Understanding the body of Christ

[Ignatiusmeansfire]

How can we understand what recieving the body of Christ really entails?

“That the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” - John 1:14

Jesus is the Logos, the word made flesh. The cosmic enters our humanity. It is the supreme moment of visitation of the eternal with the temportal, the infinite with the finite, the unconditioned with the conditioned.

When we recieve the body of Christ in the Eucharist, what are we really recieving? Are we becoming a part of the Eternal?

Jesus flesh, or the body of Christ IS the logos, the word of God. Are we recieving the word of God? In what way? When we read scripture we talk about the word of God. Is the body of Christ really just an euphemism for the body of his teaching? Like we would speak about “The body of Science” in a specific field.

Or is the word we recieve through the Eucharist something much deeper? A part of the word as in God’s plan in the temporal aswell as the eternal?

What are your thought on the matter?

Best regards.

 

[fhansen]

Man was absolutely made for communion with God. He’s lost, dead, sick, existing in an unjust and disordered state without that relationship. “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

But our “togetherness” with Him is only partial in this life (1Cor 13:12) and somewhat changeable or transitory, in need of regular maintenance, vigilance, examining, nurturing. And so with the sacrament of the Eucharist we acknowledge and experience the need for the free gift of God to ourselves. He’s to remain in us (John 15:5) and so we partake of Him and the spiritual nourishment that His presence affords. And yet in this life we also regularly experience the temptations of this world that attempt to draw us away from Him, and we sometimes succumb.

So before reception we’re to examine our consciences, to see if we’re worthy (1 Cor 11:27-29). And if we’re not, because grave sin has already sort of excommunicated us from Him spiritually, we’re to refrain from communing with Him physically via the Eucharist. We acknowledge our death, the wages of sin. And yet God is ever forgiving so we have the sacrament of reconciliation or Confession where we can experience forgiveness and restored relationship.

With baptism these sacraments provide a means for the simplest to the most educated and sophisticated to know and experience or live out Gods will in most basic ways, to enter relationship with Him and grow in it and the holiness and love that fellowship with Him provides as we also struggle against the sin that so often tries to ensnare and enslave us, and separate us from Him again.

 

[Dovekin]

Humbly we pray that, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit.
Eucharistic Prayer 2

When we receive thr Body of Christ, we receive he body and blood, the soul and divinity. These persist in us by the power of the Spirit of Christ, which transforms us into the Body of Christ.

Our understanding and appreciation of the Word of God, particularly through the Scripture, is secondary to the immediate presence of Christ living in our hearts. The Word that creates the world is given for us in the Eucharist, and lives with us.

 

[Beryllos]

Jesus flesh, or the body of Christ IS the logos, the word of God. Are we recieving the word of God? In what way?

You can’t separate the word of God from the acts and the realities. It’s not just that God’s word teaches. Nor is it merely the case that God’s word commands. God’s word is truth. It is reality. God’s word is what is.

A few examples:

• When Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Rise, pick up your mat, and go home,” the man rose, picked up his mat, and went home."
• Jesus rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm.
• Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven,” and they are forgiven.
• Jesus says, “This is my Body” and “my Blood,” and it is quite simply Jesus.

We can take John 1:1 literally. The Word is God.

 

[Vico]

entails

One justified, maintains human nature but partakes of the divine nature and of eternal life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor , the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an “adopted son” he can henceforth call God “Father,” in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.