Why did He let them walk away?

[Traditional_Ang]

Stone regarding your #492:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=585855&postcount=492

You have mirepresented over 2,000 years of Church Teaching, including and especially the teaching of the Early Church Fathers who very clearly taught that the essential nature of the body and blood of Jesus Christ were present in every Eucharist celebrated by every validly ordained Priest and Bishop.

This was the teaching of the Early Church from day one as evinced by St Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians, the writings of Polycarp of Smyrna and by those of St. Clement of Rome. The teaching is this - The essential nature or ousia or substantia of the bread and the wine are replaced by that of Christ’s body and blood.

Evidence for this is provided by variuus Eucharistic miracles in the 8th through 12th century where hosts became Real Human Flesh and the Sacred Blood became Real (type AB neg) Blood.

The Church only SOLOMNLY DEFINED the Dectine of Transubstantiation which thoroughly reflected 1500 years of CONSISTANT Church teaching IN ALL PLACES TO ALL TIMES TO ALL MEN! (St. Augustine’s definition of Catholic Doctrine).

The Church was forced to do this by some of the “Reformers” who claimed that the Church had been wrong for all those 1500 years, in spite of Martin Luther’s objections (He believed in the Real Presence, and came up with the concept of “Consubstantiation” in order to compromize with other Protestant Reformers).

BTW, when the Book of Acts refers to the “Breaking of Bread”, It refers to the Eucharist, unless it says it’s refering to the Agape. That’s the way the Church has interpreted those passages for 1,900 years. And, The word “Mass” comes from a code word early Christians used to evade the Roman authirities. It comes from the word “Missa” as in “Ita Missa Est” - “Go, you are dismissed”

And, Why do you think St. Paul was talking about people getting ill because they were’nt “Discerning the body and Blood of the Lord” 1 Cor 11: 29-30?

And, why as a “Biblicist” are you interpreting the creation aa literal 5 day event (word for word physical truth) when you’saying that Jesus’ words are allegory when an answer (in Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy) is at hand in the concept of Ousia, substantia or essential nature?

And, Do you really think the Bible grew full grown out of the head of God, or do you think that God used an UNDIVIDED CHURCH to discern and whittle those books down? A Church that believed that they were eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ when they celebrated the Eucharist.

And, the bit about the “Flesh and bones” it’s a Hebraism for emphasizing SOLIDITY, that they weren’t dealing with a ghost, but a real live person, that the disciples would have understood much more quickly than the other.

Blessings and Peace, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Church Militant:

You never are a “threat”. And all this is is more of your opinion. I read the same sources you did and you wanna tell us that these sources don’t agree with all the rest of the writings of the ECF…when in fact they do… You’re the one that doesn’t agree. And who are you?

What’s wrong? Can’t handle the fact that you can’t cause the wholesale collapse of the Catholic Church with your posts? Couldn’t possibly be that there are far more of us that believe the Word of God and the truth of Jesus’ own words as opposed to the smelly new wind of doctrines that have blown all over the place since 1517, could it? I think so. You tell us that you discern the “doctrines of men”…that cracks me up because IMO that’s all your posts are.

You might mislead some poor cafeteria Catholic that doesn’t know his backside form a hole in the ground with all you misqoutes and such…but those of us that really know the faith and the truth will always be here to help them get it right.

Church Militant:

I didn’t have enough characters to write this to Stone, but when Jesus said to “Do this in memory of me”, He wasn’t telling us to do it as a MEMORIAL. He used a word that’s been translated by the Apostles as anamnesis which carries with it the idea of reliving something so intently (from start to finish, “Last Supper to Crucifixion”) that it’s as if we’re being taken back there in a TIME MACHINE and RELIVING and PARTICIPARTING in the original events!

The Early Church Fathers knew this better than I ever could because most of them were NATIVE GREEK SPEAKERS!

I don’t recall any of them disputing the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist! I think though that Stone has a problem with the basic philosophy that the ECF’s and and the Blblical writers all understood! (Esp. Paul who demonstrated thorough understanding of Platonism and Aristotelian philosphy and the terms they used)

And, These people weren’t VAGUE - They were very precise, if you understood what they were saying and what the words they were using actually meant. But, CM, to understand what they were saying, you have to understand basic Platonism or basic Aristotelian Philosphy. I don’t think that Stone does…And that might be part of he problem.

Blessings and Peace, Michael

 

[stargazer257]

This thread is sooooo long that I’m sure it has already been mentioned, however in keeping on topic…

Jesus let them walk away because: He was speaking literally. They would not have walked away/left him at this point if Jesus had assured them that He was only speaking symbolically. This is the ONLY time in the New Testament that any of Jesus’ disciples abandon Him because they find a doctrine of His too hard to accept.

Whenever Jesus is speaking symbolically and he is wrongly taken literally in the New Testament, He always is Quick to correct and explain (e.g., John 3:3-5, Matt 19:24-26, and even in John 6:32-35). Notice that when they are leaving in John 6:66, Jesus doesn’t say “Hey, wait up, you guys didn’t understand what I meant, I was only speaking SYMBOLICALLY.”

Sure it can be a hard teaching to accept (but can you accept that with God all things are possible?). It takes supernatural FAITH to accept the real presence; the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The natural man doesn’t have this faith, but the spiritual man does. I count myself among the spiritual.

SG257

 

[st_felicity]

Stone:

Actually I’ve studied Schaff’s eight volume History of the Christian Church.

Why would you do that? Isn’t Schaff “interpreting” and then you are interpreting his interpretation? And then applying that interpreted interpretation to your understanding of the Biblical texts? How is that different from Catholics listening to the early Church fathers and allowing their writings to shape their Catholic understanding of Scripture? I just pick Ignatius over Schaff.

 

[ncgolf]

Stone:

So you admit that it was not a doctrine taught for 1500 years before the Reformation. Actually, the reason it so long to “solidify” is because of the constant opposition to the doctrine when presented

The number of years is up to debate and is really unimportant, but something as complex and as supernatural as ordinary wine and bread turning into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is beyond normal human comprehension. The doctrine is merely a written, thoughtful, discerned understanding of what is taking place. The faithful who were partaking of the Sacrament at the time did not need it most likely the doctrine came to address the academia, people who needed more proof than was written by John and the other Gospel writers. The Holy Spirit was with the ECF’s in trying to put the supernatural into human, written word.

Stone:

He came into this world via the virgin birth to take on humanity. A true Kinsman Redeemer. No human body can be something it is not, nor can it be somewhere other than where it is. In other words, no true human body can be omnipresent.

No merely human body like you and me can be omnipresent but Jesus was both fully human and fully divine at the same time. All the properties of humaness were present as well as all properties and powers of divinity.

Stone:

Spiritually, being Divine, He can be everywhere, but not in Body.

Well for one, I do not want to tell God what is or is not possible. Go ahead be my guest.

Stone:

Like you say, my source is God’s Word, and by it I must test even the doctrines of men.

You want it both ways. Against the men of science who say a 6 day creation cannot be you use Genesis and say … here read this, look at what God said. Those men of science can and do say … it is obvious that God is being figurative. But to those who believe that Christ is present in the Eucharist you say … no … you misread the meaning… even though the words are quoted. Come on now. You say trust me. Why would anyone believe someone so inconsistent. Your authority in deciphering God’s word is questioned. So someone or something must have the authority to teach … and that is The Catholic Church. Both events are supernatural … they cannot be fully explained by what we know … but we can see enough to believe … even if we do not fully understand. As someone has said before “it is not a leap into darkness but a leap into light.” I believe Transubstantiation is even more glorious and wonderful than what the doctrine says. If I could see from heaven’s perspective not my own limited, 5 sense limited body I believe it would be confirmed. Until we leave our earthly bodies we will not be able to fully comprehend what God has given us. I cannot quote the source but I remember reading somewhere where the angels are in awe of what the Eucharist is … that God would suffer us moving Him around time and space. I understand what the Eucharist is but I still do not grasp, in total, its immensity.

Stone:

Glorified bodies which will be like Christ’s. Is it possible the resurrected Body of Jesus has no blood?

Whatever a glorified body is I can only imagine. It is without a doubt something greater than I can imagine.

 

[Stone]

Stone regarding your #492:
BTW, when the Book of Acts refers to the “Breaking of Bread”, It refers to the Eucharist, unless it says it’s refering to the Agape. That’s the way the Church has interpreted those passages for 1,900 years. And, The word “Mass” comes from a code word early Christians used to evade the Roman authirities. It comes from the word “Missa” as in “Ita Missa Est” - “Go, you are dismissed”

Yes, the early practice was to dismiss those who were not yet baptized, and behind closed doors they would participate in Communion. Why doesn’t the Catholic church still do this?

And, why as a “Biblicist” are you interpreting the creation aa literal 5 day event (word for word physical truth) when you’saying that Jesus’ words are allegory when an answer (in Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy) is at hand in the concept of Ousia, substantia or essential nature?

You say 5 days, ncgolf says 7 days. Biblically I see six days in Genesis.

And, Do you really think the Bible grew full grown out of the head of God, or do you think that God used an UNDIVIDED CHURCH to discern and whittle those books down? A Church that believed that they were eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ when they celebrated the Eucharist.

I don’t believe the “Church” (corporately) had anything to do with writing the Scriptures. God chose and inspired individual men to write them and the moment they were penned they were the written Word of God. Men simply recognized these inspired writings.

And, the bit about the “Flesh and bones” it’s a Hebraism for emphasizing SOLIDITY, that they weren’t dealing with a ghost, but a real live person, that the disciples would have understood much more quickly than the other.

And yet “flesh and blood” is used everywhere else when describing a real live person, and they they understood that. Only in reference to His resurrected body does Jesus say “flesh and bones.”

All your other comments were covered in previous posts.

Blessings and Peace, Michael

You too.

 

[Stone]

st_felicity:

Why would you do that? Isn’t Schaff “interpreting” and then you are interpreting his interpretation? And then applying that interpreted interpretation to your understanding of the Biblical texts? How is that different from Catholics listening to the early Church fathers and allowing their writings to shape their Catholic understanding of Scripture? I just pick Ignatius over Schaff.

Schaff’s History of the Christian Church isn’t a commentary on the Bible. He’s an historian. Ever read it?

 

[Stone]

Traditional Ang:

Church Militant:

I didn’t have enough characters to write this to Stone, but when Jesus said to “Do this in memory of me”, He wasn’t telling us to do it as a MEMORIAL. He used a word that’s been translated by the Apostles as anamnesis which carries with it the idea of reliving something so intently (from start to finish, “Last Supper to Crucifixion”) that it’s as if we’re being taken back there in a TIME MACHINE and RELIVING and PARTICIPARTING in the original events!

It’s the noun form and that’s why it’s translated “in remembrance.” That’s what it means, to bring to one’s mind the events that took place. It doesn’t mean to bring an historical event into present time.

I don’t recall any of them disputing the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist! I think though that Stone has a problem with the basic philosophy that the ECF’s and and the Blblical writers all understood! (Esp. Paul who demonstrated thorough understanding of Platonism and Aristotelian philosphy and the terms they used)

I think you’re getting Paul mixed up with Thomas Aquinas.

 

[st_felicity]

Your Schaff source is so biased and filled with loaded rhetorical language it is laughable…He explains away some early Catholic belief with narrow quotes—rather than relying upon the body of information available, and those that he cannot explain away with actual quotes, he attributes a characterization that offers a quaint explanation for the clear belief in the Real Presence…Examples, you ask?..OK…

Cyril of Jerusalem … “Consider, therefore, the bread and the wine not as empty elements, for they are, according to the declaration of the Lord, the body and blood of Christ.”… He was not clear and consistent with himself**. His opinion probably was, that the eucharistic elements lost by consecration not so much their earthly substance, as their earthly purpose…**

Gregory of Nyssa, though in general a very faithful disciple of the spiritualistic Origen, is on this point entirely realistic. He calls the Eucharist a food of immortality, and speaks of a miraculous transformation of the nature of the elements into the glorified body of Christ by virtue of the priestly blessing.1004…

Chrysostom likewise, though only incidentally in his homilies, and not in the strain of sober logic and theology, but of glowing rhetoric, speaks several times of a union of our whole nature with the body of Christ in the Eucharist,…

Hilary,1006 Ambrose,1007 and Gaudentius († 410) come nearest to the later dogma of transubstantiation. The latter says: "The Creator and Lord of nature, who produces bread from the earth, prepares out of bread his own body, makes of wine his own blood."1008…

And this is the kicker…
…it must be remembered there is a great difference between the half-poetic, enthusiastic, glowing language of devotion, in which the fathers, and especially the liturgies, speak of the eucharistic sacrifice, and the clear, calm, and cool language of logic and doctrinal definition…

---

So they didn’t really “mean” what they said…they were just excited and exaggerating!

 

[st_felicity]

And another…
…But it is striking that even Athanasius, “the father of orthodoxy,” recognized only a spiritual participation… and incidentally evinces a doctrine of the Eucharist wholly foreign to the Catholic,…By the flesh and blood in the mysterious discourse of Jesus in the sixth chapter of John, which he refers to the Lord’s Supper, he understands not the earthly, human, but the heavenly, divine manifestation of Jesus, a spiritual nutriment coming down from above, which the Logos through the Holy Ghost communicates to believers (but not to a Judas, nor to the unbelieving).1011 With this view accords his extending of the participation of the eucharistic food to believers in heaven, and even to the angels, who, on account of their incorporeal nature, are incapable of a corporeal participation of Christ.1012

If that is so, then what is this?

**St. Athanasius, ca. A.D. 295-373 **

You shall see the Levites bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ… Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are. But after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine – and thus is His Body confected. (Sermon to the Newly Baptized, from Eutyches)

 

[st_felicity]

Stone:

Schaff’s History of the Christian Church isn’t a commentary on the Bible. He’s an historian. Ever read it?

Well…I can’t say cover to cover…X8…

But I don’t think I’m missing much…

 

[mercygate]

Stone:

Yes, the early practice was to dismiss those who were not yet baptized, and behind closed doors they would participate in Communion. Why doesn’t the Catholic church still do this?

It does. Catechumens* are* dismissed before the recitation of the Creed and retire to a place to receive further teaching. (Strangers, visitors and guests are not dismissed.) That is not the dismissal from which the nickname “Mass” is derived. “Mass” is derived from the final dismissal.

 

[Church_Militant]

Traditional Ang:

Church Militant:

I didn’t have enough characters to write this to Stone, but when Jesus said to “Do this in memory of me”, He wasn’t telling us to do it as a MEMORIAL. He used a word that’s been translated by the Apostles as anamnesis which carries with it the idea of reliving something so intently (from start to finish, “Last Supper to Crucifixion”) that it’s as if we’re being taken back there in a TIME MACHINE and RELIVING and PARTICIPARTING in the original events!

The Early Church Fathers knew this better than I ever could because most of them were NATIVE GREEK SPEAKERS!

I don’t recall any of them disputing the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist! I think though that Stone has a problem with the basic philosophy that the ECF’s and and the Blblical writers all understood! (Esp. Paul who demonstrated thorough understanding of Platonism and Aristotelian philosphy and the terms they used)

And, These people weren’t VAGUE - They were very precise, if you understood what they were saying and what the words they were using actually meant. But, CM, to understand what they were saying, you have to understand basic Platonism or basic Aristotelian Philosphy. I don’t think that Stone does…And that might be part of he problem.

Blessings and Peace, Michael

To Stone: Yeah! See! So there… I told ya so!

Okay enough humor

the early practice was to dismiss those who were not yet baptized, and behind closed doors they would participate in Communion. Why doesn’t the Catholic church still do this?

It does…as part of the scrutinies during Lent as the noobs get ready to enter the church…

Thanks TA, I knew this and that’s what I’ve sought to get accross. sigh He 'll reject “basic Platonism or basic Aristotelian Philosphy.” out of hand as nonchristian since he’ll rest assured that nothing they could say couild have any measure of truth or insight for a Christian and especially a “biblicist”.
Pax vobiscum,

 

[Stone]

ncgolf:
The number of years is up to debate and is really unimportant, but something as complex and as supernatural as ordinary wine and bread turning into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is beyond normal human comprehension. The doctrine is merely a written, thoughtful, discerned understanding of what is taking place.The idea that this transubstantiation transcends human understanding has been stated before. It still looks like bread, feels like bread, tastes like bread, nothing whatsoever indicates that a transformation has actually taken place. Right? The whole doctrine is based on Jesus saying, “This is My body.” He doesn’t say this becomes My body, nor does He ever teach those at the table that when they repeat His words, “This is My body” that the bread miraculously and instantly transforms. Nor does He say to them that He gives them such power. So there really had to be come kind of divine revelation explaining this supernatural transformation either by Holy Spirit inspired writings or some kind of Apostolic teaching, yet only silence prevails. Only to be defined 1200 years later, but not by someone who claimed he had special revelation from God.

The Holy Spirit was with the ECF’s in trying to put the supernatural into human, written word.

What are you saying here? That the early writings of these men are Divinely inspired?

No merely human body like you and me can be omnipresent but Jesus was both fully human and fully divine at the same time. All the properties of humaness were present as well as all properties and powers of divinity.

But this is not a true definition of the hypostatic union. What you state above denies the teaching of the “communicatio idiomatum” which ascribes both the divine and human natures to the single Person of Jesus Christ. But what is not being stated is that the human nature of Christ takes on the divine, and the divine takes on the human. Hence, Jesus can be omnipresent in His divine nature, but not in His human nature (i.e., bodily). In Christ, the two natures are in union in one Person, but they are held distinct. He is fully man and fully God. But the attributes of the divine and the attributes of the human are not transferred to one another – the divine does not become localized, and the human does not become infinite. If that was the case both the divine and the human would be violated, and Jesus would have not taken on true humanity, and by definition He would not be a true man, not a true “Kinsman Redeemer.”

 

[Stone]

And this is the kicker…
…it must be remembered there is a great difference between the half-poetic, enthusiastic, glowing language of devotion, in which the fathers, and especially the liturgies, speak of the eucharistic sacrifice, and the clear, calm, and cool language of logic and doctrinal definition…

So they didn’t really “mean” what they said…they were just excited and exaggerating!

Actually, what he states is VERY GOOD, indeed. What he’s saying is in those writing there cannot be found didactic teachings on the subject. That’s why I keep saying you READ INTO their writings the much later, time-developed doctrine. Naughty, naughty!!!

 

[st_felicity]

Stone:

Actually, what he states is VERY GOOD, indeed. What he’s saying is in those writing there cannot be found didactic teachings on the subject. That’s why I keep saying you READ INTO their writings the much later, time-developed doctrine. Naughty, naughty!!!

I must be really dim…would you explain (how ‘bout using Athanasius’ quote I cited above) how that statement is NOT instructive on the belief in the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist.

St. Athanasius, ca. A.D. 295-373

You shall see the Levites bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ…Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are. But after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine – and thus is His Body confected. (Sermon to the Newly Baptized, from Eutyches)

 

[mercygate]

Stone:

Actually, what he states is VERY GOOD, indeed. What he’s saying is in those writing there cannot be found didactic teachings on the subject. That’s why I keep saying you READ INTO their writings the much later, time-developed doctrine. Naughty, naughty!!!

One might reasonably conclude that if only devotional writings rather than “didactic” writings on the subject were present, then agreement would be presumed. Nevertheless, Irenaeus seemed pretty “didactic” to me as does Justin Martyr and the quote from Athanasius.

In the bread of life discourse “faith” as related to ‘eating my flesh.’ I would think a sola fide kinda guy, would appropriate his “faith” by having faith in the Bread of Life as the Word Himself proclaims it: to be eaten and drunk in faith. Fundamentalists often say that the “bread” in this passage is “faith.” I guess Catholics read it the other way around: It is by faith that we believe the Word and by faith we eat the Body of Christ.

 

[st_felicity]

PUPIL: How is the host to be view BEFORE the consecration?

TEACHER: So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine.

PUPIL: What happens AFTER consecration?

TEACHER: …after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ…

PUPIL: So there is a change that takes place? Is it some special kind of bread? It must be some special kind of bread. I don’t understand…

TEACHER: Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are.

PUPIL: Then what is it? How does the host change into the body and blood of Christ?

TEACHER: …after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine – and thus is His Body confected.

FELICITY: Maybe I don’t know how you are using the word “didactic”. I understand it to mean morally instructive (with kind-of a repetitive nature). Seems to me this fits the bill…

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Stone:

I understand that you believe what you believe, but what I told you is what multiple GREEK SCHOLARS have told me, which is that the word that the Gospel writers used and the the Apostle St. Paul used doesn’t even begin to be translated by “In remeberence of”.

Stone:

It’s the noun form and that’s why it’s translated “in remembrance.” That’s what it means, to bring to one’s mind the events that took place. It doesn’t mean to bring an historical event into present time.

It is interesting that your last sentence mentions the concept of making the historical event present to us today, because that is precisely how a couple of the scholars put it.

Even those who didn’t didn’t use that precise language talked about remembering the sights, smells and sounds of the event, almost as if experiencing it anew.

That’s hardly conveyed by “rememberence”.

Regarding St. Paul’s familiarity with Greek and Hellenistic philosphy - he used a term that’s transliterated as Energeia which only shows up in Greek philosophy (It’s in Aristotle).

newadvent.org/cathen/05013a.htm

orlapubs.com/AR/R182.html (EO Source)

strikingdistance.com/sd9701/c3ijan97/sarkis/sark1.html

Stone:

I think you’re getting Paul mixed up with Thomas Aquinas.

It was a long time ago that I read Aquinas, but I know the difference betweeen the 2 writers. St. Thomas is a lot more systematic (and boring) because he had a lot more time, and that was his main job; whereas, St. Paul’s was planting, building, growing and maintaining Churches.

But, if you pull out your Nestle Greek NT, you’ll see that only one writer uses the word Energeia, and that writer is St. Paul.

What I’m saying is that part of your difficulty may be in understanding the concept of Substance or Essence. It’s how God can be in all places at all times, and how Jesus can be sitting at the Right-hand of the Father while being present when 2 or 3 oare gaqthered together in His name and changing the UNDERLYING SUBSTANCE of the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, all at the same time.

As a friend of mine who’s now in the hospital with severe pneumonia puts it, Once you accept and believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead, the rest is actually pretty easy.

Stone, just try to do what St. Thomas did, and ask Our Lord to help with your unbelief. I mean, it’s there in the undeniable plain meaning of the Greek of the Scriptures and of the guys whom God used to write, discern and preserve those Scriptures for us.

You do believe in the Holy Trinity don’t you? Where do you think that came from?

Blessings and Peace, Michael

 

[Traditional_Ang]

st_felicity:

PUPIL: How is the host to be view BEFORE the consecration?

TEACHER: So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine.

PUPIL: What happens AFTER consecration?

TEACHER: …after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ…

PUPIL: So there is a change that takes place? Is it some special kind of bread? It must be some special kind of bread. I don’t understand…

TEACHER: Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are.

PUPIL: Then what is it? How does the host change into the body and blood of Christ?

TEACHER: …after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine – and thus is His Body confected.

FELICITY: Maybe I don’t know how you are using the word “didactic”. I understand it to mean morally instructive (with kind-of a repetitive nature). Seems to me this fits the bill…

Felicity:

Is this from the Didache?

Sure looks like it!

STONE, FYI, THE DIDACHE was a 2nd Century Instructional Manual for everthing from training new Christians (Catechumens) who were preparing for Baptiam and Confirmation and for their who were to be their sponsors or (in the case of infants and children) their god-parents, all the way up to those who were training for the Sacred Priesthood.

You don’t get more didactic than that in the Early Church.

Blessings and Peace, Michael