Posted on 10/19/2011 7:55:51 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
The priest (or rather minsterial-priest since we are all a royal priesthood as Christians) serves as a minister, a pastor/presbyter (from which the term priest in English derives). The Head Priest is Jesus Christ as always and He is present in the Eucharist to lead us in our holiest of all prayers, the Divine Liturgy/Mass
Note that the Savior, Our Lord, GOD and Savior, Jesus Christ was/is God. A mother does not "create" her child -- my mother is not my creator, neither was Jesus Christ, God's mother, His creator. In a strange twist, she was mother, i.e. she bore her own Creator.
She did not bear the Holy Spirit or the Father, but she DID bear the Son, GOD the Son, hence the term mother of God -- this very term Theotokos was first used to confound those who said Jesus was a subordinate divine being, some super-angel.
One cannot say "Oh, she was just the mother of the Savior not God" because the Savior was/is God. One cannot say she is the mother of God the Father or the Holy Spirit either as she wasn't. One cannot say that she was the mother i.e. the bearer of just Jesus the man as we then seem to imply that there was/is a separation between His divine and human natures whereas we know that they are/were inseparable and that Jesus was not some man who became God or some man possessed by God.
Christ and the Apostles made it very clear that we're to live by faith, not by having our personal understanding satisfied. In fact, I'd say that a good part of the weight of our cross in this modern world is the burden of believing things we cannot prove. The whole world pretends they believe that only what we can see, touch, measure, and prove scientifically, is real. Believing what Christ said is a real burden in that sort of world, especially when so many people either mock what Christ said or go to great lengths to explain why what Christ said isn't what you think He said.
It's always amazed me how so many non-Catholics answer questions by going to great lengths to show you that what Scripture says isn't what Scripture really means (in fact, that's the single biggest factor in my being Catholic now after spending most of my life non-Catholic), almost always by taking something from a different context and tossing it out. It's twice as amazing when your realize that those who are convinced that all they need is their own copy of the KJV of the Bible and their own understanding guided by whatever spirit shouts loudest are in reality creating a personal subset of the Scripture. First they select what they accept as it is written, then mix in the balance of the Scripture only after they interpret it to suit them self.
What else can you expect, really, when the originator of the Scripture Alone doctrine first threw out portions of the Bible as it existed at the time of Christ, then spelled out a hierarchy of which books in the NT were worthy and which weren't, and only then finally said "This portion of the Scripture Alone". Everyone who adheres to the same doctrine naturally feels free to do the same thing, find the portions they agree with or interpret to suit their own preconceptions and understanding and then proclaim, "This portion of Scripture Alone". Gnostics who hide the structure of their faith behind an elaborate scaffolding built from their own understanding and out of context Scripture is the result.
I know several people who cannot stand to simply let you read them the verses prior to and just after something they quote because it messes up their personal version of Scripture. In what they accept, verses other than those they quote just don't exist. They may as well redact that portion of their Bible. They believe the verses they've highlighted in various colors and believe those verses as they relate to other highlighted verses, not the entire Bible and not those portions that make them uncomfortable or might make them live by faith alone rather than by their understanding alone.
Reading what Christ personally said regarding the bread and wine is a perfect example. Non-Catholics for the most part read it, then start in on how Christ didn’t mean what He clearly said. More often than not, though, they become reenactors and make a smart remark then turn around and walk away from Christ just like people at the time did.
JMHO
Regards
A convert’s teenage daughter had this to say about transubstantiation:
Jesus used a lot of material objects to describe Himself—He said, “I am the Light.” “I am the Door.” “I am the Shepherd.”
But He never said, “That light is Me.” “That door is Me.” “That shepherd is Me.”
However, He did say, “That Bread is Me. That Wine is Me.”
***************
I guess we have to decide. Do we believe Jesus?
You wrote:
“Remembrance is symbolic, not actual.”
Really?
“This memorial aspect is not simply a passive process but one by which the Christian can actually enter into the Paschal mystery.[2]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamnesis_(Christianity)
The title "Mother of God" came about in the early church as a way to signify to those that did not believe in the divinity of Christ that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. So literally, no Mary was not God's mother. But she IS the mother of Jesus ... Emmanuel ... God with us. So in that sense ... yes, she is the mother of God.
Focusing on the words you made bold, it appears you are trying to extrapolate the idea that you are supposed to discern the body of Christ 'within the wafer', which is totally absurd...
26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
You don't eat the Presence of the Lord, you proclaim his death...
1Co 11:23 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:
1Co 11:24 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. Paul said he received of the Lord, not that he received the Lord...
The significant thing is this verse is 'breaking the bread'...We are to remember it represents Jesus' broken body...
He most certainly did...But it wasn't the Catholic religion he led...
One cannot say "Oh, she was just the mother of the Savior not God" because the Savior was/is God.
Well make up your mind...You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time...
There are not three Gods...There is one God...
Most who have difficulty with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception have never had it properly explained to them. To begin with, Mary always points us to Jesus, and this teaching is ultimately about Jesus.
Jesus has a divine nature and a human nature. The divine nature he has from the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit. The human nature he has — entirely — from his mother, because he has no human father.
Our salvation is possible because we are allowed to participate in the merits of Christ’s Atonement. The Atonement is an act by which the original disobedience of man is overcome by the perfect obedience of Jesus, the new Adam. Jesus is perfectly obedient to the Father in both his divine and his human natures. In his human nature this is especially hard, because Jesus is a real man, and it’s part of our nature to avoid and resist suffering and death. Nevertheless, Jesus in his human nature gave himself to the plan of his divine Father, without compromise or reservation. It was a perfect gift of self, which is not possible for anyone afflicted by sin (Romans 7:15-23).
Mary comes into the picture because she also is called upon to make a total and unreserved gift of self, in obedience to the Father’s plan (Luke 1:38). It is Mary’s consent that makes possible the perfect union of human and divine natures in Jesus, and therefore makes it possible for Jesus’s sacrifice to be a perfect atonement of infinite merit. As with her divine son, Mary could not have given perfect assent to God’s proposal relayed through the angel, if her mind or flesh had ever been under the bondage of sin. Mary’s sinlessness makes her self-gift of human nature perfect and thus ensures that the Incarnation is genuine and not a hoax.
I hope this helps.
Mary is absolutely and in every sense the Mother of God. She is the mother of Jesus, in whom the human and divine are perfectly and eternally joined. She is not the origin of her son’s divine nature — but she is the mother of her son, a unique person in whom the divine nature is present as it has been from the first instant of his conception.
People who backpedal on Mary as Mother of God fail to appreciate that this teaching also is really about who Jesus is, and about God’s love for the world being so intimate and complete that he penetrates it and joins himself to it.
What came first oral preaching or the written word?
Read this because it contains preachings from the 1st and 2nd century about the real presence.
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/father/fathers.htm
I might add that Martin Luther believed in a form of the real presence, as do traditionalist Lutherans.
I find Thomas as helpful in saying what that belief does NOT imply as what it must imply. Thank you to Dr. Brian Kopp for this post.
But St. Thomas’s explanation isn’t dogmatic. Eastern Catholics for example aren’t required to use it.
We say it’s the body and blood of Jesus Christ because he said it would be. That’s the way my pastor explained it.
Thanks for expanding on that.
Which is more "real", actuality or spirituality?
I would say that as God is more real than I am, so the spiritual is more real than the 'actual' or the 'physical.' But, in a way, He's not ALL that much more real than I because by His gift I am not merely physical. "The first man is of the earth, earthy."
Some would say, "It's not 'real', unless I can touch it, heft it, point to it, see it, hear it." But those things are all passing away. Not one stone will be left on another of those things.
Love is real, and beauty and justice are real. The loving act is real in its being as "loving act" not because a certain quantity of food left my hand and ended up in yours. Sure, it wouldn't be an "act" without the food transfer, but what makes it what is "really is, a LOVING act, is the part that cannot be filmed, touched, hefted, heard and all the rest. You can't even point to the love which makes the act what it truly is.
I'm not presenting the above as some indisputable truth, despite the enthusiastic rhetoric. I'm merely advocating rather for the consideration (NOT the adoption) of another point of view, one which takes as a given that God is real while we aren't so much, that love is more real than the kiss or gift it is seen in.
This duality can be taken too far,disastrously. But the remedy for gnostic dualism is not materialism but something else.
Aren't we agreeing? That's what I was trying to say.
We say it’s the body and blood of Jesus Christ because he said it would be. That’s the way my pastor explained it.
Works for me. I would say that the bulk of Thomas's treatise is not about why one ought to believe this as an explanation of what it means to believe it.
For example, if someone says, against it, that we are saying, "Lo, here," as we are told not to do, then Aquinas supplies a (difficult) explanation of why that is NOT what we are saying. Or if some one says, "Well, what happens if the bread goes moldy? Is Jesus moldy?" again we can look to Aquinas for an explanation of why that does NOT follow from the assertion of the real presence.
To my mind those who deny the Trinity err in thinking that they know more about what "one" is than they do.
It's not only materialistic, but it's an erroneous materialism because in the material world we are hard put to find something that is truly 'one'. As I've said before, the word 'atom' means something that cannot be cut, something indivisible, something without even the potential of parts. Yet we've been splitting "atoms" for quite some time now and we discover that they do have parts, and those parts have parts. Where is the material "oneness" to be found? And if we cannot seem to find it, do we really know as much as we might think about what "one" means?
Traditional Trinitarianism denies parts to God and denies that the so-called hypostases (or "persons") are merely functions or modes of Divine action.
In doing so,it invites us to confess our at least partial ignorance of even the simplest ideas. I think that's a good thing and commends the doctrine.
And why did your post in 2008 say you were Catholic (link at the bottom of my homepage) — first Catholic, then Baptist, then Pentecostal, etc. etc. — your non-Christian cult likes to cause discord among Christians eh. Standard taqqiyah practice
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