Our Lord's presence

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Is Jesus present in our everyday life or only in the Eucharist and why is adoration confined to the monstrance? If he is present everywhere and at all times to the Christian, why do Catholics I know go to church to receive Jesus? I know I must be missing something important in this and as a convert, I am truly trying to understand. Thank you in advance for your thoughts on this.
 
Simms,

Let me give you my opinion on your question. I was raised Protestant, and very much believe that God is with us at all times. However, when I began to study about the Eucharist, I found that not only is his presence with us at all times invisibly and spiritually, but he also comes to us visibly and physically. God lived with the nation of Israel in the tabernacle in the desert and later in the Temple on the Mercy Seat, however the Incarnation of Christ was an expansion of this presence. God became visible and present with us in a way that he had never been.

So, it is the same now. Imagine if you will, that you have not seen anyone in your family for years, but yet you have always been connected to them by phone, in fact, they can talk to you anytime, without even dialing the phone, you have a direct connection. Now, let’s say that you get the opportunity not to just be on a contstant direct phone connection with them, but you get the opportunity to see, hold and experience their presence in a physical way. Would you rush into the room with them an savor the experience with all your senses, or would you say… well… I am with them all the time on the phone so… there is really no difference? If you are alike me, you would probably never let go of them again!

This is the way I see the Eucharist. God is with me all the time, but at the Eucharist I get to experience his presence in a way that I cannot when I am at home. I get to experience Him with all my senses! This is what makes it so much different. Many people would rush to see Christ at a large amphitheater or stadium were he to tell us He was going to be present at one. However, those same people pass the Church everyday where he has already told us He is physically present and ready to meet us!

Hope that made a little sense!
Brandon
 
:amen: Brandon,

I don’t think I could have put it any better.
For me the Lord is everywhere, and I mean that in every sense of the word. He is with me in my dreams, when I wake up, throughtout my day, in my prayers etc. I can count on carrying Him with me always, or maybe I should say I can count on Him carrying me always.
But if I want to experience Him fully in the living presense while on this earth I know I can go to mass and witness a beautiful transformation before my very eyes. It is there I can sit in His presence whether it be meditation, praying or just keeping Him company. I feel Him so much more fully while sitting in front of the blessed sacrament.
It truely is a wonderful experience.
 
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simms:
Is Jesus present in our everyday life or only in the Eucharist and why is adoration confined to the monstrance? If he is present everywhere and at all times to the Christian, why do Catholics I know go to church to receive Jesus? I know I must be missing something important in this and as a convert, I am truly trying to understand. Thank you in advance for your thoughts on this.
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God is present everywhere, as He is Being and all things that exist are held by Him in existence.

Christ is also present in a more special way in all Christians, and the priest is in acta persona Christe (in the person of Christ). But the Eucharist is Christ in a way surpassing all other things.
We do not worship a tree, though God is there holding it in existence. We don’t worship other Christians, though they hold Christ is a more substantial way. And we don’t worship priest, though Christ the High priest works through them.

We do worship the Eucharist. And this is because, as Catholics, we believe that the word of God alone suffices to make the bread and wine into His Body and Blood. The words of Christ are spoken by the priest. The Eucharist is then the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, wholly and substantially, with none of the bread or wine remaining, save the accidents (what hits our senses)

So in receiving Communion we receive Christ directly.
 
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simms:
why do Catholics I know go to church to receive Jesus?
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Because Jesus said to do so…and let those that disbelieved Him leave Him over it. (John 6)
 
:amen:

Christ is with us all the time, His soul and divinity are ever present wherever we go,

but during adoration/Eucharist, we could experience His presence: soul, divinity, body and blood - both in spiritual and physical sense.

So there.
 
I don’t know if it’s quite correct to say Jesus is “physically” present in the Eucharist. I know the Church uses words like “really” or “substantially”, but as far as I know, the Church does not use the term “physically”. If I’m wrong, can someone please show me.
 
Paul VI in Mysterium Fidei says this:

"(51) 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.

Susie
 
He is present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinty Christ is present whole and entire. The Substance changes into the whole Christ!

The apperances stay the same.

Prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas

**
Devoutly I adore You, hidden Deity, Under these appearances concealed.
To You my heart surrenders self For seeing You, all else must yield.
Sight and touch and taste here fail; Hearing only can be believed. I trust what
God’s own Son has said. Truth from truth is best received.
Divinity, on the Cross, was hid; Humanity here comes not to thought. Believing
and confessing both, I seek out what the Good Thief sought. I see no wound as Thomas did, but I profess God above. Draw me deeply into faith, Into Your hope into Your love. O memorial of the Lord’s sad death. Show life unto man, O living Bread. Grant that my soul may live through You, By Your sweet savor ever fed.
Jesus Lord, my Pelicon devout, With Your Blood my sins dismiss. One single drop could surely save from sin this world’s dark edifice.
Jesus, Whom now I see enveiled, what I desire, when will it be? Beholding Your fair face revealed, Your glory shall I be blessed to see.
Amen.
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**

Quote from Fr. John Hardon
"********** Everything which belongs to Christ—everything which makes Christ, Christ— is present in the Blessed Sacrament. This consequently means that Christ is present in His divinity as God and in His humanity as man. Christ is present in the Eucharist with His human body and human soul, with His bodily organs and limbs and with His human mind, will and feelings—“the whole Christ”, Latin reads Totus Christus
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We recieve the Whole Christ.
God Bless
Pax
Jason
 
I usually explain it as physical versus carnal.

He is not carnally present, else we would be cannibals, but He is physically present in substance.

Sometimes He is carnally present, but this is a rare miraculous occurance where the flesh and blood are visible.
 
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simms:
Is Jesus present in our everyday life or only in the Eucharist and why is adoration confined to the monstrance? If he is present everywhere and at all times to the Christian, why do Catholics I know go to church to receive Jesus? I know I must be missing something important in this and as a convert, I am truly trying to understand. Thank you in advance for your thoughts on this.
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We recieve Him under a veil of a Sacrament!

Forgot to put that on my previous post?

Pax
Jason
 
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marlysdotz:
I’m sure others have answered your questions, but here goes with mine! The Lord is present everywhere through the power of the Holy Spirit who Jesus promised us would be with the church forever. But he is completely present in the Eucharist because at Mass the priests have the power, through our Lord, to change the bread and wine into the actual body & blood of Jesus. If you read the Gospel of John, chapter 6, you will be given an explanation of this truth. When our Lord is exposed in the Monstrance, we see the bread but because of the consecration that took place, it is now the body of our Lord, so that makes our prayers there more effective because of his actual presence to us. We can also pray before the tabernacle as we know Jesus is just behind the door. But we can also and should pray everywhere because his spirit is always present to us, just not as completely as in the Eucharist. Never stop looking for the truth as you will find it. God Bless!
 
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marlysdotz:
**John Chapter 6:56
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Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him**
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So yes Jesus is within us everyday He has said so,St. Paul also wrote “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives with me.”

Christ is exposed on the altar in the monstance for us to adore Him and to give Him due worship to Him who makes Himself Truly Present in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Yes God is present everywhere, but He is Truly Present in the Holy Eucharist. Some people say “I wished I lived when Jesus walked the earth.”

You don’t have to, He is already here at the nearest Catholic Church in the tabernacle He is the “Prisoner of Love” waiting for us to come to Him with our problems.

God Bless
Pax
Jason :cool: 👍
 
I don’t want to start a new thread when the subject is so much the same as this…as someone new to Catholicism I don’t understand the soul and divinity aspect of the Eucharist. Is it simply that if Christ’s body and blood are present in the Eucharist that his soul and divinity *must * be present too? Can anyone give me an explanation. Thanks.
 
Didn’t edit last one: ‘Souls’ was a mistake - never fear! I meant ‘soul and divinity’.
 
Jesus is one Person–the second person of the Blessed trinity–who, because he assumed a human nature, possesses both a human and a divine nature. He cannot be divided.

So when we say that he is present body and blood, soul and divinity, whole and entire, we mean that he is present totally in the Eucharist, in both his human and divine natures. You are right that where His body and blood are, so are his soul and divinity, since he is not divided. We receive the Person of Christ in His entirety.

Another point: If the priest breaks the host in two, he does not divide Jesus, who remains wholly present and undivided in even the smallest particle of the consecrated Host, (under the appearance of bread.)
 
Hi everyone,

It seems to be very clear that Jesus is wholly present in the Eucarist, but I want to share with you something that I just realized a few days ago while meditating in the blessed maternity of Our Lady the Vigin Mary. I believe one of the key points of Marys holyness was her special relationship with Jesus as that of a mother and son. This relationship started when Jesus was concieved in he womb by the Holy Spirit. Have you ever seen a pregnant woman in the joy of carrying her unborn son. Now imagine the extrem Joy and Communion of Mary carrying God within her!!
Well you don’t have to because when you take the Holy Eucarist, you are physically carrying the very same Jesus inside you!!! That is why we call it Holy Communion. And that is also why one must be in a state of grace to receive it. No wonder why was Mary imaculately conceived and preserved from sin!
So it is then, my brothers and systers, an extrem grace and honour given to us in this, as St. Josemaria Escriva descrives it: “Madness of Love, which is the Eucarist”.

Blessings
 
I received some great tapes from the Mary Foundation one of which is titled the “Eucharist” John 6 talks about the bread from Heaven. “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:52). Then scripture proceeds to tell that some people couldn’t except this (eating flesh and drinking blood) so they turned away. “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” (John 6:66)
 
I know a lot of people have a problem with understanding that Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist.
Does it make it any easier to think of God as a burning bush? or a cloud over the ark? or a dove? or a human?
God can be physically present anywhere He decides, not me, not you.
He tells us He is present, body, blood, soul, divinity.
Those who doubt should carefully read John 6. With an open heart. Spend some hours in perpetual adoration, I LOVE the middle of the night, all alone with Jesus. If your Church doesn’t have perpetual adoration, travel to one that does.
 
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