Why cant lay people turn bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus

[ConfusedTim]

A friend of mine who is a protestant says that she belives that the eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus and that you dont need a priest to make it so. Any group of belivers will lead to the same result. Is this correct

 

[YourAverageJoe]

A friend of mine who is a protestant says that she belives that the eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus and that you dont need a priest to make it so. Any group of belivers will lead to the same result. Is this correct

Ask your friend, who was at the last supper? was it the thousands of lay people who He spoke and preached to? or was it His carefull selection of 12 individuals that were to later run his Church?

In Christ!

 

[Todd_Easton]

Writing about A.D. 107, St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the Smyrneans (chap. 8), said:
See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.

 

[peregrinus_sg]

Christ gave the power to change bread and wine into his Body and Blood only to the Apostles (when he instituted the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Holy Orders at the Last Supper, and told them, and not anyone else, to “do this in memory of me”), and through them to Bishops and Priests. Only the validly ordained Priest acts in the person of Christ, the Head, and can gather the people together and celebrate the Eucharist.

In fact, only Christ is the true Priest, who makes present his Sacrifice on Calvary and changes bread and wine into his Body and Blood. And indeed, Christ is truly present at every Eucharistic celebration through the Priest, and it is Christ who acts in and through the Priest to accomplish the paschal mystery at every Eucharist. The laity do not share in this ministry of acting in the person of Christ, and therefore cannot preside in the Eucharistic celebration.

The Eucharist is also the Sacrament of Unity of the Church, and at every Eucharistic celebration, the Church is assembled by and around Christ’s representative, the Priest; this gathering around the man sent by Jesus is also a sign of that unity. If any lay person can celebrate the Eucharist, anyone can do that in the privacy of his own house, and the unity of the Chuch would immediately be disintegrated.

 

[Eucharisted]

Jesus instituted the Eucharist, not His disciples. So only those who work in His Person may celebrate the Eucharist. Everyone else only participates.

 

[LilyM]

Writing about A.D. 107, St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the Smyrneans (chap. 8), said:
See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.

St Ignatius was a disciple of the Apostle John himself, mind, so if anybody knew the mind of the Apostles on this and other matters, Ignatius would have.