The Resurrection & The Eucharist

The Resurrection & The Eucharist by Fr. Rodney Kissinger S.J. (Former Missouri Synod Lutheran) http://www.frksj.org/homily_ressurection_and_the_eucharist.htm There is an important connection between the Resurrection and the Eucharist. The Eucharist IS the Risen Jesus.

Therefore, the Eucharist makes the Resurrection present and active in our lives and enables us to experience the joy and the power of the Resurrection.  The Resurrection is the reason for the observance of Sunday instead of the Sabbath. According to the Gospel it was early in the morning on the first day of the week that the Risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene.

It was also on the evening of that first day of the week that the Risen Jesus appeared to the Apostles when Thomas was not present. Then a week later, on the first day of the week, he appeared again when Thomas was present.

So the Apostles began to celebrate the first day of the week, Sunday, as the beginning of the re-creation of the world just as they had celebrated the Sabbath as the end of the creation of the world. Originally the Liturgical Year was simply fifty-two Sundays, fifty-two celebrations of the Eucharist, fifty-two celebrations of the Resurrection. Today the Eucharist is still the principal way of celebrating the Resurrection and proclaiming the Mystery of Faith: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”

As we have seen the joy and the power of the Resurrection is not found in the empty tomb or in the witness of some one else it is found only in a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus. The Eucharist, the Risen Jesus, gives us an opportunity for this personal encounter. Will all who receive the Eucharist have a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus? Yes they will. Unfortunately, not all will recognize the Risen Jesus.   Mary Magdalene had a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus but did not recognize him. She thought it was the gardener. It was not until she recognized Jesus that she experienced the joy and the power of the Resurrection. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus and thought that it was a stranger. It was not until they recognized him in the “breaking of the bread” that they experienced the joy and the power of the Resurrection.

The Eucharist is also a pledge of our own resurrection. “I am the living bread come 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 Eucharist tells us that in death life is changed not ended. It is not so much life after death but life through death. Death is the door to life. This takes away the fear of death and gives us consolation at the death of a loved one.

The Eucharist also continues the two fold effect of the Resurrection which is to confirm the faith of the Apostles and to create the Christian Community. These are two sides of the same coin. To believe is to belong. Community was an integral part of the life of the first Christians. They were of one mind and one heart. When the Apostles asked the Lord to teach them how to pray, he taught them the “OUR Father.” In the Creed we say, “WE believe.” It is a personal commitment made in the community of believers.

The Eucharist also confirms the faith of the recipient and is the principle of unity and community. Without the Christian Community we lose our roots and our identity and our ability to survive in our culture which is diametrically opposed to Christ.

Through the Eucharist the Risen Jesus continues his two fold mission of proclaiming the Good News and healing the sick. Every celebration of the Eucharist proclaims the Good News and heals the sick. The Liturgy of the Word proclaims the Good News and the Liturgy of the Eucharist heals the sick. If people were healed simply by touching the hem of His garment how much more healing must come from receiving His Body and Blood?

How ridiculous it is then when people ask, “Do I have an obligation to go to Mass on Sunday?” If obligation is going to determine whether or not you go to Mass forget the obligation. You have a greater problem than that. Your problem is faith, you don’t believe. You don’t believe that the Eucharist IS the Risen Christ.

You just don’t realize the connection between the Resurrection and the Eucharist.  In just a few moments we will receive the Eucharist and once again have an opportunity for a personal encounter with the Risen Jesus.

Let us ask for the faith to recognize him in the “breaking of the bread” so that we are able to say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” and in so doing experience the joy and the power of the Resurrection.

**No, what it denies is your interpretation of those scriptures.**

No, they are denying the words of Jesus Christ: “..Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape”. Jn 5:37.

They are denying the words of John: “No man hath seen God at any time”. Jn 1:18; 1Jn 4:12

They are denying the words of Paul, who said that Jesus Christ is “the image of the invisible God”. Col. 1:15

They are denying the words of the writer of Hebrews, speaking of Moses: “for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible”. Heb. 11:27

All of those quotes are from testamonies WRITTEN well AFTER Stephen witnessed seeing Jesus Christ “standing on the right hand of God”.

The ‘right hand’ is symbolic of the power of God. Jesus Christ said that ALL POWER is GIVEN him “in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). Think that that is my private interpretation?....read the ‘right hand’ usage in the OT; the same OT scriptures that Stephen AND the Pharisees were VERY familiar with:

“thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: the right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.” Ex. 15:6

“Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.” Ex 15:12

“Shew thy marvelous loving kindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.’ Ps. 17:7 (there are a lot of ‘right hand’ passages in Psalms).

“That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm...”. Isa. 63:12

**The Father and Son are one in purpose.**

Read this reeeeeelly slow: “Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been SO LONG WITH YOU, and yet HAST THOU NOT KNOWN ME, Philip? he that hath seen me HATH seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou NOT that I am IN the Father, and the Father IN me? the words I speak unto you I speak NOT of myself: but the Father that DWELLETH IN ME, HE doeth the works.” Jn 14:8-10

**Mark 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
This alone is undeniable proof that the Father and Son are two different and separate people. If not, how could one forsake the other?**

God the Father (a Spirit. see Jn 4:24. defined by the ONE who would know better than Joseph Smith EVER could), dwelled in Jesus Christ, took his power from him so that he WOULD die.

Otherwise, the same Spirit that multiplied the loaves and fishes, and turned water into wine, could have kept an endless supply of blood flowing through his body, and tissues reparing themselves endlessly as well. Do you believe that God could have done that if he had so desired?

**Stephen looked into heaven and saw God sitting on His throne and Jesus standing at His right hand.**

You added: “sitting on his throne”. That helps your interpretation, in an inaccurate fashion.

**God showed Himself to Joseph Smith in order to clear up these false concepts of God that have come from the imaginations of men. Therefore we don’t have to debate the subject. God has a body, Joseph saw it.**

Joseph Smith was a false prophet, and saw no such thing. Yes, that my opinion. But, the whole of the scriptures tell the facts.

Thanks for the reply, though!

Here's one http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3275781/posts?page=909#909

Your comments highlighted there at the top of the page.

Those are mutually exclusive.

One simply cannot give birth from realm of spirit -- unless they are

and have god-like powers of being able to reproduce as it were, in realms of spirit.

Or else if you see Kolob, tell him hie.

(Elsie would get that joke)

Then there is the thing about prayers to departed saints being (near entirely?) absent from historical records prior to near the 4th century. Way back at #642

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3275781/posts?page=642#642

Meanwhile, which Roman Catholic is it that has moderator privileges and keeps reads comments while those are still in review, and then tipping off select FRomans about what may be coming down the pike?

Wow, that's harsh.

Perhaps you can use it in Sunday School class some time...

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses , vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

Or else if you see Kolob, tell him hie. (Elsie would get that joke)

Better than that; he has actual historical data to post!!

W. W. Phelps

I have a Dream

William Wines Phelps, assistant president of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

in Missouri

I Have a Dream

William W. Phelps' grave marker.

The back is inscribed with the words

There is no end to matter

There is no end to space

There is no end to spirit

There is no end to race.

There is no end to glory

There is no end to love

There is no end to being

There is no death above"

from the hymn

"If You Could Hie to Kolob".

Today, William W. Phelps is probably best-known for his legacy of LDS hymns, many of which appear in the current edition of the LDS Hymnal.^[6]

Just a couple...

If You Could Hie to Kolob

Praise to the Man

Excommunicated and rebaptized

A scribe to Joseph Smith Jr., for some time, in late 1838 Phelps was one of several who bore witness against Smith and other leaders, aiding in their imprisonment in Missouri until April 1839. In June 1840, Phelps plead for forgiveness in a letter to Smith. Smith replied with an offer of full fellowship, and ended with the famous couplet, "'Come on, dear brother, since the war is past, For friends at first are friends again at last.'"^[4]

It was decided that Phelps, along with Frederick G. Williams, could be ordained as elders and serve missions abroad. Phelps served a brief mission in the eastern United States in 1841. Phelps moved to Nauvoo, Illinois where on August 27, 1841, he replaced Robert B. Thompson (who had died) as Joseph Smith's clerk. Beginning in February 1843, Phelps became the ghostwriter of many of Smith's important written works of the Nauvoo period, including General Joseph Smith's Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys of November 1843, Smith's theodemocratic presidential platform of January 1844, and The Voice of Innocence which was presented to and unanimously approved by the Relief Society in February 1844 to rebut claims of polygamy in Nauvoo arising out of Orsimus Bostwick's lawsuit accusing Hyrum Smith of polygamy and other sexual misconduct with the women of Nauvoo.^[5]

Phelps was endowed on December 9, 1843, received his "second anointing" promising him godhood on February 2, 1844, and was also made a member of the Council of Fifty. In Nauvoo, Phelps spoke out in favor of the destruction of an opposition newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor. He believed that the city charter gave the church leaders power to declare the newspaper a nuisance. Shortly afterwards, the press and type were carried into the street and destroyed. Phelps was summoned to be tried for treason with Joseph Smith at Carthage, Illinois.

During the Mormon Succession Crisis in 1844, Phelps sided with Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was again excommunicated on December 9, 1848 for entering into an unauthorized polygamous marriage, but was rebaptized two days later.^{[citation needed]} He took part in the Mormon Exodus across the Great Plains and settled in Salt Lake City in 1849. He served a mission in southern Utah Territory (as counselor to Parley P. Pratt) from November 1849 to February 1850. There he served in the Utah territorial legislature and on the board of regents for the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah). Phelps died on March 7, 1872 in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._W._Phelps_(Mormon)

No man has seen God the Father, unless Jesus shows Him.

Oh??

John 14:5-11

⁵Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

⁶Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.

⁷If you had known me, you would without doubt have known my Father also: and from henceforth you shall know him, and you have seen him.

⁸Philip saith to him: Lord, shew us the Father, and it is enough for us.

⁹Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, shew us the Father?

¹⁰Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works.

¹¹Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?

BEWARE!

There be some sneaky Trinitarian doctrine in the above verses!

John 14:1-4

1 Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.

²In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you.

³And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be.

⁴And whither I go you know, and the way you know.

Folks; do you realize that Mormonism's own data shows that very few Mormons will ever get to reside with the Father in Heaven?

Yeah! About 15% is the figure that has not been disputed.

HEAVEN-The Mormon church teaches there are three levels of heaven (three "degrees of glory"):

Celestial - for Mormons who have kept ALL of the laws and ordinances of their church.

Terrestrial - for religious people who aren't Mormons and for Mormons who have not met the requirements of the Church.

Telestial - where unbelievers go

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