Eucharistic Miracles

[calchiquita]

I believe in transubstantiation - therefore, I do not believe in the miraculous character of the so-called “miracle” at Lanciano, not for one instant.​

It contradicts transubstantiation, & it supplies “proof” of transubstantiation by contradicting it - as transubstantiation is apprehended by faith, it cannot be proved; & to attempt to do so is an abomination. There may be genuine Eucharistic miracles worked by God - but whatever contradicts Catholic dogma on the subject is no miracle. So if there are any genuinely God-given Eucharistic miracles, they cannot be like the phenomenon of Lanciano, which is gross & materialistic. If it is evidence of any Eucharistic doctrine, it is evidence of Ultra-Realism: which is heretical, & was condemned as such.

This was not a miracle performed by man - the Priest didn’t say “Lord, turn this Eucharist into flesh and blood I can see”. Where is the heresy?
The term transubstantiation was adopted into the phraseology of the church in 1215, when it was employed by the Fourth Lateran Council. The dogma was reconfirmed (1551) by the Council of Trent, as follows: “If any one shall say that, in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, there remains the substance of bread and wine together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, the species of bread and wine alone remaining, which conversion the Catholic Church most fittingly calls Transubstantiation, let him be anathema” (Session 13, Canon 2).
It seems to me that the anathema would be in saying that the substance of bread and wine were still present, not that the body and blood were present.
Materialistic is ok with me. God made material as well as spiritual things.

 

[Valke2]

Hello,

How can Protestants continue to deny the Real Presence in the face of so many Eucharistic Miracles?

Take for instance the miracle of Lanciano, in which the host turned into actual flesh and the wine to actual blood - that is the accidents were converted, too. Contemporary scientific tests were conducted and it was found that the flesh is human heart tissue, part of the left ventricle, and that it is still alive. And the blood is type AB, the same blood type as the flesh, and is in several globules of unequal size. Each of the globules weighs exactly the same as all of them together. And the blood has the same protein distribution as fresh blood. On top of this, the flesh and blood have survived for over 1000 years - which biology 101 teaches that nothing organic will survive that long without decaying, unless it is alive. The scientist stopped the testing about a decade ago declaring that they have come to the end of science and that it was impossible for them to explain it. And this is just one of many such miracles.

oy. How about the miracle where 3,000 jews were slaughtered after being accused of kidnapping a euchraist?

 

[calchiquita]

oy. How about the miracle where 3,000 jews were slaughtered after being accused of kidnapping a euchraist?

Now, that would be an interesting link to have if you are actually inviting discussion.

 

[Valke2]

Now, that would be an interesting link to have if you are actually inviting discussion.

Within 30 years of the dogma of transubstantiation, the entire Jewish community of Berlitz, Germany was annihilated, after being charged with kidnapping a wafer and torturing it.

Then there is a historical study of antisemitism done in Prauge in 1389: "the Jewish community was collectively accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. Large mobs of Christians surrounded the Jewish neighborhood and offered the Jews the choice of baptism or death. Refusing to be baptized, three thousand Jews were murdered.

In Berlin in 1510, 26 Jews were burned and two beheaded for reportedly 'descrating the hose."

As Telushkin writes: "The decisions made at the Fourth Lateran Council (transubstantiaion and requiring Jews to wear a distinctive badge) helped fulfill the vision fo rthe Jews Pope Innocent III had earlier articulated in a letter to Count Nevers: “Jews, like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces must be covered with shame.”

Sources of rhe aboce: Max Wurmbrand and Cecil Roth, The Jewish People, pp.140-142. The stuff about the suffering of Jews due to host descreation is found in “Why the Jews? The Reason for ANtisemitism,” p. 103.

I’ll see if I can find websites for any of this.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Within 30 years of the dogma of transubstantiation, the entire Jewish community of Berlitz, Germany was annihilated, after being charged with kidnapping a wafer and torturing it.

Then there is a historical study of antisemitism done in Prauge in 1389: "the Jewish community was collectively accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. Large mobs of Christians surrounded the Jewish neighborhood and offered the Jews the choice of baptism or death. Refusing to be baptized, three thousand Jews were murdered.

In Berlin in 1510, 26 Jews were burned and two beheaded for reportedly 'descrating the hose."

As Telushkin writes: "The decisions made at the Fourth Lateran Council (transubstantiaion and requiring Jews to wear a distinctive badge) helped fulfill the vision fo rthe Jews Pope Innocent III had earlier articulated in a letter to Count Nevers: “Jews, like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces must be covered with shame.”

Sources of rhe aboce: Max Wurmbrand and Cecil Roth, The Jewish People, pp.140-142. The stuff about the suffering of Jews due to host descreation is found in “Why the Jews? The Reason for ANtisemitism,” p. 103.

I’ll see if I can find websites for any of this.

If there is any truth to any of this, using violence for religious reasons is not condoned by the Catholic Church. I believe Pope Benedict XVI used his speak on Islam, that God cannot be use to justify any violence or “spread by the sword” so to speak.

What those Catholics did to the 3,000 Jews is unjust. I don’t think any Catholic today in their right mind would allow it. As for Pope Innocent remarks. Those are merely opinions not infallible proclamations. His statement doesn’t demand the use of violence.

I do think this topic does derail the issue discuss on this thread.

 

[LilyM]

Within 30 years of the dogma of transubstantiation, the entire Jewish community of Berlitz, Germany was annihilated, after being charged with kidnapping a wafer and torturing it.

Then there is a historical study of antisemitism done in Prauge in 1389: "the Jewish community was collectively accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. Large mobs of Christians surrounded the Jewish neighborhood and offered the Jews the choice of baptism or death. Refusing to be baptized, three thousand Jews were murdered.

In Berlin in 1510, 26 Jews were burned and two beheaded for reportedly 'descrating the hose."

As Telushkin writes: "The decisions made at the Fourth Lateran Council (transubstantiaion and requiring Jews to wear a distinctive badge) helped fulfill the vision fo rthe Jews Pope Innocent III had earlier articulated in a letter to Count Nevers: “Jews, like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces must be covered with shame.”

Sources of rhe aboce: Max Wurmbrand and Cecil Roth, The Jewish People, pp.140-142. The stuff about the suffering of Jews due to host descreation is found in “Why the Jews? The Reason for ANtisemitism,” p. 103.

I’ll see if I can find websites for any of this.

There have also been a whole load of non-Jewish people over the centuries as well accused of being witches or Satanists and desecrating the Eucharist in their ‘black masses’ or ‘witches Sabbaths’ and given the death penalty for it - and plenty of them truthfully DID desecrate it.

I personally have known of numerous church break-ins over the course of my life where the tabernacle, where the Host is kept, was the specific target of the thieves, so it still goes on on a wide scale today.

None of this is any excuse for anti-Semitism or indeed unjust killing of ANYBODY, but it does show that concerns over the Eucharist were neither totally unfounded nor specifically limited to Jews.

 

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

oy. How about the miracle where 3,000 jews were slaughtered after being accused of kidnapping a euchraist?

Did they steal it? Was it consecrated? How is this miraculous?

Within 30 years of the dogma of transubstantiation, the entire Jewish community of Berlitz, Germany was annihilated, after being charged with kidnapping a wafer and torturing it.

Then there is a historical study of antisemitism done in Prauge in 1389: "the Jewish community was collectively accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. Large mobs of Christians surrounded the Jewish neighborhood and offered the Jews the choice of baptism or death. Refusing to be baptized, three thousand Jews were murdered.

In Berlin in 1510, 26 Jews were burned and two beheaded for reportedly 'descrating the hose."

As Telushkin writes: "The decisions made at the Fourth Lateran Council (transubstantiaion and requiring Jews to wear a distinctive badge) helped fulfill the vision fo rthe Jews Pope Innocent III had earlier articulated in a letter to Count Nevers: “Jews, like the fratricide Cain, are doomed to wander about the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces must be covered with shame.”

Sources of rhe aboce: Max Wurmbrand and Cecil Roth, The Jewish People, pp.140-142. The stuff about the suffering of Jews due to host descreation is found in “Why the Jews? The Reason for ANtisemitism,” p. 103.

I’ll see if I can find websites for any of this.

Again did they steal and desecrate a consecrated host. While I can’t condone their actions, I must admit that if I knew someone down the street had stolen and desecrated the Eucharist, while I pray I would deal with the situation in a Christian manner, I know the my temperance would be tested.

 

[The_Truthinator]

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”

He says those who eat his flesh will live forever … If he were referring to a physical process by which the bread become his actual, glorified body, then the implication of this passage is immortality of the body, not the soul. Perhaps he is referring to the spiritual sustenance that he daily provides for us … 

“I am the true bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will not die as your ancestors did (even though they ate the manna) but will live forever.”

This passage, from the Catholic standpoint, should be interpreted as stating that those who partake in the Eucharist have a bodily immortality, since this passage is in reference to a physical process, and even groups it among the physical manna of the ancient Israelites. However, what seems so clear to me is that this passage is a contrast between Yahweh’s PHYSICAL provision seen in the Old Covenant books and Yeshua’s own SPIRITUAL provision …

You also leave out verse 35:

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Another “I Am” declaration …

“By this,” says the transubstantiationist, “our Lord declares the mystery of the Eucharistic ceremony—his physical presence, the substance of him received via the host and drink! His words here are to be taken in that most literal sense: that we partake of his real, glorified body and blood in this most sacred rite, for these his words are: ‘THIS is my body,’ and ‘THIS is my blood …’”

Yet if we are to take this declaration literally, then our Lord also must surely be a gate! For in John 10, he declares himself the Gate of the sheep … Not only this, but unlike the living water, which apparently itself is symbolic of spiritual provision, this passage refers to something far grander. When Christ said he can provide living water which would release its consumer from thirst, he meant he himself was spiritually sufficient, able to quench our inner “thirst.” Yet here when he declares himself bread that can satisfy our hunger, he was being literal …?

One final note: If Christ was actually referring to Communion at all in this passage, why is he mentioning it NOW, to a crowd of nonbelievers? What pertinence could it have had to them whatsoever? It wasn’t even instituted yet. Rather, in its proper context, we see this is after Yeshua feeds 5000, and these crowds were plaguing him, looking for more bread! Their heads were caught up in the physical practicality of someone who could produce food … Yet Yeshua, in this passage, reprimands them, saying, “I Am the bread! I Am sufficient! Look to me! Come to me! Believe in me! I will quench your inner being, fill the hole in your hearts, not fill up your stomachs!”

P.S. Thanks for the links! I will check them out … Check this one out for yourselves, as well: godandscience.org/doctrine/eucharist.php
I think I am going to a Catholic school for high school, so I will be more properly educated in this subject later, and probably raise many-a-debate over it, also.

Shalom!

 

[fullofzeal]

the discourse on the eucharist cannot be taken as metaphor as these others are clearly metaphorical. Iam the door, or the vine, etc. Holding up a peice of bread and saying “this is my body” makes absolutely no sense. does it say that these folk were un-beleivers or that many of his followers or desciples found it un-believable and went away sad. These people were following him and believed everything about him up to that point. One might even say they were “saved”? A metaphor as a vehicle of language has to signify and have commonality as to what it’s talking about. Like “that boy is a perpetual motion machine” or that horse is “greased lightening.” I can arrange match sticks on a table and say to you “this is my house, the bathroom is here and the living room here”, etc. If I hold up a piece of bread and say “this is my body”…well you get the idea. Christ said what he meant and meant what he said, and all of them are taken on faith, even the ones we don’t understand.
We can believe something on faith even though we can’t understand it. It’s a great gift :bowdown: to everyone, not something to be contested.

peace

 

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

I believe in the Real Presence. I don’t believe in a Western reliance on Thomism and Aristoltelian philosophy to try to explain it away. The Eastern Church - which Rome claims has the Real Presence - doesn’t explain it that way either. It’s the Body and Blood of Christ. Period. No explanation needed.

I just want to make sure you hold what Catholics hold to be the Real Presence.

Do you worship the bread and wine - and not bread and wine any longer - as God? Do you bow before it and give it adoration? What is left over, do you reserve it in a Tabernacle and worship it as God. When particles from the host fall to the floor or drops from the chalice fall to the ground, do you stop what you are doing, and scrupulously clean and purify the spot where it fell? Would you die to prevent others from desecrating the hosts?

As a Catholic, I believe that the Eucharist is God. I bow and prostrate myself before it. I worship It is as God, for It is God to me. If a particle or drop fell, I would clean the spot up and purify the spot with all sacred reverence. I would die to protect It. The Eucharist is God.

I repeat the Eucharist is God. Not just symbolically, not spiritually, but physically God. It is the very essence of God. It is God. It is God. It is God. I worship the Eucharist. It is my God! Truly, really, substantially, physically! The Eucharist is my God!

The Eucharist is my God! The Eucharist is my God! The Eucharist is my God! The Eucharist is my God! The Eucharist is my God!

I just wanted to make sure that you, too believe that the Eucharist is God, and that you worship It because It is God.

I don’t believe the Catholic Church has a monopoly on the Real Presence. I suspect you’ll disagree, however.

No, I hold that the Orthodox Churches as well have valid Sacraments.

 

[Valke2]

To those who asked me if they actually stole the eucharist, as if that would make a difference, I would ask how slaughtering entire Jewish villages is any different from the muslim reaction of rioting over cartoons about Mohammed and terrorism?

 

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

To those who asked me if they actually stole the eucharist, as if that would make a difference, I would ask how slaughtering entire Jewish villages is any different from the muslim reaction of rioting over cartoons about Mohammed and terrorism?

Again, not condoning the action - just trying to understand it. Catholics hold the Eucharist to be God Himself. What would the Jews have done if someone took a baseball bat to the Ark of the Covenant? And that wasn’t God.

 

[Valke2]

Hello,

Again, not condoning the action - just trying to understand it. Catholics hold the Eucharist to be God Himself. What would the Jews have done if someone took a baseball bat to the Ark of the Covenant? And that wasn’t God.

The answer is that we will never know if Jews actually did the crime they were accused of. But I would say it would be highly unlikely. It would go against Jewish law to do so and it would go agains common sense to do so. Rather it seems very likely that the charge of “torturing” the wafer was made up, to show that Jews were still “killing” God. As to what we would have done to someone who took a baseball bat to the ark, I can only say that I don’t think we would try to forcibly convert a town or destroy a village.

 

[Jaypeeto3]

Getting a little tired of the whining about Jewish suffering, as if they are the only people on earth who have ever been sinned against and persecuted, and as if their suffering, bad as it has been, is somehow more important and valuable than the suffering of other groups of human beings.

They were the first to persecute the Christians in the first century after Christ. And as for their development as a nation,
in biblical times, according to the Torah, they wiped out entire towns and villages, putting men, women, and children to the sword at the command of the LORD.

It would seem understandable, though not condone-able, then,
that Christians who believe that Jews who have desecrated God should be punished, would take out their anger. I’m sorry it happened, but Catholics, please, don’t let yourself be nagged into generational guilt by this constant Jewish self-righteousness and finger pointing.

 

[Valke2]

Getting a little tired of the whining about Jewish suffering, as if they are the only people on earth who have ever been sinned against and persecuted, and as if their suffering, bad as it has been, is somehow more important and valuable than the suffering of other groups of human beings.

They were the first to persecute the Christians in the first century after Christ. And as for their development as a nation,
in biblical times, according to the Torah, they wiped out entire towns and villages, putting men, women, and children to the sword at the command of the LORD.

It would seem understandable, though not condone-able, then,
that Christians who believe that Jews who have desecrated God should be punished, would take out their anger. I’m sorry it happened, but Catholics, please, don’t let yourself be nagged into generational guilt by this constant Jewish self-righteousness and finger pointing.

heh.

 

[ACbishop]

I do not believe in transubstantiation because scripture plainly speaks of the Eucharist being both bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ. I also believe that the RC uses the idea of transubstantiation to further its point that they have the real deal only shared by the Orthodox church but no Protestants have it. If transubstantiation was real, the confected bread and wine would contain human DNA.

 

[ASimpleSinner]

I do not believe in transubstantiation because scripture plainly speaks of the Eucharist being both bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ. I also believe that the RC uses the idea of transubstantiation to further its point that they have the real deal only shared by the Orthodox church but no Protestants have it. If transubstantiation was real, the confected bread and wine would contain human DNA.

No, our theology of seven sacraments, which the Orthodox have - is what leads us to believe in the Eucharist only being the Real Presence. Only Churches with valid priests have it.

 

[ACbishop]

No, our theology of seven sacraments, which the Orthodox have - is what leads us to believe in the Eucharist only being the Real Presence. Only Churches with valid priests have it.

and once again, it is only the RC making that claim of validity.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I do not believe in transubstantiation because scripture plainly speaks of the Eucharist being both bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ. I also believe that the RC uses the idea of transubstantiation to further its point that they have the real deal only shared by the Orthodox church but no Protestants have it. If transubstantiation was real, the confected bread and wine would contain human DNA.

Transubstantiation isn’t describe like that all all. During the consecration, the Bread and Wine is no longer present. It’s substance is change into the Body and Blood of the Lord. The appearance remains and taste but it is truly the Body and Blood of the Lord.

Fr. Patrick, a Catholic priest explains that if you draw blood. You know it is blood because it contains plalets or blood cell. Blood also contains water. Does the presence of water make blood null? No. It is still Blood.

Every partial of Bread and Wine is thus no longer bread and wine, it is Jesus.

ECF, though they are no infallible, but their words are commonly believed.

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again." Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to Smyrnaeans, 7,1 (c. A.D. 110).

“For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66 (c. A.D. 110-165).

“[T]he bread over which thanks have been given is the body of their Lord, and the cup His blood…” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV:18,4 (c. A.D. 200).

“He acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as his own blood, from which he bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of creation) he affirmed to be his own body, from which he gives increase to our bodies.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V:2,2 (c. A.D. 200).

“But what consistency is there in those who hold that the bread over which thanks have been given is the Body of their Lord, and the cup His Blood, if they do not acknowledge that He is the Son of the Creator of the world…” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV:18, 2 (c. A.D. 200).

“For the blood of the grape–that is, the Word–desired to be mixed with water, as His blood is mingled with salvation. And the blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is the blood of His flesh, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh. Accordingly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith; while the other, the Spirit, conducts to immortality. And the mixture of both–of the water and of the Word–is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace; and they who by faith partake of it are sanctified both in body and soul.” Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 2 (ante A.D. 202).

“Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, ‘This is my body,’ that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body…He did not understand how ancient was this figure of the body of Christ, who said Himself by Jeremiah: ‘I was like a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter, and I knew not that they devised a device against me, saying, Let us cast the tree upon His bread,’ which means, of course, the cross upon His body. And thus, casting light, as He always did, upon the ancient prophecies, He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed ‘in His blood,’ affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. If any sort of body were presented to our view, which is not one of flesh, not being fleshly, it would not possess blood. Thus, from the evidence of the flesh, we get a proof of the body, and a proof of the flesh from the evidence of the blood.” Tertullian, Against Marcion, 40 (A.D. 212).

 

[Mannyfit75]

Furthermore,

Matt. 26:26-28; Mark. 14:22,24; Luke 22;19-20; 1 Cor. 11:24-25 - Jesus says, this IS my body and blood. Jesus does not say, this is a symbol of my body and blood.

Matt. 26:26; Mark. 14:22; Luke 22:19-20 - the Greek phrase is “Touto estin to soma mou.” This phraseology means “this is actually” or “this is really” my body and blood.

1 Cor. 11:24 - the same translation is used by Paul - “touto mou estin to soma.” The statement is “this is really” my body and blood. Nowhere in Scripture does God ever declare something without making it so.

Matt. 26:26; Mark. 14:22; Luke 22:19 - to deny the 2,000 year-old Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, Protestants must argue that Jesus was really saying “this represents (not is) my body and blood.” However, Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, had over 30 words for “represent,” but Jesus did not use any of them. He used the Aramaic word for “estin” which means “is.”

Matt. 26:28; Mark. 14:24; Luke 22:20 - Jesus’ use of “poured out” in reference to His blood also emphasizes the reality of its presence.

Exodus 24:8 - Jesus emphasizes the reality of His actual blood being present by using Moses’ statement “blood of the covenant.”

1 Cor. 10:16 - Paul asks the question, “the cup of blessing and the bread of which we partake, is it not an actual participation in Christ’s body and blood?” Is Paul really asking because He, the divinely inspired writer, does not understand? No, of course not. Paul’s questions are obviously rhetorical. This IS the actual body and blood. Further, the Greek word “koinonia” describes an actual, not symbolic participation in the body and blood.

1 Cor. 10:18 - in this verse, Paul is saying we are what we eat. We are not partners with a symbol. We are partners of the one actual body.

1 Cor. 11:23 - Paul does not explain what he has actually received directly from Christ, except in the case when he teaches about the Eucharist. Here, Paul emphasizes the importance of the Eucharist by telling us he received directly from Jesus instructions on the Eucharist which is the source and summit of the Christian faith.

1 Cor. 11:27-29 - in these verses, Paul says that eating or drinking in an unworthy manner is the equivalent of profaning (literally, murdering) the body and blood of the Lord. If this is just a symbol, we cannot be guilty of actually profaning (murdering) it. We cannot murder a symbol. Either Paul, the divinely inspired apostle of God, is imposing an unjust penalty, or the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ.

scripturecatholic.com/the_eucharist.html#eucharist-IIb