M
mercygate
Guest
Neither do Catholics.
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Eden
Guest
I don’t understand why Protestant answers are so often grounded in the earthly/mundane in reponse to that which is mystical and sublime. Surely Protestants have a “mystery of faith”? Catholics do not fully understand the great mystery of the Eucharist but then, my mind is human and has limited capabilities. This is where faith must come in. Not everything that God the Father has designed for us can be understood in mundane terms such as a “Eucharist dissolving in the stomach”.
C
Catholics4Life
Guest
1 Corinthians Chapter 2:
1 When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, 4 and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. 6 Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. 7 Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, 8 and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” 10 this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. 11 Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms. 14 Now the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually. 15 The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
We cannot fully understand in human terms all of the mysteries of God.
1 When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, 4 and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. 6 Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. 7 Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, 8 and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” 10 this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. 11 Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms. 14 Now the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually. 15 The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
We cannot fully understand in human terms all of the mysteries of God.
R
Richard_Hurtz
Guest
If I may ask a question; if the ‘accidents’ of the bread are all that is left after the consecration of the Eucharist (replaced by the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ), where has the substance of the bread itself gone?
Thanks
M
mercygate
Guest
GREAT Question! It is transformed into the Body of Christ.
TRANS-SUBSTANTI-ated
Took around a thousand years for the Church to figure that out. The Church always believed in the Real Presence, but had no need to lock in the “how” until controversies in the 9th & 10th Centuries provoked a clear definition in 1215.
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Richard_Hurtz
Guest
I thought that the accidents of both the bread and wine each contained the whole “body, blood, soul, and divinity” of Christ.
Are you saying that the bread is the body (only - not blood too) of Christ and that the wine is the blood (only - not body as well)?
Thanks,
Dick
M
mercygate
Guest
No. You are correct. Sorry. I did not mean to confuse.
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Pete2
Guest
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Pete2
Guest
I don’t know the answer, but I think it has something to do with the sola scriptura approach. Because Protestants are on their own when it comes to what they believe, rather than being guided by tradition and the Church, they have to rely on their own reason and intellect. Human reason and intellect are pretty dry and mundane.
Pete
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Richard_Hurtz
Guest
That’s ok. I’m trying to understand this.
But something that I still have a question about is Matthew 26:26-28 - “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. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Jesus seems to be consecrating the bread as His body and the wine as His blood separately - as Body alone and as Blood alone.
Is there a teaching or interpretation that explains this? It seems at odds with what I’ve heard about each of the elements containing all of Christ.
Thanks for your help.
Dick
J
JimG
Guest
Don’t take my word as certain on this, but if I recall correctly from my reading, Catholic teaching really is that, as Jesus states in the words of institution, the bread is transformed into his body and the wine into his blood.
But, in the Eucharist, we receive the living Christ, not a dead Christ. Consequently, where is body his, so also is his blood, as well as his soul and divinity. Where his blood is, so also is his body, soul, and divinity. This presence of the entire Christ in either species is known as a presence by concomitance.
Consequently, the Church has always believed that in receiving under either species, we receive the whole and living Christ.
It is also sometimes misunderstood that Christ “takes on” the appearances of bread and wine. He doesn’t. The substance of the bread (and wine) is gone. The appearances remain, but they do not inhere in any substance–not even in the body of Christ, who is present in his totality hidden beneath those appearances.
M
mercygate
Guest
On another thread in a dialogue with a fairly knowledgeable Protestant about the Real Presence, I used the term “mystical theology,” and this was the response:
To a Catholic, of course, this begs the question since we accept as “literal” and “real” scriptural passages which ‘biblicists’ reject as metaphorical. I find the ‘biblicist’ view somwhat skeptical and mistrustful. It is as if to say, “If I can’t understand this, then it must not be true.” Putting it in a better light, perhaps they might argue that Scripture is not given to obscure the light but to bring the light, therefore anything in it that cannot be readily understood from the surface must not be important to our understanding of God.
F
Fiat
Guest
Dear Mercygate:
I agree with your thoughts! My experience as a protestant was that if some theological point could not be explained or understood, it was simply not discussed until eventually everyone forgot about it. But as G.K. Chesterton said, “The mysteries of God are more satisfying than the solutions of Man.”
Fiat
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Eden
Guest
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Erich
Guest
O.S. Luke:
Also 1 Cor. 11:23-26, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”
What would be an appropriate response?
Lutherans believe that the bread and wine remain bread and wine and simultaneously are the body and blood of Christ. I know that this is the position which was held by Berengarius and a few others in the 9th and 10th centuries (and is one of the reasons for the formal promulgation of the dogma of Transubstantiation in 1215)… but Lutherans back up their belief with examples like, God was present in a burning bush not consumed by the fire when He spoke to Moses, Christ entered the room where the apostles were hiding in spite of the locked doors (i.e. for a moment, the doors and Christ shared the same space), etc.
Also 1 Cor. 11:23-26, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”
What would be an appropriate response?
E
Eden
Guest
One response would be to look at John:
“I am the bread of life. 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 it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
“I am the bread of life. 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 it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
- John 6:48-58 (NRSV)
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Erich
Guest
Wow, you never hear about those kinds of exorcisms any more!
BTW, Lutherans would find fault with the first sentence of the above-referenced article… they did keep the form of the Mass, and they do believe in a real presence (though they don’t believe in transubstantiation).
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Eden
Guest
Luther’s service was not the same as the Mass which had been virtually unchanged since at least 155 A.D. when St. Justin Martyr recorded the specifics of the Mass.
Here is one source: traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Mass/Rites/Section-III.html
“So all the Protestant sects abandoned the old Mass and the other ritual functions, composing new services which have no continuity, no direct relation to any historic liturgy. However, it is hardly possible to compose an entirely new Christian service without borrowing anything. Moreover, in many cases the Reformers wished to make the breach with the past as little obvious as could be. So many of their new services contain fragments of old rites; they borrowed such elements as seemed to them harmless, composed and re-arranged and evolved in some cases services that contain parts of the old ones in a new order. On the whole it is surprising that they changed as much as they did. It would have been possible to arrange an imitation of the Roman Mass that would have been much more like it than anything they produced.
They soon collected fragments of all kinds of rites, Eastern, Roman, Mozarabic, etc., which with their new prayers they arranged into services that are hopeless liturgical tangles. This is specially true of the Anglican Prayer-books. In some cases, for instance, the placing of the Gloria after the Communion in Edward VI’s second Prayer-book, there seems to be no object except a love of change. The first Lutheran services kept most of the old order. The Calvinist arrangements had from the first no connexion with any earlier rite. The use of the vulgar tongue was a great principle with the Reformers. Luther and Zwingli at first compromised with Latin, but soon the old language disappeared in all Protestant services. Luther in 1523 published a tract, “Of the order of the service in the parish” (“Von ordenung gottis diensts [sic] ynn der gemeine” in Clemen, “Quellenbuch zur prakt. Theologie”, 1, 24-6), in which he insists on preaching, rejects all “unevangelical” parts of the Mass, such as the Offertory and idea of sacrifice, invocation of saints, and ceremonies, and denounces private Masses *(Winkelmessen), *Masses for the dead, and the idea of the priest as a mediator. Later in the same year he issued a “Formula missæ et communionis pro ecclesia Vittebergensi” (ibid., 26-34), in which he omits the preparatory prayers, Offertory, all the Canon to qui pridie, from *Unde et memores *to the Pater, the embolism of the Lord’s Prayer, fraction, *Ite missa est. *The Preface is shortened, the Sanctus is to be sung after the words of institution which are to be said aloud, and meanwhile the elevation may be made because of the weak who would be offended by its sudden omission (ibid., IV, 30). At the end he adds a new ceremony, a blessing from Num., vi, 24-6. Latin remained in this service.”
It is true that Luther did not fully deny the Real Presence. He did deny that the Eucharist became fully the body and blood of Christ and that no elements of the bread and wine remained. It would have been more accurate to say that Calvin denied the Real Presence. About the exorcism, I don’t believe it’s true that those kinds of exorcisms don’t occur anymore. This is not the of kind of thing that I enjoy investigating but I am sure that if you do a Google search, you’ll find examples from the 20th century of dramatic exorcisms. The only reason that I was aware of this particular exorcism is that someone else posted it in the Apologetics section several days ago.
Here is one source: traditionalcatholic.net/Tradition/Mass/Rites/Section-III.html
“So all the Protestant sects abandoned the old Mass and the other ritual functions, composing new services which have no continuity, no direct relation to any historic liturgy. However, it is hardly possible to compose an entirely new Christian service without borrowing anything. Moreover, in many cases the Reformers wished to make the breach with the past as little obvious as could be. So many of their new services contain fragments of old rites; they borrowed such elements as seemed to them harmless, composed and re-arranged and evolved in some cases services that contain parts of the old ones in a new order. On the whole it is surprising that they changed as much as they did. It would have been possible to arrange an imitation of the Roman Mass that would have been much more like it than anything they produced.
They soon collected fragments of all kinds of rites, Eastern, Roman, Mozarabic, etc., which with their new prayers they arranged into services that are hopeless liturgical tangles. This is specially true of the Anglican Prayer-books. In some cases, for instance, the placing of the Gloria after the Communion in Edward VI’s second Prayer-book, there seems to be no object except a love of change. The first Lutheran services kept most of the old order. The Calvinist arrangements had from the first no connexion with any earlier rite. The use of the vulgar tongue was a great principle with the Reformers. Luther and Zwingli at first compromised with Latin, but soon the old language disappeared in all Protestant services. Luther in 1523 published a tract, “Of the order of the service in the parish” (“Von ordenung gottis diensts [sic] ynn der gemeine” in Clemen, “Quellenbuch zur prakt. Theologie”, 1, 24-6), in which he insists on preaching, rejects all “unevangelical” parts of the Mass, such as the Offertory and idea of sacrifice, invocation of saints, and ceremonies, and denounces private Masses *(Winkelmessen), *Masses for the dead, and the idea of the priest as a mediator. Later in the same year he issued a “Formula missæ et communionis pro ecclesia Vittebergensi” (ibid., 26-34), in which he omits the preparatory prayers, Offertory, all the Canon to qui pridie, from *Unde et memores *to the Pater, the embolism of the Lord’s Prayer, fraction, *Ite missa est. *The Preface is shortened, the Sanctus is to be sung after the words of institution which are to be said aloud, and meanwhile the elevation may be made because of the weak who would be offended by its sudden omission (ibid., IV, 30). At the end he adds a new ceremony, a blessing from Num., vi, 24-6. Latin remained in this service.”
It is true that Luther did not fully deny the Real Presence. He did deny that the Eucharist became fully the body and blood of Christ and that no elements of the bread and wine remained. It would have been more accurate to say that Calvin denied the Real Presence. About the exorcism, I don’t believe it’s true that those kinds of exorcisms don’t occur anymore. This is not the of kind of thing that I enjoy investigating but I am sure that if you do a Google search, you’ll find examples from the 20th century of dramatic exorcisms. The only reason that I was aware of this particular exorcism is that someone else posted it in the Apologetics section several days ago.
O
O.S.Luke
Guest
As someone said above… the Eucharist is really present AND symbolic. Symbols point towards the reality that they represent. That doesn’t invalidate them nor minimalize them.
If you ever get stopped by the police for running a stop sign, try this: “Oh, that stop sign is just a symbol of the law.”
I bet you still get a ticket. In fact… I imagine you’ll INSURE getting a ticket.
Understanding transubstantiation correctly very nearly necessitates some teaching about Thomism, Rationalism, and Aristotelian philosophy. With those tools, the objections to T. are few.
O+
If you ever get stopped by the police for running a stop sign, try this: “Oh, that stop sign is just a symbol of the law.”
I bet you still get a ticket. In fact… I imagine you’ll INSURE getting a ticket.
Understanding transubstantiation correctly very nearly necessitates some teaching about Thomism, Rationalism, and Aristotelian philosophy. With those tools, the objections to T. are few.
O+
L
Louis_Mazar
Guest
I am a Catholic who believes like the Lutherans do about the Holy Eucharist.
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