Passover & Blood

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Hello All.

I am currently studying with a Catholic, when the following occurred to me. I’ve ask many Catholics since this question, without a “real” response. Perhaps someone here can help.

Since the Mosaic Law was not fulfilled until after Jesus’ Death/Resurrection, how was it that Jesus could have offered the Apostles actual blood at the passover? If that was not symbolic, then the action of getting another to break a law would have been in itself breaking the Mosaic Law.

Before you answer, understand that many have answered with “well Jesus had the authority to break the law” - which is not true. There are way to many references dealing with the fact Jesus died a perfect man, not even rebuking Satan himself. God is a judicial God (Deuteronomy 4:1-2), and therefore would need to have everything he does comport with “The Law”.

Thanks for any help!
 
johnnyprc said:
Hello All.

I am currently studying with a Catholic, when the following occurred to me. I’ve ask many Catholics since this question, without a “real” response. Perhaps someone here can help.

Since the Mosaic Law was not fulfilled until after Jesus’ Death/Resurrection, how was it that Jesus could have offered the Apostles actual blood at the passover? If that was not symbolic, then the action of getting another to break a law would have been in itself breaking the Mosaic Law.

Before you answer, understand that many have answered with “well Jesus had the authority to break the law” - which is not true. There are way to many references dealing with the fact Jesus died a perfect man, not even rebuking Satan himself. God is a judicial God (Deuteronomy 4:1-2), and therefore would need to have everything he does comport with “The Law”.

Thanks for any help!
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a small footnote.

Perhaps in the same way we are not guilty of cannibalism…as we were charged by Romans in the days of the early Christians. earlychristians.org/how_did_they_live_1.html#4

From This Rock:

"Q: Your doctrine of the Eucharist sounds like cannibalism.

A: Catholics don’t believe Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist is such that the consumption of the Host entails cannibalism. Christ’s body and blood aren’t present naturally, but supernaturally, under the appearances of bread and wine. This mode of presence rules out cannibalism.

It’s accurate to say that while Christ’s presence is real and substantial, the mode of consumption, the way in which we eat his body and drink his blood, is, in a sense, spiritual (though not merely symbolic). 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.

Catholics, then, truly unite themselves spiritually to Christ who is really, substantially present, and they do so in a way which involves the bodily act of eating, even though the physical.aspects of this process affect only the sign or accidents of bread."

catholic.com/thisrock/1990/9012qq.asp

in a like way …it would not violate the Law.

other articles in a similar vein (oops…pun)

catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0103sbs.asp

catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/keyword/Eucharist/page20
 
If “Christ’s body and blood aren’t present naturally, but supernaturally” is the way Catholics believe, then in some way I can more understand that - especially the first part…saying…Christ’s body and blood aren’t present naturally.

So, does that sum up the “official” Catholic teaching on the matter?

Thanks - JP
 
johnnyprc said:
If “Christ’s body and blood aren’t present naturally, but supernaturally” is the way Catholics believe, then in some way I can more understand that - especially the first part…saying…Christ’s body and blood aren’t present naturally.

So, does that sum up the “official” Catholic teaching on the matter?

Thanks - JP
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it tis not like taking a knife and cutting out a piece of the flesh of someone and eating it …
 
On another note…

The Holy Eucharist is the same sacrifice of Calvary…made present.

So it can also be said in answer to your question that when the Apostles took and ate…took and drank…at the Last Supper…they were partaking of the this ONE sacrifice…sacramentally made present…on that night before he died…so therefore they were partaking of the sacrifice of Jesus’s death and resurrection…that same sacrifice…
 
The essence of the Eucharist is Jesus Christ. It is not Physical flesh, but the essence is the same. Just like the person above me said, we are not repeating the sacrifice, we are making it present.

God Bless, my friend!

-Matt
 
johnnyprc said:
Hello All.

I am currently studying with a Catholic, when the following occurred to me. I’ve ask many Catholics since this question, without a “real” response. Perhaps someone here can help.

Since the Mosaic Law was not fulfilled until after Jesus’ Death/Resurrection, how was it that Jesus could have offered the Apostles actual blood at the passover? If that was not symbolic, then the action of getting another to break a law would have been in itself breaking the Mosaic Law.

Before you answer, understand that many have answered with “well Jesus had the authority to break the law” - which is not true. There are way to many references dealing with the fact Jesus died a perfect man, not even rebuking Satan himself. God is a judicial God (Deuteronomy 4:1-2), and therefore would need to have everything he does comport with “The Law”.

Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...
Note the commandment spells out the confines of the application – it is any “blood whatever” of “fowl or of animal”. Jesus’ blood is of neither; it is human blood.Lev 7:26 Moreover you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwellings. 7:27 Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people."

Re cannabalism: cannabalism is the eating of mortal flesh and/or blood. The flesh and blood in the Eucharist is the immortal flesh and blood of the risen/resurrected Jesus – flesh and blood that is no longer mortal.

A couple of additional Levitical passages that are interesting to contemplate and relate to Our Lords words in John 6.

Lev 17:13 Any man also of the people of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust. 17:14 ** "For the life of every creature is the blood of it**; therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.

John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 6:54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

The “life” present in the risen immortal flesh and blood of Jesus is “eternal life”, immortal life.
 
I guess what I am after is a legal definition on the matter which the Church finds acceptable. I find when words are used like “essence” and “present”, they are often tied together with other words to create ambivalent meanings.
Jesus was referred on many occasions as the Lamb, and then the symbolic nature of a lamb’s blood is used to correlate the first passover as symbolic of what was to come. We don’t believe Jesus is a Lamb, yet we appreciate the sacrifice he made - as he was slaughtered like an animal…blood poured out on behalf of our sins. We see the symbolic likeness of a Lamb and Jesus. Bread and Flesh. Wine and Blood.

What Bookcat said was very understandable, yet I just wanted to know if the church’s stance is exactly the same. To say that “Jesus’ blood is not present naturally” is something close enough to what I can appreciate about the catholic view - and not breaking The Law. I realize this is not making an affirmative answer on what it is, but it is making a clear answer as to what it is not - physical blood.

John-Paul C.
 
johnnyprc said:
I guess what I am after is a legal definition on the matter which the Church finds acceptable. I find when words are used like “essence” and “present”, they are often tied together with other words to create ambivalent meanings.

—.
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Here is a link to the section in our official “Catechism of the Catholic Church” where it speaks of the Eucharistic presence of Jesus.
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P41.HTM
Scroll down to paragraphs 1374-1377

Here is an excerpt from paragraph 1376:
#1376 …and this holy Council (this refers to the Council of Trent) now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."

The key word in our doctrine is “substance”/“transubstantiation”. The word is a philosophical one (perennial philosophy) and is to be understood accordingly. Are you familiar with the term and its philosophical definition? If not, I’ll see if I can find a link for you.
 
johnnyprc said:
What Bookcat said was very understandable, yet I just wanted to know if the church’s stance is exactly the same. To say that “Jesus’ blood is not present naturally” is something close enough to what I can appreciate about the catholic view - and not breaking The Law. I realize this is not making an affirmative answer on what it is, but it is making a clear answer as to what it is not - physical blood.

John-Paul C.
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I’m not sure how you define “physical blood”. Obviously, the consecrated wine that has become the substance of Our Lord’s blood, does not manifest the “accidents” which are normally manifested by blood (color, taste, mass…). {“Accidents” do not exist on their own. Eg. you can’t have a container of red, or saltiness, etc. They require a substance in which to reside.} In the Eucharist, the underlying “substance” has truly been changed from the substance of wine to the “substance” of Our Lord’s physical flesh and blood. But, altho the substance has been changed, the “accidents” do not change. By Our Lord’s will, the accidents of bread and wine remain.

You know, once one understands and accepts transubstantiation, John 6 becomes absolutely beautiful and understandable.
John 6:48 I am the bread of life. 6:49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 6:50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."
 
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