Eucharist - CARM

[Dutch_H]

Hey Guys,

I converted to Catholicism in June this year from Protestantism. What a wonderful journey it has been. So joyful to be home.

Of course due to my past I know many Protestants. One topic that raises it’s head often is the Eucharist. I believe all that The Church teaches and the real presence of the Eucharist was actually the main reason that beckoned me to the Catholic Church in the beginning of my journey.

However my question is about the Last Supper. Please excuse my ignorance and correct me if I am wrong but I believe we see it as the first Mass/Eucharist? I was referred to the CARM website. One part of it in the objection to the real presence states,

*Fourth - the supper was instituted before Jesus’ crucifixion

The Mass is supposed to be a reenactment of the sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, according to Roman Catholic theology, the bread and wine become broken body and shed blood of Christ and represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it actually became His sacrificial body – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all.*

How would I respond to this? Obviously the Crucifixion had not yet taken place. I know it became the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord but how could I explain it to a Protestant that asks this?

Many thanks for your support and love.

God Bless.

 

[YoungTradCath]

God is not bound by time. Time is an incidental aspect of the natural, physical world. Take the Passion of Christ as a unified whole. Also, CARM can ruin your faith. I’d stay away from there.

 

[GwenL]

Hey Guys,

I converted to Catholicism in June this year from Protestantism. What a wonderful journey it has been. So joyful to be home.

Of course due to my past I know many Protestants. One topic that raises it’s head often is the Eucharist. I believe all that The Church teaches and the real presence of the Eucharist was actually the main reason that beckoned me to the Catholic Church in the beginning of my journey.

However my question is about the Last Supper. Please excuse my ignorance and correct me if I am wrong but I believe we see it as the first Mass/Eucharist? I was referred to the CARM website. One part of it in the objection to the real presence states,

*Fourth - the supper was instituted before Jesus’ crucifixion

The Mass is supposed to be a reenactment of the sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, according to Roman Catholic theology, the bread and wine become broken body and shed blood of Christ and represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it actually became His sacrificial body – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all.*

How would I respond to this? Obviously the Crucifixion had not yet taken place. I know it became the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord but how could I explain it to a Protestant that asks this?

Many thanks for your support and love.

God Bless.

Many of the premises here are wrong.

It’s not “according to Roman Catholic theology,” it’s according to Sacred Scripture.

It’s not a “reenactment” of Jesus’ sacrifice, it’s a re-presentation.

The Eucharist is not the “broken” body and blood, but the glorified body.

I think the answer is easy. Do you believe Jesus? He said what he meant and meant what he said when he said “this is my body.” It’s that simple.

As YTC says, God is not bound by time. And take the Passion, Death, and Resurrection as a whole.

 

[Dutch_H]

Thanks guys. I was thinking the same as all the responses. God is not governed by time and take the Passion as a whole. Just wanted to make sure I was on the same page.

I do steer clear of CARM. I used to be on it a lot as a Protestant but I now see how much falsehood is there.

Don’t worry my faith is strong.

Thanks again. Peace in Christ.

Dutch H.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I will say, there is something about the Protestants on CARM that is seductive. It is their fire and zeal. I don’t see that too much in Catholic circles.

 

[Lochias]

I will say, there is something about the Protestants on CARM that is seductive. It is their fire and zeal. I don’t see that too much in Catholic circles.

Eh. I think, for Catholic zeal, that our saints are a much better picture to appreciate. Nobody at CARM has anything at all on the likes of St. Francis, for example.

 

[Aquila_Lucis]

Hey Guys,

I converted to Catholicism in June this year from Protestantism. What a wonderful journey it has been. So joyful to be home.

Of course due to my past I know many Protestants. One topic that raises it’s head often is the Eucharist. I believe all that The Church teaches and the real presence of the Eucharist was actually the main reason that beckoned me to the Catholic Church in the beginning of my journey.

However my question is about the Last Supper. Please excuse my ignorance and correct me if I am wrong but I believe we see it as the first Mass/Eucharist? I was referred to the CARM website. One part of it in the objection to the real presence states,

*Fourth - the supper was instituted before Jesus’ crucifixion

The Mass is supposed to be a reenactment of the sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, according to Roman Catholic theology, the bread and wine become broken body and shed blood of Christ and represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it actually became His sacrificial body – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all.*

How would I respond to this? Obviously the Crucifixion had not yet taken place. I know it became the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord but how could I explain it to a Protestant that asks this?

Many thanks for your support and love.

God Bless.

To believe that Christ was restricted by the fourth dimmension of time in performing the miracle of instituting the Eucharist would be deny His Godship. It is one of the more feeble attempts of opponents to the Church to try and disprove Catholic doctrine by insinuating that our logic, a gift from God, but not being God, is able to trap God.

I’m with those who say to stay away from CARM. It’s a bunch of people with a bunch of pent up frustration at the Church. I mean, why waste your trying to convince them logically? Remember them in your prayers and move on.

 

[benjohnson]

CARM is a lot of smoke and loud noises but not a lot of substance.

In my opinion - here on CAF, there are meaningful disagreements that are explored - on CARM there is superficial “gotchas” and prideful polemics.

For the OP, if you’re curious, Lutheran teaching is the the Last Supper was the first re-presentation of Christ’s broken body and shed blood at Calvery.

 

[Vico]

Hey Guys,

I converted to Catholicism in June this year from Protestantism. What a wonderful journey it has been. So joyful to be home.

Of course due to my past I know many Protestants. One topic that raises it’s head often is the Eucharist. I believe all that The Church teaches and the real presence of the Eucharist was actually the main reason that beckoned me to the Catholic Church in the beginning of my journey.

However my question is about the Last Supper. Please excuse my ignorance and correct me if I am wrong but I believe we see it as the first Mass/Eucharist? I was referred to the CARM website. One part of it in the objection to the real presence states,

*Fourth - the supper was instituted before Jesus’ crucifixion

The Mass is supposed to be a reenactment of the sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, according to Roman Catholic theology, the bread and wine become broken body and shed blood of Christ and represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it actually became His sacrificial body – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all.*

How would I respond to this? Obviously the Crucifixion had not yet taken place. I know it became the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord but how could I explain it to a Protestant that asks this?

Many thanks for your support and love.

God Bless.

The body and blood are made present first, then the rational sacrifice occurs.

Present tense, the Apostles received the sacrament, and Christ asked that it be continued in the future:

He took bread, blessed and broke it, and giving it to His apostles, said: “Take and eat; this is My body”;

then He took a cup of wine, blessed it, and giving it to them, said: “All of you drink of this; for this is My blood of the new covenant which is being shed for many unto the forgiveness of sins”;

finally, He gave His apostles the commission: “Do this in remembrance of Me.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it *re-presents *(makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its *memorial *and because it *applies *its fruit…

 

[R_C]

Sorry, this website has in its home page description (see page source) the following:

CARM teaches Christian theology and deals with heresy like Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, atheism, and wicca. It teaches biblical truth.

Anybody who calls Catholicism a heresy is anathema

Refer to Sacred Tradition, you can’t go wrong, because it is one with Sacred Scripture.

Consider the argument presented here:

Now it is the express teaching of Scripture that Christ is “a priest for ever according to the order [kata ten taxin] of Melchisedech” (Psalm 109:4; Hebrews 5:5 sq.; 7:1 sqq.).

Christ, however, in no way resembled his priestly prototype in His bloody sacrifice on the Cross, but only and solely at His Last Supper.

On that occasion He likewise made an unbloody food-offering, only that, as Antitype, He accomplished something more than a mere oblation of bread and wine, namely the sacrifice of His Body and Blood under the mere forms of bread and wine.

Otherwise, the shadows cast before by the “good things to come” would have been more perfect than the things themselves, and the antitype at any rate no richer in reality than the type.

Since the Mass is nothing else than a continual repetition, commanded by Christ Himself, of the Sacrifice accomplished at the Last Supper, it follows that the Sacrifice of the Mass partakes of the New testament fulfilment of the prophecy of Melchisedech.

believing Protestants and Anglicans readily admit that the phrase: “to shed one’s blood for others unto the remission of sins” is not only genuinely Biblical language relating to sacrifice, but also designates in particular the sacrifice of expiation (cf. Leviticus 7:14; 14:17; 17:11; Romans 3:25, 5:9; Hebrews 9:10, etc.). They, however, refer this sacrifice of expiation not to what took place at the Last Supper, but to the Crucifixion the day after.

From the demonstration given above that Christ, by the double consecration of bread and wine mystically separated His Blood from His Body and thus in a chalice itself poured out this Blood in a sacramental way, it is at once clear that he wished to solemnize the Last Supper not as a sacrament merely but also as a Eucharistic Sacrifice.

If the “pouring out of the chalice” is to mean nothing more than the sacramental drinking of the Blood, the result is an intolerable tautology: “Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood, which is being drunk”. As, however, it really reads “Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood, which is shed for many (you) unto remission of sins,” the double character of the rite as sacrament and sacrifice is evident.

The sacrament is shown forth in the “drinking”, the sacrifice in the “shedding of blood”. “The blood of the new testament”, moreover, of which all the four passages speak, has its exact parallel in the analogous institution of the Old Testament through Moses. For by Divine command he sprinkled the people with the true blood of an animal and added, as Christ did, the words of institution (Exodus 24:8): “This is the blood of the covenant (Sept.: idou to aima tes diathekes) which the Lord hath made with you”. St. Paul, however, (Hebrews 9:18 sq.) after repeating this passage, solemnly demonstrates (ibid., ix, 11 sq) the institution of the New Law through the blood shed by Christ at the crucifixion; and the Savior Himself, with equal solemnity, says of the chalice: This is My Blood of the new testament".

It follows therefore that Christ had intended His true Blood in the chalice not only to be imparted as a sacrament, but to be also a sacrifice for the remission of sins. With the last remark our third statement, viz. as to the permanency of the institution in the Church, is also established.

For the duration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is indissolubly bound up with the duration of the sacrament. Christ’s Last Supper thus takes on the significance of a Divine institution whereby the Mass is established in His Church. St. Paul (1 Corinthians 11:25), in fact, puts into the mouth of the Savior the words: “This do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me”.

This is but a drop in the ocean of theological writings in twenty centuries. No heretic will ever be able to disprove what Christ has revealed to His Bride.

 

[thistle]

Hey Guys,

I converted to Catholicism in June this year from Protestantism. What a wonderful journey it has been. So joyful to be home.

Of course due to my past I know many Protestants. One topic that raises it’s head often is the Eucharist. I believe all that The Church teaches and the real presence of the Eucharist was actually the main reason that beckoned me to the Catholic Church in the beginning of my journey.

However my question is about the Last Supper. Please excuse my ignorance and correct me if I am wrong but I believe we see it as the first Mass/Eucharist? I was referred to the CARM website. One part of it in the objection to the real presence states,

*Fourth - the supper was instituted before Jesus’ crucifixion

The Mass is supposed to be a reenactment of the sacrifice of Christ. Therefore, according to Roman Catholic theology, the bread and wine become broken body and shed blood of Christ and represent the crucifixion ordeal. But how can this be since Jesus instituted the Supper before He was crucified? Are we to conclude that at the Last Supper, when they were all at the table, that when Jesus broke the bread it actually became His sacrificial body – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? Likewise are we to conclude that when Jesus gave the wine that it became His actual sacrificial blood – even though the sacrifice had not yet happened? That would make no sense at all.*

How would I respond to this? Obviously the Crucifixion had not yet taken place. I know it became the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord but how could I explain it to a Protestant that asks this?

Many thanks for your support and love.

God Bless.

Avoid CARM like the plague. It is an anti-Catholic website.

 

[Jeffgo]

As has already been pointed out, we as Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the glorified body of Christ–in other words, it’s not Christ’s broken, dead body, or His blood spilled out. Rather, it is Christ’s resurrected body and blood, soul and divinity. The whole Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity, are present under both forms in the Sacrament. In other words, when you receive the “bread” (and I use quotes here because we know it’s not bread), you receive the whole person of Jesus Christ–His living and complete body, with His living blood in it, animated by His soul, and united to His divinity.

CARM claims that Catholics believe they receive His “broken body” and “shed blood”, which is not what we believe as Catholics. Therefore, whoever wrote this particular CARM article does not know what the Catholic Church really teaches.

If your Protestant friends are referring you to CARM, it’s only fair that you refer them to resources that back up Catholic teaching, and I can think of no better resource than the early Church fathers. Take, for example, St. Ignatius of Antioch. He was martyred around 110 AD, and he personally knew St. John the Apostle (and remember, St. John wrote John chapter 6, where we hear about the Bread of Life). St. Ignatius of Antioch says the following about the Eucharist:

“Pay close attention to those who have wrong notions about the grace of Jesus Christ,
which has come to us, and note how at variance they are with God’s mind. They care nothing about love: they have no concern for widows or orphans, for the oppressed, for those in prison or released, for the hungry or the thirsty. They hold aloof from the Eucharist and from services of prayer, because they refuse to admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which, in his goodness, the Father raised [from the dead].”

Ignatius clearly believed in the Real Presence. He was writing in the early 100’s AD, and he was an old man at the time, so he is really a 1st century Church Father. He knew St. John the Apostle, so we can trust that Ignatius knew how to properly interpret John 6.

You can find the text for some of Ignatius’ writings here: ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.pdf The quote I used is from p. 100, in the Letter to the Smyrneans. Remember, this is from Christian Classics Ethereal Library, which is operated by Calvin College, a Protestant institution (ergo, no Catholic bias). I’d suggest sending the link to this PDF, along with the quote I just gave you, to your Protestant friends.

I’d also suggest reading through St. Justin Martyr’s apology to the emperor (also found in this PDF), where St. Justin Martyr mentions (among other things) a fairly detailed description of the way that Christians of his time worshiped—yep, it’s the Mass! See especially p. 245-246

 

[Carolus_Martell]

CARM’s mission is to provide a skeptical response to many different religions, organizations and beliefs. It’s an entertaining resource …that’s all. On occasion I go there and am aware of their opinion on our beliefs.

As a recent convert why should you feel compelled to respond to these anti-Catholic sentiments? If you just got a drivers license would you feel qualified to race in the Indianapolis 500? Just enjoy and explore our rich faith for what it is and brush up on the …‘casting your pearls before swine’… verse and meaning.

Only through the Church can you hope to obtain everlasting life…
…CARM is for amusement purposes only. Don’t make it harder than it is.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Lol, it’s funny that CARM calls anything a heresy. How can they, what authority do they have whatsoever? Their word is as good as Billy Bob’s.

 

[Dutch_H]

Thank you everyone for your replies. They have all helped.

God Bless.