Posted on 10/19/2011 7:55:51 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
when and if you have the opportunity, yes. a newly born infant has an excuse, what’s yours?
Human words and terminology is insufficient to explain the mystery.
Agreed.
Maybe, maybe not.
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.If you're in a state of grace, you're good to "go."
I don't know what paths (if any) by which the Lord makes available sanctifying grace to those outside the Church who, after baptism, lose the state of sanctifying grace by mortal sin, so I have no idea whether you're good to go.
However, if you're not in a state of sanctifying grace, I can assure you that you are not "good to go." But only God knows the true state of your soul at present.
We are talking about a personal encounter with Jesus. And it seems that one is free to walk away from the relationship that of which that encounter is a part.
We've all 'encountered' people who from the very beginning showed little interest in actually knowing us. Assuming that there is some benefit in knowing me, such people may have met me, but they don't receive any benefit from it.
Many of us have also met people and at first the meeting was superficial, but something drew us back to them. And we found, after a while, that knowing them, growing closer to them, meant we knew more about ourselves as well as about them. And yet people walk away even from such deeper relationships. For some, intimacy is just too much work.
It's not a good analogy. But it does stress that to eat the bread as though taking a magic pill is to miss the point. Our gracious Lord may stay with us and draw us to a deeper relationship and appreciation. We should hope he does because I suspect many of us revert to a manipulative and childish state from time to time in our life with God.
I can't delineate all the ins and outs of predestination and election, but I can say with confidence that the way in Him and to Him will sooner or later require the dropping of every thought which resembles, "Hey! I'm a frequent communicant. So where's my eternal life already?"
Really Theo? When did this “revival” happen, how did God draw back your “remnant” and what denomination holds that “remnant” today?
I am careful with the word "literal" and am reluctant to use it.
You may eat His body and receive Him as judge only. Life will be eternal. You won't like it.
If one wants to descend into the morass of proof-texting, then one needs to think about verb tenses in Hebrew and Aramaic, and to wonder if the present tense is a present progressive (Is eating) or a kind of present perfect (has eaten) or a simple present (eats). And once that Pandora's box is opened I can find my way to a justification of just about anything.
As far as I'm concerned that demonstrates more why Sola Scriptura is a hermeneutic impossibility than anything else.
The subject is difficult two ways. One is exemplified by Theo's bland assertion that we think we're drinking corpuscles, which is nonsense as anyone who has spent half an hour with the part of the Summa that deals with this would know.
The other is the post Cartesian materialism that leads to the notion that something is what it is made of, and, similarly that an act is little more than the steps it takes to perform it.
(Oh my heavens, this is a beautiful passage!)
What is the difference between fornication and chaste intercourse? Little that one could film. Chaste intercourse takes place within the context of matrimony, and to the extent that, even in that context, it is exploitative it is not chaste. And, to be clear, true charity in marriage is not earned but a gift of grace.
so then, what is it truly to eat the true food (Βρωσις-- the KJV has "meat")? Is it only a matter of the food, so that a non-believer who ate it would eat it truly?
It is when these things are reduced to gotcha arguments and proof texts, when one reads the Bible not to encounter the speaker of the still, small voice but to justify a point of view that one encounters the chaste wife who is embraced by the exploitative husband.
The problem is that when we say "Substance" you think we mean "material". When we say "eat" you think we mean "chew and swallow," and so your side cannot articulate coherently the difference between getting laid and making love.
I'm not saying you don't know the difference. I am saying that you have abandoned the conceptual tools which would enable a coherent explanation of it and, likewise, an understanding (with or without agreement) of what we teach.
Or I may not. Did you notice my 'tag line'?
I think it's a false opposition. I often err, but I try to choose my words carefully. So I spoke of the way in Christ and to Christ. It is not that I save myself by my works. That's patently ridiculous, at least, knowing me, to me. But Jesus prepares good works for me to walk in (Paul said that) and then "walks me" through them. (Paul implied that In Philippians, IMHO.) Anybody who doesn't think the whole thing is a gift isn't paying attention.
You're open to a "non-literal" interpretation of "this is my body", then. Great!
We say it is "really" His body and blood. We do not say it is "literally" His body and blood. (D00d, I'm a Dominican. We LIVE for distinctions.) "Literally" seems to convey something but leaves all the big questions unanswered.
Anybody who thinks that I thought that I was somehow acquiring merit or impressing God or anything of that kind is NUTZ! Anybody who thinks I was conjuring God or Mary or whatever is equally deranged.
It was the “sorrowful mysteries” we were praying. We thought about our Lord's Agony, Scourging, Crowning with Thorns, Carrying His Cross, and being nailed to it and dying on it. Then we implored God to have mercy “on us and on the whole world.”
This latter is always good for me. We were being harangued by a possessed madman who, as mad people so often do, had some very sharp and well directed barbs. And as he howled at us, we were asking God to have mercy on Him, and on the poor workers and clients in the abortuary.
YOU may say “vain repetition”. We're used to it. But for us it's anything but vain. To contemplate the last, say, 21 hours of our Lord's life, and the way they tried to dehumanize him before they tortured him — in front of an abortuary? To work through the anger and horror and sorrow and ask for mercy for the people who so terribly disagree with us?
This is not a mere accomplishment — no such tawdry thing! It is an operation of grace. As I in this simple activity submitted myself to God, He scoured my heart — from the inside! Yes, I teared up. I don't consider myself special or good or full of merit. I consider God full of mercy and generosity. HIM I praise because he has done great things for me and holy is his name.The very possibility (realized or not) of merit is His gift. How could I ever think I had anything of my own? The very idea is preposterous.
You said “ “I’m always amazed by people who can treat Christ’s clear command regarding the partaking of his flesh and blood with such contemptuous disdain, while piously making the “born again” analogy into a sacrament.”
I respond thusly: I’m always amazed by people who read the words “eat the bread” and “drink the cup” and find “eat Jesus’ body” and “drink his blood”
But since many of these people drink neither the cup nor the blood in their masses, it seems a bit ironic that they believe us to have the reading comprehension issues.
“Whoever eats this bread and comes up with a tradition that claims inclusivity of both the body and blood in one species has done this in remembrance of me.”
Oh, and ‘born again’ isn’t a sacrament- it too is a metaphor
This is my body
This is my blood
This is a brain
This is a brain on religious tradition
Any questions?
Luke 11:27And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. 28But he said: Yea rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.
Yea, rather: Catholics may now feel free to venerate and adore me.
(Did Jesus mean what he said or not?)
Will Wallace
Oh I think there's no question he meant what he said. The question is whether he said what you think he said or what we think he said or something else.
How so? If you read "This is my body...etc" and see only "eat the bread," then you do indeed have a reading comprehension problem.
Again, It makes me think of the magic -- sacrament polarity or the 'conjuring' -- 'asking and receiving' polarity.
It seems that there's a lingering thought that the spell must be wound up properly or it won't work. That,to me, seems like a parody of what we say about 'confecting' the Sacrament, rather than a portrayal of it.
I don’t see how any faith that invests ultimate authority in faith and practice to a document or collection of documents can be anything BUT legalistc by its very nature.
A document has no discretion. A document can not react. A document can not clarify ambiguities. To “follow” a document requires its devotees to judge every action and attitude by how closely that action or attitude conforms to the actual dictates of that document.
That is legalism by definition.
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