins. His death on the cross is enough. It is full payment for all my sins. Help me never to forget what he did for me. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen."
Conclusion
At the Last Supper, the bread and wine were symbols looking forward to the cross. Now they are symbols looking back to the cross. Their purpose is to help us to remember Christ until he returns. (Mark 1:15).
Jesus died for your sins. God now offers you salvation as a free gift if you will repent and believe the good news. (Ephesians 2:8-9).
But God will not give the gift of salvation to anyone who tries to receive it, even in part, through his own work. (Galatians 3:10, 2:21, 5:2-5). To seek God's grace through the Mass is to do just that.
Every Catholic must make up his own mind.
Each must ask himself: am I trusting on Christ's finished sacrifice on the cross as the only payment for my sins? Your answer will decide not only what you think of the Mass, but whether you will go to heaven. (John 3:36; Romans 4:5, 9:30-33; Hebrews 10:38-39)
I wanted to be loyal to the Catholic Church, because I thought it was the one true church. By reading the Catholic Bible, I learned that the Catholic Church does not teach what Jesus and the Apostles taught. I could not obey both, so I chose to listen to God's Word.
I made my decision one evening when a group of Christians invited me to join them to remember Christ with bread and wine. They were not Catholics, but they were followers of Jesus Christ. They believed that the bread was a symbol to remind them of Christ.
We sat in a circle. A loaf of bread and a cup of wine stood on a small table in the center. Someone from the group asked if we could sing a song. Then a man stood up and from his heart gave praise to God. An elderly man asked us to turn in our Bibles to a passage describing the death of Christ. He read the passage slowly. He then spoke with love about the grace of God in sending his Son to die for us. My mind and spirit were drawn back to that great day. He ended by worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ who is now on his throne in heaven.
The meeting continued in this way for about thirty minutes. Each person spoke as the Holy Spirit led him. I knew that they deeply loved Christ.
One man gave thanks to God for the loaf of bread and broke it into two parts. Then they passed the bread from one person to the next. Each took a small piece. Another man gave thanks for the cup of wine and passed it around the circle.
At first I felt uneasy seeing several men doing what the priest alone did in my church. Yet it was all so natural and glorifying to God. The Apostle Peter wrote about all believers, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (1 Peter 2:9). All believers are priests before God to worship and to serve him.
As they freely worshiped the Savior, I knew that here before my eyes was the true meaning of the request of the Lord Jesus, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
(Bible quotations are from the New International Version, copyrighted 1984 by the International Bible Society)
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The Last Supper was a Passover seder. The Passover was a sacrifice. (If you don't believe me, read Exodus 12. Then read it again.)
Therefore, the Last Supper was a sacrifice, but not only was the Passover lamb sacrificed, but what else ...??
What did John the Baptist say when he saw Jesus??
"Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
What does that phrase, "the Lamb of God" mean, to a Jew?
Any idea about why Jesus was led into Jerusalem on the day when the Passover lambs were led into Jerusalem, and crucified on the day the Passover lambs were slaughtered?
What does Paul say in 1 Cor 5:7, "For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed" ... "therefore, we're all done with sacrifices." Nope: "therefore, let us keep the feast." Instead he said, "Do this in remembrance of me." There is a big difference between remembering someone and sacrificing him.
Well, no, actually, there isn't. The word used in Greek is anamnesis, which is exactly the word used to describe the Passover celebration, which was absolutely a sacrifice, in the Greek Old Testament.
If the bread is to remind us of Jesus' body, then it is a symbol.
But that isn't what Jesus said, now, is it? He said, "This is my Body" ... "Touto estin tou soma mou". Instead of reading our own theological ideas back in to Scripture, how about going with what Scripture actually says?
Why should we re-sacrifice him at every Mass?
The priest was correct when he said that's not what we do.
Where this comes from is the writer doesn't understand the difference between "sacrifice" and "killing the victim", because he doesn't know his Bible. Read Leviticus 16 (the Yom Kippur liturgy) for a good example of what I'm talking about. Then read Hebrews 9 and 10 where Jesus is specifically described as entering the heavenly Holy of Holies to offer his own blood, and where he continues to offer that blood until the end of time.
One last thought. Hebrews 13:10 says "we have an altar from which those who serve the tent [the Jewish place of sacrifice] have no right to eat".
You don't "have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat".
We do. Whose faith fits with the Biblical record? Not yours.
The only "Catholics" who are suckered by a piece like this are the ones who don't know their Bible, and don't know how to defend their faith from the Bible.
Each part lined up perfectly. Now I was certain. Jesus was using eating and drinking to teach the Jews. He wanted them to know how important it is to believe in Him. Jesus was using the eating of bread to represent believing in him. He was not talking about Holy Communion. He was talking about faith.
Now I knew why the Catholic Church's teaching on the Mass was so different from what I was reading. The Church said Jesus was talking about eating when he was teaching about believing. It had mistaken the example for the truth!
Cute but fabricated story. Thanks for posting it!
The writer stops at John 6:54? What about the next lines of scripture -
"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him."
Your response to the article should be this:
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - A Primer for Clueless Catholics , which the fictitious author appears to be.
And then, of course, we also have Dr. Scott Hahn's first visit to a Catholic Mass, when he was still a protestant minister. Like your fictitious author, he too attended the Mass holding the Bible. Here was his reaction - albeit one of a highly educated theologist.
Scott Hahn’s The Lamb's Supper - The Mass as Heaven on Earth.
Foreword by Fr. Benedict Groeschel.
Part One - The Gift of the Mass
Hahn begins by describing the first mass he ever attended.
"There I stood, a man incognito, a Protestant minister in plainclothes, slipping into the back of a Catholic chapel in Milwaukee to witness my first Mass. Curiosity had driven me there, and I still didn't feel sure that it was healthy curiosity. Studying the writings of the earliest Christians, I'd found countless references to "the liturgy," "the Eucharist," "the sacrifice." For those first Christians, the Bible - the book I loved above all - was incomprehensible apart from the event that today's Catholics called "the Mass."
"I wanted to understand the early Christians; yet I'd had no experience of liturgy. So I persuaded myself to go and see, as a sort of academic exercise, but vowing all along that I would neither kneel nor take part in idolatry."
I took my seat in the shadows, in a pew at the very back of that basement chapel. Before me were a goodly number of worshipers, men and women of all ages. Their genuflections impressed me, as did their apparent concentration in prayer. Then a bell rang, and they all stood as the priest emerged from a door beside the altar.
Unsure of myself, I remained seated. For years, as an evangelical Calvinist, I'd been trained to believe that the Mass was the ultimate sacrilege a human could commit. The Mass, I had been taught, was a ritual that purported to "resacrifice Jesus Christ." So I would remain an observer. I would stay seated, with my Bible open beside me.
As the Mass moved on, however, something hit me. My Bible wasn't just beside me. It was before me - in the words of the Mass! One line was from Isaiah, another from Psalms, another from Paul. The experience was overwhelming. I wanted to stop everything and shout, "Hey, can I explain what's happening from Scripture? This is great!" Still, I maintained my observer status. I remained on the sidelines until I heard the priest pronounce the words of consecration: "This is My body . . . This is the cup of My blood."
Then I felt all my doubt drain away. As I saw the priest raise that white host, I felt a prayer surge from my heart in a whisper: "My Lord and my God. That's really you!"
I was what you might call a basket case from that point. I couldn't imagine a greater excitement than what those words had worked upon me. Yet the experience was intensified just a moment later, when I heard the congregation recite: "Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God . . . Lamb of God," and the priest respond, "This is the Lamb of God . . ." as he raised the host. In less than a minute, the phrase "Lamb of God" had rung out four times. From long years of studying the Bible, I immediately knew where I was. I was in the Book of Revelation, where Jesus is called the Lamb no less than twenty-eight times in twenty-two chapters. I was at the marriage feast that John describes at the end of that very last book of the Bible. I was before the throne of heaven, where Jesus is hailed forever as the Lamb. I wasn't ready for this, though - I was at Mass!
Good try, Iscool! You can delude yourself for just so long. You are on many catholic prayer lists.
Bingo! Ping to my post #3.
Iscool!
You KNOW you need to stop posting this stuff. It disturbs the Catholics to no end. First they will call you stupid, then deluded, then a threat to others salvation.
Pretty soon you end up getting the full brunt of their prayers to poor departed Mary. Her inbox is already so overstuffed, when the second coming happens she’s gonna need pretty much all of eternity to get through all her junkmail.
You need to post gentler things, such as a nice article on the inquisition, the Avignon Papacy, or perhaps some of the heresies taught by the Early Church Fathers...
Acts 17:10-12
10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.
We all should be like these Bareans, searching the Scripture to rightly divide the Word of Truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
Have you attended a Mass?
Can you attest to either the validity or the falsehood of this post — whichever you choose it to be? (I have my opinion.)
Please DO answer my questions. Otherwise, I will pray for you.
“How a Non-Catholic respectfully communes at Mass” (Presidents Bush and Clinton)
“How a Non-Catholic respectfully communes at Mass”(Bush At St Louis)
Giving to God in Mass [Liturgy of the Eucharist]
The New Order of the Mass takes its next step on Monday
Archbishop Burke, Bishop Rifan comment: Will classical liturgy aid reunion with Eastern Orthodox?
Australian Bishops approve new English translation of the mass
Pope Against Pop Music In Mass
Liturgy changes for U.S. Catholics (some clarifications)
Bishops to vote on new Order of Mass in English
"Anything But 'Dew'!" (follow up on the USCCB liturgy discussions)
The Votes Are In! And the Winner Is .... (USCCB meeting on revisions to the Latin liturgy)
Liturgy translation tops (Catholic) bishops' agenda for L.A. meeting
Teach Us! [About the True Presence -- Summit of the Mass, Holy Communion]
Yes to the Mass "with the back to the people"
What You [Catholics] Need to Know: Eucharistic Mystery [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
What You [Catholics] Need to Know: Eucharist (Real Presence) [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]
Please read all the links for another point of view (even though they are marked Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)
And look at what happened in less than 10 posts! You are right!
First, I find it unusually odd that a man who has lived through 23 years of enforced darkness in the clutches of the Catholic Church suddenly asks himself the "big questions" about his faith that could never, due to the same "darkness," have ever occurred to him.
Second, it's extraordinarily convenient for the standard Hislop/Boettner style of anti-Catholicism that this man just happens to ask all of the questions that stem from the usual charges about the Mass. Remember, he is supposedly so ignorant of anything Christian that it should be presumed that his mind, vis-a-vis Christianity, should be a virtual clean slate, yet he stumbles across the "correct" theological slants over and over in his quest for "truth." Hmmm.
Third, and we'll leave it at this for the moment (14 hours of sleep in the last 96 hours leaves little alternative!), the dialogue in this missive reads like a cheap dime-store novel. No one even sort of talks like this in real life! This whole thing, from first to last, is nothing but a transparent, poorly constructed engineering job aimed at both those who are merely gullible and those who are intractably hate-filled. This man knows less about the true nature of the Mass than I do about the inner workings of Confucianism - and that's precious darned little indeed!
Peace be with you.
Untruth does that to people who love the truth.
So you can read a sentence like "This is my Body" and see instead "This is merely a symbolic reminder of my Body"?
You call that 'reading the Word of God as it is written'?
I guess it requires those special magic Protestant glasses to see it, huh?
To answer your question, yes I have attended Mass. I was raised Catholic. My parents are Catholic.
However, all during my education in the Catholic church I was never introduced to Jesus. Just like the original poster stated, I was discouraged from reading my Bible, told that it would only confuse me and that I was to believe the priest alone.
As I aged, this really rubbed me the wrong way. I wanted to believe God because I knew Him, not because another human told me to. So when the Lord called me to start reading the bible what I read didn't jive with what I was taught by the church I had attended through my youth. I had to evaluate who I would believe...God (His Word) or a human.
As I study the Word the Holy Spirit teaches me. I understand, finally, that I (in my flesh) am a hopeless sinner...evil to the core. There is no way for me to rectify or pay for the sins I have committed or will commit in the future. I understand, finally, that Jesus is the only One who can and has paid the debt that my sin has required. I know that by grace I have been saved, that not of my works, but only by the grace of God.
None of this was taught in the Catholic church. I was constantly under a burden of guilt and uncertainty of my salvation. Now that is not the case.
I encourage EVERYONE to search the Scripture and invite the Holy Spirit to teach the will of God Most High.
Ephesians 3:14-20
14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,[c] 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
**I was discouraged from reading my Bible, told that it would only confuse me and that I was to believe the priest alone.**
I’m sorry this happened to you. We are never discouraged from reading our Bibles. As you can see, Catholics read from their Bibles every day. I am currently facilitating a Bible Study on the Gospel of Matthew and have done likewise on the Gospels of Luke and Mark. We have also studied Isaiah, Exodus, the early letters of Paul, Acts and Revelation. That should put to rest any of your pre-conceived notions about reading the Bible.
**I was never introduced to Jesus.**
I find this very difficult to believe because in all CCD classes that I ever taught, Jesus was there. In the pre-school and elementary classes now, as well as in the mid-high and high school classes, the person of Jesus, true God and true man is very much present. All you using selective memory here?
**So when the Lord called me to start reading the bible what I read didn’t jive with what I was taught by the church I had attended through my youth. I had to evaluate who I would believe...God (His Word) or a human.**
Again, this isn’t making sense to ome. Everything the Catholic Church teaches is based on the Bible as well as Holy Tradition. Perhaps you need to be more specific becuase you are saying “what I read” rather than specific things. Makes it sound like to you, the entire Bible and the Catholic Church are at odds. Believe me, we are not at odds with the Bible. We just do not ascribe to sola scriptura, because there is more to our faith than the Bible. Three books of the Bible tell us that everything they had to tell could not be written down. Do you know which books those are? A lot of things were handed down person to person orally. That’s how we got the early Church Fathers who knew the apostles.
**There is no way for me to rectify or pay for the sins I have committed or will commit in the future**
Another error in your thinking. You must not be familiar with the direct Biblical references to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
**None of this was taught in the Catholic church. I was constantly under a burden of guilt and uncertainty of my salvation**
I am sure it was — as my previous answer indicate. I believe you just don’t want to remember. I invite you to find a priest you can sit down with and talk to. We will welcome you back with open arms.
There are many classes in many churches for Returning Catholics, and I would be willing to try to help you find one.
The only way I can explain is to share with you my personal experience during communion last Wednesday.
As I was preparing to receive the bread (in my case it was a little cracker) the Lord showed me that the bread I was putting into my mouth was representative of His body that was beaten and bruised for me. And as my teeth crunched that bread, He was broken for me, by me and my sin. He was the bread, that my sin crushed. He willingly sacrificed Himself for me, so that I would not have to take the penalty that my sin requires...death. I was not eating "flesh" but a cracker, but that cracker was the symbol of His flesh that was broken for me.
As far as "special magic Protestant glasses" I don't have a clue what you mean. I don't know what a Protestant is. All I know is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2 All I know is that I live with my every breath in the presence of God Almighty, and that by His sacrifice I am considered holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight. Colossians 1:22 This is the GOOD News.
I have other news for you too. You say you were baptized a Catholic and had some Catholic education.
Unless you went through a lengthy process to formally denounce your Catholici faith in front of a panel of priests and/or laypeople of the Catholic Church — you are STILL a Catholic.
Come home!
Putting aside the phony triteness and poor writing skills in this propaganda piece, I don’t get how thinking the Eucharist is symbolic rather than real lifts up one’s faith.
I have browsed through these types of threads for many reasons, one of which is to observe what people believe, what people put their trust in, who or what is their true master, not by what they say they do, but by their words and attitudes. That usually tells me much more of whether I should take their actual printed (or oral) words seriously or not. Which God or god are they serving? Right now, this is important because I feel strongly that the Lord is helping my daughter and our whole family lead a young man out of Mormonism (and paryerfully his whole family then). And if that happens, I do not doubt that my daughter could very well marry him. We have known him for close to 20 yrs, and I know that he has always watched our family because we do not hide our faith in word or in our lives, by the grace of God. Certainly not on our own.
Anyway, over many years of watching apologetic threads and reading apologetic articles from MANY sects, the attitude of the pen, not the words is the most telling. At least for me from what I have seen.
All of that to say that you hit the nail on the head. If you read the replies, the rebukes to this and other such posts, you see that it is not refuting but rather rebuking by the regulars. And when it is reversed, the refutations are rebuked. In the end, what is glorified is not the Lord Jesus or biblical truths, but what is gloried is the organization of man, the RCC. It is back to the RCC that they pray for. It is not about rejoicing that someone has been been delivered from the world and from sin by the Lord Jesus, but that they have, or they hope that the “Church”, the human organization will in the end be glorified. Or whichever theology is being defended when it is not Jesus Christ but flesh, that is what they are building their house upon.
I TRY to look at the attitude, the presence or lack of real humility to see if they are preaching a god that I want to know more about and as soon as it gets personal then it is very obvious that they god they follow is one fashioned by flesh, regardless of what the material is. And if I am really honest and open to the quickening of the Holy Spirit, my own posts are more in this fashion than I care to confess. But thanks be to our great God that He IS faithful to mold us more and more into His image.
What I find telling in this thread is not that someone has come to know and be known by the Lord God, and that the prayers are not toward the end of the one in Ephesians that was quoted, but that the prayers (to someone OTHER than God) are that the person will return to a set of “traditions” that when they are scrutinized, the scrutinizers are stoned. There is nothing new under the sun, for the Pharisees did the same. They are not rejoicing that the Lord was found. Something is just wrong with that picture.
It is not about me or this person or that person or whether God use this group of people or that group or whatever to bring them to the point of having a contrite and broken spirit. It isn’t the instrument, the created thing that is to be glorified, but it is Christ alone. If our words are not pointing solely to Him and His work, then they are pointing to whichever god we serve.
It is not about man. It never has been. It is about the Almighty God, the God who came to dwell with us and among us, fully man, yet fully God, so that He alone could satisfy His judgment in order that those who truly trust in Him alone to do so may be called children of God and co-heirs of Christ. Not by their merit, but by His alone.
Yes...Decades ago...Early 70's...Girlfriend (who was Catholic) and I came off a drunken Saturday night (twice) and we went to her church...St. Francis something or other...
I remember the service was in Latin...I spent the time checking out the architecture of the building (it was awesome) since I didn't have a clue what was going on around me...
When the time came, she indicated to me that it was time to get in line to eat the wafer...I remember the first time I was a bit surprised that the thing had no flavor...
All I knew when I left (both times) was that I never had a desire to go back...
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