Posted on 09/26/2013 11:52:46 AM PDT by NYer
The Mass is a memorial of the Last Supper. You do believe the words of Jesus, don’t you?
Sure! It's the words of the Roman church that I have problems with.
You're completely missing the point again. Even after they saw those things, most of the people alive in those times still did not believe Jesus was God, just like you don't believe Jesus when He said, "This is my body."
The point is, to their very limited human senses, He looked like a mere human being, not like God, and most of His contemporaries of those days did not believe He was God, just like you do not believe the ongoing miracle of the Holy Eucharist, even though Jesus solemnly declared and promised that it was so, and St. Paul confirmed that later.
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"There's nothing, nada, zilch, zero evidence or hint in the scriptures where Jesus said he is going to turn bread into his flesh, nor is there any hint that he did...And that's because he didn't...",
Right, and the word "love" is not in there either. /s
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" If Jesus would have turned bread into flesh, it would have been flesh, not bread...
This is a restriction that you, "Iscool", are trying to put on God, not a real restriction on God. The truth is, God does not have those restrictions, as Iscool simply does not have the power to put ANY restrictions on God, and Iscool will never have the power to put any restrictions on God, no matter how many times Iscool tries.
As a quick Biblical example of God making one thing appear as something entirely different to a person using only their limited human senses, read about the blind man, who after phase one of the healing process Jesus performed for him, saw what looked to him like walking trees, but were actually people. After phase two of Jesus healing him, Jesus enabled him to see the people clearly, as they actually appeared to most other humans. Jesus has the power to make humans see whatever Jesus wants them to see, in order to serve some purpose, such as, in the case of the Holy Eucharist, exercising their faith in order to strengthen it.
Here is that reference about the blind man:
And He took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when He had spit on his eyes and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men; but they look like trees, walking.” Then again He laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly. Mark 8:23-25
That's where the proof of your proof text falls apart...
Your religion is very specific when it makes the claim that the bread and wine have the exact same characteristics before and after...
Jesus doesn't make any of you see flesh and blood...You see bread and wine...
just like you don't believe Jesus when He said, "This is my body."
I certainly do believe Jesus said that...Just as I believe he said, no one will hunger again after they come to him...I also believe both of those statements were spiritual, not physical...
We shouldn’t wonder why so many recent graduates of Billy’s Barefoot Bible College are on Catholic threads hammering away at every statement of from Pope Francis. They know most of us are not properly trained to argue or defend our Catholic faith. We are the “low-hanging fruit” that the newly minted “missionaries” cut their teeth on.
But then as I have traveled, I suspect the religious education in Nebraska was better than most places no matter what demonimation you attend.
Not talking transubstitution, which has a hard date when it was explicitly defined, but the real presence of Body and Blood of Jesus in Communion.
Christians from the earliest days believed that communion had the Real Presence of the Body and Blood in the bread and wine.
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Do you believe that, for OUR sake, God often makes use of physical things in order to effect a spiritual benefit?
For example, are the waters of baptism real, physical water (not invisible, undetectable "spiritual water"), and do the waters of baptism appear to all human senses exactly as any other water one might swim in, or take a bath in? Does God use that ordinary water to perform an extraordinary spiritual transformation in a person, even though the water appears to be just ordinary physical water to our limited physical human senses the entire time -- before, during, and after the baptism?
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. John 3:5Likewise, does God desire to make use of our ordinary, physical human bodies to fulfill the magnificently extraordinary spiritual function of being a "temple of the Holy Spirit"?
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20Of course all these actions involve both the physical dimension and the spiritual dimension, and that spiritual dimension CANNOT be seen with our physical eyes, but must be perceived with our "eyes of faith". This is what God desires (for our limited human sakes), whether one understands and believes it or not. That is why God set up the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the way that He did -- for our limited, human sakes.
Thank God for such a beautiful gift.
Depending on what you mean by Real Presence, I think many conservative protestant churches believe that now. If you mean the real presence of blood and human tissue, not so much but the Real Presence of a risen and victorious Lord then yes.
The how is not important, but He is there.
That's fundamentally incompatible with Christianity on many different levels.
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