Why eat to remember?

[geraldffff]

From the earliest writting of the Catholic Church one can see there was held a belief that Jesus was speaking of his true body and blood that was to be eaten by his disciples. Idioms and scriptures of other groups are not relevent in this thread, they are strawmen at best. Not an answer to the origional question. To speak of idiom and scripture as related to other belief systems is to avoid important investigation on a subject that is the difference between life and death. I pity thoese that do not see this with all my heart. Read The City of God and the confessions of Augustine, read the extant items he refers to. A lot of these can be found in New Advent. Open you mind and be set free from ignorance and vain argumentation. God bless you in the search for truth.

 

[Nevim]

From the earliest writting of the Catholic Church one can see there was held a belief that Jesus was speaking of his true body and blood that was to be eaten by his disciples. Idioms and scriptures of other groups are not relevent in this thread, they are strawmen at best.

If the Scriptures are a strawman why bother? Either it’s true or it isn’t if it isn’t then your religion is just man made.

geraldffff:

Not an answer to the origional question. To speak of idiom and scripture as related to other belief systems is to avoid important investigation on a subject that is the difference between life and death.

No Gerald to understand idioms–you ought to look up the meaning of the word, idioms, cuture of the day is all important in understanding what the Messiah was teaching.

geraldffff:

I pity thoese that do not see this with all my heart. Read The City of God and the confessions of Augustine, read the extant items he refers to. A lot of these can be found in New Advent. Open you mind and be set free from ignorance and vain argumentation. God bless you in the search for truth.

Sorry Gerald but Augustine never wrote a lick of Scripture. As far as the truth is concerned what is the truth ? Please explain.

 

[Nevim]

We don’t celebrate the Passover ritual, but the meaning of the Passover meal and the meaning of the eucharistic meal are related.

Hi Jennifer, being raised Catholic I have to disagree with you. Nothing about the Mass or communion is anything like the Passover seder.

{QUOTE=Jennifer123
Jesus is called the “Lamb” by his apostle John before Jesus’s death:

Yes John uses a metaphor what of it ? No disrespect meant here but surely Y’shua didn’t go “baa baa.”

Jennifer123:

Jesus institued the Eucharistic celebration at the Passover before his death. There are a couple of scripture passages that tell of this supper but I’ll quote from Luke 22:

15 And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this *Passover *with you before I suffer.
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (NIV)

I fail to know the problem undestand the verses here. Certainly Y’shua did not transubstationate Himself then and there. Second we understand Y’shua engaging a metaphor here:Metaphor; or Representation
A declaration that one Thing is (or represents ) another; or comparison by Representation.

We use a metaphor when we say of a picture “This is my father” or “This is my mother.”
While a simile says “All flesh is AS grass” (1 Pet I,24) the Metaphor carries the figure across at once and says All flesh IS grass.
The whole figure, in a metaphor, lies, in the verb substantive** “IS”** and not in either of the two nouns ; and it is a remarkable fact that, when a pronoun is used instead of one of the nouns ( as it is here), and the two nouns are of different genders , the pronoun is always made to agree in gender with that noun to which the meaning is carried across, and not with the noun from which it is carried and to which it properly belongs. This at once shows us that a figure is being employed; when the pronoun, which ought, by the laws of language, to agree in gender with its own noun which by Metaphor, represents it.
Here for example, the pronoun “this” (touto), is and is made to agree with “body” (soma),which is neuter and not with bread (artos) which is masculine.
This is ALWAYS the case with Metaphors.”
Figures of Speech Used in the Bible
Bullinger Baker

Now, we understand the Eucharistic celebration as the Jewish people understand the Passover, that we are commemorating this event as if we are there.

For Jews, it is to remember and participate in the Exodus at Passover as if you are there, for Catholics, it is to remember and participate in the Sacrifice at Calvary as if we are there.

Ah but we do that at passover each year as God has commanded us to do. There is no commandment to celebrate a Catholic “Mass”

 

[geraldffff]

**
Eating human flesh originated with the priests of Baal, as they imitated the priests of Jehovah God - when they ate of the sacrifices of their altars (bulls, goats, sheep - Numbers 18:8-11). The word priest in Hebrew - chaldee is the word kahan. A priest of Baal was a kahan Baal developing into the later translation Cahna Baal and is the established word in our language for a devourer of human flesh, hence “cannibal” (kahanbaal).

The priests of Baal ate of the human sacrifices of their altars where upon it was said they called their gods down to incorporate himself in this sacrifice. Nimrod was called Bol Kahn (Baal or sun priest) which evolved into Vulcan, the Roman/Greek god of the underworld (hell). In mythology, Vulcan devoured his sons as soon as they were born.**

Welcome to you. I hope you learn somthing at this site. God bless your mind and power of reason. You etiology of the word cannibal is wrong. This is what one would expect to come from Awake or Watchtower. If in fact you are a A Jehovah’s Witness’s you are disobeying their masters edicts when they “associate you mind with unbelivers” by reading anything an unbelievers in your religion writes. Good for you who are seeking truth. Read what you wrote! Think about it! Ask yourself this question? How could the words come to mean what you say they mean. Why is not the word for a person eating human flesh Canasunpriest rather than cannibal? Then look at this explaination and see if it dose not make more sense. Word Origins (I found it with a simple search)
Directory > Words > International Word Origins
cannibal
from Carib
This word originated in Cuba

Talk about misunderstandings. The terrible word cannibal is just a variation of the innocent name Carib, which we remember today in the name Caribbean. And when Columbus, exploring Cuba, heard the name Canib, he was thrilled. It was proof that he was near China, Columbus thought, because the natives were named after the Chinese ruler. “Caniba no es otra cosa sino la gente del Gran Can,” he declared, that is, the “Canibs are nothing other than the people of the Grand Khan.”

By the time that misconception was cleared up, another was in the making. These Caribs or Canibs, known to be warriors, were said to be eaters of human flesh: anthropophagi, to use the scientific term then current. And though later historians doubt the truth of that report, cannibal gradually became the everyday word in Spanish, and then in English, for anyone thought to eat humans. An English version of cannibal appears as early as 1553 in a translation from the Spanish. The generalization of a local name to a descriptive quality is similar to what happened centuries later in the United States when bunkum developed from Buncombe County, North Carolina, and piker from Pike County, Missouri. I am a Catholic I investigate and reason That is what the Church demands I do. How about you! What do your elders teach you to do?

 

[geraldffff]

If the Scriptures are a strawman why bother? Either it’s true or it isn’t if it isn’t then your religion is just man made.

No Gerald to understand idioms–you ought to look up the meaning of the word, idioms, cuture of the day is all important in understanding what the Messiah was teaching.

Sorry Gerald but Augustine never wrote a lick of Scripture. As far as the truth is concerned what is the truth ? Please explain.

Look up the meaning of strawman and you will see you used my words to create just another “strawman”. That is to say your misinterpeted what I wrote intentionally to make an invalid point. You say you were raised a Catholic. You may believe this is true. I am sorry but one could never discover this by what you write. I think it would be truer to say" I think I was raised Catholic" but of coarse you do not know that because you obviously do not understand the core Catholic belief and it appears you do not want to. It is like a man who says I wish to be loving to you and then proceeds to beat the person up. We who believe can only pray “forgive them Father for they know not what they do”. Is this also an idiom to you? Or do you understand the meaning. Type this prayer if you have a response to make. (Lord Jesus grant me understanding of what your meaning was when you said “eat the flesh of the son of man”.)

 

[petra]

I have a question which to which I haven’t found an answer which makes sense to me, and I have come here for help. As one who is not Christian I understand the importance and meaning of the Eucharist, but I do not understand the reason for consuming the body and blood of Jesus. I found a word to describe this - theophagy - (some may call it ‘cannibalism’) but am left with the question of “Why?” Why does the physical act of eating Jesus bring one closer to him? Why not just pray and have Jesus enter your heart that way?

Why eat? Because the spiritual comes to us through the physical. The ultimate example of this is the incarnation of God. The Son of God entered time and space and walked among us. The legacy of his teachings were passed to his apostles and safeguarded by a visible Church. Some of this legacy was recorded as Sacred Scripture. Scriptures are printed on paper from wood pulp and cotton. We read scripture with our eyes. Every sacrament has a physical component. Baptism…water, confirmation…laying on of hands, marriage…the consumation/act of marriage, reconcilation…the absolution of a priest, annointing of the sick…oil, and the Eurcharist…the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. As we love on another, we are the hands and feet of the Lord. The Lord loves people through people. The spiritual comes to us through the physical.

We are are not merely a spiritual being that happens to occupy a physical frame. Our body and soul are as much who we are as our spirit. We are body, soul, and spirit, and we are integrated in such a way that each aspect affects the others. Just as the tree can only benefit from the rain as the water saturates the ground and comes up from the roots, so do the graces of the Lord come to us from the physical realm.

Another reason this is so is because God’s creation is good, and He wants us to appreciate that fact. Some Christians have divorced the spiritual from the physical, believing that all that is physical is carnal and bad. This is a distortion of the truth. Creation itself is good, and God affirms this fact as He uses His physical creation (the pulp that produces paper on which scriptures are printed, the water that baptized us, etc.) to minister to our spirit.

Yes, prayer definitely brings us closer to God. We can and should pray without ceasing. But the sacraments provide extra blessings because they minister to our whole being–body, soul, and spirit.

As others have pointed out, we don’t eat merely to remember or proclaim His death, but also to receive real spiritual nourishment and sustanance.

petra

 

[geraldffff]

If the Scriptures are a strawman why bother? Either it’s true or it isn’t if it isn’t then your religion is just man made.

No Gerald to understand idioms–you ought to look up the meaning of the word, idioms, cuture of the day is all important in understanding what the Messiah was teaching.

Sorry Gerald but Augustine never wrote a lick of Scripture. As far as the truth is concerned what is the truth ? Please explain.

What is truth? Why is reading Augustine important? Well if you believe the story of Jesus the Christ you will know he was asked that same question and I think he answered it best. If you believe Christian scripture has any value, seek your answer there. When you speak of idioms, if you are wize you will not depended on a modern interpetation but go back to source material and reliable ancient interpetations. If you have not read Augustine or the sources he quotes how can you expect to have knowledge of what the ancients said and what they meant by what they said. In other words how can you have a true sense of what you call idoms. “raised Catholic is an Idiom” I have eight brothers and sisters, they all claim they were “raised Catholic”. I was raised in the same household. I was a middle child. Baptized in to the Church yes! Raised Catholic NO! If that was so we would not be having this discussion. I believe not because I have faith, which I do, but because study and reason demanded I become a Catholic. I wish that for you too.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Ah but we do that at passover each year as God has commanded us to do. There is no commandment to celebrate a Catholic “Mass”

Ah, but there is! The command to eat His flesh and drink His blood most definitely is a command to celebrate the Catholic Mass!

 

[apophasis]

I do not eat to remember (Protestants do). I eat to live. Jesus is the Bread of Life. This is the reason I eat the Eucharist.

The Eucharist cannot be symbolic because it is in the accidents of Bread & Wine, which was a staple of the commonfolk 2 millenia ago who ate and drank Bread & Wine everyday – to give them life. It is literal because Jesus was showing His followers that He is the one Who sustains them and feeds them. He is the Giver of life. Therefore, we are to partake of this Sacrifice which He freely gave to us everyday in the Mass. The Mass is the central focus of Christian worship and the Eucharist brings us so close to God on a personal level that it is indeed mystical. The Eucharist is the representation of the one Sacrifice on Calvary where the Lord freely chose to give up His life for us. It is represented to us everyday in the Mass because Jesus wanted to integrate His sacrifice into our daily lives to perfect us and bring Himself into us. The Lord & Savior works in mysterious ways, oftentimes ways we cannot comprehend, but the Scripture and the Tradition of the Fathers shows that the Eucharist has always been interpreted in a literal way by the ancient Christian Church Apostolic. Even the schismatic Easterns believe in the Sacrifice of the Mass (called Divine Liturgy in the Eastern tradition). Why won’t our Western Protestant brethren believe in this fact? It was not a Roman myth which defined transubstantiation, but the past testimony of the Church Apostolic, the Scriptures and Tradition which testify that the Eucharist is a literal phenomenon, not a parable.

“Protesants” don’t do it “to remember,” but “in remembrance.” There’s a BIG difference, and in accordance with what Christ commanded.

At the first Passover blood of the slain lamb was applied to the door posts and lintels; but this was not required at subsequent feasts. The blood was applied only once because deliverance from Egypt was a one time event. All subsequent Passovers were done “in remembrace” of having been redeemed from the bondage of Egypt through the blood of the slain lamb, once for all.

“Communion” is to be done in the same manner, “in remembrance” of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross for us through the offering of His own body and shed blood - “once for all.”

The early church considered the “Eucharist” a “thank offering,” not a perpetual “sin offering.” A thank offering done “in remembrance” of what Christ historically did FOR US, "once for all:"Heb. 7:27 “…who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the {sins} of the people, because this He did *once for all *when He offered up Himself.”

Heb. 9:12 “…and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Heb. 10:10 “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

 

[Nevim]

Look up the meaning of strawman and you will see you used my words to create just another “strawman”. That is to say your misinterpeted what I wrote intentionally to make an invalid point. You say you were raised a Catholic. You may believe this is true.

Well Gerald if it’s a strawman feel free to try and burn it down. Yes Gerald I was raised Catholic, whether or not you believe me is neither here or there, it’s just plain beating a dead horse arguement, futhermore I will not engage in some emotional debate. The Roman Catholic church cannot reconcile its Transubstation theory from Scriptures it’s impossible.

 

[VociMike]

Eating and drinking are Jewish idioms for gaining knowledge.

I still have not seen you respond to the question of why, if Jesus was speaking in idiom, the Jews disputed, called it a hard saying, and many finally walked away. If somebody tells a groupt to eat their words (your example), they certainly would not dispute among themselves and ask “how can we eat my own words?” and yet the Jews said “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Didn’t they know their own idioms?

 

[Saint_Augustin]

The Roman Catholic church cannot reconcile its Transubstation theory from Scriptures it’s impossible.

Yes, it’s possible.

The fact is that the majority of Christians on earth believe in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and not only the Catholic Church, but the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran, etc. The problem is not about the real presence of Christ but about the semantics referring to this miracle.

Changing water in wine or changing three atoms in more than twenty-four atoms is also irreconcilable for the reason but not for the faith. It occurred at Canna.

 

[geraldffff]

Well Gerald if it’s a strawman feel free to try and burn it down. Yes Gerald I was raised Catholic, whether or not you believe me is neither here or there, it’s just plain beating a dead horse arguement, futhermore I will not engage in some emotional debate. The Roman Catholic church cannot reconcile its Transubstation theory from Scriptures it’s impossible.

Thanks for your comments Nevim. I think it hillarious you should interpet anything I wrote as emotional. Perhaps it was my use of the Name Augustine. Or mabey you are feeling a littile emotional yourself because the Holy spirit has caused an itching in your heart. I know that is how I felt when I was an agnostic and the Holy Spirit opened my mind to the meaning of this passage. John " 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[d] Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
Nevin One might recognize that the “Transubstation theory” is just a shadow of the meaning of the knowledge that the Father intendes to convey to us in the above passage. Because Gods ways are far above our ways. Peace, health and wisdom to you. It is good to see you are still seeking hand have not hardened your heart.

 

[petra]

Well Gerald if it’s a strawman feel free to try and burn it down. Yes Gerald I was raised Catholic, whether or not you believe me is neither here or there, it’s just plain beating a dead horse arguement, futhermore I will not engage in some emotional debate. The Roman Catholic church cannot reconcile its Transubstation theory from Scriptures it’s impossible.

Only a stubborn disregard of Scripture enables a disbelief in the Real Presence.

Do you believe 2 Timothy 2:2? Do you agree that orthodox doctrine can at least be preserved for one or two spiritual generations from the Apostles? If you do, then explain how Ignatius of Antioch, the Apostle John’s direct disciple, could be confused about the following:

“I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible” (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).

“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

 

[Tietjen]

I understand how being raised in the RCC one could come to the conclusion you have therefore just who is really being conditioned ? I follow Scripture, not a religion. I am not here to defend a religion I am here to defend God’s Word.

Well with all do respect, why do you suggest that Christ lied. If you are truly here to defend the Word of God, why are you implying that it contains error? Christ spoke rather plainly on this issue. Furthermore, John chapter 6 is backed up again in 1 Cor. In addition, the Church Fathers (many of them followers of the original apostles) wrote much on this issue. Finally, this practice was understood and followed for 1500 years, until protestors of God’s Church began splintering away from the Church. I’m not here to defend my religion either. I’m here to defend God’s Church.

 

[geraldffff]

What has happened to Nevin?? I hope he has gone to read the City of God. I hope he has prayed for wisdom and sought the knowledge that will set him free. I hope.

 

[Nevim]

Well with all do respect, why do you suggest that Christ lied.

Well with all due respect back to you why do you suggest the the Messiah would break His own commandments ? I already posted Duet 13:1-5 if you didn’t read that it’s not my fault. It is against Scripture to drink blood. Bottom line if the Messiah taught something against the Torah He would be a false prophet.

Tietjen:

If you are truly here to defend the Word of God, why are you implying that it contains error?

I neither implied it nor did I say it did.

Tietjen:

Christ spoke rather plainly on this issue.

He did? How, did He said someday I raise up a celibate priesthood that can transubstaint my body?

Tietjen:

Furthermore, John chapter 6 is backed up again in 1 Cor.

1 Cor what ? How am I suppose to know what you mean? Please supply chp and verse.

Tietjen:

In addition, the Church Fathers (many of them followers of the original apostles) wrote much on this issue. Finally, this practice was understood and followed for 1500 years, until protestors of God’s Church began splintering away from the Church. I’m not here to defend my religion either. I’m here to defend God’s Church.

First off sir, I suggest you don’t know the meaning of the word " Church" secondly the ECF where not the followers of the Apostles, most the ECF were anti-semitic, and Hellenist’s. And btw the Book of Acts does not support the Catholic church as the orginal faith of the Apostles.

 

[Nevim]

Only a stubborn disregard of Scripture enables a disbelief in the Real Presence.

The Scripture does enable the belief in the real presence it’s in the real born again believer:
NAS 1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
Now do you see somewhere in that Scripture that in order to have the Real Presence I have to either be a Catholic or eat a piece of bread blessed by a Catholic priest ?

 

[Nevim]

Yes, it’s possible.

The fact is that the majority of Christians on earth believe in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and not only the Catholic Church, but the Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran, etc. The problem is not about the real presence of Christ but about the semantics referring to this miracle.

Changing water in wine or changing three atoms in more than twenty-four atoms is also irreconcilable for the reason but not for the faith. It occurred at Canna.

Apples and Pears, Canna and drink blood are two very different concepts. Drinking blood is forbidden in the Torah therefore Catholic Transubstaition is not true.

 

[Truthstalker]

Drinking blood is forbidden in the Torah therefore Catholic Transubstaition is not true.

I don’t follow how your conclusion follows from your premise. Please explain your logic.