Help with Eucharist Questions

[Jaguar]

Questions a friend has, regarding the Eucharist. We have discussed much in detail. Can you help me resond to these 2 questions?

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(1) The question still stands what is the purpose of the bread being flesh and the wine being blood?
Remember, Christ said as often as you do this do it in remembrance of me.

(2) If I cannot reach such conclusions as you, and it is obvious that I disagree with some amount of reasoning, am I too be judged lacking for salvation???

 

[dylanschrader]

I don’t understand the first question. Are you asking why Christ instituted the Eucharist, why he chose the species of bread and wine, or something else?

The answer to the second question is that we cannot judge the state of someone’s soul. If you don’t believe in the Eucharist, then your unbelief is incorrect, but we can’t judge whether you will be saved or not.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

Questions a friend has, regarding the Eucharist. We have discussed much in detail. Can you help me resond to these 2 questions?

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(1) The question still stands what is the purpose of the bread being flesh and the wine being blood?
Remember, Christ said as often as you do this do it in remembrance of me.

(2) If I cannot reach such conclusions as you, and it is obvious that I disagree with some amount of reasoning, am I too be judged lacking for salvation???

I think the first question is better stated as “Why must the bread and wine actually be the body and blood of Christ instead of a symbol thereof?”…am I right?

Assuming that’s the question, it’s because the Eucharist is our opportunity to partake of the grace provided by Christ’s sacrifice. If it were merely a symbolic representation, there would be no sacramental nature to the Eucharist.

The Passover meal prefigures the Eucharist in that the Israelites were instructed to eat the lamb that it would provide nourishment for the body. In the same way, the Eucharist provides nourishment for the soul.

Peace,
Dante

 

[Jaguar]

I think he wanted to know why Christ chose bread and wine. What does bread and wine have to do with anything?

 

[dylanschrader]

I think he wanted to know why Christ chose bread and wine. What does bread and wine have to do with anything?

Besides being simple and nearly ubiquitous foods, bread and wine had a special significance during the Passover meal.

 

[VociMike]

Questions a friend has, regarding the Eucharist. We have discussed much in detail. Can you help me resond to these 2 questions?

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(1) The question still stands what is the purpose of the bread being flesh and the wine being blood?
Remember, Christ said as often as you do this do it in remembrance of me.

The “remembrance” argument is no argument at all. Even Protestants who don’t believe in the Real Presence do believe that Christ is present at their worship. So the “remembrance” argument boils down to “Christ is really present at our worship, he’s just not really present in (as) the bread and wine.” Really, that’s an incoherent argument, and no Protestant will actually make that argument once they’re reminded (!!!) that Christ is actually present at their worship as well.

(2) If I cannot reach such conclusions as you, and it is obvious that I disagree with some amount of reasoning, am I too be judged lacking for salvation???

It’s not about reaching conclusions based on reasoning. It’s about accepting the visible, historical Church founded by Christ, and the teachings she has passed down.

 

[VociMike]

I think he wanted to know why Christ chose bread and wine. What does bread and wine have to do with anything?

They’re ubiquitious foods, easily available just about everywhere (remember, Christ saw the spread of his Church into the future).

Also, and very importantly, they are food and drink which man has taken part in preparing. This is another example of the way God is always inviting us to share in his work of salvation, and in all his works. God provides the substance (grain, grapes), and he then invites us to cooperate with him and make something new out of the substance (bread, wine).

 

[FCEGM]

I think he wanted to know why Christ chose bread and wine. What does bread and wine have to do with anything?

Our Lord Himself gives the reason, equating - though in an infinitely higher manner - the manna with which the Hebrews were fed during the forty years in the desert to His Body which will be given for our salvation. The Hebrews had to eat the manna to survive, we have to eat the Bread from Heaven for life eternal in union with Him.

John 6:41-51:" . . .The Jews were complaining to each other about him, because he had said, because Jesus said, “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven.” They were saying, "Surely this is Jesus son of Joseph, who father and mother we know. How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven?” Jesus said in reply to them, "Stop complaining to each other.

“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They will be taught by God everyone who has listened to the Father, and learnt from him, comes to me. Not that anybody has seen the Father, except him who has his being from God: he has seen the Father. In all truth I tell you, everyone who believes has eternal life, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that a person may it and not die. I am the living bread wiich has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” (New Jerusalem Bible).

 

[promethius95945]

(1) The question still stands what is the purpose of the bread being flesh and the wine being blood?
Remember, Christ said as often as you do this do it in remembrance of me.

Your friend is correct: Christ said “as often as you do THIS [eat My Body and drink My Blood] in rememberance of me.” His interpretation that rememberance somehow negates the divine presense of Christ in the sacrament, however, is incorrect.

Passover feast required that the participants of the sacrifice consume the flesh of the lamb that was slain on behalf of their family. Christ is the PERFECT Passover Lamb, offered up for our sins. As God demanded we consume the flesh of the passover sacrifice in order to receive any benefit from it, so too we now consume the flesh and blood of the Sacrifice Most Holy, so that we are part and parcel with the offering that Christ made and we are able to accept the graces of God’s perfect gift to us.

Even if that were NOT the case, Christ Himself stated: “Unless a man eat of My Flesh and drink of My Blood, he shall not have life within him.” There is no ambiguity in that statement whatsoever.

(2) If I cannot reach such conclusions as you, and it is obvious that I disagree with some amount of reasoning, am I too be judged lacking for salvation???

It is not our place to judge the disposition of man. We can only hope and pray that if your friend cannot be brought to understanding the God-instilled practices of the church that God finds him to have been deprived by some external source of confusion (rather than stubborn pride and disregard) and that, given this external detractor from ability to see the reason of the Church, God finds it in His eternal and loving mercy to welcome home His child. We trust in hope and faith in the mercy and love that God has for all His children.