Is Communion cannibalism?

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River24

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Hi all,
I’ve been sitting with this problem for a couple of years now - haven’t taken Communion in years because of it. So I hope I can get some answers to this.

Here it is: The consecrated host is literally the Body of Christ. As I understand it, it does not represent the body, or the spirit, it *actually is *the flesh of Christ. So if you eat it, is that not cannibalism?

No matter how I think of it, I can’t get my mind around this. Any thoughts?

River24
 
River24 said:
Hi all,
I’ve been sitting with this problem for a couple of years now - haven’t taken Communion in years because of it. So I hope I can get some answers to this.

Here it is: The consecrated host is literally the Body of Christ. As I understand it, it does not represent the body, or the spirit, it *actually is *the flesh of Christ. So if you eat it, is that not cannibalism?

No matter how I think of it, I can’t get my mind around this. Any thoughts?

River24
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The Real Presence is sacramental, not physical. We consume Jesus’ flesh sacramentally. Christ’s body and blood aren’t present naturally, but supernaturally, under the appearances of bread and wine. When the host is consumed, the physical process of eating affects only the accidents of bread, not the substance of Christ’s body and blood, which are beyond our power to injure.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
But surely then it only becomes Body in Spirit? And that’s a logical contradiction, as the Body and the Spirit are two very separate entities. The bread cannot become the Body of Christ only in Spirit. Still not making sense to me.
River24
 
Bottom line: if God commands you to do something - anything - it not only by definition can’t possibly be wrong, but it is by defintion not only a good but a necessary thing to do.

Jesus, who IS God, commanded us to eat His flesh and drink His blood in the Eucharist. Therefore we must do so - whether it constitutes cannibalism or not is totally irrelevant. You need to examine why it matters to you whether or not it is cannibalism.

And it is in a sense, but of a very special kind. The Eucharist, being the body and blood AS WELL AS the soul and divinity of the God-man, is qualitatively totally different from mere human flesh and blood. Someone who ate my or your flesh and blood would not ALSO be taking your soul into themselves, and certainly wouldn’t be partaking in any sort of divinity by doing so.

Having said this, His presence in the Eucharist is as real as any human being’s presence anywhere, and not just symbolic. To say it is sacramental is not to deny its reality, but it is a supernatural and not a merely natural presence.

Furthermore we are commanded, by the Apostles and their successors to whom Jesus gave the power to bind and loose (and who therefore speak in His name and with His authority), to both confess and receive Communion a minimum of once per year. So He commands us to do so once a year as well.
 
River24 said:
Hi all,
I’ve been sitting with this problem for a couple of years now - haven’t taken Communion in years because of it. So I hope I can get some answers to this.

Here it is: The consecrated host is literally the Body of Christ. As I understand it, it does not represent the body, or the spirit, it *actually is *the flesh of Christ. So if you eat it, is that not cannibalism?

No matter how I think of it, I can’t get my mind around this. Any thoughts?

River24
Click to expand...
The early Christians were put to death for “cannibalism” because they insisted that the Bread and Wine were in fact Christ Himself. The Blesed Sacrament is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ under the apperance of Bread and Wine. “Unless you eat the fleah of the son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you” John 6:54 Christ gives us Himself in a form we can accept.
 
Cannibalism is the eating of natural, dead human flesh.

The Eucharist, on the other hand, is the Body and Blood of Christ, with the fullness of the humanity and divinity of Christ, body and soul, under the appearance of bread and wine. Thus, the Body of Christ is not in the same category as ordinary, natural human flesh.
 
The other day I saw part of a program on EWTN discussing the Eucharist. It said that there were two meanings of ‘this is my body,’ one being physical, the other meaning one’s total essence. The Eucharist is a mystery but thinking of it in the latter sense may be helpful. Also, remembering that Christ is the Lamb of God; his sacrifice was modeled after the original Passover lamb, whose blood was shed, and the ancient Hebrews, among other things, were commanded to eat the flesh of the lamb. Ovbiously, there is a sort of metaphorical completion is Christ’s instituting the Eucharest — making it more understandable to human beings. Calling the Eucharist cannibalism is an earthly view and the Eucharist is beyond worldliness. This is why we can only begin to partially understand or appreciate it when placing ourselves in a spiritual mind set.
 
River24 said:
Hi all,
I’ve been sitting with this problem for a couple of years now - haven’t taken Communion in years because of it. So I hope I can get some answers to this.

Here it is: The consecrated host is literally the Body of Christ. As I understand it, it does not represent the body, or the spirit, it *actually is *the flesh of Christ. So if you eat it, is that not cannibalism?

No matter how I think of it, I can’t get my mind around this. Any thoughts?

River24
Click to expand...
Nope, not cannibalism. Jesus would not ask us to eat His Body and drink His Blood if it is was cannibalism.

God became man so that man might become God, and that is why He asks us to partake of the Blessed Sacrament.
 
But surely then it only becomes Body in Spirit? And that’s a logical contradiction, as the Body and the Spirit are two very separate entities.

Not in spirit, but in SUBSTANCE, which word has a technical philosophical and theological meaning here. Hence "transsubstantiation."
 
No, I don’t think the host becomes body in spirit only. There is some kind of supernatural change wherein Jesus is either infused into the host or becomes the host. I believe we are unable to understand this change. Our vocabulary of substance and spirit is inadequate, hence the mystery. We receive the essence of Christ. There’s something physical about it as we alwalys treat a consecrated host with reverence but it is also spiritual. There is a merging of physical and spiritual we can’t fully understand. I think people get really hung up on trying to figure it out from the physical point of view. I personally find the official church explanation of “under the appearance of bread and wine” more confusing than helpful. I’m not saying I don’t believe it but I don’t think it was put in the best wording. I think it comes from Thomas Aquainas hundreds of years ago from theology then prevelent.
 
No, Jesus is not present “in spirit” only. He is present in his entirety, body & blood, soul and divinity. But he is not present IN the bread, but rather under the appearances of bread.

If it were cannibalism, you would be tearing off chunks of his body. But that does not happen, because in his Eucharistic presence he cannot be divided. Every piece of the host contains Jesus in his entirety (body & soul) no matter how many times it is subdivided. Since Jesus in the Eucharist cannot be subdivided, there is no cannibalism.
 
River24 said:
Hi all,
I’ve been sitting with this problem for a couple of years now - haven’t taken Communion in years because of it. So I hope I can get some answers to this.

Here it is: The consecrated host is literally the Body of Christ. As I understand it, it does not represent the body, or the spirit, it *actually is *the flesh of Christ. So if you eat it, is that not cannibalism?

No matter how I think of it, I can’t get my mind around this. Any thoughts?

River24
Click to expand...
This is one of the earliest arguments raised against the faith by its detractors. It is still believed by many.

No it is not canibalism. How can it be? When the consecration occurs what happens is that somehow, someway that we cannot understand, the bread and the wine actually become Christ. Not a representation of Him, not Him in spirit or in a metaphysical way, it actually becomes Him. Not a fragment of Him, Him in His entirity, in the smallest fragment.

What led to the accusation of cannibalism was the idea that what was being consumed was the earthly body of Christ. Not so. What we recieve in Holy Communion is the actual physical presence of the resurrected and risen Christ, not the physical body that died on the cross. There is a difference and a very big one at that.

At least that is the way it was described to me.
 
It’s not cannibalism. Cannibalism people eat dead flesh. In the Eucharist, what we consume is Jesus Christ, a living God.
 
River24 said:
But surely then it only becomes Body in Spirit? And that’s a logical contradiction, as the Body and the Spirit are two very separate entities. The bread cannot become the Body of Christ only in Spirit. Still not making sense to me.
River24
Click to expand...
The problem your having is resulting from a few mistakes that you mentioned here. You are not understanding the sacramentality of the issue. I suggest doing some research on that.
 
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