The Universal Church

[steve-b]

Jesus never said ANYONE could make the Eucharist happen.

SyCarl:

Jesus does not say who could do the Eucharist.

Who has the power to make the Eucharist happen? The one’s Jesus ordains

At the Last Supper
Lk 22:19
Jesus said to His apostles when He instituted the Eucharist
do this……. ποιεῖτε …Do what?

Definition:
to be the author of a thing, (to cause, bring about ,) point to an actual result,
(a) make, manufacture, construct, (b) do, act, cause , to appoint or ordain one , to change one thing into another,

The apostles have the power to do what Jesus ordained them to do.

The apostles ordained others to do what they could do, …preach teach ordain etc

SyCarl:

Jesus is not ordaining the apostles here. Ordain is one of many possible meanings of the Greek word 'do’ used here. Even if ‘ordain’ is the intended meaning here, it relates to the pronoun ‘this’, not the apostles. ‘This’ relates to the last supper but says nothing about anything that is actually done to the bread.

I’m truly stunned at your answer.

SyCarl:

The apostles did not ordain men to do what they could do. The article by Jimmy Atkin you link to recognizes this. For example apostles were given the power to perform miracles. Atkin agrees this was not passed on to others. It is convenient that everything purportedly passed on by apostolic involves things that cannot be objectively verified.

Taking yours last point, and looking back at everything you write, I’ll just say, The Catholic Churcvh was there from the beginning, I wasn’t there and neither were you.

To make the point clearer and for space,

Scroll to the particular topic you want to see a quick answer to, from scripture or an ECF
HERE

SyCarl:

Your statement assumds something that has not been proved, ie, that the Catholic Church is the same as the original church. While it is part of that original church, there is nothing that makes being part of the church exclusive to the present Catholic Church except its own say so.

So Jesus lied when He gave all His promises to His ONE and ONLY Church that HE established personally on Peter and those in perfect union with Peter?

SyCarl:

The triple legged stool of scripture, Tradition and the magisterium really means something is true simply the Catholic Church says so. This follows from the assertions that only the Catholic Church can correctly interpret scripture, that only it know what the correct Tradition is and the magisterium is the voice of the Catholic Church.

Who does scripture call the pillar and foundation / Bulwark of the truth? 1 Tim 3:15

YOU? No
ME? No

AND

Re:Traditions

2 Thes

 

[ziapueblo]

. . . their Eucharist is illicit.

Again, always confused by this.

I’ve always wondered where Roman Catholics get this idea. As a former Roman Catholic, now Orthodox, I never believed this, even when I was neck deep in RC apologetics and saw myself as an “amateur RC apologist.” In documents since VII I don’t see anything hinting that Orthodox Sacraments are “illicit,” unless I’m missing something, but again, I’m Orthodox, and the Church of Rome can say whatever she wishes.

The Orthodox Church does not need the permission of the Church of Rome, or the Pope for that matter, to participate in the Holy Mysteries. We Orthodox have our own authority to follow the will of God. This authority is the same as it is in the Church of Rome.

The Pope of Rome is an important link to this Apostolic authority as it is also true that the collegitive authority that resides in the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as the Oriental Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East is another important link to this Apostolic foundation.

Rome refers to the sacraments of the Orthodox not only as valid, but as building up the Church. How could the Eucharist build up the Church yet be “illicit”?

ZP

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

. . . their Eucharist is illicit.

Again, always confused by this.

Different scenarios described

From: canon law

AND

licit and illicit might not have been words in the vocabulary back in the 400’s but defect and error were there…

Augustine uses the example against Parmenian 2, 13, 28

SO

IOW, When a man is validly ordained, and becomes schismatic or a heretic, etc, the sacrament remains. However his new reality is a defect. What he does is still valid because of his ordination being valid, just as one is once for all baptized even though they completely go off the rails. One doesn’t get rebaptized when they regain their senses, just as a man isn’t re ordained when they come back to the Church.

However

While away, their actions are illicit.

As we know from scripture, schism/heresy etc is condemned activity. One who dies in that state won’t be going to heaven,

THAT’S NOT FROM ME BUT FROM PAUL

Division / dissension διχοστασίαι, That same Greek word is used in both the following passages Rm 16:17-21 & Gal 5:19-21

Why is that list of sins all grave (mortal) sins? Note the consequences? (Gal 5:21]

“I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

IOW 2 warnings is all Paul gave them. And what is the consequence if they don’t change?

HELL​

Also

Tit 3:10 “As for a man who is factious αἱρετικὸν hairetikos , after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is [perverted ἐξέστραπται (http://bibleapps.com/greek/1612.htm) and sinful; he is self-condemned αὐτοκατάκριτος .”

Again 2 warnings, and The consequences if they don’t change?

Hell​

I’ve always wondered where Roman Catholics get this idea. As a former Roman Catholic, now Orthodox,

[snip for space]

ziapueblo:

Rome refers to the sacraments of the Orthodox not only as valid, but as building up the Church. How could the Eucharist build up the Church yet be “illicit”?

ZP

All the Ecumenical speak considered,

Now you see where the teaching comes from

 

[lanman87]

So Jesus lied when He gave all His promises to His ONE and ONLY Church that HE established personally on Peter and those in perfect union with Peter?

This goes back to the original post in this topic. Is the One and Only church the Catholic church (all who follow the Bishop of Rome) or the catholic(universal) church which is made of all whom the Holy Spirit calls to faith, convicts of sin, empowers to serve, gifts spiritual gifts, and seals to the day of redemption.

Just to add, I would agree that the catholic(universal) church was their at the beginning. But the Catholic church, that is the Roman church, was not.

 

[Isaac14]

Again 2 warnings, and The consequences if they don’t change?

Hell​

After 2000+ posts, I think I can risk going a bit off-topic to ask this question: If this is indeed the consequence, why do your Catholic bishops engage in “Ecumenical speak” with the Orthodox (who per your properly referenced references risk hell simply by being Orthodox), rather than steadfastly calling them to repentance through return to Rome?

 

[ziapueblo]

All the Ecumenical speak considered,

Ecumenical speak lol! So, some RC are just as anti-ecumenical as some Orthodox. Thanks for the confirmation.

All you posted is all good and well if your RC, but the Orthodox Church is not outside the Church.

I know what you will say as for years and years I have memorized Catholic Answers tracts on the Pope, so need to cut and paste or re-post those tracts.

However, thank you for responding.

ZP

 

[mcq72]

He, They, We, worship the host (the Eucharist) NOT the container, but content, what the container holds.

Augustine worshipped the host thinking it was literal incarnate Christ?

Any reference?

AND You’re

trying to impose on a faithful Catholic bishop, who is saint and doctor of the Church, heretical ideas he wouldn’t accept

Perhaps, but for sure I question your imposition on the Catholic bishop.

So Jesus lied when He gave all His promises to His ONE and ONLY Church that HE established personally on Peter and those in perfect union with Peter?

Pure deflection of any, any criticism of teaching/ doctrine.

I am thinking of Paul saying let men be liars before imputing God, the only good one between us. But you are right to say we can lie, and maybe that I say you lie, but for you to say I would be calling God a liar by saying you err is weirdly wrong and evasive.

So for example if one were to say Orthodox have valid and licit Eucharist, you would say that makes God a liar…

.

 

[Nicene]

Hi Steve, those are great citations. However you will note in all of them we do not declare Jesus as a spirit. They do declare that Jesus is incarnate. These are important distinctions. In the creed we declare:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;

Consubstatial. What does that mean? [202] Jesus himself affirms that God is “the one Lord” whom you must love “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength”.6 At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is “the Lord”.7 To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctive of Christian faith. This is not contrary to belief in the One God. Nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as “Lord and giver of life” introduce any division into the One God:

We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.8

One essence, substance, nature. This is also found in the Roman Catechism of Trent 1.2.2 This is the trinitarian belief. Read also sections 202-221 God is truth. God is love. What wannano is describing as their belief is modalism. i.e. when he says Jesus is God, God is spirit, ergo Jesus is spirit. This is modalism, it is a 2nd and 3rd century heresy. As Hyppolytus wrote accusing Pope Callistus of teaching:

“that the Logos himself is the son, and that himself is Father and that though denominated by a different title, yet that in reality He (God) is one indivisible spirit. And maintains that the Father is not one person and the Son another but that they are one and the same.”

Modalism is diametrically opposed to Trinitarianism. You are one or the other, you can’t be both. This was also tackled by Tertulliamn. Jesus is incarnate, he is NOT a spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Jesus was and is Incarnate. The catechism never calls Jesus a spirit, nor conflates Father and Son as in Modalism. Read carefully the ones you cited above as well as the sections cited above on who God is and the Trinitarian belief as well as the Creed.

Hope that helps. Evanglicals continually refer to a Jesus as a spirit, conflating Father and Son, and why I pointed it out. Claims of Trinitarianism cannot hold up while continually teaching and preaching Modalism.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[Margaret_Ann]

So Jesus lied when He gave all His promises to His ONE and ONLY Church that HE established personally on Peter and those in perfect union with Peter?

Pope Pius XII quoted St. Robert Bellarmine in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi:

1. Now since its Founder willed this social body of Christ to be visible, the cooperation of all its members must also be externally manifest through their profession of the same faith and their sharing the same sacred rites, through participation in the same Sacrifice, and the practical observance of the same laws. Above all, it is absolutely necessary that the Supreme Head, that is, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, be visible to the eyes of all, since it is He who gives effective direction to the work which all do in common in a mutually helpful way towards the attainment of the proposed end.

Source: http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-...ii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html

 

[lanman87]

Pope Pius XII quoted St. Robert Bellarmine in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi:

That’s interesting, but how do you explain Christ and the Holy Spirit calling people to faith, convicting them of sin, empowering them to serve, giving them spiritual gifts… who do not follow the Pope or the Roman Church? Or do you deny that the Holy Spirit is converting, working in, and using non-Catholics Christians?

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Please read Mystici Corporis Christi. It should help you.

 

[lanman87]

Please read Mystici Corporis Christi. It should help you.

Can you please just summarize?

 

[Margaret_Ann]

To be quite frank, I’m not really good at summarizing.

True story: When I first read Mystici Corporis Christi, it felt like Our Lord took the chains binding my soul and broke them in two with His Sacred Hands. I have only felt such freedom a few times in my life. That was one of the few times and it was marvelous.

Please read it. Thank you.

 

[Nicene]

Well transubstantiation is the dogmatic belief of the Catholic church. Not “the real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist, not that the elements become the body and blood of Christ, but that those elements literally become the body and blood of Christ and cease to be bread and wine as they are 100% the body and blood of Christ. If you are Catholic then that is the standard you must defend.

Actually it is “the real presence”

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council 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."206

1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.207

[1378] Worship of the Eucharist . In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession."208

If however you mean the redefinition of real presence by Evangelicals, then no. Just as mcq72 has redefined “type” (and actually got it backwards) Anamnesis/mneosynon, Askerah/Zikkaron among others.

cont.

 

[Nicene]

No, we addressed the context in which he wrote what he wrote. And that calling the Eucharistic elements the body and blood of Christ is common language among Christians. Even those who hold a Spiritual view, a symbolic view, or even a memorial view call the bread the body(flesh) of Christ and the cup the blood of Christ.

Ill address this to mcq72 as well since he made the same erroneous claim. There was the Cathoilic church and the various gnostics groups such as the docetics. However the dozens of gnostic groups held, as your church teaches, various beliefs on Christ. There were no other “communions” as mcq72 states. That is a fabrication. Nor as you and he claim the dominant view symbolic or as you prefer now in your other posts “figures”.

Protestant professor of history J.D.N. Kelley of Oxford writes:

“Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood” ( Early Christian Doctrines , 440).

and specifically on Ignatius he writes:

“Ignatius roundly declares that . . . [t]he bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup his blood. Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body

So how can Protestant professor of History be wrong and your rewriting of Ignatius be the true meaning? Honestly Ignatius is pretty plain, you have to go out of your way in unbelief to proclaim differently. Or have a cultish mentality.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[Nicene]

I say eat Him spiritually representative of His body, you say eat Him literally of His body yet it is invisible hidden in accidents of bread. Tis a fine line, but a line indeed, but does not warrant your claim that we deny the body, for you also deny a visible body to eat.

And yet Jesus doesn’t say nor imply eat him spiritually. you said the centurion etc ate him spiritually. Show me this quote in sacred scripture or I’m going to have to call a m an made philosophy. As well you do deny, you just said in that very sentence “representative” of his body. What exactly did the centurion “eat”?. There was no bread to “represent” his body. What exactly do you “Eat” “gnaw” “Chew” spiritually as you’ve said? How exactly does your spirit eat? Interesting questions no? However I expect the usual a cut and ignore of posting to avert answering.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[mcq72]

How exactly does your spirit eat

How is it that eating bread, even flesh, can nourish spirit? Is it like some pagan beliefs that if you eat flesh of others you receive some of their essence ( such as bravery, when eating the heart of a fallen brave warrior, even an enemy) ?

Are you denying the spirit can be fed?

Are you denying figurative speech when a teacher says ," chew on this", meaning " think about this"?

Are you denying the several times Augustine specifically says we can eat by believing words, even believing the Lord? He even says it is a spiritual gestation.

What did Jesus mean when He insisted flesh is flesh and spi
rit is spirit?

I understand you proposition that you do not divide spirit from the flesh, for we are both, as Christ became and now forever is. Yet i dont think you mean Christ now is only omnipresent thru Eucharist, for surely we encounter and receive Him also at regeneration, at water baptism as you say.

We eat spiritually when we apply our whole being in receiving Christ, even His Words, even His physical blessings believing they are from His providential hand.

Several excerpts from Augustine have been posted on this thread citing such spiritual eating ( not sure but one says leave your teeth and belly behind for such eating).

 

[mcq72]

So how can Protestant professor of History be wrong and your rewriting of Ignatius be the true meaning?

Ok, I will grant you and the professor to be not alone on such opinion of Ignatius. Do not deny that literal real presence seems to have been existent in some father writings. But like historian Schaff says, so was figurative only belief put forth in early church. For you to deny this is no different for me to deny real presence in some writers.

I can also point out that today CC goes a bit beyond what real presence may have been to earliest writers. Ask the professor if Ignatius understood “is” like a Roman Catholic postulates today or an Orthodox.

 

[mcq72]

What wannano is describing as their belief is modalism. i.e. when he says Jesus is God, God is spirit, ergo Jesus is spirit. This is modalism, Evanglicals continually refer to a Jesus as a spirit, conflating Father and Son, and why I pointed it out.

Very strange and disagree in your insistence that by saying Jesus is a Spirit ( also) He is not incarnate or distinct from the Father. That would be like me insisting you portray the Father as also having a body, for Christ has one, and they are both one aren’t they ? Nonsene you would rightly say.

How is Christ ever present everywhere? Is His flesh literally ever present beyond your Eucharist?

Jesus was and is Incarnate.

What was He before He was incarnate but Spirit?

We evangelicals do not deny the trinity . We do not deny the the possibility that the several " us’s" in Genesis, or the plural Elohim portray such a oneness in trinity.

We are not tripped up by the prince of peace also being called , " the everlasting Father".

Do you have a better way to describe the Christ we meet when we open up the door to let Him in to sup with us, as per Revelation verse ?

Instead of “His Spirit”, or a spiritual encounter, would you prefer we meet and sup with “the invisible Christ?” To me that could just as easily be misconstrued by Gnostics, which you or I are not.

 

[lanman87]

Actually it is “the real presence”

I should have said, “Not merely the Real Presence” as both Luther and Calvin also believe in the real presence, they just understood it in a different way. I believe Calvin’s understanding is most like the much of the early church, in particular Augustine. And transubstantiation was a later theory.

So how can Protestant professor of History be wrong and your rewriting of Ignatius be the true meaning?

Kelly is one voice among many. And many, if not most, Protestant historians disagree with him.

Phillip Schaff (who spent his life studying the history of the church) ascribes three different views on the Eucharist to the Ante-Nicene church. The Oriental view, which is closest to the modern Catholic view, the African View, which is closest to Calvin’s view, and the Alexandrian view which is more spiritualistic.

Schaff starts out saying “*The doctrine concerning the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, not coming into special discussion, remained indefinite and obscure. The ancient church made more account of the worthy participation of the ordinance than of the logical apprehension of it. She looked upon it as the holiest mystery of the Christian worship, and accordingly celebrated it with the deepest devotion, without inquiring into the mode of Christ’s presence, nor into the relation of the sensible signs to his flesh and blood. *It is unhistorical to carry any of the later theories back into this age; although it has been done frequently in the apologetic and polemic discussion of this subject.**”

On Ireaneus Schaff says Irenaeus says repeatedly, in combating the Gnostic Docetism,[ that bread and wine in the sacrament become, by the presence of the Word of God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the body and blood of Christ and that the receiving of there strengthens soul and body (the germ of the resurrection body) unto eternal life. Yet this would hardly warrant our ascribing either transubstantiation or consubstantiation to Irenaeus. For in another place he calls the bread and wine, after consecration, “antitypes,” implying the continued distinction of their substance from the body and blood of Christ. Schaff goes on to explain that antitypes to the Oriental fathers means a copy of the real thing that in in heaven (which I understand comes from Platonic thought that everything on earth is a copy of the perfect thing that is in heaven).

At any rate, most of the historians I’ve read agree with Schaff. That there was not a “catholic/universal” understanding of the Eucharist and the belief on how the “real presence” of Christ was in the Eucharist depended largely on where you lived and which of the three schools of thought were taught in your area.