G
Genesis315
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The arsenic added to the bread would have made the matter invalid, and thus the consecration would have been invalid. The priest was right to get out of there.
Well, if it was “just a symbol,” then the earliest Christians to speak plainly on the subject got it horribly wrong. You are setting up false alternatives: “literally Jesus’ body” or “just a symbol.” Both of these are false, in my opinion, although the latter is far more false than the former.Well, I must really be missing something here, but I don’t understand the Catholic take on communion. Protestants view it as a symbol, and that seems to make more sense to me when I look at the verses about the last supper.
Matthew 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Well how can it literally be Jesus’s body when he was sitting right there? It seems it HAD to have been just a symbol from the beginning. If I am wrong can someone please explain this to me?
Haha, I know it was a joke. i just didn’t want to get anyone to think the priest lost faith! Actually, your question about why can only a priest do the consecration might make for a good thread on its own.Hi Genesis
It was a joke I was sent, meant to add a little humour to the thread. I stated that I didn’t believe it and that was its sole intention, to get people to lighten up a bit. I actually posted my serious point about why only Catholic priests may consecrate afterwards. I wasn’t poking fun at the real presence, but at what non Catholics see it as…
Its not that there is a need for a preist to turn it into the body and blood, but that is the way that God willed it. Just like God could have saved us in any other way he wanted but he chose the passion.Although I disagree with the poem, it is the idea that the priest has the power to call Jesus down from Heaven into the host that I have an issue with. It is Jesus who has the power to be present in the Eucharist and I do not doubt His presence in Communion. But for the bread and wine to “become” Jesus’ body and blood, but only if you are a Catholic priest is surely to put limitations on God?
The inference is that the priest has the power to put Jesus in the host (this is why it must be a Catholic priest because no other priest has that power). But the power is God’s, not man’s, so why couldn’t Jesus be present there because He wills it? Why the need for a Priest to “put Him there?” That is what I fail to understand…
You are correct - you don’t get it and you are missing a lot. These are words of “spirit and truth…the flesh profits nothing” You are attempting to understand according to the flesh - it will be fruitless. John 6 is the discourse you need to read over and over and over. Why don’t you try reading these tracts from the Catholic Answers homepage :catholic.com/library/Real_Presence.aspWell, I must really be missing something here, but I don’t understand the Catholic take on communion. Protestants view it as a symbol, and that seems to make more sense to me when I look at the verses about the last supper.
Matthew 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
Well how can it literally be Jesus’s body when he was sitting right there? It seems it HAD to have been just a symbol from the beginning. If I am wrong can someone please explain this to me?
1Corinthians11:27. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.No, I believe in all those things because they obviously were not symbolic.
However, when Jesus says he IS the bread that came down from heaven, he has to be talking symbolically, because he obviously isn’t literally a piece of bread. Just like when he was talking about sinner’s gauging out their own eyes and such.
John 6- 32Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34“Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
35Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
Well, I don’t know. It still seems symbolic to me.