Blessed Sacrament

[Mannyfit75]

A number of church fathers did not interpret John 6 in exactly the way that the Catholic Church does. That is not to say some ot them may not have believed in the Real Presence but they didn’t necessarily derive it from John 6.

The Orthodox Church believed in the Real Presence.

For example Augustine says:

Tractates on John Number 25
newadvent.org/fathers/1701025.htm

The eating that Augustine sees is not with the teeth and stomach but simply by believing.He further says that accepting what Jesus said literally would involve enjoining a vice or crime so it must be figurative.

Carl,

Have you read the next Tractate Number 26:

Here is what Augustine later say:

1. But that which they ask, while striving among themselves, namely, how the Lord can give His flesh to be eaten, they do not immediately hear: but further it is said to them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you will have no life in you.” How, indeed, it may be eaten, and what may be the mode of eating this bread, you are ignorant of; nevertheless, “except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you will not have life in you.” He spoke these words, not certainly to corpses, but to living men. Whereupon, lest they, understanding it to mean this life, should strive about this thing also, He going on added, “Whoso eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life.” Wherefore, he that eats not this bread, nor drinks this blood, has not this life; for men can have temporal life without that, but they can noways have eternal life. He then that eats not His flesh, nor drinks His blood, has no life in him; and he that eats His flesh, and drinks His blood, has life. This epithet, eternal, which He used, answers to both. It is not so in the case of that food which we take for the purpose of sustaining this temporal life. For he who will not take it shall not live, nor yet shall he who will take it live. For very many, even who have taken it, die; it may be by old age, or by disease, or by some other casualty. But in this food and drink, that is, in the body and blood of the Lord, it is not so. For both he that does not take it has no life, and he that does take it has life, and that indeed eternal life. And thus He would have this meat and drink to be understood as meaning the fellowship of His own body and members, which is the holy Church in his predestinated, and called, and justified, and glorified saints and believers. Of these, the first is already effected, namely, predestination; the second and third, that is, the vocation and justification, have taken place, are taking place, and will take place; but the fourth, namely, the glorifying, is at present in hope; but a thing future in realization.** The sacrament of this thing, namely, of the unity of the body and blood of Christ**, is prepared on the Lord’s table in some places daily, in some places at certain intervals of days, and from the Lord’s table ****it is taken, by some to life, by some to destruction: but the thing itself, of which it is the sacrament, is for every man to life, for no man to destruction, whosoever shall have been a partaker thereof.

I hardly think St. Augustine thinks it is symbolic.

On Christan Doctrine Book 3, Chapter 16
newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm

Even as late as Bernard of Clairvaux, we have him saying:

On Loving God.
ccel.org/ccel/bernard/loving_god.vi.html#vi-p1.6

Bernard of Clairvaux no where denies real presence. Just we say in the Mass, we invoke the words of St. Paul:

“For as often as you eat of this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death O Lord, until You come in Glory.”

When Bernard wrote:

Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life’ (John 6.54). That signifies, whoso honors My death and after My example mortifies his members which are upon the earth (Col. 3.5) shall have eternal life

We also honor his death. This in no way contradicts the Real Presence.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Other quotes from St. Augustine concerning the Real Presence:

ST. AUGUSTINE
“You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ.”

-“Sermons”, [227, 21]

“He who made you men, for your sakes was Himself made man; to ensure your adoption as many sons into an everlasting inheritance, the blood of the Only-Begotten has been shed for you. If in your own reckoning you have held yourselves cheap because of your earthly frailty, now assess yourselves by the price paid for you; meditate, as you should, upon what you eat, what you drink, to what you answer ‘Amen’”.

-“Second Discourse on Psalm 32”. Ch. 4. circa

"For the whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prayers for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them on their behalf.

Source: St. Augustine, Sermons 172,2, circa 400 A.D.

"The fact that our fathers of old offered sacrifices with beasts for victims, which the present-day people of God read about but do not do, is to be understood in no way but this: that those things signified the things that we do in order to draw near to God and to recommend to our neighbor the same purpose. A visible sacrifice, therefore, is the sacrament, that is to say, the sacred sign, of an invisible sacrifice. . . . Christ is both the Priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to offer herself through Him.

Source: St. Augustine, The City of God, 10, 5; 10,20, c. 426:

 

[Michael_Francis]

Thread pruned. Forum Rules & Banned Topics Policy

See that everyone posts accordingly.
MF

 

[Mannyfit75]

Could you please show me from the scriptures how you came to this conclusion?

John 6:51-58. Jesus said,

54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.

55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

As you can can see His flesh is meat indeed and that his Blood is drink indeed. So we can come to to conclusion the Unleaven bread is both his Body, and Blood. Jesus also have a soul, he is also Divine. So we can rightly concluded, that the Eucharist, Jesus’s Presence, His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity are truly presence.