Is there scriptural support for Holy Communion being "only symbolic"?

[SFLCatholic]

Well, I’m open to a contrary argument (I wasn’t even a Christian until a few years ago and I tried to carefully consider Catholicism as well as Protestantism with relatively few preconceptions about which would be right). But I have tried to make a substantive point here, which is that Jesus routinely spoke in non-literal terms and at least on first appearances this sure looks a lot like all those other cases. If we met someone who really believed that Jesus was offering the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well a magical water we would be polite but we would suppress a giggle.

Another textual cue that it’s non-literal is that He instructs us to do this “in rememberance of me.” If it did literally become Christ, it wouldn’t be merely in rememberance of Him, of course. But that’s really subsidiary to my main point, which is that this looks indistinguishable on the surface at least from a host of other cases of non-literal speech on the part of Christ in the Gospels. If that’s “mental gymnastics,” I apologize but it’s my sincere view of the situation based on my best attempt to work through the issue.

No that’s not your point. It very clear that you signed up on this forum site to try and do battle with Catholics and Catholic doctrine. You are not fooling anyone. It been done over and over and over again on these sites.

The good thing to having “wolves in sheeps clothing”, such as yourself, engage us Catholics on this forum is that it makes us stronger in faith. And makes us a much closer group in Spirit as we all rise to defend the One True Church.

So, my hat is off to you.

 

[frnate]

Out of curiosity, would you agree that if the Church and its history had been completely silent on this point, a non-literal reading would be more plausible?

I revised my answer to this question three times. It’s a doozy (well at least for someone as goofy as me.) I think I’m gonna have to say I don’t think so, with a qualification. Taken at face value and absent any other context you would be right. Once we start including the rest of Jesus’ life, ministry and sayings as well as historical and cultural context, I think the evidence would have to weigh in favor of a literalist interpretation. Which I think is the very reason the Church throughout her history has always taught that he was speaking literally. It’s not a point of view that some early Church Father came up with and it eventually caught on. I think it is also a part of the reason we can today have some Protestants who may (conceivably) believe it literally and others who do not. I do not personally know any Protestants who would admit to believing it literally but hey, we’re talking hypothetically right? In the scenario you present it becomes a matter of sufficient accurate context to reach the correct conclusion. Same goes for John 3 on being born of water and the Spirit. Although I think that may be more a double entendre.

Peace,
+N

 

[VociMike]

No that’s not your point. It very clear that you signed up on this forum site to try and do battle with Catholics and Catholic doctrine. You are not fooling anyone. It been done over and over and over again on these sites.

The good thing to having “wolves in sheeps clothing”, such as yourself, engage us Catholics on this forum is that it makes us stronger in faith. And makes us a much closer group in Spirit as we all rise to defend the One True Church.

So, my hat is off to you.

I see no deception in any of CThomas’ postings on this forum. I’ve taken an immediate liking to him as one of the “good” (honest and sincere and polite) non-Catholics here.

And eventually we’ll help convert him with truth and love.

 

[CThomas]

Fair enough, frnate. Thanks.

 

[CThomas]

VociMike, thanks for the support, bro. The feeling is mutual.

 

[SFLCatholic]

I see no deception in any of CThomas’ postings on this forum. I’ve taken an immediate liking to him as one of the “good” (honest and sincere and polite) non-Catholics here.

And eventually we’ll help convert him with truth and love.

I agree. Which is why I am tipping my hat to him.

I like it when Protestants try and put forth thier positions. It certainly makes my Catholic faith stronger.

 

[VociMike]

VociMike, I don’t question that God could make the bread into Christ’s body if He wanted to, but I don’t see why He couldn’t also turn us into sheep when we become Christians if He wanted to. The situations still seem parallel to me.

No question he could turn us into sheep, but does he? Are we all sheep and we don’t know it? I’ll admit, I have had some sheepish moments in my life…

But your broader point about the need to follow the uniform consensus of the Church is certainly a “big issue” that I’ll need to reflect on further.

I think every Protestant has to ask, how could everybody have been so wrong for so long? And (critical point), how come nobody pointed out that they were wrong? How come there were never any councils convened to address these new and localized wrong ideas (for every wrong idea is new and local in the beginning, before it (possibly) spreads and takes over).

The lack of any opposition to all these supposed Catholic inventions, whenever these “inventions” first started to take hold, is to my mind an extremely important fact that must be explained away if they were truly inventions and not part of the deposit of faith.

 

[GandalfTheWhite]

No that’s not your point. It very clear that you signed up on this forum site to try and do battle with Catholics and Catholic doctrine. You are not fooling anyone. It been done over and over and over again on these sites.

The good thing to having “wolves in sheeps clothing”, such as yourself, engage us Catholics on this forum is that it makes us stronger in faith. And makes us a much closer group in Spirit as we all rise to defend the One True Church.

So, my hat is off to you.

Please, SFLCatholic, do not be so quick to judge other people’s hearts. I believe that CThomas is being sincere and even thought if he signed up to argue with Catholics, it might be the hand of God mysteriously leading him to the Truth.

 

[Afterburned6387]

With a related question, however, what significance does the Eucharist hold for both Catholics and Protestants.

For me, as a Protestant, I understand it thus:

We do the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper because God commands us to. We do in fact eat the body of Christ and drink his blood in a spiritual sense, this happens when we are saved. In doing the Lord’s Supper, we remind ourselves of what Christ did for us, and it serves as a visible reminder that the son of God was broken for us, and his blood poured out for our sake

Furthermore, there is no obligation to do this at any regularly prescribed interval.

Can a catholic please respond with how the Eucharist is significant in the Catholic Faith?

This might give us some valuable insights as to why Transubstantiation is important.

 

[YinYangMom]

Transubstantiation was addressed in the Ask An Apologist forum some time ago. You can find the response here.

And if you use the Search Tool at the top you’ll come up with a slew of threads where this subject has been addressed.

I suspect you will find the scriptural proof you are seeking in one of those threads. Enjoy the hunt!

 

[Cat]

Afterburned6387, I’ll answer your question.

Back when I was studying the Catholic Church and attending a Catholics apologetics class, someone asked your question, and the teacher (a Protestant convert) answered, “It’s how Catholics receive Jesus.”

Her answer made everything clear to me. As a Protestant, you “received Jesus” once by praying a prayer of repentance (AKA the Sinner’s Prayer). Catholics “receive Jesus” at every Mass. That’s why transubstantiation is vital. Without it, we are receiving a piece of bread and a sip of diluted wine. But because of the transubstantiation that occurs, we are receiving the very Lord Jesus Christ Himself in Holy Communion.

If you’ll accept this analogy, it’s like sex with my husband. I suppose it’s possible that a married woman would “receive her husband” just once. They would still be married, and the marriage consummated.

But thankfully, I have “received” my husband many times over the course of our 28 year marriage. I prefer it that way!

 

[JimG]

Can a catholic please respond with how the Eucharist is significant in the Catholic Faith?

How is the Eucarist significant in the Catholic Faith? It is how we receive Jesus. It is how we meet him and deepen our personal relationship with him. In the Eucharist we meet him not just spiritually but substantially, for in the Eucharist he is present, body and blood, soul and divinity, personally and in his entirety. We recognize Him in the breaking of the bread.

In the Eucharist, we become present at the events of our salvation: we are there at Calvary, at the Last Supper, at the resurrection. The events of our salvation occured some 2,000 years ago, yet are made truly present to us now at this time and place.

In the Eucharist, we are able to unite ourselves intimately to Christ and to one another. It is a never ending source of grace, springing up unto eternal life.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The Greek word anamnesis (remembrance) in Luke 22:19, is used for the idea of literally re-enacting an event. It does not mean a mere intellectual exercise of the squint your eyes and try to mentally recall something, type. So inclusion of the term “remembrance” is in actuality a textual cue that Jesus is speaking literally rather than the other way around.

Peace,
+N

anamnesis is more accurately an ‘unforgetting.’ What are we to unforget? The experience of being in the Real Presence. More specifically that for the Passover to be finished, we must eat the Sacrifical Lamb. Otherwise we will die.

Just as Eve ate the forbidden fruit which brought on death, we must eat the Sacrificial Lamb to bring on life. Parallelism is a very powerful tool in telling Biblical stories.

 

[Philthy]

For me, as a Protestant, I understand it thus:
In doing the Lord’s Supper, we remind ourselves of what Christ did for us, and it serves as a visible reminder that the son of God was broken for us, and his blood poured out for our sake.

Well, that would be reasonable except that there is absolutely no relationship between eating a cracker and His having been Crucified: none. Perhaps you can explain it.
In addition, drinking a tiny plastic cup of grape juice simply does not convey anything related to the blood he shed: nothing.
Lets be real: why not put a Crucifix, rather than a Cross up in your place of worship if you want to be “visibly reminded” of what Christ did for us? That doesnt make more sense? And if your answer is “He didnt command us to do that.” , my rebuttal is simply - do you have a Cross or not?
afterburned:

Furthermore, there is no obligation to do this at any regularly prescribed interval.

Arbitrary assessment which rejects what is revealed in Acts 2:42
I dont want to be harsh but what I am gathering is that it is a meaningless, poorly symbolic, optional “command” of the Lord for you as far as I can tell. Somehow that simply does not line up with Pauls “guilty of the very body and blood of the Lord” IMHO.
afterburned:

Can a catholic please respond with how the Eucharist is significant in the Catholic Faith?

This might give us some valuable insights as to why Transubstantiation is important.

Ill try, though I’m not qualified to. In the Eucharist, Jesus is made Sacramentally present to us and imparts grace into each one of us for healing, strength and encouragement in pursuing a life imitating His. It is a means of our abiding in Him and He in us. This is not something I pretend to understand completely - even reasonably - much like the Trinity is beyond reach for me. Despite not understanding it, I experience it. In recognizing such a supreme gift the person of faith strives eagerly to humbly reconcile himself with God and neighbor before approaching the altar of the Lord. I experience Christ uniquely in the Eucharist: I always approach Him with complete humility and a sense of utter unworthiness but He lets me know (wrong word, cant truly convey), without condoning my shortcomings, that He loves me. What more can I say?

 

[Montalban]

Well, I’m open to a contrary argument (I wasn’t even a Christian until a few years ago and I tried to carefully consider Catholicism as well as Protestantism with relatively few preconceptions about which would be right). But I have tried to make a substantive point here, which is that Jesus routinely spoke in non-literal terms and at least on first appearances this sure looks a lot like all those other cases. If we met someone who really believed that Jesus was offering the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well a magical water we would be polite but we would suppress a giggle.

Another textual cue that it’s non-literal is that He instructs us to do this “in rememberance of me.” If it did literally become Christ, it wouldn’t be merely in rememberance of Him, of course. But that’s really subsidiary to my main point, which is that this looks indistinguishable on the surface at least from a host of other cases of non-literal speech on the part of Christ in the Gospels. If that’s “mental gymnastics,” I apologize but it’s my sincere view of the situation based on my best attempt to work through the issue.

I agree that Jesus often spoke in parables and used metaphor.

However He stressed the point that His body is REAL food. John 6:55

Read the context of John 6. The people ask him for clarification and He stresses then that He really is real food and drink.

 

[frnate]

anamnesis is more accurately an ‘unforgetting.’ What are we to unforget? The experience of being in the Real Presence. More specifically that for the Passover to be finished, we must eat the Sacrifical Lamb. Otherwise we will die.

Just as Eve ate the forbidden fruit which brought on death, we must eat the Sacrificial Lamb to bring on life. Parallelism is a very powerful tool in telling Biblical stories.

Well said :tiphat:

+N