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.

At least we may be having some conclusion here. It appears to boil down on whether or not the early Church fathers believed the Eucharist is the true body and blood of Christ. Protestantism after all came onto the scene some fifteen centuries later. So if we settle this question, this continuing argument ends.

Boatbums took refuge in an anti-Catholic’s blogger’s understanding of the practice of the early Church fathers. When corrected by a renowned Protestant scholar (whose study is cited in the theological departments of major colleges and universities) on early Christian practices who confirms that indeed the Church fathers believed that the Eucharist contains the living body and blood of Christ.

She (boatbums) has no answer to this. She keeps to her corner repeating the canard that the early Church fathers held different doctrines.

But this can be settled very easily. Lawyers do this in court every day. Surely, on a matter of this profundity there would have been major dissents and ruptures, schisms, would have occurred if successive popes continued to practice error. Yet, there is not a single instant where any of the early Church fathers, theologians, saints or martyrs raised any doubt about the Eucharist. None. As they say, “case closed.”

But unfortunately it does not end because denying the Eucharist has become a source of employment for the Creflo Dollars of this world.

Metmom and Zuriel are simply not getting it. They are doing what “Bishop” TD Jakes, Jeremiah Wright; Al Sharpton; Billy Graham; Jim Jones; David Koresh; Benny Hinn; Joel Osteen; and Jimmy Swaggart and every Sunday Protestant televangelist and corner street First Calvary, First AME; First Methodist, First Presbyterian or any of the other “Firsts” would do.
They select scriptural quotations, give it “their” definitive interpretation, and if this collides with the Catholic Church Credo, Catechism, Magisterium, liturgy and rituals, then it “they” who are correct, not the Catholic Church.

In case you missed it, here’s Zuriel’s main thesis to show that the Catholic Church is false: He serves up this rare piece of nonsense. That Satan is behind the grand design of Catholic Churches. Truth be told, I am not sure anyone of us have heard this one before.

Zuriel writes:

“We know from scripture that the devil has supernatural powers; even to do things that seem like miracles. But, he can’t forgive sins, and of course, doesn’t want to. Would Satan make sure to erect the most impressive places of worship?....Put on the most elaborate displays of ceremony?”

He forgets the Grand Temple of Solomon “a most impressive place of worship” housed the Ark of the Covenant. Catholic Churches house the Eucharist.

This is the level of argument we Catholics are expect to forbear and constrain our contempt for lest we fall afoul of the norms of discussion in this forum as the religious moderator keeps reminding us.

Apparently, until the Reformation, it never seems to occur to these folks that Petrine Authority was well established. This too can be decided by what the early Church Fathers believed.

Indeed, it has been settled for 2000 years. Christ established ONE Church, taught ONE truth, and for ALL time.

As early as 110 A.D., not even fifteen years after the book of Revelation was written, while on his way to execution St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

“Where the bishop is present, let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church”. The Church believes that when the bishops speak as teachers, Christ speaks; for he said to them: “He who hears you, hears me; and he who rejects you, rejects me” (Lk 10, 16).

This debate on Petrine Authority is closed. Even pre-eminent Lutheran and Episcopalian converts to Catholicism accept this fundamental truth. You ask whom? Well here are just three examples that we can all agree are far more knowledgeable on the subject than the contrarians here.

1. Ulf Ekman, the founder of Scandinavia’s biggest Bible school, with a congregation of some 4000 individuals, converted to Catholicism because his theological inquiry confirmed for him the indispensability of the Catholic sacraments.

2. Francis J. Beckwith, a “born-again” evangelical, a tenured professor at Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Tex, was the president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians resigned and joined the Catholic Church.

3. Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, was a pre-eminent Lutheran theologian in America. He knew his Bible-text and history like no other Protestant having taught and written extensively on the subject. When he converted to Catholicism he said, “I have long believed that the Roman Catholic Church is the fullest expression of the church of Christ through time.”

Metmom appears to believe that the unwritten Word of God (John 21:25) dissolved into a dust cloud. But had she read the great Oxford and Protestant historian J.N.D. Kelly, an authority on early Christian beliefs she would have learned at least this much. Kelly writes:

“[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it.” (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).

Finally, lets move onto Ealgeone who beats his drum about Genesis and the six-day creation. Had he read the great Doctor of the Church St. Augustine, that every student of theology is exposed to, this question would not be raised.

When St. Augustine talks about the “literal” meaning, he doesn’t quite mean what others think he means. Today, a “literal” meaning is fundamentalism: the world was created in six 24-hour periods about 4-5 million years ago and Fred Flintstone rode around on a brontosaurus, etc, etc.

St. Augustine does not believe that at all. St. Augustine recognized two levels of scripture in most of his exegesis: literal and figurative. The figurative meaning was a kind of typology, in which each event in the Bible stands for something else, usually a prefiguration of Christ. It’s as Paul says in 1 Cor. 10:11: “All these things, however, happened among them in figure.”

The literal meaning is what the text is saying. A text may be wholly figurative, such as the Song of Songs, and indeed some early interpreters read Genesis purely figuratively. Augustine himself did this in his On Genesis Against the Manichees.

In his literal interpretation, however, St. Augustine was trying to understand what Genesis really says. He’s not searching for either an analogy (the figurative meaning) or a purely literal meaning (what we now would call literalism or fundamentalism), but is instead querying the text about what it means. And for Augustine, it was vital that we understood this text in an intelligent way.

Augustine repeatedly warns against interpretations that defy the clear evidence of the sciences. As students of St. Augustine will tell you he was extremely concerned that foolish Christians reading scripture too literally would bring discredit on the entire faith.

Good night all and let me end with the Divine Praises we Catholics say before the Blessed Sacrament:

“Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name. Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. Blessed be the Name of Jesus. Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart. Blessed be His Most Precious Blood. Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most Holy. Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception. Blessed be her Glorious Assumption. Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother. Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse. Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.”

This here;

you'll find all of them have Sacred Liturgy and Sacraments; all of them venerate, and invoke the intercessory prayers of Mary and of the Saints who have gone on before us; all of them trace back to the Apostolic period when the Epistles and Gospels were being written, and they were learning from the very lips of the Apostles.

is false, in that the inclusion of "...and invoke the intercessory prayers of Mary and of the Saints..." cannot be traced back any further than the 4th century, much less that sort of thing having been a part of Tradition going back to "...as they were learning from the very lips of the Apostles".

I could possibly show you where such concept as mentions of departed saints, included in liturgical prayers, slightly shifted from passing mentions of them, to become, or else include what could be reasonably interpreted as something of a direct imploring those same 'saints'.

One place it can be found is buried within a footnote of Schaff's "History of the Christian Church", although for the moment I do not recall precisely where. It's rather obscure.

It was a few months ago I brought links to the precise page, but for now I cannot recall from exactly what page of that book.

That slight but significant change came about during period of re-working (and possibly a re-invigorating) of liturgical elements.

The theology itself of prayer to anyone other than God Almighty, Himself, save for Christ alone cannot be clearly at all found, prior to the 4th Century -- or else SHOW ME.

Asserting such a thing as "prayers to Mary" going back to Apostolic times is merely that -- assertion -- backed by nothing more than wishful thinking.

And no, I'm not from Missouri, but I've passed through there more than a few times...

As a forewarning --- "poetical" and/or devotional sort of mentions of Mary and others who went before (whomever it was at any one time who was writing) that do not include mention or example of direct imploring of those same departed Saints; for those entities own intercession(s), prior to the 4th century, should be seen as a form of proof that such sort of prayers to 'Saints' (rather than about them, as part of thankfulness towards God for having established the Church) were not part of early church tradition.

It's like taking inventory. If something is not there, then it cannot be counted as being there. But you just did that.

As you said here;

I've been trying to encourage FReepers to make a distinction between categories and genres--- dogma, doctrine, devotional/mystical literature, pious opinion, and poetry --- when seeking the meaning of religious expressions.

should be done also. Those sort of distinctions made, setting aside as questionable at best(?) that which is (or began as) merely "pious opinion", "poetry", & "devotional...literature", unless there be enough of that (from earliest centuries but not later) which would include actual praying to Mary, or those perceived to be saints.

Yet even in this, I do not think one will find the mystical sort of thing including contacting "departed saints" and the like --- from any but Gnostic sources until around the 4th century -- and then from that century onwards, increasing in frequency and extent of considerations.

Can you show differently than that?

So what now? Will there be a turning towards Newman-esgue "from an acorn which looks nothing like an oak, grows the mighty oak" sort of nonsense?

If that (Newman's imaginative, explanatory excuse-making for the earliest record being entirely bereft of most all Marion doctrines not found explicit in NT Scripture, and singular "papacy" too) is not nonsense, then at the very least it cannot be honestly said that such things were "all traced back to Apostolic times".

But don't bother raising objection that you did not in this thread mention "papacy" as Rome knows of and considers today (with all it's attendant theological baggage) for I do realize you did not mention that in the note to which I here reply, yet otherwise by your own words, you are a self-confessed "papist" -- correct?

Show us --- prayers TO departed saints, prior to the 4th century --- and enough of those they not fall into realm of pious opinion, or poetical expression.

The further down you dig; the further back you go; the further "Protestantism" recedes in your rear-view mirror.

No...the further down (into history and scripture both) one digs, the less many things peculiar to Romanism are found well enough supported to not need the Newmans of the world (the crafty spin-doctors) to explain why this ecclesiastical community which bally-hoos itself (and programs it's adherents into thinking and repeating) claims like ---"just as taught by Christ and the Apostles" cannot honestly make that case.

Repeating the same jargon over and over is not any kind of proof. The only place to "take refuge" is in Christ. When you cannot dispute what is posted, you resort to killing the messenger. What the "blogger" cited was actual writings of those Early Church Fathers Catholics delight in trotting out. They do not prove your point. Do you dispute what these ECFs were quoted as saying?

It's a simple matter to demonstrate that what you keep asserting about "all" Christians believing in the current dogma of the "real presence" of Roman Catholicism is untrue. In fact, the term "transubstantiation" wasn't even officially defined until the thirteenth century! Even Augustine stated:

Let them then who eat, eat on, and them that drink, drink; let them hunger and thirst; eat Life, drink Life. That eating, is to be refreshed; but you are in such wise refreshed, as that that whereby you are refreshed, does not fail. That drinking, what is it but to live? Eat Life, drink Life; you will have life, and the Life is Entire. But then this shall be, that is, the Body and Blood of Christ shall be each man's Life; if what is taken in the Sacrament visibly is in truth itself eaten spiritually, drunk spiritually. For we have heard the Lord Himself saying, It is the Spirit that gives life, but the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life."

Augustine (Faustus 20.18, 20): "Before the coming of Christ, the flesh and blood of this sacrifice were foreshadowed in the animals slain; in the passion of Christ the types were fulfilled by the true sacrifice; after the ascension of Christ, this sacrifice is commemorated in the sacrament.

The Apostles and Jesus taught that it was through FAITH that saved a soul from hell. To assert ONLY those who believe the Roman Catholic dogma of the Eucharist can be saved is to deny the words of Jesus. Catholicism at the Council of Trent even made the receiving of the Eucharist and expiatory act - meaning ones sins were atoned for every time they received communion. Instead of Christ's once-for-all atonement by His broken body and shed blood for our sins which we believe through saving faith, Catholicism has perverted and made not only belief IN Christ but belief in their version of the Eucharist along with confession and a host of good works and sacraments the ONLY way to hope for eternal life.

That really is the real fault I see with this whole argument of yours. You cannot prove what Rome holds today was either taught by Jesus, the Apostles or sacred Scripture nor held "unanimously" by the consent of the "fathers". I don't deny your right to believe what you want about this topic. But what I do object to is this demand that unless someone believes exactly as you do - and what you presume ALL Catholic do too (even though it has been shown they are NOT held by all Catholics) - they cannot have any hope for heaven. Scripture AND the ancient witness of Christians the world over attest to the saving grace of God who gifts us with eternal life when we believe. We receive Jesus through faith. We are spiritually "eating" and "drinking" Him when we put our trust in Him to save us. All throughout that sixth chapter of John, Jesus repeatedly says, "Believe". It is because of this faith that we can KNOW we have eternal life (I John 5:13).

It's late and I'm signing off. I hope you will examine your own stridency towards those who disagree with you and who are not as impressed by what "smart" people (the wise of this world) do or think. Each of us will stand before the judgment and we will be either clothed with the righteousness of Christ or our own - and our own will NOT cut it.

Beckwith was a revert to [Roman] Catholicism, rather than a convert.

He was educated at 'Catholic' universities (to a large extent -- perhaps a greater extent?) and bills himself as having long been a Thomist.

He was never a 'Protestant' in his own mindset -- other than having attended church with and been greatly influenced by other-than Roman Catholic Christians (but not *quite* well enough) to have been an actual "born again" sort of Evangelical.

Then again, only the Lord Himself can bring about this born again/born from above transformation...

I could go on with more concerning him, but for now, that is enough.

As usual, you've got far less than it may appear to yourself.

At least we may be having some conclusion here. It appears to boil down on whether or not the early Church fathers believed the Eucharist is the true body and blood of Christ.

If you intend to mean that equating to a corporeal flesh and blood type of consideration, as in Christ coming down again from heavenly places, to then again become just exactly as the carnal/corporeal flesh and blood as we otherwise know flesh and blood to exist in earthly, even animalistic "meaty" sense (man is something of a form of animal -- a mammal, to be precise about it) --- then no, many of them (as what boatbums brought here indicated) did not view the thanksgiving meal which they shared among themselves as being in that way the "flesh and blood".

There are a few [Roman] Catholics who are members of this forum who do not view it in that type of corporeal, "fleshy" sense, either.

One is a priest iirc, and another is an RCIA instructor.

Perhaps try thinking of Eucharist elements in this way ----
Before Christ was born -- did he have "flesh and blood" the same as He did after He was born of Mary?

Where He is (as it is written) now seated (at the right hand of the Father) does he there have the same exact composition of flesh & blood as He did when in the form of a man --- or when (and after) returning to the place he was before;

Does He now -- seated in Heavenly places --- need to eat food as it were? How about -- breath oxygen? Drink water?

If possibly not --- then why, oh, why think that when He comes to us again to fellowship with us, in context of ourselves partaking of communion meal, that there must be some sort of "meaty" flesh and blood instead of that visitation be one of Spirit?

Early liturgies strongly suggest "Spirit" for those invoke the Spirit to inhabit/become/be the bread and wine.

Would the early Christians whom prayed in that manner be thinking Him invisibly turn into some form of human steak tartare?

They were accused of such (eating human flesh) but demurred, with an example that boatbums having brought showing that one early church noteworthy individual turned the accusation back upon the accusers, saying it was the accusers of the early church who ate of literal human flesh.

Or; does Jesus place Himself on a Holy Rotisserie in the Sky before descending upon (and then invisibly becoming) the memorial bread and wine?

So if we settle this question, this continuing argument ends.

The question is settled in my own mind --- and experience also.

Having ECF's (as those are often referred to) indicate the same sort of view (a spiritual, or pneumatic view, and one not lacking a strong component of receptionism, rather than be by the "power and authority" of a sacerdotal priesthood alone) is all that more comforting to myself.

Moses did not bring the manna down from heaven.

Who was it that reminded the Apostles of that aspect?

It was Jesus himself. It's all there in John 6 -- if one could but understand that the flesh He was talking about was ---- His own body that He would willingly give up,unto death, upon a cross, and that He was the Passover, giving His own life freely, unto death, as ransom for many.

And was also the Passover which the Jews had long observed.

He was not physically, literally that bread of the Passover which He broke and blessed -- saying "this is my body" for it was obvious at that point that the bread was the bread -- and His own body something else yet again.

He was no more literally, in physical sense that bread, than the lambs without spot or blemish, and the kids of the goats which the Jews in Egypt were instructed to partake of, (and strike the blood of those animals upon their doors and door lintels) were His own literal, physical flesh and blood.

Yet He did give up His own literal, physical body upon the cross. And again, when He rose again -- 40 days after the Resurrection --- where did He go, but back to where He WAS before.

It is from there, from where He was BEFORE, that He condescends to men of low estate.

Why must this conversation be so difficult?

Tell us --- just what exactly (other than to spew at those whom could be perceived as "Protestants") are you arguing for?

Are you arguing for "steak tartare" even though not using those words?

Flesh and blood, right?

WHAT precisely do you mean when you say those words, in this context?

Human flesh? He was fully man as it were, even as He was fully God (having been fully God, long before He was ever born in the form of a man -- or else the writers of the New Testament have things wrong).

Tell me sir, what part of

"the words I speak to you are spirit and life, the flesh profits nothing"

do you not understand?

But spare me the usual spewing, eh?

All the talk about David Koresh's and Benny Hinn (and Benihana's?) is not helping. Not if you desire to "settle this".

The choices are;

Holy Rotisserie in the Sky

To be spiritual discerned

Choose wisely

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