The decay of Protestantism is the refusal to belief in the Eucharist., this we call the primacy heresy, and there is no way to spin it. Simply holding hands and doing a kumbaya with rock’n background music, and scriptural readings by another who calls himself a reverend, with folks clapping, dancing, and leaping to their feet (a la Rev. Jeremiah Wright) with coffee and doughnuts for the ladies makes for a nice time. At the end its simply entertainment.
There is no reason to extend any authority to Revs. Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton than one would provide for Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Jim Jones and David Koresh.
They each read the same Scripture and breezily interpret it the way “they” see it. There sis no authority. Only one such authority, and it was exclusive given in the Great Commission to Peter and his apostles so that the unerring truth of Christ will be preserved to the end of times. One truth, one Church. It cannot be any other way.
Denial of the Eucharist is all heresy and explain why leading theologians from a number of Protestant denominations have abandoned their “Protestant” beliefs and converted to Catholicism to say nothing of the stigmatists,St. Padre Pio, At. Teresa of Avila); the saints, the artists, the astronomers, nobel laureates, sculptors, and philosophers of every strip.
However, most of all, the Apostles themselves not only understood the words of Christ literally but all practiced it in the early rituals we now come to call the Mass or what St. Thomas Aquinas called Pange Lingua, the “Bread of Angels.” Anyting and everything else is pure “meeting” not unlike a large gathering of corporate stockholders. This is what the mega-churches have become. In a word: cheap entertainment.
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Here’s how we Catholics explain this. Note the point in the essay how when the Apostles understood Jesus to mean literally what he says, He made no attempt to correct them. Any of these so-called “Protestant” services, are simply vapid recitation of scripture. From Benedict to the lonely widow at the back of the Church, the Living Christ is in the Eucharist.
Read carefully.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/christ-in-the-eucharist
I am being sincere when I say this. I usually read these threads because I want to understand the Eucharist.
So does this boil down to the belief that a priest, a mortal that attended seminary, can convert bread and wine into the body of Christ? If so...how so?
I am not being disrespectful of the Catholic church or any other religion. I really want to understand.
“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 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]
Donuts and coffee? When I drove my parents to Catholic mass a few years back the knights of Columbus had donuts and coffee prepared after mass but you had to pay for it.
My old Bn commander years back played the banjo during communion. That seems to be accepted. The Catholic chaplain loved it I’m told.
bingo!