Transubstantiation

[OneAugustKnight]

I just told a friend from a Baptist background what Catholics believe about the Blessed Sacrament during a phone call. There was dead silence on the other end. I hope I didn’t do something wrong. I think it was the first time anyone had ever told her about the Catholic understanding. Anyone else have experience with this? What is going through her mind right now?

 

[AmataVeritas]

I’ve had that experience in sharing with Protestant Christians. As for what she’s thinking, it’s hard to say - most Protestants I know (including myself when I was still Protestant), communion is strictly symbolic. It blows the mind to consider anything close to what is taught and believed by the Catholic Church. Don’t worry that you did or said anything wrong.

Sometimes it helps to include Scripture references in the discussion, particularly John 6. When I was a Protestant, I thought I knew and understood Scripture so well, but that was one passage that the Holy Spirit used and when I looked at it during my studies of Church doctrine, it was like I was reading it for the first time. If you didn’t have a chance to mention it before, don’t worry - it’s likely your friend will bring up the topic again and you can expound on the reasons/basis the Church holds to transubstantiation.

But remember, ultimately it requires the gift of faith to believe. Since I entered the Church, my family has discussed and debated this (and other) issues of Church doctrine and they still do not believe. But there is always hope and God works in His own time. Sometimes we plant seeds, sometimes we help with the harvest. I’ll be praying for you and your friend!

 

[OneAugustKnight]

John 6 is actually what started the discussion. I said that the only problem I had with the children’s program at her protestant church was when the teacher told the children that when Jesus said “This is my body,” he didn’t really mean it was his body. She got absorbed in that and I asked her what she thought communion was and she said a representation. And somewhere in there she asked if Catholics thought Jesus was really in the bread. And I said no there is no more bread, just Jesus, not a chunk of his flesh but all of him.

It was hard for me because I didn’t want her to recoil from that, so I’m definitely praying about it.

 

[AmataVeritas]

It can definitely be hard to share - who in their right mind would believe it? But we see that was true even when Jesus told his disciples this - most of them left Him at that point muttering “such a hard saying, who can accept it?”

But again, you were faithful to share the truth! As you said, all you can do now is keep praying that the Holy Spirit will water the seeds that were planted.

 

[Rolltide]

It might be helpful to point out to her that this is actually by FAR the most common belief about Communion. It’s not just Catholics, but the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian Church of the East that believe that the bread and wine BECOME Jesus. These denominations total around 73% of all Christians when added together. If you included Protestant groups like the Lutherans and Anglicans which may (or may not) profess some type of belief in a “Real Presence”, then the number goes even higher.

 

[OneAugustKnight]

I’ll remember that if it comes up again. I didn’t realize the numbers are on my side. I’m also trying to help her understand what Sacraments are, because she doesn’t understand the word “sacrament.”

I want to ask some of my other Protestant friends what they believe regarding Communion tomorrow, but I was surprised that I was so nervous about sharing what I believe. I am confident about my faith, but I thought I fumbled my delivery a bit. I want them to believe also, I guess I worry too much about how they will take it.

 

[Rawb]

I am confident about my faith, but I thought I fumbled my delivery a bit. I want them to believe also, I guess I worry too much about how they will take it.

It’s normal. We know it sounds completely and totally bizarre. People ask me if I think I’m a cannibal when I tell them that. Sometimes they think it’s gross or idolatry. One guy asked me why Communion needed to be ‘complicated’ by such a belief (I almost didn’t know how to answer. That’s just the way it is! We didn’t make it up! I asked him why God needed to be ‘complicated’ by a doctrine like the Trinity). The point is people are going to look at us strangely when we tell them this. I find I’m comforted by the fact that I know it’s going to happen, and acting understanding about their hesitancy. Most protestants have never even heard such an idea, so it’s always a shock to them.

 

[mangy_dog]

I just told a friend from a Baptist background what Catholics believe about the Blessed Sacrament during a phone call. There was dead silence on the other end. I hope I didn’t do something wrong. I think it was the first time anyone had ever told her about the Catholic understanding. Anyone else have experience with this? What is going through her mind right now?

That long silence could be God’s grace at work.

A good passage to read is John 6:51-70. It really brings home the fact that the Eucharist is not a mere symbol - otherwise, why would Jesus let so many good disciple go on a mis-understanding?

Gospa Mir ora pro nobis

 

[manualman]

It’s ideal if they make an objection with the word ‘cannibalism’ in it. That was precisely (in latin of course) the word Romans of the first century used to disparage christians.

Of course, go on to clarify that it is the SUBSTANCE than is changed, not the physical properties (i.e. accidents) that are typically transformed at consecration.

Analogy seems to help. If you take a priceless painting like the Mona Lisa, burn some cigarette holes in it and draw a mustache and goatee with a sharpee, it remains the Mona Lisa in substance even though you’ve fundamentally altered the accidents. In the case of the Eucharist, the accidents don’t change, but the substance does.

 

[OneAugustKnight]

Still no response. I’m well armed with Scripture, logic, analogies, and statistics. I am going to rely on the Holy Spirit in this. Her husband is the spiritual head and guide in their household though, and I might have to convince him before she is convinced. He has better knowledge of scripture and doctrine than her, so I don’t know where this will go.

 

[Kingbear]

"The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which 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’ 1 Corinthians 11:23-25

Jesus did not say, “This is a representation of my body. This is Symbolical of my blood”.

If he had said that then people would have had no difficulty in accepting it. Well, they might have, but less than it being real flesh. We have to think here, would Jesus have said something that he diddnt mean?

On one hand Jesus also said that he talked in parables so that people would not understand lest they be saved (Matt. 13:10,11) But here surely he was talking literally.
When he spoke of mountains moving and camels through needles. Its obvious that he was talking allogerically. What actual camel could pass through something so small!

It is absoloutly clear however, therefore that when he stated with his own lips, that the bread was actually his own flesh as nothing limits Gods power.

 

[dnu]

“They (the heretics) even absent themselves from the Eucharist and the public prayers, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins”-- St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans,7, circa A.D. 110

Ask them why, if St. John was speaking figuratively or symbolically in John 6, his immediate disciple whom he personally taught (Ignatius of Antioch) says that only heretics deny the real presence of the Eucharist? Jesus taught St. John, St. John taught St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Ignatius of Antioch teaches us. Was St. Ignatius lying? Did he make it up?

Surely they don’t mean to imply that the second generation of Christians threw the teachings of the apostles to the dogs and started making stuff up as they went along. That would make your Protesting friends no better than the Mormons or JW’s.

 

[Adeodatus]

I know how to talk to Baptists… used to be one.

Go back to the Scripture. Jesus says it is His Body and His Blood. What is she going to do… criticize you for taking the Scripture literally?

Works great for the primacy of Peter, the Sacrament of Confession and other things. Unlike Fundamentalists, we Catholics take the Bible literally and believe it 100%.

 

[Stuart5]

I have thought deeply concerning this subject and have the following comments:

The first Jewish passover was the night before the Jews left Egypt and the night the death angel slew the firstborn. The Jews were to take an unblemished lamb and sacrificer it. They were also told to eat is flesh. Here is one key point — the lamb was whole, or in another words, its entrails were still in it yet they ate its flesh. This sacrificial lamb which was sacrificed on passover was an image of what was to come — that is of God’s whole and perfect sacrificial lamb — Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is interesting that throughout the old testament the Jews repeadiatly made the same type of sacrifices in the Temple the key thing is they had to do it over and over again and yes they ate its flesh out of obedience to what God had commanded.

Jesus also died on the passover day. He was the perfect sacrificial lamb. It is interesting that his bones were not broken unlike the two thieves on his side, because if they were He could not be the sacrificial lamb — that is God’s perfect sacrifice.

It is very significant that some of Jesus’s followers in John left when he said to them they must eat His flesh and drink his blood. Then he went to his Apostles and said: does this shock you ? He said that it was the truth and in Spirit. Therefore, we absolutely must accept the fact that when we receive communion in the Catholic Church we eat the perfect sacrificial lamb unlike the early Jews that ate the imperfect (had to be repeated) one. The continuity between this fact and the flesh of the lambs in the old testament cannot be overstated. This is the single most important reason I came back to the Catholic church after 40 years of being with the Protestants. I maintain that the Catholic interpretation of John is literal and correct. Add to that the many recorded Eucharistic miracles throughout the churches history. The Catholics got it right ! It was and is Him —

Stuart

 

[PJM]

=OneAugustKnight;6830614]I just told a friend from a Baptist background what Catholics believe about the Blessed Sacrament during a phone call. There was dead silence on the other end. I hope I didn’t do something wrong. I think it was the first time anyone had ever told her about the Catholic understanding. Anyone else have experience with this? What is going through her mind right now?

You did GOOD!
Follow up by proving these Bible supports:

Matt. 26:26-28
Mark 14: 22-24
Luke 22:19-21
John Chapter six but especially:47 to 55… v.54-55: “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” WORDS FROM JESUS HIMSELF!

Love and prayers,
Pat

Paul 1 Cor. 11:23-29 [not Paul could NOT make this statemnt about ordinary bread and wine.].

 

[OneAugustKnight]

She kind of brought it up again today. It sounds like she is on the fence. We were talking about prayer and she said that the interior condition of the heart is more important than the actual words. She is focussing on praying for forgiveness of her sins before she receives communion. She said that as a Baptist she always thought it was symbolic but now she realizes she is truly communing with God and her spirit needs to be pure before she receives. I don’t think she means that she believes the Host is Christ, and I will still have to tell her that the Sacraments aren’t valid in her service. The reverence and love of God is there, just maybe not the understanding. Today I just listened and empathized with her concern about the lack of reverence in receiving communion.

 

[CSUNGerrie]

She kind of brought it up again today. It sounds like she is on the fence. We were talking about prayer and she said that the interior condition of the heart is more important than the actual words. She is focussing on praying for forgiveness of her sins before she receives communion. She said that as a Baptist she always thought it was symbolic but now she realizes she is truly communing with God and her spirit needs to be pure before she receives. I don’t think she means that she believes the Host is Christ, and I will still have to tell her that the Sacraments aren’t valid in her service. The reverence and love of God is there, just maybe not the understanding. Today I just listened and empathized with her concern about the lack of reverence in receiving communion.

Wow, looks like the Holy Spirit is doing his thing. Peter Kreeft tells this story about having a conversation with a muslim man who didnt believe that Catholics REALLY believed everything about the sacrament. When he asked him… “why do you not think we really believe that.” He responded, “because if I believed what you believed, I would never get of my knee’s and leave the Church.”

When I talk to Protestants, I find that it is important to empathize with their cultural struggles. Many of them will say… I believe… but I cant leave my community. That is always the biggest boundary. Please keep us posted with what amounts from your conversation.

Have you gone through all the John 6 arguments about why Jesus couldnt have been speaking symbolic and what it meant when he said “the flesh is to no avail”?
Before I present these arguments, I usually ask them, “what if in 10 minutes, I present to you a really strong argument for the real presence. What would this mean to you?” I find that this gets them thinking before they hear the evidence.

 

[PJM]

=CSUNGerrie;6893843]She kind of brought it up again today. It sounds like she is on the fence. We were talking about prayer and she said that the interior condition of the heart is more important than the actual words. She is focussing on praying for forgiveness of her sins before she receives communion. She said that as a Baptist she always thought it was symbolic but now she realizes she is truly communing with God and her spirit needs to be pure before she receives. I don’t think she means that she believes the Host is Christ, and I will still have to tell her that the Sacraments aren’t valid in her service. The reverence and love of God is there, just maybe not the understanding. Today I just listened and empathized with her concern about the lack of reverence in receiving communion.

Wow, looks like the Holy Spirit is doing his thing. Peter Kreeft tells this story about having a conversation with a muslim man who didnt believe that Catholics REALLY believed everything about the sacrament. When he asked him… “why do you not think we really believe that.” He responded, “because if I believed what you believed, I would never get of my knee’s and leave the Church.”

When I talk to Protestants, I find that it is important to empathize with their cultural struggles. Many of them will say… I believe… but I cant leave my community. That is always the biggest boundary. Please keep us posted with what amounts from your conversation.

Have you gone through all the John 6 arguments about why Jesus couldnt have been speaking symbolic and what it meant when he said “the flesh is to no avail”?
Before I present these arguments, I usually ask them, “what if in 10 minutes, I present to you a really strong argument for the real presence. What would this mean to you?” I find that this gets them thinking before they hear the evidence.

Sounds like your on top of the situation. I have always found it helpful to ponit out that FIVE NT Authors give testimony to this truth.

Matt. 2626-28
Mark 14: 22-24
Luke 22:19-21
John 6 especially vrs. 47-55
Paul 1 Cor. 1:23-29

Love and prayers,
Pat