T
thinkandmull
Guest
Protestants believe we are cannibals. Although we do take Jesus into our bodies, we are not overcoming natural squeamish and chewing on flesh. However, errors arise when speaking of the Eucharest, and cause Protestants to think we are crazy.
I believe Catholics confuse what I call the “quantum world” with substance. Scientist have showed that matter is composed of atoms, and although there is force between the atoms, there is more empty space in a horse than solid matter. What the horse looks like, not to us, but in itself, we do not know. Now I’m not going to here get into Aquinas statements, but I do call on him for one point: "substantial forms are not of themselves objects of the senses; for the object of the intellect is what a thing is, as is said De Anima iii, text.26" (from Whether Light is a Quality). Matter only has “isness” in a secondary way. Since Jesus is in the Eucharest in His Body, not His Body plus its Form, the substance must mean the form united to the matter. Now the Cartesians are opposed to the Catechism of Trent, because they believe that “accidents” are mere illuions; that the outside of the Eucharest has the appearance of bread, with Jesus underneath (see the Old Catholic Encyclopedia on Substance and on Accidents, and Descartes responses on his Meditations). The *Catechism of Trent *says that the accidents inhere in nothing; and illuions don’t inhere at all. I believe this is what most Catholics believe the Church means in its teachings on the Eucharest
Now, is Jesus standing (or lying) in the space where the bread once lay? Two things cannot be in the same place, especially if space is not a real thing (a real container) as Aristotle believed. The Catechism says that the “quality” of the bread remains. You can’t have redness without something being read. Therefore we must conclude, that even though you can numb it away, the mind knows there is breadness there. Cardinal Ratzinger has stated this in his books. If there is no breadness, than the priest is touching something without prime matter. If there is no breadness, than there is no accidents of bread because the unity is gone, and there would be accidents of the components of bread, which is contrary to Trent. So Jesus is not behind the bread, because you can flip the Host over. The Catechism says Jesus is in in every particle on the Eucharest. If He is literally physically inside the host, than we have thousands of tiny Jesus’s, unclothed, one on top of the other. How can we straight face tell Protestants this? Jesus still has empty space or air (non-Jesus) in His nose, but the host is completely Jesus! Even more, how could we touch Them with our tonges, throat, ect? With this knowledge how could women receive without endangering their purity? We have to be very careful how we present this dogma to non-Catholics and women.
Certain scholastics speak of “intentional forms”, which is mentioned in a footnote in the Great Books edition of Descartes… I think they are like incorpereal copies of each material object. Maybe we can look with adoration at the Host because a physical human person (Jesus) replaces the spiritual copy in heaven. It is the Real Presence. This way we can point to the Eucharest and say “that is Jesus” and not “that is accidents of nothing”. The bread does not inhere in Him, but He is in Presence with all the reality as if He were standing in the Church.
The last question that remains is whether the host is both Jesus and “dead bread”. I like Scott Hahns comments on how in the Mass we are brought to Heaven, and everything in Heaven shares in its life.
God bless
God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life (Ignatius Press, 2003) “The Lord takes possession of the bread and the wine; he lifts them up, as it were, out of the setting of their normal existence into a new order; even if, from a purely physical point of view, they remain the same , they have become profoundly different.” (p.86)
God and the World, Believing and Living in Our Time (Ignatius Press, 2000)
“But this (transubstantiation) is not a statement of physics. It has never been asserted that, so to say, nature in a physical sense is being changed . The transformation reaches down to a more profound level. Tradition has it that this is a metaphysical process. Christ lays hold upon what is, from a purely physical viewpoint, bread and wine, in its inmost being, so that it is changed from within and Christ truly gives himself in them.”
I believe Catholics confuse what I call the “quantum world” with substance. Scientist have showed that matter is composed of atoms, and although there is force between the atoms, there is more empty space in a horse than solid matter. What the horse looks like, not to us, but in itself, we do not know. Now I’m not going to here get into Aquinas statements, but I do call on him for one point: "substantial forms are not of themselves objects of the senses; for the object of the intellect is what a thing is, as is said De Anima iii, text.26" (from Whether Light is a Quality). Matter only has “isness” in a secondary way. Since Jesus is in the Eucharest in His Body, not His Body plus its Form, the substance must mean the form united to the matter. Now the Cartesians are opposed to the Catechism of Trent, because they believe that “accidents” are mere illuions; that the outside of the Eucharest has the appearance of bread, with Jesus underneath (see the Old Catholic Encyclopedia on Substance and on Accidents, and Descartes responses on his Meditations). The *Catechism of Trent *says that the accidents inhere in nothing; and illuions don’t inhere at all. I believe this is what most Catholics believe the Church means in its teachings on the Eucharest
Now, is Jesus standing (or lying) in the space where the bread once lay? Two things cannot be in the same place, especially if space is not a real thing (a real container) as Aristotle believed. The Catechism says that the “quality” of the bread remains. You can’t have redness without something being read. Therefore we must conclude, that even though you can numb it away, the mind knows there is breadness there. Cardinal Ratzinger has stated this in his books. If there is no breadness, than the priest is touching something without prime matter. If there is no breadness, than there is no accidents of bread because the unity is gone, and there would be accidents of the components of bread, which is contrary to Trent. So Jesus is not behind the bread, because you can flip the Host over. The Catechism says Jesus is in in every particle on the Eucharest. If He is literally physically inside the host, than we have thousands of tiny Jesus’s, unclothed, one on top of the other. How can we straight face tell Protestants this? Jesus still has empty space or air (non-Jesus) in His nose, but the host is completely Jesus! Even more, how could we touch Them with our tonges, throat, ect? With this knowledge how could women receive without endangering their purity? We have to be very careful how we present this dogma to non-Catholics and women.
Certain scholastics speak of “intentional forms”, which is mentioned in a footnote in the Great Books edition of Descartes… I think they are like incorpereal copies of each material object. Maybe we can look with adoration at the Host because a physical human person (Jesus) replaces the spiritual copy in heaven. It is the Real Presence. This way we can point to the Eucharest and say “that is Jesus” and not “that is accidents of nothing”. The bread does not inhere in Him, but He is in Presence with all the reality as if He were standing in the Church.
The last question that remains is whether the host is both Jesus and “dead bread”. I like Scott Hahns comments on how in the Mass we are brought to Heaven, and everything in Heaven shares in its life.
God bless
God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life (Ignatius Press, 2003) “The Lord takes possession of the bread and the wine; he lifts them up, as it were, out of the setting of their normal existence into a new order; even if, from a purely physical point of view, they remain the same , they have become profoundly different.” (p.86)
God and the World, Believing and Living in Our Time (Ignatius Press, 2000)
“But this (transubstantiation) is not a statement of physics. It has never been asserted that, so to say, nature in a physical sense is being changed . The transformation reaches down to a more profound level. Tradition has it that this is a metaphysical process. Christ lays hold upon what is, from a purely physical viewpoint, bread and wine, in its inmost being, so that it is changed from within and Christ truly gives himself in them.”
