A Tale of Two Eucharists

[mikeledes]

The point of the above post is that when Jesus is speaking figuratively, either Jesus Himself or the Gospel writer explains what He means. He often uses progressive revelation as a teaching method, going from ambiguity to greater clarity. There are numerous examples of this in the 4 Gospels. Here are some more:

John 4:10-14

**10Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?
12"You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”
13Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;
14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” **

John 8:56-58

**56"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad."
57So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” 58Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” **

John 10:1-10

**1"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
2"But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.
3"To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
4"When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
5"A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers."
6This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.
7So Jesus said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
8"All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
9"I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
10"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. **

John 7:38-39

38"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’"
39But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive

John 12:32-33

**32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” 33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die. **

John 21:18-19

**18 Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” 19 This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. **

Matthew 16:6-12

6 Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” 7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have taken no bread.”
8 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread?[a] 9 Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? 10 Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? 11 How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

This does not happen in John 6.

God Bless,
Michael

 

[po18guy]

I understand, Po, that you believe one unfortunate result of the Reformation is to create doubt in the Eucharist. Yet, i also have Protestants telling me that one unfortunate reason for the Reformation was that the devil had feed lies to the Roman Catholic church that have worked their way into its doctrine.

So, how do i know who is speaking the truth? Has the devil given me a Protestant cup of doubt to drink, or has he given me a Roman Catholic poison sausage that is the skin of the truth wrapped around a lie?

Read and study the early church. Its practices and its writings. John Henry Newman did. He converted to Catholicism. Professor Scott Hahn read and studied. He converted. Go to the Coming Home Network (chnetwork.org/) and read the testimonies.

So, they are telling you that the Twelve (taught by Christ), Saint Paul (personally called by Christ), Polycarp (taught by Saint John), Irenaeus (taught by Polycarp), Ignatius of Antioch and each and every one of the early church fathers were all wrong! They were all fooled by the evil one into believing Christ’s words in John 6 and Saint Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 11 and putting them into practice. Wrong for their entire lives. Think about that for a moment. This sounds like something the JWs would say.

What a horrible shame that millions desire to follow Christ, as long as He does not lead them into the Catholic Church.

However, belief in the Eucharist is a Grace from God. It requires a deeper, more self-denying faith to come to belief in the Eucharist than just to blurt out “He’s my Savior!” and call it good. Pray for the Grace.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

Good guess, Mary! Actually, the reason Moses was not allowed to cross the Jordan river before he died was that he disobeyed God. God told him to speak to the rock and it would produce gushing water to quench the thirst of the Jewish people. Moses, who was angry at them for all their gripping about being thirsty, lost his cool and struck the rock, instead. You can read about it here:

biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=4&chapter=20&version=31&context=chapter

One reason why God disciplined Moses was that he misrepresented God to the people. Another reason was that he failed to participate in creating a beautiful symbol of Jesus. The Father (represented by Moses) speaks to Jesus (represented by the rock) who pours out the Holy Spirit on all who will receive Him (the water that flowed generously from the rock) and this outpouring of the Spirit quenches their thirst for eternal life and righteousness.

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

(1 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Do you see how this event in history was to be a wonderful metaphor of Jesus’ love and provision for you and i?

TRhanks for correctin g me on that. I thought they were suppose to strike the ‘rock’ once but Moses struck it twice because of his doubt. I found this:

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 8 Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink. 9 Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as he had commanded him, 10 And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous: Can we bring you forth water out of this rock? 11 And when Moses bad lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank, The rock… This rock was a figure of Christ, and the water that issued out from the rock, of his precious blood, the source of all our good. 12 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Because you have not believed me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land, which I will give them. You have not believed, etc… The fault of Moses and Aaron, on this occasion, was a certain diffidence and weakness of faith; not doubting of God’s power or veracity; but apprehending the unworthiness of that rebellious and incredulous people, and therefore speaking with some ambiguity. 13 This is the Water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and he was sanctified in them. The Water of contradiction… Or strife. Hebrew, Meribah.

So I guess you are saying Moses sin was misrepresenting God and trying to take the glory of the miracle for himself and I tend to agree with the above interpretation that it was a sin of disbelief. I can see why the Protestant view of this passage tends toward the view that Moses’ sin is pride and misrepresenting God though.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why one view makes more sense than the other?

 

[RebeccaJ]

I’m struggling with it, too. Part of my agonizing over the Eucharist has to do with my doubt that any church is 100% immune to deception. Perhaps Evangelicals are more susceptible to being deceived than some others, as many of the local bodies of believers decide for themselves what they will believe. I’ve experienced the destructive consequences of this myself.

I’m with you on this one. I was raised a mormon and refused to have anything to do with religion for 20+ years because of my experience with that religion. And I wanted nothing to do with God, period.

When I started my search for Faith, I checked out a lot of religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism and Universalist Unitarian. I was purposefully excluding Christian sects because of my experiences from mormonism. I believed all Christian sects to be a bunch of posers and worse, existing only to cage me with notions of no free thought allowed.

I could never believe in the gods of Buddhism, Hinduism and paganism. They make no sense to me whatsoever. And the UUs have no God, and I wanted a belief in God. So I decided to check out Christianity, and I decided that the best place to start was with the oldest Christian faith available to me, and that was Roman Catholicism.

The startup faiths, that claim restorations, like mormonism and Jehovah’s witness, are completely unbelievable to me. How anyone can see them as anything other than man made, is beyond me.

At the same time I started reading about Roman Catholicism, I was also reading about and attending an Episcopalian church. For someone who knew nothing about Christianity, they seemed remarkably similar and when I read how the Anglican church came to be, it smacked of that man made-ness that I want nothing to do with. (No offense intended to any Anglicans.) And I decided that all the Protestant faiths had the same “problem”, for me anyway. And the thousands of Christian churches around…they all seem to me to have been created by men (or women).

So, I kept going with checking out Roman Catholicism. I had to start at square one, with my first question being, What/who is God? And I spent a good year reading, going to mass, and trying to figure out what exactly Christianity is all about.

On the other hand, with the Roman Catholic church, it appears the majority rules, as shown by the church counsels. This is good if the majority knows the truth, but bad if the majority is deceived. I know that the truth is the truth, even if nobody believes it, and a lie is still a lie, even if everybody believes it.

This is also something that I checked out, quite thoroughly I believe. What clinched it for me is that Christ promised to not leave us orphans. He sent us an Advocate, and the Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit.

So, for me, it was a matter of reading early Christian history. The councils are majority rules, but this is how Christ set up His Church. He taught the Apostle’s and He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit. So each person in every council, from the first one you can read about in Acts 15, to the Congregation of Bishops today, has the graces of God…prayer, the Holy Spirit, the Sacraments, of which the Eucharist is so important. It is trust, really, that Christ has kept His promise.

I don’t believe God left us, and to me, it is a belief of mormonism that I keep a watchful eye out for in other religions. If there is a belief that God has withdrawn His Love, I have no interest.

Do individuals make mistakes? Most certainly. And individual leaders in all religions have made mistakes, some very large. However, when I look at the history of the Roman Catholic church, I see the mistakes, I see the errors of the leaders, but I also see that the Church itself has remained as true as it possibly could to what Christ and the Apostles taught. I see God’s Love in this, and that is how I got to where I am…following His Love.

For me, then, i think i have no other choice than to pray for wisdom, consider carefully the evidence and the arguments on both sides of the issue, and make up my own mind. If you have any quotes from the early church fathers that helped you to make up your mind, and if you have the time, please let me know.

Yes, this is what you should do. I had one, constant, never-ending prayer. I almost prayed for nothing else for the longest time. And that was, that God would guide me to Him. I still pray this, and I pray it for you too.

Read the Early Church Fathers, and the New Testament. I used the old Catholic encyclopedia at newadvent.org, to help me understand Catholic beliefs.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

One reason why God disciplined Moses was that he misrepresented God to the people. Another reason was that he failed to participate in creating a beautiful symbol of Jesus. The Father (represented by Moses) speaks to Jesus (represented by the rock) who pours out the Holy Spirit on all who will receive Him (the water that flowed generously from the rock) and this outpouring of the Spirit quenches their thirst for eternal life and righteousness.

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.

Can we think about the above quote a bit more as well? It would seem relevant to understand why all these people who ate and drank from the ‘spiritual rock’ were not all pleasing to God…so
what makes for a person who pleases God and one who does not? I think this has been addressed before in that Paul has been quoted saying that to receive while not believing will bring death…
so that brings us back to "faith’.

Why do Protestants and some Catholics as well have difficulty believing totally in the Real Presence? Do I believe as totally as I can believe? I think there are degrees of faith and most of us are people of “little faith” and to increase our faith we need ot work on believing.

Could God come down on our altars in the form of bread and wine? Any believer would have to say God can do all things so He could do that, agreed?

Why would He do it or why would you think He would not do it?
The answer to this that remind me of God all encompassing LOVE
would encourage me to believe that He does do this. It is so insanely, amazingly complete!

Do you think that Protestant’s have a hard time believing in the Real Presence simply because that act of Love seems too great?
Is it because they could not believe God in His Holiness would condescend this far to enter into our physical/spiritual abode in this unique way?

In all honesty the Love represented by the Eucharist shows who God is–how completely giving, merciful, omnipotent, omnescent the nature of God is more than any other aspect of Christian belief.

The other reality that strikes me is that Protestants can believe that Jesus dwelt as an unborn child in Mary’s womb, (another act of great condescension for an Almighty God)…but when they can’t believe he really comes to them in Holy Communion they are setting up a situation that seems to make it appear that God gave a favor to Mary that other believers will never share in any manner other than spiritual. hence you have a situation in Protestant belief that would raise Mary above other believers, something that I would think they would find contradictory to other statements they make about Mary.The Catholic belief in the Real Presence received in communion on the other hand allows all of us to share in the favor given to Mary because God comes and dwells in us in a physical, spiritual Presence…

That is why the Priest has been likened to the Angel Gabriel and when we say our “Yes” to " The Body of Christ" at communion it has been likened to Mary receiving Jesus at the Annunciation.

Doesn’t that make so much more sense? It ties everything together…

God Bless, maryJohnZ

(1 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Do you see how this event in history was to be a wonderful metaphor of Jesus’ love and provision for you and i?

 

[DrPiano]

(Part 1)
Wow… there’s a lot to read, but so I may be repeating some other people, but let me share how I’ve come to believe what the Catholic Church believes about the Eucharist. I traveled from a camp that said “the Eucharist is merely a symbol” to “the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ” in a few short years. It was a long journey for me.

For me, the first step in the process was coming to understand that God does not see time the way we do. God exists outside of time, and sees all of time as one Eternal Now. He “steps in”, if you will, and intervenes in time as we understand it, but ultimately he exists outside of time.

This is true of Christ’s one sacrifice on the Cross. The book of Revelation tells us that the Lamb (Jesus) was slain from the creation of the world (Rev. 13:8, NIV). The Amplified Bible says “Lamb that was slain [in sacrifice] from the foundation of the world.” The New Living Translation says “Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made.” The King James Version, if you prefer that, says “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” There are, of course, other passages that point to God being outside of time, but I find this verse about “The Lamb” to be the most concise reference to Jesus’ sacrifice also being outside of time. The book of Hebrews, particularly in Chapter 10, seems to suggest that the sacrifices of the Israelites, set up by God, have efficacy not because they in themselves are efficacious (it points out that they are not) but because of Christ’s sacrifice which happened AFTER them in our time. (As an unrelated side note that I don’t really want to get into right now, I believe that this timelessness is the reason a lot of Christians get into fights about God’s sovereignty vs. Human Free Will and Predestination. Once you recognize that God isn’t bound by time, a lot of the conflict between these two ideas seems to melt away.)

Once I could wrap my mind around God not being bound by time, I was introduced to the Greek word, already referenced earlier: anamnesis. In Greek Philosophic thought, anamnesis was a process by which an “otherworldly” reality was made present to the one doing the anamnesis. In other words, this is FAR more than simply “calling to mind.” Its a transfer of the heavenly world to the earthly world. In fact, there are different Greek words that more closely parallel the English “to remember.” I’d like to point out that I learned this at a Protestant College first - they certainly weren’t trying to teach me to be more Catholic!

In fact, this also relates very closely to the way Jews did (and still do) look at the Passover, the Meal that Jesus was celebrating with his Apostles (or at the VERY LEAST referencing a day early with his Apostles, depending on who you read). The Jews celebrate Passover not as a “remembering” of the one Passover in Egypt but as a participation in that one Passover in Egypt. Through their celebration of it, they become PRESENT with those Israelites who watched the plagues sent against the Egyptians, who sat through the long night, hoping that God would keep his word, who crossed the Red Sea with the Egyptians in pursuit. Many Jews still believe that they are present when God gives the Torah at Sinai.

 

[DrPiano]

(Part 2)
The Early Church understood time in a very similar way. For years and years people traveled to Jerusalem to relive Jesus’ final week. They celebrated the Mass in a number of different places (the house where he celebrated the Last Supper, Golgatha, the tomb, etc.), they walked the Via Dolorosa. You can read about it in the writings of Egeria, a nun who basically wrote letters about her travels to her convent in Spain (I believe).

On top of that, the VERY early church recognized Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist:

Writing in AD151 Justin Martyr said, “We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration * and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.” (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151])

In AD110, Irenaeus wrote: “Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior, Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2, 7:1 [A.D. 110])

There are many records of the Early Church Fathers writing of Christ being truly, not metaphorically, present in the Eucharist. In fact, early Christians were FREQUENTLY accused of being cannibals. Rather than correcting their accusers, the church leaders embraced language that would continue to provoke this accusation.

Which leads me to Jesus’ words in John 6, a very similar situation. In John 6, Jesus uses graphic terms: eat my flesh, drink my blood, gnaw on my flesh. In the Old Testament, using “eat my flesh” metaphorically would mean to revile someone. So if Jesus had been using these terms metaphorically in that culture, which would have been using similar cultural meanings for metaphors, he would be saying “If you revile me, spit on me, and misuse me, then you will have Eternal Life.” Knowing what we know of the rest of the Bible, I think this is a most illogical reading. On the other hand, Jesus is very clearly understood by the general populace of speaking literally. "Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Knowing that the people are arguing Jesus proceeds to explain: “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6: 52, 53). Notably, as a result, many of his disciples (except for the Twelve) turn away and don’t follow him any more.

Combine this with Paul’s words “for anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.” People were dying because the did not recognize the body of the Lord in the Eucharist. This isn’t just “not intending to live a holy life the next day” as someone suggested earlier.

Taken all together: in the Eucharist God’s Grace effects a miracle in which the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. We are connected in a REAL and special way to the single sacrifice of Christ on the cross which is continually present in front of God.

I’m not sure how coherent all of that is as I am currently sick and at home with a massive, thought stopping headache, but that’s roughly my journey. I really do believe now that Jesus intended the Eucharist to be REALLY his body and REALLY his blood and that Protestants are missing out on something BIG.*

 

[RebeccaJ]

And this food is called among us Eucharistia [the Eucharist], of
which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the
things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the
washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and
who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and
common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ
our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh
and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the
food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our
blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood
of that Jesus who was made flesh. [1911] For the apostles, in the
memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered
unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He
had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, [1912] this
is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and
given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;”

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Unless you believe that I practice some form of animism or I am so incredibly dumb that I can’t discern the obvious, I really don’t see the point of this question.

Do you believe the Holy Spirit is a bird?

God Bless,
Michael

Now, that is a good question!

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

(Matthew 3:16-17)

Nope, Matthew used the word like, which makes it a simile instead of a metaphor. If he had not used the word like, Mike, i suppose i might have to ponder that one.



Here is another one to ponder:

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Question 8.

Is God a consuming fire?

45"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"– Jesus (John 5)

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

– Moses (Deuteronomy 4:24)

http://casachili.com/images/burning_question_hg_clr.gif

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

What I do know is that when an objection and/or question arises regarding something Jesus says, He or the inspired author always gives a clarifying response.

God Bless,
Michael

Where is the explanation as to what Living Water means in this passage, Michael? I see none.

7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11"Sir," the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17"I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19"Sir," the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”

(John 4)

Since there is no explanation, am i supposed to believe that God is composed of molecules of H2O?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

And your point is?

There are plenty of things Jesus clearly stated to unbelieving Jews, such as His divine origin, the necessity of faith in Him to have life, etc., which they completely rejected.

God bless,
Michael

Sorry for not making myself clear. You were saying that Jesus or the gospel writer always explains every metaphor Jesus uses. Yet He Himself says:

12Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 13This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: " 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.(Matthew 13)

I believe John, chapter 6 is one of these times. The mob refused to believe in Him, so He did not bother to explain why He called Himself the bread from heaven.

What do you think?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Read and study the early church. Its practices and its writings. John Henry Newman did. He converted to Catholicism. Professor Scott Hahn read and studied. He converted. Go to the Coming Home Network (chnetwork.org/) and read the testimonies.

So, they are telling you that the Twelve (taught by Christ), Saint Paul (personally called by Christ), Polycarp (taught by Saint John), Irenaeus (taught by Polycarp), Ignatius of Antioch and each and every one of the early church fathers were all wrong! They were all fooled by the evil one into believing Christ’s words in John 6 and Saint Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 11 and putting them into practice. Wrong for their entire lives. Think about that for a moment. This sounds like something the JWs would say.

What a horrible shame that millions desire to follow Christ, as long as He does not lead them into the Catholic Church.

However, belief in the Eucharist is a Grace from God. It requires a deeper, more self-denying faith to come to belief in the Eucharist than just to blurt out “He’s my Savior!” and call it good. Pray for the Grace.

I’d be interested in discussing what these early church fathers had to say, Po, if you will be willing to select a few good quotes from them. The earlier the quote, the better. Quotes by Polycarp and Irenaeus would be a good start.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

He reaffirmed the intended meaning of His words.

God Bless,
Michael

I’ll take another look at the passages you quoted, Michael, and reply later.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Thanks everyone for your replied. If i have not responded to one of you, i’ll try to do so later.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

Question 8.

Is God a consuming fire?

45"But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"– Jesus (John 5)

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

– Moses (Deuteronomy 4:24)

http://casachili.com/images/burning_question_hg_clr.gif

Great graphics…

Perhaps you may want to ponder John of the Cross, “The Living Flame Of Love”

here is link: carmelite.com/saints/john/works/fl.htm

 

[blossom02]

scripturecatholic.com/the_eucharist.html

Remember that Our God the Father has always wanted to comune with His people. From the beginning of time God has dwelt with His people in someway or another. Today it is in the Holy Eucharist. A much more intimate way than He was able to before He became man.

 

[luv_pis]

I just know this, which has always satisfied my own questions about the Eucharist (sorry if I don’t satisfactorily answer your OP question):

If Jesus Christ is the true perfect realization of the Paschal Lamb (Exodus chapter 12), then He, the Lamb of God, MUST be consumed, truly eaten, by those to be saved. And since His sacrifice is meant to save all of mankind for ALL time from sin, then there must be a way for His Flesh to be truly present to be consumed by all sinners for all time.

Hence, the Holy Eucharist.

 

[Pax]

Absolutely! Jesus in no way wanted to begin a rebellion, which was a very real possibility in His day, as i learned from reading the Jewish historian Josephus. Jerusalem to Rome was like Iraq to the United States. They were constantly snuffing out insurrections by the strength of their military presence. Many devout Jewish people were expecting a holy war to oust the Romans and put a Messiah king on the thrown of the Jewish nation. This can be seen by reading the extra-biblical writings of the ancient Jewish rabbis of Jesus’ time on earth.

This brings up an interesting tangent. I don’t want to throw the thread off track, but you bring up an interesting issue. When Jesus is condemned to death, Pilate gives the Jews a choice for the release of either Jesus or Barabbas. We are told in Luke 23:18that Barabbas was an insurrectionist. The name Bar-abbas means “son of the father.” The Jews demanded the release of Barabbas whom Matthew calls a “notorious” prisoner. The Jews chose an earthly messiah figure as opposed to the true messiah that would free men of their sinfullness.

Even after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD there was another revolt led by Simon bar Kokhba against the Roman Empire in 132. Originally named Simon ben Kosba, he was given the surname Bar Kokhba (Aramaic for “Son of a Star”, referring to the Star Prophecy of Numbers 24:17, “A star has shot off Jacob”).

After the failure of the revolt, many, including rabbinical writers, referred to Simon bar Kokhba as “Simon bar Kozeba” (“Son of the lie”). Obviously, neither he nor his revolutionary predecessors was the messiah. Another interesting tidbit is that the destruction of Jerusalem brought about the burning of all written Jewish records and genealogical data. The Jews may wait for a messiah even today, but no one subsequent to the era of 70 AD would be able to prove that their geneology is from David. Everything points to Jesus.

Do you think, then, Pax, that Jesus’ intention was to not explain Himself to the mob, but, instead, to say something that would turn them off and turn them away from their plans to thwart Jesus’ reason for coming to earth?

I don’t think it was Jesus intention to turn them off and turn them away. Jesus is promising a great miracle…a miracle that will require an enomorous amount of faith. The promised miracle of the Eucharist had to be explained graphically and emphatically. Jesus knew that this would be met with resistance. Common sense tells us that such a teaching would be met with resistance. Jesus spoke other things that are characterized as “hard sayings.” None of these were designed to drive people away.
Nevertheless, people were driven away precisely because it is a hard saying that demands an enormous amount of faith.

If Jesus simply wanted to thwart the Jews that would have made him king, he could do exactly what he did at other times when they wished to kill him before the appointed time. Jesus would simply slip out of their midst. Likewise, Jesus withdrew to the mountain in John 6:15 when he perceived that they wished to take him by force and make him king. Subsequent to this there is no further mention of this problem.

Over and over again, Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus never intimated that he would establish an earthly kingdom. I don’t think the context of John’s gospel suggests that Jesus “intention” in the discourse was to thwart those that would deter him from his mission. I think this issue is dealt with by his withrawing to the mountain. His intention in the discourse was something much greater; his intention and promise are compared to the miracles of the manna and his ascension into heaven. The idea that Jesus intended to thwart the Jews that would make him King seems to be strained because the discourse simply has a much higher purpose.

The departure of those that no longer walked with Jesus is never described as having served the purpose of thwarting those that would have made Jesus an earthly king. I can see no reason to assume that Jesus had that as his intention.

 

[MaryJohnZ]

One of the most interesting ways to find evidence of the early belief in the Real presence is through the art of the early Christians.

here is something I found on the Congregation of the Blessede Sacrament website:

*The most valuable inscription, perhaps, to come down to us from Christian antiquity is the epitaph of Abercius, carved into stone in the year 216. It is now in the museum of Saint John Lateran in Rome. It is a beautiful witness to Christian faith in the Holy Eucharist, written in symbolic language so that only believers could decipher the Christian meaning. Starting with line twelve, we read:

And faith was my guide through all and everywhere (faith) gave me for food the fish, mighty, out of the spring, and pure, which the unsullied virgin took (or, conceived), and (faith) gave it to each of her friends forever, having the choicest wine and ministering it mixed together with the bread.

The meaning of this is absolutely certain. The “fish” is the common symbol of Christ in the early church. This is due to the Greek word for fish (ichthus), the letters of which stand for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” In the first and second centuries, a picture of a group around a table on which is a platter with a fish is at that time just as clear a sign of the Eucharist as is today a chalice surmounted by a host. (For instance, there is a marble slab from the third century which shows fishes eating consecrated wafers of bread. This means that Christians, who are “other Christs,” have the privilege of receiving Holy Communion). Now, it is significant that our Blessed Mother is presented in close relation to Christ under the forms of bread and wine. She is the one who “caught” the fish; the Greek word also means “to conceive.”*

On the Catholic Encyclopedia website you can read about the catacombs and how they had a whole room associated with pictures of scriptural references to stories that pre-figured or symbolized the Blessed Sacrament and the Eucharist. it was one of the most common themes…and why would that be if it were just a symbol?

INTERESTINGLY THE FEAST FOR OUR LADY OF THYE BLESSED SACRAMENT IS MAY 13th…the day on which the Fatima apparitions began. All the Marian apparitions have put an emphasis on the real presence. the angel prayer of Fatima:

Oh Most Holy Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
I adore Thee profoundly.
I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity
of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world,
in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and
indifferences by which He is offended.
By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I beg the conversion of poor sinners.
Amen.

God Bless, maryJohnZ