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Mannyfit75
Guest
Catholics are eating the Body and Blood of Jesus. The appearance may remain bread and wine, but after the Consecration of the Eucharist, the Bread and Wine are no longer bread and Wine. They are the Body and Blood of the Lord. In a sense, we are literally eating the Body and Blood of Jesus.One thing, among many, that your infallible teaching seems to overlook is that Jesus said, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life…” Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe,… And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Jesus knew some would not believe and turn away. Jesus often spoke in parables so they would not understand.
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. (Luk 8:10)
Yes, I believe and take that verse literally. But I also know Jesus is God, but God is not Jesus. Catholics are not literally eating human flesh and if they read the Bible without thinking they already know everything, but instead looking to the Holy Spirit to guide them, maybe they would have a clearer understanding of these verses.
The passage which you quote have been used by Protestants to claim the symbolic meaning of the Eucharist.
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It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.*
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, St made a commentary on this passage.
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He tries to remove their difficulties in another way, as follows, It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing: that is to say, You ought to understand My words in a spiritual sense: he who understands them carnally is profited nothing. To interpret carnally is to take a proposition in its bare literal meaning, and allow no other. But we should not judge of mysteries in this way; but examine them with the inward eye; i.e. understand them spiritually. It was carnal to doubt how our Lord could give His flesh to eat. What then? Is it not real flesh? Yes, verily. In saying then that the flesh profits nothing, He does not speak of His own flesh, but that of the carnal hearer of His word.
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St. Augustine also commented.
Or thus, the flesh profits nothing. They had under stood by His flesh, as it were, of a carcass, that was to be cut up, and sold in the shambles, not of a body animated by the spirit. Join the spirit to the flesh, and it profits much: for if the flesh profited not, the Word would not have become flesh, and dwelt among us. The Spirit has done much for our salvation, by means of the flesh.
Catholics never loverlook the passage which you states. When it is read in the context the time it was written as well as taking into the account of the culture, language. Protestantism idea that it is symbolic did not came about until the Reformation…For the flesh does not cleanse of itself, but by the Word who assumed it: which Word, being the principle of life in all things, having taken up soul and body, cleanses the souls and bodies of those that believe. It is the spirit, it, then, that quickens: the flesh profits nothing; i.e. the flesh as they understood it. I do not, He seems to say, give My body to be eaten in this sense. He ought not to think of the flesh carnally: The words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life.
The Early Church Fathers, and the Apostolic Fathers affirm the Real Presence, and the Apostolic Fathers, like Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, and Clement of Rome were taught by the Apostles themselves. Don’t tell me the Apostles taught them erroneous doctrines. If they have, the Apostles were either deceived by Jesus.
I don’t think they were. Jesus is the Son of the Living God proclaimed by St. Peter. Jesus also promised to preserve his Church from the gates of hell.