Communion of other faiths

[Grace_Seeker]

To give an analogy - I wear a wedding ring. My husband is spiritually present with me where ever I go, as long as I am wearing my wedding ring. Men look at me, and they can “see” my husband with me, because of my wedding ring. This is “spiritual presence.”

This is the kind of presence that Jesus has with any two or three people who are gathered in His name.

However, there is also a real presence, which is the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

I experience the “real presence” of my husband when we are at home together, or travelling together.

This is the kind of Real Presence of Jesus Christ that we Catholics have when we kneel before the Tabernacle or attend Adoration.

When my husband and I are experiencing intimacy, I experience my husband’s presence in a deeply personal way.

It is this same kind of deeply personal Real Presence of Jesus Christ that we Catholics experience when we receive Holy Communion at Mass. (This is what is meant by the term “Transubstantiation” - the bread and wine are no longer there, and Jesus is physically present, alive.)

When you experience your husband’s presence at home with him, he is really really present. In my congregation I have some widows who tell me that they still preceive their husband’s presence, even though he may have passed away years ago. I accept that this perception of their husband’s presence is not just a spiritual presence but a real presence for them as well, ot at least it is a perceived real presence.

Now you have made an analogy between this experience of one’s husband’s presence and the eucharist. So my question is this, is Christ’s presence in the eucharist a “real” real presence or, like with the widows in my congregation, a “preceived” real presence?(Mind you I think both are equally real to those involved, it is just that they may not be so equally real to outsiders.) When I attend a Catholic mass, I don’t experience Jesus real presence any more in that service of the eucharist than when I attend a Lutheran or Methodist service – a place where I personal still perceive Christ to be present.

 

[jmcrae]

When you experience your husband’s presence at home with him, he is really really present.

Yes.

In my congregation I have some widows who tell me that they still preceive their husband’s presence, even though he may have passed away years ago. I accept that this perception of their husband’s presence is not just a spiritual presence but a real presence for them as well, ot at least it is a perceived real presence.

In this case, perception doesn’t match reality - even if their husband’s ghost is present (which I don’t consider to be very likely), it is not the same thing as his physical presence. However, their husbands are spiritually present to them through symbols such as their wedding ring and through pictures and objects in the house that are associated with him. If the widows were Catholic, it would occur to them to pray to their husbands, with confidence that their husbands would be able to be aware of their prayers.

Now you have made an analogy between this experience of one’s husband’s presence and the eucharist. So my question is this, is Christ’s presence in the eucharist a “real” real presence or, like with the widows in my congregation, a “preceived” real presence?

It is what you are calling “real real” presence. Christ is actually present physically - Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity - in the Catholic Eucharist. The intimacy with Christ in the Eucharist that we have when we receive Holy Communion is the same level of intimacy that a husband and wife have when they are alone together, and undistracted.

When I attend a Catholic mass, I don’t experience Jesus real presence any more in that service of the eucharist than when I attend a Lutheran or Methodist service – a place where I personal still perceive Christ to be present.

Well, as you’ve seen with your widows, what we perceive is not necessarily reality. We need to look at other indicators besides our inner feelings, and check to make sure that our feelings actually match objective reality. Objective reality is something that can be observed by anyone, and once the criteria are known, even someone who doesn’t believe in the Eucharist can say whether the conditions for the Eucharist to be present actually exist, or not.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

You answered as I expected. So, not to argue, but for my own edification, explain to me how Christ – who no longer walks among us, but does inhabit Christians themselves – is more present in the host of the Eucharist than he is in the life of a believer.

And Lutherans hold to this same view of the “real presence” as do Catholics, they just considered the means to be co-subtantiation instead of transsubstantiation. Theory and scriptural reasoning is exactly the same. I assume your problem with Lutherans would be that you don’t recognize the validity of their clergy to celebrate the eucharist.

 

[jmcrae]

So I guess Dad does love the catholic brother more, cause he gives seconds to the other siblings.

They left. They don’t live in the house any more. They haven’t, for nearly 500 years. They didn’t leave any forwarding address, and they killed all of the messengers who went to try to find them and bring them home.

That’s why they don’t get any gifts.

If they would “come home” and follow Dad’s rules, then, they would get all the same gifts as the “Catholic brother” - in fact, they would be the Catholic brother.

 

[jmcrae]

You answered as I expected. So, not to argue, but for my own edification, explain to me how Christ – who no longer walks among us, but does inhabit Christians themselves – is more present in the host of the Eucharist than he is in the life of a believer.

He is physically present in the Eucharist. He is spiritually present in me, the believer, except when I am receiving the Eucharist, when of course He is also inside me physically, as well.

Being spiritually present in me means that I can pray to Him, and that the signs of His influence on my life are evident both to me and to others who encounter me, in the same way that my wedding ring speaks both to me and to others about my husband.

And Lutherans hold to this same view of the “real presence” as do Catholics, they just considered the means to be co-subtantiation instead of transsubstantiation. Theory and scriptural reasoning is exactly the same. I assume your problem with Lutherans would be that you don’t recognize the validity of their clergy to celebrate the eucharist.

That would definitely be the main problem. Martin Luther was never a Bishop, and had no authority to ordain anyone even when he was Catholic.

The doctrine of consubtantiation seems to imply that Jesus’ ghost or soul inhabits actual bread and wine, which is not what Catholics believe at all - we do not believe that souls or ghosts have the ability to transmigrate from substance to substance at all, so this idea would definitely be problematic for Catholics.

What Catholics believe is that Jesus’ total self - body, blood, soul, and divinity - exactly displaces the space where the substance of the bread and wine was (which, according to Eucharistic Prayer I, is assumed by the angels into Heaven and becomes the sacrifice of thanksgiving on the Altar of Heaven) and puts on the appearances of bread and wine, without actually being bread and wine - it is actually the substance of Christ.

However, for our benefit, it continues to retain the appearance of bread and wine, since most likely if we could perceive Christ with our senses, we would faint from either overwhelming joy or overwhelming terror, and we would not consume it.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

They left. They don’t live in the house any more. They haven’t, for nearly 500 years. They didn’t leave any forwarding address, and they killed all of the messengers who went to try to find them and bring them home.

That’s why they don’t get any gifts.

If they would “come home” and follow Dad’s rules, then, they would get all the same gifts as the “Catholic brother” - in fact, they would be the Catholic brother.

This is what I mean by seeing things through a Catholic lens.

In my family history it tells of how the family originally built the house on a rock, but over time as it grew they kept on remodeling the house. They carved a big stone facade on the front with the family name too – Orthodox Catholic. But in all the remodelling, nobody noticed that they had actually moved the house off of the foundation that it was built on and no longer rest solidly on that rock. Then when a storm came and the wind and waves beat against it, it split in two. Funny thing, it split right in the middled of the name, the Catholic half of the family went one way and the Orthodox half of it slid another. Though of course by now both names were misnomers. In time, some of my ancestors from the Catholic side of the family spoke up to the head of the half of the family they were connected to and said, "Enough of this nonsense, we don’t need to live in the ruins of this house, the name on the outside means nothing, it is afterall just a facade. What we need to do is go back and build on the rock like we where we were supposed to have been built all the time. And that is what they did. Since then, some of decided they didn’t quite agree with the way things were being run in the house and have added new floors so that the place looks more like an apartment building than a house, but it is still all family and it is still built on the rock. As to why the rest of the family keeps on asking for us to join them in the ruin that slid down the hill, I don’t understand. But they do have it over on us when they claim that they are living in the remains of the original homested, as if that really means anything when it isn’t built in the right place.

Oh, but jmcrae, thank you for reminding me again of the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, I had forgotten about the aspect of presenting it on the altar of heaven. And your explanation of the importance of its real presence in your life is sufficient for me and I appreciate the value that it has for you.

 

[jmcrae]

In my family history it tells of how the family originally built the house on a rock, but over time as it grew they kept on remodeling the house. They carved a big stone facade on the front with the family name too – Orthodox Catholic. But in all the remodelling, nobody noticed that they had actually moved the house off of the foundation that it was built on and no longer rest solidly on that rock. Then when a storm came and the wind and waves beat against it, it split in two. Funny thing, it split right in the middled of the name, the Catholic half of the family went one way and the Orthodox half of it slid another. Though of course by now both names were misnomers. In time, some of my ancestors from the Catholic side of the family spoke up to the head of the half of the family they were connected to and said, "Enough of this nonsense, we don’t need to live in the ruins of this house, the name on the outside means nothing, it is afterall just a facade. What we need to do is go back and build on the rock like we where we were supposed to have been built all the time. And that is what they did. Since then, some of decided they didn’t quite agree with the way things were being run in the house and have added new floors so that the place looks more like an apartment building than a house, but it is still all family and it is still built on the rock. As to why the rest of the family keeps on asking for us to join them in the ruin that slid down the hill, I don’t understand. But they do have it over on us when they claim that they are living in the remains of the original homested, as if that really means anything when it isn’t built in the right place.

That is a lovely fairy tale, but it has absolutely no basis in historical reality. Nobody’s house “slid” anywhere - those who left the house walked out the front door on their own two feet - nobody pushed them, and no accident caused them to “fall” out.

Protestantism is definitely not an apartment building built on the Rock of Peter. (In fact, they deny the very Rockiness of Peter.) In fact, its foundations are so sandy that they not only disagree with each other in the different denominations, they also disagree with their own ancestors in the same denomination.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

That is a lovely fairy tale, but it has absolutely no basis in historical reality. Nobody’s house “slid” anywhere - those who left the house walked out the front door on their own two feet - nobody pushed them, and no accident caused them to “fall” out.

Protestantism is definitely not an apartment building built on the Rock of Peter. (In fact, they deny the very Rockiness of Peter.) In fact, its foundations are so sandy that they not only disagree with each other in the different denominations, they also disagree with their own ancestors in the same denomination.

We are both telling fairy tales if you think that the Catholic church of today is the same Church the Jesus founded on Peter.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

They left. They don’t live in the house any more. They haven’t, for nearly 500 years. They didn’t leave any forwarding address, and they killed all of the messengers who went to try to find them and bring them home.

That’s why they don’t get any gifts.

If they would “come home” and follow Dad’s rules, then, they would get all the same gifts as the “Catholic brother” - in fact, they would be the Catholic brother.

Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one

and blessings are not just for the ones who kneel, luckily.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

We are both telling fairy tales if you think that the Catholic church of today is the same Church the Jesus founded on Peter.

So, Methodism is the “church” founded by Christ? Protestantism in general is a man made invention and I generally do not hear Protestants admit that the Church was indeed founded on St. Peter. Hmm…

The Catholic Church today teaches what the Catholic Church has always taught. Semper Idem.

 

[Peregrino]

As I was not being clear, I’ll let the Sovereign Pontiff’s speak-

"Along with the Church, therefore, her Divine Founder is present at every liturgical function: Christ is present at the august sacrifice of the altar both in the person of His minister and above all under the eucharistic species. He is present in the sacraments, infusing into them the power which makes them ready instruments of sanctification. He is present, finally, in prayer of praise and petition we direct to God, as it is written: “Where there are two or three gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.”-Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei

"This presence is called “real” – by which it is not intended to exclude all other types of presence as if they could not be “real” too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present. It would therefore be wrong to explain this presence by having recourse to the “spiritual” nature, as it is called, of the glorified Body of Christ, which is present everywhere, or by reducing it to a kind of symbolism, as if this most august Sacrament consisted of nothing else than an efficacious sign, “of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union with the faithful, members of His Mystical Body.”-Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei

The same teaching is reiterated by Vatican II and is taught by Trent. Christ is most perfectly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament but that does not bar other ways of presence which are not as full. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical especially was written in response to the kind of heresies that popped up after Vatican II in which some bright clerics thought that “Eucharist happens” in the people and everything else at Mass and devalues the actual True Presence to either a sort of symbol (which is obviously heretical) or Modernist bait-n-switch “real presence” that doesn’t mean what it had always meant.

Sorry, but your qoute doesn’t help one bit, actually it obfuscates things. By what criteria is the Eucharist a more “full” expression of the presence of Christ than the people? “it is presence in the fullest sense”-what is it that makes the other “presences” less full? The people are physical, real, just like the Eucharist. What is the difference?

 

[ComradeAndrei]

Sorry, but your qoute doesn’t help one bit, actually it obfuscates things. By what criteria is the Eucharist a more “full” expression of the presence of Christ than the people? “it is presence in the fullest sense”-what is it that makes the other “presences” less full? The people are physical, real, just like the Eucharist. What is the difference?

Basically, the Eucharist is really and truly the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ-the Most Blessed Sacrament is the same Jesus that was born of the Blessed Virigin Mary 2000 yrs. ago, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried and who rose gloriously from the dead on the third day.

When we say “real”, this is what we mean. True, people are “real” in the sense that they exist in reality but they are not substantially Christ. They can be an alter Christus in a way, as does the priest is a more perfect way, but this does not reach the sublime and substantial reality of Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.

People are really and substantially the “Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity” of Jesus Christ. Like another poster said, it is more of a “spiritual” presence. Kind of like saying, “I feel grandpa is still with us when all of the family gets together.”

 

[BrandenRush]

This is a lie. Bishops that were ordained in line with Peter separated from Rome when England split from Rome. Their apostolic succession is as real as the bishops that stayed with Rome. They are both apostolically successors of Peter. Believe it!*

 

[apologist]

GraceSeeker,
I’m all with you on your response. Hats off to you!

 

[dad94513]

You have the “right” to accept truth or reject it. You have “your” truth, but that does not mean it is “the” truth. You are comfortable in your position that Millions of others disagree, but that does not make your truth correct. You and all Protestants need to humble yourselves as all who are in conflict with the Bride of Christ, to adjust YOUR frame of mind (as many Catholics need to do as well) and accept the fact that the Holy Spirit guides the Roman Catholic Church to the “only” truth which was promised by Jesus to His Apostles (the first Catholic hierarchy). Disagree all you want, it does not change the truth. It simply denies you the FULLNESS of truth. You are not abandoned, your faith in God does not go unnoticed, you are acknowledged. BUT, you are not in FULL COMMUNION WITH GOD. Let me explain it this way. Some people believe in God and that is all. They do little or nothing with thier belief. Others want more and they email God. They do not hear His voice or see Him, but they communicate with Him. Still others want more. So they call Him on the phone, they want to physically hear His voice, but don’t need to really SEE Him. Yet, there are still others that want more. So they get a video cam phone. Now they can hear and see Him, but they are still not in full communion. But, through the sacrament of the Eucharist, we SEE Him, HEAR Him (through the words of the consecration), touch and hold Him, and HE HOLDS US as He PHYSICALLY dwells in us through the Eucharist, which He instituted and gave authority over to Peter and the Apostles. If you as a protestant wish to leave His church over any disagreement, do so, but do not expect to be in Full Communion with Him as you or your followers are not greater than the whole. Be comforted tho’ that He will leave His flock in search for you. I am not interested in being politically correct as you would have me, nor am I interested in your feelings. I have presented some basic facts, you choose to receive or disregard. Faith is not what you believe but what you humbly accept. Just be sure of who gives it to you. Satan is not a follower of Christ. His goal is to lead Millions away. My prayers for you. David Nahm

 

[Grace_Seeker]

GraceSeeker,
I’m all with you on your response. Hats off to you!

What a welcome respite to hear your words of affirmation.

 

[dad94513]

Thank you, but what is ironic, is after I wrote that this morning my brother called and asked what I was up to and I told him I was writing my thoughts on this topic. He later called to ask if I read todays paper, which I had’nt. He referred me to Pope Benedicts statement released yesterday stating that Protestant churches are not “true” churches but rather religious communities. This is the essence of what I was trying to say. That people who reject the truth of the Catholic Church have “settled” for a much less satisfying relationship with Christ. I am sure the Protestants who rely only on themselves and their own self appointed understanding of the truth will not see the full and complete meaning of what the Pope is saying, But we can pray. Regards, David.

 

[jmcrae]

This is a lie. Bishops that were ordained in line with Peter separated from Rome when England split from Rome. Their apostolic succession is as real as the bishops that stayed with Rome. They are both apostolically successors of Peter. Believe it!

They deliberately changed the words of the Ordination to stop the Apostolic Succession (and they even put words in that deny the Apostolic Succession and deny that the priest has the ability to give the Absolution or to consecrate the Eucharist), because they believed it to be a “superstition,” during the 1700s.

They didn’t change the words back to the original until relatively recently (long after any valid Bishops they may have had were dead and buried), but by that time they were ordaining women, etc., so no - although when they first separated they did have the Apostolic Succession, they threw it away, and they haven’t had it in a really long time.

 

[ComradeAndrei]

This is a lie. Bishops that were ordained in line with Peter separated from Rome when England split from Rome. Their apostolic succession is as real as the bishops that stayed with Rome. They are both apostolically successors of Peter. Believe it!

It isn’t that simple. Initially, with the schism of King Henry VIII the bishops and priests who went with him retained their valid orders. However, with the introduction of the well Protestantized Edwardian Ordinal, any “bishop” ordained with that is not a real bishop-even if ordained by a valid bishop. After a while, no valid bishops remained in England (besides the Catholic bishops during the reign of Mary etc.). Some Anglicans today MIGHT have valid orders because they were ordained by valid bishops (Old Catholic schismatics and supposedly some Eastern Orthodox participation) using valid form, but even that is debatable. The “magic touch” isn’t all that is required.

 

[dad94513]

fRegarding the arguement about Bishops, again, it goes back to the “authority” given to the Bishop of Rome to what is Loosed on earth is loosed in Heaven. Those who break away can make up thier own rules, however, it does not make it true or valid except in thier own self serving eyes. Satan may not win your souls, but he can deny you the fullness of the intended relationship with your Father and your Mother.