Eucharist - timeline

  • Thread starter Thread starter JoshuaHamm2004194
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JoshuaHamm2004194

Guest
Greetings to you all. Recently, I was confronted by my protestant parents on the Eucharist. Me being a catholic, I answered with the common bible verses that we use to support the Church’s teaching on the matter. But, right when I thought I had convinced my parents, my father, being a protestant pastor, asked me the following question: ‘‘If the Lord’s Supper really would be the real presence of Jesus and it would be His real body and blood, not just a simple symbol, how is it that it took place before His death and resurrection?’’ I answered by saying that God isn’t subject to time. But then, my father told me that yes, God isn’t subject to time, but Jesus, while He was on earth, was subject to time, because He also possessed our human nature. Honestly, I have no idea how to answer to this question. If anyone could help me out, it would be much appreciated. Thanks. Have a nice day. Blessings. Pax Domini.
 
JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
… God isn’t subject to time, but Jesus, while He was on earth, was subject to time, because He also possessed our human nature. …
Click to expand...
You are also a pastor of sorts, the type without Holy Orders.

Catechism
1591 The whole Church is a priestly people. Through Baptism all the faithful share in the priesthood of Christ. This participation is called the “common priesthood of the faithful.” …
Click to expand...
Jesus Christ is has two natures, one uncreated and the other created. Both are present in the Eucharist since the person is the Eternal Word and the human nature is the soul, body and blood. By miracle the species become the entire Christ, including corporeally “although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place”.

St. Pope Paul VI wrote in 1967 Encylical Mysterium Fidei:
As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new “reality” which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical “reality,” corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.
Click to expand...
http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_03091965_mysterium.html
 
Last edited:
The apostles did not ask Jesus that question at the Last Supper, in which Jesus celebrated the first Mass. But they believed what he said and continued to do as He commanded. Nevertheless it is true that the sacrifice of the Mass–the Eucharist–transcends time, even while being done within the temporal order. For we do not sacrifice Jesus again and again down through ages. There is only one sacrifice, and the Eucharist makes the one sacrifice present to all ages and places. (including at the Last Supper.)
 
I don’t see why the unresurrected Christ could not make Himself substantially present in the bread and wine??? He said He did, so He did.

I’ve always wanted to ask, what does the last supper supposedly symbolize? Have you , I, or anyone else in history ever used the phrase “This is my body” while holding up a piece of food to mean anything?
 
Last edited:
Agreeing with those before me; the simplest answer being that Jesus is both God and man. God is not limited. The humanity of Jesus may have been constrained by time, but his divinity certainly wasn’t. How else would he know about John the Baptist impending execution or that Lazarus had already died before he got there? Continue on with any of the many other signs and miracles he performed. None of those were bound by any limitations humanity is familiar with…
 
The Last Supper and Calvary are the two aspects of the same Sacrifice. Our Lord offered to the Eternal Father on Great Thursday the same Sacrifice which He was to undergo on Great Friday. And if you go by Semitic time - sunset to sunset - Great Friday began at sundown on Great Thursday, so technically He did both on the same day. That’s why the Byzantine liturgical day begins with Vespers in the evening (and why it’s technically Sunday even though it’s Saturday evening as I’m typing this reply).
 
Last edited:
JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
I answered by saying that God isn’t subject to time. But then, my father told me that yes, God isn’t subject to time, but Jesus, while He was on earth, was subject to time, because He also possessed our human nature.
Click to expand...
I would say that Jesus had powers over His human nature that are not as limited as ours. Bring up some bodily incidents/actions of Jesus while He was still on earth and in our human nature - for example:
He was able to walk on water – is that a power of our human nature or does it transcend it?
His body was able to be in a glorified state (at the Transfiguration) prior to His death and resurrection – is that a power of our human nature or does it transcend it?
 
Last edited:
(Rhetorical question):
How could Jesus reveal his transfigured glory to Peter, James, and John before his actual glorification in the resurrection?
 
Jesus - God in His personhood - did unite Himself to our human nature and generally here on earth lived according to its human limitations. But there were MANY times when He transcended those limitations, exercising His Divine power. Every time He performed miracles was an exercise of Divine and not human power.

P.S. Edit add on
In regards to “time”, God has shown His dominion over it on 2 occasions that I recall in Scripture:
Joshua 10:12-14 Divine power acting in connection with Joshua’s (human) words of prayer (extends the length of a day).
John 6:16-21 Divine power acting in Jesus (makes an event happen before the “natural” amount of time required for it to happen).
 
Last edited:
This is a great counter. The transfiguration answers the OP’s father quite nicely.
 
JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
Jesus, while He was on earth, was subject to time, because He also possessed our human nature.
Click to expand...
Being fully human and fully divine means that He was not subject to our limitations. He could and did initiate the Sacrament of the Eucharist at the Lat Supper. The real question for your father is this: why did ALL Christians always and everywhere believe and practice the Eucharist as the real presence for 1500 years and only when Luther came along it came into question?
 
Seems you trust Jesus’ word more than your dad does.
 
Last edited:
JoshuaHamm2004194 said:
God isn’t subject to time, but Jesus, while He was on earth, was subject to time, because He also possessed our human nature. Honestly, I have no idea how to answer to this question.
Click to expand...
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses is the same God today and forever.
How hard is it for God to say “Let there be light” when space and time did not exist yet? How hard is it for the Word of God made flesh to heal a Roman Centurion’s die-ing servant from afar with Just His Word? What does it take to believe, when the Word of God made flesh speaks the Word can raise the dead to life, skies and storms obey His Word.
It only takes the faith of a mustard seed to believe the Word of God incarnate to speak to the small and simple bread, “This is my body” that is becomes His body, likewise the cup of blessing, “This is my blood”. God reveals Himself to those who love Him, when God is Mystery.

This is our biblical faith;
Hebrews 11: 1 Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.
11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible.
11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him, for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

1 Corinthians 2:1 When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.
2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
6 Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.
7 Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory,
10 this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.
12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.
13 And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.
14 Now the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually.
15 The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone.
16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

John 14:21 21
Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him
Peace be with you
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top