The Eucharist - Consubstantiation? Symbolic? I don't think so

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide;4451609:

Grape juice ferments almost instantly, particularly in hot climes. Indeed, the trick is to stop it from fermenting if you don’t want alcohol, which is why the prohibitionist Welch developed a process to do just that. In the 1830s.

Grape juice simply didn’t exist until then—it wouldn’t keep.

Christ did not say to that grape juice was his blood, nor command we should drink grape juice in memory of him.

Let me ask you this—what do you do with the Cross and the altar between services? Do you throw them away?

Oh I understand that Grape Juice did not exist then, I did not think I implied that. When you hold a symbolic interpretation, that the actual cup and bread are not the point, which is what I believe, the grape juice or wine does not matter.
We do not have a cross or images. We do not have an altar.

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon93;4451891:

Oh I understand that Grape Juice did not exist then, I did not think I implied that. When you hold a symbolic interpretation, that the actual cup and bread are not the point, which is what I believe, the grape juice or wine does not matter.
We do not have a cross or images. We do not have an altar.

1. The bible-believing fundamentalist tag confuses me, then, because Christ clearly commands us to consume his body and blood—“Do this in remembrance of me”. Even if you ignore the clear meaning of John 6 and insist upon this being mere symbolism, then Christ has commanded that the symbols used be bread and wine. Not grape juice.
2. Given liturgical difference, let me substitute another item you undoubtedly use in worship—the Holy Bible. Do you burn your Bibles after your service? Do you toss them in the trash? If not, why not?

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide;4452384:

1. The bible-believing fundamentalist tag confuses me, then, because Christ clearly commands us to consume his body and blood—“Do this in remembrance of me”. Even if you ignore the clear meaning of John 6 and insist upon this being mere symbolism, then Christ has commanded that the symbols used be bread and wine. Not grape juice.
2. Given liturgical difference, let me substitute another item you undoubtedly use in worship—the Holy Bible. Do you burn your Bibles after your service? Do you toss them in the trash? If not, why not?

In order to understand how my patricular church does this, which is really the point…but it seems to be directed at me. It is more of a small meal and not part of the church servie itself. As a Bible believer, the example of Christ, Paul, is a meal. As far as wine versus grape juice, because we consume a meal, and our outreach is towards the poor and those who are struggling with addictions, wine would be a really really bad idea.
We do not burn our Bible. I still fail to see why you are worried about what happens to food. It is either thrown away or eaten and then ends up as waste matter in a sewer. Neither option is particularly glorious to me. The bread and wine are just bread and wine. Symbolism is symbolism. The Bible has real content to it. It is the word of God. Bread is…bread.
I fail to understand why a person who does not believe it is symbolic cares what we do with our symbolic food.
On a crass note, why is pooping something out better than throwing it away?

 

[sandusky]

1. The bible-believing fundamentalist tag confuses me, then, because Christ clearly commands us to consume his body and blood—“Do this in remembrance of me”. Even if you ignore the clear meaning of John 6 and insist upon this being mere symbolism, then Christ has commanded that the symbols used be bread and wine. Not grape juice.

You’re linking together two different events.

2. Given liturgical difference, let me substitute another item you undoubtedly use in worship—the Holy Bible. Do you burn your Bibles after your service? Do you toss them in the trash? If not, why not?

IMO, that’s a silly notion.

 

[clmowry]

Interpolated or forgeries. Or just a good example of one of the earliest heretics.

Yeah those “heretics” Peter and John couldn’t hand on their “heresies” to those dupes that handed them on for the next 2000 years.

But by golly, we can trust that what the “heretical” Church preserved and handed on as the writings of Peter and John are the inerrant word of God but everything else put forth and preserved by the Catholic Church MUST BE either full of interpolations or a forgeries.

Cause well, um, cause…I say so, so there.

Chuck

 

[Rightlydivide]

Yeah those “heretics” Peter and John couldn’t hand on their “heresies” to those dupes that handed them on for the next 2000 years.

But by golly, we can trust that what the “heretical” Church preserved and handed on as the writings of Peter and John are the inerrant word of God but everything else put forth and preserved by the Catholic Church MUST BE either full of interpolations or a forgeries.

Cause well, um, cause…I say so, so there.

Chuck

The church did preserve many writings, Ignatius was quoted by whom first? Do you even know? Forgeries or interpolated. Interpolations abound as dishonest theologians tried to rewrite history.

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon93;4453562:

In order to understand how my patricular church does this, which is really the point…but it seems to be directed at me. It is more of a small meal and not part of the church servie itself. As a Bible believer, the example of Christ, Paul, is a meal. As far as wine versus grape juice, because we consume a meal, and our outreach is towards the poor and those who are struggling with addictions, wine would be a really really bad idea.

Of course we’re talking of it as the recreation of the Last Supper—in the Catholic Church, one may receive the Eucharist under the one kind if the other is impossible for you.

Beyond your example, Fundamentalists use grape juice contra Scripture simply because Fundamentalism came of age during the temperance movement.

We do not burn our Bible. I still fail to see why you are worried about what happens to food. It is either thrown away or eaten and then ends up as waste matter in a sewer. Neither option is particularly glorious to me. The bread and wine are just bread and wine. Symbolism is symbolism. The Bible has real content to it. It is the word of God. Bread is…bread.
I fail to understand why a person who does not believe it is symbolic cares what we do with our symbolic food.
On a crass note, why is pooping something out better than throwing it away?

Perhaps this followup question will make the relevance clear:

Why not burn or tear up your Bibles after service?

After all, it’s merely paper and ink; nothing more than symbolic at best of the word of God. The accidents are no different than any other book.

Do you see?

 

[sandusky]

Perhaps this followup question will make the relevance clear:

Why not burn or tear up your Bibles after service?

After all, it’s merely paper and ink; nothing more than symbolic at best of the word of God. The accidents are no different than any other book.

Do you see?

I see you still being silly.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide;4453764:

Of course we’re talking of it as the recreation of the Last Supper—in the Catholic Church, one may receive the Eucharist under the one kind if the other is impossible for you.

Beyond your example, Fundamentalists use grape juice contra Scripture simply because Fundamentalism came of age during the temperance movement.

Perhaps this followup question will make the relevance clear:

Why not burn or tear up your Bibles after service?

After all, it’s merely paper and ink; nothing more than symbolic at best of the word of God. The accidents are no different than any other book.

Do you see?

I could care less what other so called fundamentalists do. I do not got to their church and they do not go to mine. It is a sit down, albeit short meal. Quite different than Mass. Just clarifying, not attacking your view.
You do not seem to what to address what I am saying. We do not tear up Bibles because it has use. It has meaning. Bread for us does not have a lick of meaning. It is symbolic. So once again, why is pooping out the symbol better than throwing it away because I only see two options here.
We could hire someone with a very large appetite, in fact I can think of him, we could pay him to finish the meal for people. That somehow is better? You do not get symbolism. The bread and juice are not what is important to us. Whether you agree or not, you really seem to have a hard time understanding the other side. I understand why your side spends so much time wiping the cup and so forth because he think it is something. We do not.

 

[Rightlydivide]

A Bible can remain. It does not go stale.
A cross can remain.
What are you going to do with leftover bread? We do not believe the “accidents” change into something it is not. So whats it going to be frig, trash, or sewer?

 

[Teflon93]

A Bible can remain. It does not go stale.
A cross can remain.
What are you going to do with leftover bread? We do not believe the “accidents” change into something it is not. So whats it going to be frig, trash, or sewer?

The Eucharist does not go stale.

It also does not get tossed in the trash—it is the Body and Blood of our Lord!

As has been noted, since the earliest times it has been defended to the death.

What would you do if someone tore your Bible up in front of you?

It is only a book—would you simply get another?

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon93;4454979:

I could care less what other so called fundamentalists do. I do not got to their church and they do not go to mine. It is a sit down, albeit short meal. Quite different than Mass. Just clarifying, not attacking your view.
You do not seem to what to address what I am saying. We do not tear up Bibles because it has use. It has meaning. Bread for us does not have a lick of meaning. It is symbolic. So once again, why is pooping out the symbol better than throwing it away because I only see two options here.
We could hire someone with a very large appetite, in fact I can think of him, we could pay him to finish the meal for people. That somehow is better? You do not get symbolism. The bread and juice are not what is important to us. Whether you agree or not, you really seem to have a hard time understanding the other side. I understand why your side spends so much time wiping the cup and so forth because he think it is something. We do not.

What meaning can a Bible have?

It is simply ink on paper, is it not?

If presented with a Bible written in Korean, would you know what it was?

 

[Rightlydivide]

The Eucharist does not go stale.

It also does not get tossed in the trash—it is the Body and Blood of our Lord!

As has been noted, since the earliest times it has been defended to the death.

What would you do if someone tore your Bible up in front of you?

It is only a book—would you simply get another?

I am not talking about your Eucharist. I am talking about my Lords Supper.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide;4455455:

What meaning can a Bible have?

It is simply ink on paper, is it not?

If presented with a Bible written in Korean, would you know what it was?

A Bible can sit on a shelf for a hundred years, bread, not so much. Why do you care about symbolic bread?

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon93;4455514:

A Bible can sit on a shelf for a hundred years, bread, not so much. Why do you care about symbolic bread?

Why do you care about a symbolic book?

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide;4455525:

Why do you care about a symbolic book?

Let us try it this way. Do you believe that the Protestant bread is anything but bread? This is the first Catholic I have ever encountered who cares what happens to symbolic bread. What would you like us to do with it?

 

[Teflon93]

Since RightlyDivide isn’t much interested in following this line of argument, I’ll lay out the correction for the lurkers.

The relationship of accidents to the thing itself is just like the relationship of a physical book containing Sacred Scripture to Sacred Scripture itself.

Once a Bible is printed, it becomes more than ink on paper. It contains the revelation of Creator to created.

We treat it very differently than a Stephen King hardback for this reason, although there is no book in the world more numerous than the Holy Bible and therefore no danger that losing or destroying one would cause the loss of Scripture to Man.

The Body of Christ is present within the physical form of the Eucharist in this same fashion. And as we treat a book as a Bible when printed with Scripture, so we treat the host very differently once it has been consecrated.

If Protestants truly believed the bread to be the symbolic Body of Christ, not even the actual but merely the symbolic, they would not toss it in the trash as they do, anymore than they would toss a Bible in the garbage.

To many of them it is nothing more than bread.

Just ask RightlyDivide.

But this is what Protestantism is—it is taking something true and sacred and subtracting from it until it is first merely symbolic and then drained of all meaning. It is why the various Protestant communities simply pick the bones of the Church for their liturgy and sacraments.

Now this is not to say that Protestants neither seek holiness nor that they do not possess some of the truths of Christianity. They do. This is why the Church honors the baptism of Protestant converts such as myself, so long as we were baptised in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But as St Paul noted, there is something essential in approaching that Eucharist worthily, less we eat and drink our damnation.

Watering it down simply won’t do.

 

[Teflon93]

Teflon93;4455537:

Let us try it this way. Do you believe that the Protestant bread is anything but bread? This is the first Catholic I have ever encountered who cares what happens to symbolic bread. What would you like us to do with it?

It is not consecrated, Protestant ministers not possessing valid Holy Orders. It is bread.

But the reason my wife and I had to leave a “dedication ceremony” at our friend’s Pentecostal Church of God service when they made to hand out the bread and grape juice—which the pastor actually referred to as the Eucharist, believe it or not----is that it was a mockery of Communion. Unintentional, surely, but a mockery all the same.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Okay so I guess it is my turn to give my speech.
I respect your views that you believe the bread at your Eucharist is the actual blood and body and thus you would treat it a certain way.
What Teflon cannot answer is why a symbol is better off in the sewer than the trash? We do not believe the accidents of our bread changes.
It is nothing more than bread to us. His view is different.
I am sorry the act of chunking symbolic bread causes Catholics so much consternation. I hope Teflon is the exception.

 

[NotWorthy]

Whether you agree or not, you really seem to have a hard time understanding the other side. I understand why your side spends so much time wiping the cup and so forth because he think it is something. We do not.

That is the most accurate statement made on this thread. And it makes sense because it is inconceivable for us to think that it is just symbolic. To understand what you are talking about is foreign to me.