Real Presence?

[Ion]

Can’t have a “cannibalistic view” while Christ is present (Person) with The Holy Eucharist(substance of Body and Blood)
At The Last Supper there was nothing like “cannibalistic”…

 

[Ion]

Transubstantiation=The Body and Blood of Christ are in Eucharist
Real Presence=Christ as a person is with the Eucharist

 

[Ion]

It is simple. Christ walked on water, He commanded the seas, He showed His glory before His death, He raised the dead, He changed water into wine. Christ’s words create. He has power over all things. When at the Last Supper when he took bread and said “This IS my body” it was so. You have to take Christ at His Word, it is what he says it is. Even in John 6 they didn’t want to believe Him because of how powerful He was speaking of His actual Flesh and Blood.
It is what He says it is.

In John 6, the jews are the ones who couldn’t get it. The apostoles, (Peter clearly said) did believe it!

 

[Ion]

I subcribe to a number of church publications. One is US Catholicwhich often carries a poll of Catholics. As I recall a year or so ago a poll of Catholics indicated that 52% in the USA do not believe in transubstantiation, the real presence, that the bread and wine become substantially the body and blood of Christ.

If this is true, have that 52% automatically excommunicated themselves from the Church? When they receive the Eucharist are they in some sense offending Christ?

I don’t believe it, please provide a link…

Like you ask three guys something (some guys saying they are catholics) and 2 of them say something and voila, you have statistics with 66% of catholics…

John 6:53-59 tells very clear:if you do not believe The Body and Blood of Christ is in Eucharist, you are beyond offending, salvation does not exist for you.

 

[Ion]

I subcribe to a number of church publications. One is US Catholicwhich often carries a poll of Catholics. As I recall a year or so ago a poll of Catholics indicated that 52% in the USA do not believe in transubstantiation, the real presence, that the bread and wine become substantially the body and blood of Christ.

If this is true, have that 52% automatically excommunicated themselves from the Church? When they receive the Eucharist are they in some sense offending Christ?

Your affirmation also contains a misleading part: “become substantially”. Now, how comes that somebody who is supposed to know the meaning of transubstantiation, uses the word in the same sentece with a word from “substance” family (substantially), which has 2 oposites meanings -one is the old philosophical view (esence), and totally opposite and misleading modern view (chemical composition)? If you take the first meaning, the correct answer is yes, if you take the second meaning the correct answer is no, becose the chemical composition doesn’t change…???

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

Orthodox doesn’t reject the dogma of the Transubstantiation nor the dogma of the Real Presence. In both churches they are considered FACT, but the orthodox explain the Eucharist the same way without defining a dogma.
The Body and Blood of Christ is in Eucharist (the substance in old philosophical view) and also Christ is present with it, the same way as at The Last Supper.
For modern science, the “substance in old philosophical view” does not exist.

Thanks for your response, but my question was, how do bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ (“in the Eucharist” is getting into semantics and is a diversion).

The Orthodox don’t answer the question, but it has an answer. It must have an answer since the substance of bread and wine is changed into the substance of the body and blood of the Lord and there has to be a process by which it is accomplished. The Catholic Church calls the process ‘transsubstantiation.’ In itself, the word is not a dogma; its merely a description of the dogma in the same way ‘transportation,’ ‘transatlantic,’ and ‘transmission’ are descriptions. No offense, but I think the Orthodox are straining at an ant here.

 

[Ion]

To the question “how” nobody can answer, it is done by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

To the question “how” nobody can answer, it is done by the Holy Spirit.

Ion, help me out a little. If the ‘how’ is unknown, then ‘transsubstantiation’ is the what. Whatever wording you choose, it’s clear ‘transsubstantiation’ is a valid description of the process. It is the changing of the elements from one substance to another. We agree it’s a miracle done by the Holy Spirit. My point is, the Orthodox accept the process and the result, but won’t use the word, and that’s the part that puzzles me.

 

[Ion]

Eucharist/ Transubstantiation *

Jesus is truly, wholly, and completely *present in the Eucharist in a metaphysical way, the physical properties, everything that can be perceived by our senses of bread and wine remain the same.
And non-Catholic Christians, believe something close to this when talking of justification before God through Christ Jesus. *St. Paul says in Scripture, “In Christ, we are made into a ‘new creation’.” *Now, clearly, this does not apply to our form – our “physical properties”, since we don’t look any different; and the world does not see any obvious physical change in a person when he or she becomes a believer in Christ. *However, according to the words of Scripture, we know that a metaphysical change HAS taken place – that the former sinner has been re-created in the image and likeness of Jesus, and is now a new creation. The metaphysical substance has changed. *Truly, wholly, entirely, and substantially. *And this is what we believe when it comes to the nature of the Lord’s Supper (the Eucharist).

Same with scripture it’s truly the word of God. Yet it looks no different than any other book.

metaphysics:
1.the branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology.
2. philosophy, especially in its more abstruse branches.
3. the underlying theoretical principles of a subject or field of inquiry.

Eucharist is FACT not theory, Christ is REALLY there, not meta physically, not metaphorically or any other fancy form of “pretending only”

 

[Ion]

I read through this thread and desired to express my appreciation for EricFilmer’s careful and charitable engagement with Roy5. I think his posts were not only a model of engagement in a setting such as this, but expressed with clarity the beauty of the Eucharist as an expression of God’s gracious love for us. I hope the faith of those who read the posts is strengthened. Mine was, and I thank you.

Very well written posts indeed!

 

[cessnawag]

The best way I’ve found to better understand this is The catechism of the catholic church. The section about the sacrament of the euchrist is really amazing.

 

[John_Martin]

To the question “how” nobody can answer, it is done by the Holy Spirit.

Aquinas’ explanations of how God “knows” can be an answer to this - when God knows something, desiring it to be really present (not just in his ideas or concepts or understanding), then He “wills” it to be, and his Spirit proceeds. The Eucharist is not a thing done by God alone, but by the Spirit inspiring the Church to “do this in remembrance of me” and then joining Christ to this bread and wine as his Body and Blood. When the Soul and Divinity of Christ is thus united with this Body and Blood, then what God knows within himself (the presense of Christ united to this bread and wine to feed us) is also an objective reality, and God is pleased, happy.

It is just as an architect who has a plan or idea of a building internally in his understanding, he “knows” the building within himself, then he has a builder follow his plan so that the building is not just in his understanding but is a real object external to his understanding but matching his understanding - and he is happy, pleased, at “peace”, at “rest” with his knowing - what was good and true in his understanding is good and true in objective reality. In his “understanding” he not only visualized the design of a building, but he visualized it being real outside his thinking, real in the real world.

No one, however, will be able to know the reality of the real presence of Christ by a reasonable explanation - it is a “revealed” truth. We have heard and we believe. But as a revealed truth (that we “know” because we trust the one revealing it to us - the Church) it then can be analyzed by the one who believes it. The only ones who can grasp the reality of “transubstatiation” are those who already believe that the bread and wine are now Christ’s Body and Blood. Without the revelation of Christ in the eucharist, and “knowing it is real”, there can be no reasoning about bread, wine, substance, accidence, etc., that would lead one to conclude the real presence or conclude transubstatiation. But when you start out with “faith”, knowing it is real, then the thinking about what it all means begins to make sense.

John Martin

 

[John_Martin]

You have a body, it is the place and the object to which I will look and speak if I want to talk to “you”. The “you” with whom I wish to speak is your “soul” - when you say “I am me”, that is your soul (or your soul’s intellect) that is willing your body to project the words from your body’s mouth. If I look at someone else’s body but try to speak to you, all I get are strange looks back from that person. If I want to address you, I must meet you at your body, the body to which you (your soul) are one with. You (soul) are one with your body at present. And so we can talk to each other.

When Jesus is saying “Take and eat this bread; this is my body”, he is telling us “I (my soul) am one with this bread as my body, so that if you want to be in my presense in this physical world right now today, take this bread in your hand and you are holding me; don’t be afraid, it is truly me you are holding; eat my body, my flesh; I want to have myself become one with you, my body in you, my soul joined to you. And take this Chalice and drink from it; it is my blood that makes my body alive in you, making you alive in this covenant with me.”

The bread doesn’t change into a human body or the cup into human blood - instead Jesus joins his soul to a body of bread and suddenly it is the living bread come down from heaven. And best of all, it is Jesus present with you as you take him in your hand or mouth, as you look at him (at his body and blood), it is Him. When I talk to you, I am actually “believing” that somehow my words go into your body’s ears, and go beyond the physical processing of my words by your brain, and reach “you”, your soul. “You” are one with that body I am speaking to. Same the Jesus, we “believe” a reality that is more than the bread we see in front of us, that it is Jesus there, his “being” is one with the bread and wine. A very happy moment to be with Jesus, just as surely as if we were walking with him in Galilee.

John Martin

Our dog Dulce died this morning and we buried her. My wife said to me with tears later this morning “I can’t find Dulce; she should be here but I look all over and I can’t find her.” She, of course knew where Dulce’s body was buried, but Dulce, this “soul” we knew as Dulce, was no longer with that body - Dulce could no longer be found by approaching that golden retriever body. We used to find her in that body, but no longer.

Where is Jesus? What “body” in this physical world to which we are tied now can we approach to come into his presence? We need the presence of a “physical body” to approach in order to encounter a living soul. That physical body must have blood as its life blood.

Go to Mass to encounter the Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the body he told you was his body.

John Martin

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

Thank you for these two great messages, John. Illuminating in all the particulars.

 

[Roy5]

Thanks to all those involved in this civil discussion.

 For the faithful who can believe in transubstantiation, fine. I wish I didn't have such serious doubts. 

 Now forgive this, but let me say what millions of Catholics and non-Catholics likely think. The dogma that bread and wine become the body and blood of God can seem simply too pagan and primitive. God is everywhere, after all. "Lo, I am with you always." Plus, the idea that God comes in a special way into a small piece of bread and a chalice of wine comes awfully close to resembling animism of sorts - worship of a tree or a rock or maybe the sun or moon, each as a special residence of the Lord. Add to this the fact that Jesus was always using metaphors - he was the vine, the gate, the Good Shepherd, etc.

 This is certainly not to demean the doctrine for those who embrace it. Most religions have something similar. The ancient Jews believed Jehovah was in the Ark, and they carried him around. The Muslims throw stones at the devil when they make their pilgrimage to Mecca. Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and other faiths - certainly Native Americans religions - have/had special and sacred places where God was located more than in other places. Often holy mountains or rivers. Millions of wonderful people need to have such places. Fine. However, one can disagree with such concepts and still admire many other things about that religion. Most religions have at least a smidgen of superstition, which is understandable in light of this vast and mysterious universe. We have a right and often a need to p(name removed by moderator)oint spots where God lives with some particular intensity. This always has been important in the life of many millions of multiple faiths.

  As far as I'm concerned, when I focus on it, I rejoice in the presence of God everywhere - from that beauty in the heavens above at this very moment (as I look out of my window) to that found in the smile of a baby's face in his/her cradle. It probably doesn't hurt to have a focal point for those who want it, need it and/or believe in it.

  God bless everybody, of every creed, color, culture and country. Let us strive to make religion more of a bridge and less of a barrier.

 

[cc42]

Roy5,

I doubt you believe that it doesn’t matter whether or not people should accept whether God became Incarnate or not, yet some people might call that a “barrier”. The fact is that we need to proclaim the truth and help people see it to bring them closer to Christ who is the truth. Transubstantiation does not say that God enters into a piece of bread. The teaching is that what was once a piece of bread is now God. This teaching is very important because Christ emphasized the importance of receiving Him in the Eucharist.

Transubstantiation is clearly taught in scripture as Jesus Christ said “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn. 6:55). The teaching of Transubstantiation has always been held by the Church and early as 107 A.D. St. Ignatius said of the Docetist heretics “they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

“Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of and not die” (Jn. 6:49-51). Here Jesus is comparing Himself to the bread that was eaten by the Jews during the Exodus. Then Jesus said “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn. 6:51). In order for His analogy to make sense Christ cannot be referring to anything other than actually consuming Him like the Jews consumed the bread in the Exodus.

By the word eat Christ could not have simply been using symbolic language to represent the word believe because Jesus had promised a different kind of food (see Jn. 6:27) and the whole ‘basis’ of the analogy is the act of eating bread; but now the bread is to be Christ’s flesh.

Christ can also not be foreshadowing His atoning death here because dying on the cross is not an analogous comparison to bread coming down from heaven. Overall, Jesus never corrected the Jews for taking His words literally (see Jn. 6:52) but He continued with saying “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life” (Jn. 6:54).

This is all clearly pointing to Holy Communion at the Last Supper where Jesus said “Take, eat; this is my body” and “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant” (Mt. 26:26, 28).

 

[John_Martin]

Roy5,
In the quote below of an earlier post I wrote that you, Roy5 (you fit in the third paragraph), will never be able to figure out transubstantiation by getting a good reason for it - that is like a child continually asking “Why?” and never accepting the parent’s answer. It is because the child has not yet learned that some answers are “revealed” by the parent and that that is the sufficient reason to be accepted.

God is fully and correctly known only by revelation and by faith that trusts the deliverer of the revelation. That is why Jesus’ disciples did not leave him when he said “you must eat my flesh” while all the others left his presence. The disciples trusted “him” and wanted the full reality of everything he told them. I trust the revealers that have come to me via apostolic succession as inspired by his Spirit. The bread and wine have been taken on by Him as His Body and Blood - and now in this thread we are simply trying to take a look at the implications of a reality that we believe. You, however, are trying to look at these implications without believing that it is really true.
John Martin

Aquinas’ explanations of how God “knows” can be an answer to this - when God knows something, desiring it to be really present (not just in his ideas or concepts or understanding), then He “wills” it to be, and his Spirit proceeds. The Eucharist is not a thing done by God alone, but by the Spirit inspiring the Church to “do this in remembrance of me” and then joining Christ to this bread and wine as his Body and Blood. When the Soul and Divinity of Christ is thus united with this Body and Blood, then what God knows within himself (the presense of Christ united to this bread and wine to feed us) is also an objective reality, and God is pleased, happy.

It is just as an architect who has a plan or idea of a building internally in his understanding, he “knows” the building within himself, then he has a builder follow his plan so that the building is not just in his understanding but is a real object external to his understanding but matching his understanding - and he is happy, pleased, at “peace”, at “rest” with his knowing - what was good and true in his understanding is good and true in objective reality. In his “understanding” he not only visualized the design of a building, but he visualized it being real outside his thinking, real in the real world.

No one, however, will be able to know the reality of the real presence of Christ by a reasonable explanation - it is a “revealed” truth. We have heard and we believe. But as a revealed truth (that we “know” because we trust the one revealing it to us - the Church) it then can be analyzed by the one who believes it. The only ones who can grasp the reality of “transubstatiation” are those who already believe that the bread and wine are now Christ’s Body and Blood. Without the revelation of Christ in the eucharist, and “knowing it is real”, there can be no reasoning about bread, wine, substance, accidence, etc., that would lead one to conclude the real presence or conclude transubstatiation. But when you start out with “faith”, knowing it is real, then the thinking about what it all means begins to make sense.

John Martin

 

[hawkeye125646]

Roy5,

I doubt you believe that it doesn’t matter whether or not people should accept whether God became Incarnate or not, yet some people might call that a “barrier”. The fact is that we need to proclaim the truth and help people see it to bring them closer to Christ who is the truth. Transubstantiation does not say that God enters into a piece of bread. The teaching is that what was once a piece of bread is now God. This teaching is very important because Christ emphasized the importance of receiving Him in the Eucharist.

Transubstantiation is clearly taught in scripture as Jesus Christ said “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn. 6:55). The teaching of Transubstantiation has always been held by the Church and early as 107 A.D. St. Ignatius said of the Docetist heretics “they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

“Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of and not die” (Jn. 6:49-51). Here Jesus is comparing Himself to the bread that was eaten by the Jews during the Exodus. Then Jesus said “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn. 6:51). In order for His analogy to make sense Christ cannot be referring to anything other than actually consuming Him like the Jews consumed the bread in the Exodus.

By the word eat Christ could not have simply been using symbolic language to represent the word believe because Jesus had promised a different kind of food (see Jn. 6:27) and the whole ‘basis’ of the analogy is the act of eating bread; but now the bread is to be Christ’s flesh.

Christ can also not be foreshadowing His atoning death here because dying on the cross is not an analogous comparison to bread coming down from heaven. Overall, Jesus never corrected the Jews for taking His words literally (see Jn. 6:52) but He continued with saying “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life” (Jn. 6:54).

This is all clearly pointing to Holy Communion at the Last Supper where Jesus said “Take, eat; this is my body” and “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant” (Mt. 26:26, 28).

Another verse, that you can show is :Matt 6:11 , where Jesus talks about our Daily bread… The actual beauty comes from the Greek translations épiusios, which, literally translated to english is SUPERSUBSTANTIAL bread, as the manna in the desert… I was listening to Dr Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist… It is SO amazing… You will love it!

 

[po18guy]

I maintain my position that transubstantiation is just a catechesis on the Real Presence. It is not by itself the doctrine. We can believe in the Real Presence without the use of transubstantiation to explain it.

Transubstantiation is the process and the the True Presence is the product of that process.

 

[po18guy]

Now forgive this, but let me say what millions of Catholics and non-Catholics likely think. The dogma that bread and wine become the body and blood of God can seem simply too pagan and primitive. God is everywhere, after all. “Lo, I am with you always.” Plus, the idea that God comes in a special way into a small piece of bread and a chalice of wine comes awfully close to resembling animism of sorts - worship of a tree or a rock or maybe the sun or moon, each as a special residence of the Lord. Add to this the fact that Jesus was always using metaphors - he was the vine, the gate, the Good Shepherd, etc.

Turn it around, Roy. Animism, pantheism and cannibalism originate with man. The Holy Eucharist originates with God. Huge difference. Jesus said, in plain Aramaic, that it was His Body and Blood, and commanded the Apostles to eat and drink. They did. So did Paul. They passed it on.

Most religions have something similar. The ancient Jews believed Jehovah was in the Ark… the Muslims throw stones at the devil when they make their pilgrimage to Mecca. Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and other faiths…

Let them have their beliefs. YOUR Lord and Savior Jesus Christ commanded those who believe in Him to eat and drink. They did. We do. God doesn’t make salvation complicated or unreachable. Just take Him at His Word.

As far as I’m concerned, when I focus on it, I rejoice in the presence of God everywhere - from that beauty in the heavens above at this very moment (as I look out of my window) to that found in the smile of a baby’s face in his/her cradle. It probably doesn’t hurt to have a focal point for those who want it, need it and/or believe in it.

To me, this sounds close to pantheism. We see evidence of God all round us, but not God Himself. God is living, and we alone are made in His image and likeness. We are to see Christ in one another, not in rocks and trees.