Catholic Evangelization and the Role of the “Eucharist” in This End-Time Deception

For those who are not aware of the Catholic Church’s New Evangelization program, let me provide a brief overview. The Catholic Church plans to establish the kingdom of God on earth and win the world to the Catholic Jesus (i.e., the Eucharistic Christ). This will be accomplished when the world (including the separated brethren) comes under the rule and reign of Rome and this Eucharistic Jesus.

The Eucharistic Jesus is supposedly Christ’s presence that a Catholic priest summons through the power of transubstantiation, the focal point of the Mass. Many Christians believe the Christian tradition of communion is the same as the Catholic tradition of the Eucharist. But this is not so. The Eucharist (i.e., transubstantiation) is a Catholic term for communion when the bread and the wine are said to be transformed into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Catechism states:

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”1

The host is then placed in what is called a monstrance and can then be worshiped as if worshiping Jesus Himself. The implications are tied directly to salvation itself. With the Eucharist, salvation becomes sacramental (participation in a ritual) as opposed to justification by faith in Christ alone, described in Galatians 2:16. While this mystical experience is a form of idolatry (as well as the very heart of Catholicism), there is a growing interest by evangelical Christians in this practice, particularly by the emerging church.

The Catholic Church leadership, concerned with apathy for the Eucharist within the Catholic ranks, is hoping to “rekindle the amazement”2 of the Eucharist through what is called their “New Evangelization program.”3 With a two-fold purpose–to keep present Catholics and to bring evangelicals into the Catholic Church–church leadership has a plan to re-emphasize the Eucharist as the focus of the Catholic faith. By saying “rekindle the amazement,” they mean bring out the mystical, supernatural element of the Eucharist.

All Catholics are expected to worship the host (Eucharistic Adoration of the transformed wafer), and church leadership says it is anathema (to be accursed) to reject this teaching.

While it is true that during the Reformation and Counter Reformation, many who refused to believe in transubstantiation were tortured and executed for their faith in the Gospel, time has a way of forgetting the facts of history.

In April of 2003, the pope wrote an encyclical promoting the “New Evangelization” program for the purpose of “rekindling amazement” for the Eucharist.4 Then in October of 2004, John Paul II initiated “The Year of the Eucharist” as part of his evangelistic plan to bring the world to the Eucharistic Christ. Following his death in April of 2005, Pope Benedict XVI picked up Pope John Paul’s mission immediately. He called the “faithful to intensify” devotion to the Eucharistic Jesus, and said the Eucharist is the “heart of Christian life.”5

The New Evangelization program plans to revitalize the Catholic faith by reigniting strong interest in the Eucharistic Jesus. It is not just the pope who is enthusiastic about this–cardinals, bishops, and priests all over the world are joining in to help with the mission. Something very significant is happening. Eucharistic adoration is becoming the foundation for the new evangelization of the Catholic Church.

In speaking of the pope’s view on the Eucharist, Protestant-turned Catholic Scott Hahn states:

The coming of Jesus Christ – what the Greek New Testament calls his “parousia” – is not simply some far-off event. It is his presence in the Eucharist. Fundamentalists reduce the meaning of “parousia” to Christ’s coming at the end of time; but for the first century Greek speakers the word meant “presence.” Catholic theology holds on to that original meaning.6

The presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the Second Coming Catholic style. Unfortunately, many evangelical Protestants are not even aware of this.

While Eucharistic adoration contradicts biblical Christianity, a growing number of popular evangelicals (especially those leaning toward emerging spiritualities) seem to find no offense in such a doctrine. And with the increased acceptance of mysticism and an attraction to imagery within evangelical circles, it only makes sense that many evangelical Christians find nothing wrong with the Eucharist and Eucharistic adoration. Such acceptance, however, is neutralizing former evangelical resistance to all things Catholic.

In Doug Pagitt’s book Church Re-imagined, he describes his initial attraction to rituals associated with the Eucharist:

The first day of Lent this year brought the first Ash Wednesday gathering in our church’s history and in mine…. Until this point, Ash Wednesday had not been part of my Christian faith experience. Not only had I never applied ashes to anyone’s forehead, but I had also never had them applied to mine. After this experience I wondered how I could have celebrated 19 Easters as a Christian without this tremendous experience.7

Scot McKnight, another emerging church influencer and the author of The Real Mary and The Jesus Creed, in referring to an Anglican service, McKnight speaks of the Eucharistic focus. He states:

[T]he point of an Anglican gathering on a Sunday morning is not to hear a sermon but to worship the Lord through the celebration of the Eucharist… First some scripture readings and then the sermon and then some announcements and then the Eucharist liturgy–with everyone coming forward to kneel and participateâ€”publicly–in the body and blood.8

McKnight says that “the Eucharist profoundly enables the grace of God to be received with all its glories and blessings.”9 No doubt, McKnight will have an impact on those in the emerging church movement, and his views on the Eucharist will rub off. He has been a popular speaker at many events including Willow Creek’s Small Group Conference and the National Pastors Convention. Both of these events have reached the “postmodern” generation.

The late Robert Webber was very influential in closing the gap between Eucharistic adoration and the evangelical church. A document he authored called “A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future” states: “We call for a renewed consideration of how God ministers to us in … Eucharist.”10 Two well-known evangelical publishers, Baker Books and InterVarsity Press (both of which now publish emerging church authors) sponsored the document as did Christianity Today. The AEF, which the document is called, is endorsed by various emerging church leaders such as Brian McLaren who calls it “a preaching resource” that “emphasize[s] the importance … of Advent or Lent.”11

Participants of the AEF include numerous Christian seminaries like Bethel Seminary in Minnesota, Dallas Theological Seminary, and pastors from many different denominations including Nazarene, Wesleyan, Mennonite, Reformed, and Baptist.

To those who traditionally haven’t had much ritual in their lives (i.e., Protestants), the ambience of the Mass would have great appeal because of its religious novelty – thus the interest in the Eucharist by those who promote contemplative spirituality. And for many Catholics, the Mass (where the Eucharist is presented), in, and of itself, is not a mystical experience. However if the contemplative dimension is added, one actually can enter the mystical realm. On the surface, this phenomenon seems complex, but once we begin to understand mysticism, it all makes sense. Within the contemplative prayer realm, the meditator is actually getting in touch with a spiritual power or force. Combining the tradition of the Eucharist, which appeals to many raised in the Catholic Church, with the relatively recent explosion of contemplative practice, the Catholic Church sees this as a way to recover its robust state of previous decades.

Right now, some may be asking, is the physical presence of Jesus held inside the elements of the Eucharist? Or as some evangelicals and emergents have suggested, is there a special presence and power in the Eucharist? The answer to both is a resounding no! Jesus Christ indwells the heart of every person who is born again and who belongs to Him by faith through grace. He promises never to leave or forsake us, meaning that His presence is in our lives at all times. We are not required to partake in a ritual to experience His presence, nor is He confined in benign, lifeless wafers and wine (or juice). As Jesus said:

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit [spiritual as opposed to physical], and they are life. (John 6:63, emphasis added)

Jesus said this in response to his disciples’ confusion over His statement “my flesh is meat indeed” (vs. 55). Paul adds further clarity in writing to the Romans that all we need to do is call upon the true Jesus, and He is there:

But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:8-13)

At this point, we see the great chasm that separates Catholicism from the light of the Gospel – a light the reformers saw, for which many of them gave their lives. They recognized that participation in the sacraments is not what saves people.

The Catholic’s New Evangelization is no small issue. Darkness has fallen over the Christian church the same way an avalanche sweeps down a mountain. Every day new unsuspecting victims are being swept away and buried. And the role the emerging church plays in bringing this about is something that should alarm every discerning Christian.

To read more about the emerging church, read Roger Oakland’s expose, Faith Undone.

Notes: 1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 1374, page 383.6 2. H. J. Schroeder, The Canons and Decrees of The Council of Trent (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, 1978), page 79, Canon 1. 3. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “The New Evangelization” (http://www.ewtn.com/new_evangelization/Ratzinger.htm). 4. Zenit: The World Seen From Rome, “Why the Pope Would Write an Encyclical on the Eucharist: To Rekindle Amazement,” cited April 17, 2003, http://www.zenit.org. 5. “Pope Benedict calls on faithful to intensify devotion to Eucharistic Jesus,” http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=3686. 6. Interview with Scott Hahn, “Eucharist in the Pontificate of Benedict XVI” (Pontifications, June 12, 2005, http://web.archive.org/web/20070209234229/http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=940). 7. Doug Pagitt, Church Re-Imagined, p. 103. 8. Scot McKnight, “An Anglican Service” (Jesus Creed blog, http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2258 – link no longer online). 9. Scot McKnight, Turning to Jesus, (Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox Press, 2002 edition), p. 7. 10. Robert Webber, “A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future” (Online at: http://www.aefcall.org/read.html. 11. Brian McLaren, “The AEF Document as a Preaching Resource” (From the AEF Call website: http://www.aefcall.org/documents/TheAEFDocumentasaPreachingResource_000.doc).

It's completely in keeping with the central miracle of Jesus' life, the Incarnation, in which a peasant carpenter from an obscure Roman province is -- according to Christian belief -- supposed to be Eternal God incarnate ... contrary, as you say, to sensory experiences.

It is my own faith there was one person who had a "sensory experience" as to the Incarnation, but she was made pregnant by Spirit, not by flesh and blood.

One could go so far as to say she most likely sensed it bodily also, but not by the more usual physical passageway (pardon the expression, but that's as delicate as I could say it). What we even more likely need not guess at, is that she most assuredly experienced the physical aspects of pregnancy itself, and the various sensations and discomforts that most usually entails, which leaves His arrival as a peasant carpenter not *entirely* lacking sensory experiences.

The babe leapt in her womb

See the link on the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano posted above.

Out of all the [Roman] Catholics who have on this site contributed comments to this sort of discussion over the years, is there a single individual who has testified that they too, experienced "Eucharist miracle" such as Lucky ~~Luciano~~ Lanciano has?

Is there even one? If not, why not? Please spare me the "it was sign" reasoning, for to not have that as the usual phenom, is to leave Lucky all but alone in communion (which is a common sharing of the elements) like some heavenly lottery winner.

If it were common phenom, it would be like steak on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and twice on Sundays, but we know it's not that...

It would help if those seeming to press for there being material change into earthly flesh and blood (as such is known in earthly or carnal fashion) would just come out and SAY it.

But the [Roman] Catholic ~~church~~ ecclesiastical community doesn't actually teach that, now does it?

One can put the words body and blood in big capital letters all they wish, but the wording used never included "physical" as in physically present other than an explanation of it, that He is said to be present "under the forms" of the bread & wine.

Again, it could be helpful to those now pressing for materialistic altering of "substance" to know that the Aristotelian idea of substance could be employed in manner conceptually different than what we know today (from our own present-day materialist philosophies) for the "substance" of a thing, was more it's conceptual function, than it's material composition.

A chair can be made of wood, but wood is not "chair substance". A chair can be made of stone, but stone is not "chair substance" in that instance either --- following the same conceptual understandings as the language used 800 years or so ago to describe the transformation --- as to what it actually was that was being "transformed".

A baker could bake a cake (or an entire series of nearly identical cakes) and fashion from cake dough and icing, set atop the cakes, the forms of a "chair". The baker could even put (or make) a small figurine like say a little monkey with a pope hat to sit in one of the chairs, and other little monkeys looking suspiciously like televangelist with big-hair "monkey" wives to sit in other cake chairs. Remove the monkeys, eat the chairs, and one has eaten "chair substance". (there's a reason why I include this paragraph -- you'll see...)

Do not get me wrong, or mistake my own meaning here, for I am not saying that He (Christ) can not or is not present within that which is consecrated, but rather that although He did indeed come to this earth in the form of a man, born of a virgin, lived as a flesh & blood human being, was crucified and literally died, rose again unto Life, walked again in the form of a man, was seen by hundreds if not thousands, then later (forty days) was witnessed to having miraculously ascended, He did not convert His own followers from being Israelite to becoming cannibals in the same fashion that Papua New Guinea tribesmen were until not that long ago...

When He ascended, were did He go? Is there air to breath there? Is oxygen necessary? Is bread, or beef-steak, or even cabbage and beans needed there for Life?

He chose not PNG savages as His own chosen peoples, but through His own peoples He can convert the PNG tribesman into His own people, one person or individual at a time.

I would venture answering "no" to those last immediate inquiries (as to air & food as we know of them) and say further that it is that Life of Him (the life is in the blood) which He sends to be present to become that which is ritually consecrated, shared, and consumed.

Now as to "body" of the bride of Christ (which is the Church) many are appointed as members, but not all are the same member, or have the same functions. Are not they "the flesh and blood" of the body?

We are all not fingers, thumbs, hands, feet, or an arm or a leg. Yet taken all together (with all other necessary parts) we are still one body (no matter how widely scattered) even if not all of identical "ecclesiastical" community as to earthly organizational administration.

The hand can not say to the foot, "I do not recognize you--you do not look like me, I do not need you to grasp that which needs be grasped" neither the eye that sees have no need for the lungs which breathe.

But not all body parts are all that wonderful to gaze upon. Elbows. Who is it that singles out elbows as singularly beautiful? But we all need them to function, and do miss them when they are either gone, or suffering loss of function.

Did you ever hear the joke about the body parts arguing amongst themselves who would be "boss"? Never mind the punchline for that one, for the time being...

Or the one about the cannibal who "passed" his brother on the trail?

How about the prisoner, on his first day in jail? He hears someone yell out "37!" and everyone starts laughing. A little while later someone yells out "41" and that one gets a few laughs. This keeps occurring over the course of several hours until finally the new jailbird asks someone nearby -- "what is going on? why is everybody laughing when numbers are called out?". It's then explained to him that since most of the guys in that jail had been there a long time, they had told and heard the same jokes so many times, they decided to number them, so that way when in the course of conversation something would come up reminiscent or possibly tangential to one of the jokes, or if someone just wanted to lighten the mood by remembering a joke, they could say the number or unexpectedly yell it out sort of like an unexpected punchline (which is how jokes "work") which then would make people laugh.

After a while, desiring to fit in with the crowd, the new guy yells out "37! but nobody laughs, in fact the whole place went deadly silent. Wondering what went wrong, he turns to the guy nearby and asks "how come nobody laughed?" The guy next to him says, "sometimes, it's all in how you tell it".

Arte Johnson Shows Jack Benny How To Tell Joke

“Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats 19 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.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum
Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”
He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve.” [John 6: 49-71]

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