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littleflower_24
Guest
Why must we receive Christ’s Body and Blood? I understand it gives us life, connects us to him, ect. But why did God ask us to unite to him through eating him?
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Esquire0130
Guest
In college, one of my instructors said that all human politics comes down to the question, “When do we eat?” I think that that was a deeply telling observation about the human psyche, and I think that that may account for the structure of the most important sacrament – grace comes to us through the passion – hunger – that is most important to us.
The Eucharist is wonderfully accounted-for in Scripture, and not just in the New Testament.
In the New Testament, it is accounted for beginning on the first day of Christ’s life outside of Mary’s womb…Christ arrives wrapped in swaddling clothes, looking the way He would on the day of His death wrapped in a shroud, and He is lying in a manger, a feeding trough – a picture of the sacrificed body of Christ being offered as food on a kind of dinner plate! And note well where this occurred, in “Bethlehem,” Hebrew meaning “House of Bread”!
In the Old Testament, when Jacob steals Isaac’s final blessing from Esau by coming to blind Isaac with sacrificed kid skins on his hands and neck, if you read the text carefully you will see that Jacob is bringing to Isaac gifts of bread and wine, in addition to “sacrificed kid stew.” By wearing the skins, Jacob makes Himself “Mr. Sacrificed Kid.” That “sacrificed kid stew” is therefore a picture of Christ offering to His Father His Own sacrificed flesh, to secure a blessing from Him. The sacrificed kid stew is accompanied by bread and wine to tell us, “A = B. The bread and wine are equal to the sacrificed flesh offered by Christ to His Father.” When we take that sacrificed flesh into our own physical selves, by eating it, we make ourselves pleasing to the Father.
There are many, many other Bible verses substantiating the Eucharist. Finding them is easy. Just get a concordance and look up “bread” and “wine.”
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savedsinner
Guest
I think that part of it is because part of God’s covenants of the old testament, involved eating or sharing a meal.
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AmbroseSJ
Guest
I think it is necessary for us, not only because of the fact that it nourishes and cleanses our souls, which alone is so worthy a reason, but further, it represents the New Passover In Christ Jesus. This is the Sacrifice of the New Covenant established in and by Jesus Christ. His Sacrifice of Himself, by Himself as our High Priest, is the continuation and fulfillment of the ritual Sacrifices that were offered to God since the time of Abraham, and more figuratively by Melchizedek. So today, we as Catholics, around the world, throughout every day, as prophesied in Scripture continue to offer a pleasing and acceptable Sacrifice to God, as was done since time immemorial (and no other religion today, including Judaism, has this). This Sacrifice of Jesus, which requires our own self-sacrifice, to be united with Him in the Eucharist, is uniquely Catholic, and uniquely pleasing to God the Father. It is by taking and eating of this Sacrifice, as commanded by Jesus that we make present forever, the Sacrifice of Jesus done once, for all Amen.
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MarcoPolo
Guest
Also, the very sign of eating presents us with an abundance of God’s truth. As our bodies assimilate with the Bread of Life, this also shows us the spiritual assimilation with Jesus, through whom we must go to get to heaven.
Think of how Jesus healed the sick and their infirmities went away. This sign not only shows us the visible sign of physical healing, but it shows us humans the unseen way in which our sins are healed. Through Jesus, the infirmities are taken away.
Also with the bread, John Paul II drew spiritual truth from the very nature of consuming the bread:And what do those who receive it become? The Body of Christ – not many bodies but one body. For* as bread is completely one, though made of up many grains of wheat**, and these, albeit unseen, remain nonetheless present, in such a way that their difference is not apparent since they have been made a perfect whole, so too are we mutually joined to one another and together united with Christ”.42 The argument is compelling: our union with Christ, which is a gift and grace for each of us, makes it possible for us, in him, to share in the unity of his body which is the Church. The Eucharist reinforces the incorporation into Christ which took place in Baptism though the gift of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 1Co 12,13). (Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucaristia, #23)*
Think of how Jesus healed the sick and their infirmities went away. This sign not only shows us the visible sign of physical healing, but it shows us humans the unseen way in which our sins are healed. Through Jesus, the infirmities are taken away.
Also with the bread, John Paul II drew spiritual truth from the very nature of consuming the bread:And what do those who receive it become? The Body of Christ – not many bodies but one body. For* as bread is completely one, though made of up many grains of wheat**, and these, albeit unseen, remain nonetheless present, in such a way that their difference is not apparent since they have been made a perfect whole, so too are we mutually joined to one another and together united with Christ”.42 The argument is compelling: our union with Christ, which is a gift and grace for each of us, makes it possible for us, in him, to share in the unity of his body which is the Church. The Eucharist reinforces the incorporation into Christ which took place in Baptism though the gift of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 1Co 12,13). (Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucaristia, #23)*
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cazayoux
Guest
Because His church is the bride and He is the bridegroom.
When discussing marriage, scripture says the two shall become one flesh.
How does Jesus become one flesh with his bridegroom?
Through the Eucharist!
michel
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jpy15026
Guest
- John 6:56 (RSV) *"*He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him
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mardukm
Guest
WE ARE WHAT WE EAT. I know that sounds funny, but in the Sacramental and mystical sense, it is a profound truth. We are called to be Holy as our Father in Heaven is Holy. The Book of Hebrews - a veritable treaties on the Holy Eucharist - tells us that we will share in the very Holiness of Christ. We do this through the Eucharist.
Blessings,
Marduk
Blessings,
Marduk
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MGLechner
Guest
Because Christ’s Body and Blood is true food and drink. It is the vehicle of God’s Grace. In the Sacrament of his Flesh and Blood we are made whole. It truly is the “medicine of God for our souls.” As our Lord states: “I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.” + John 6.53-54
God Bless!
God Bless!
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Nita
Guest
Only God can answer the “why” for sure; but we can speculate.
My thoughts are that He wanted us to know how closely He desires to be united to us - so close that He wants to enter right in and become one with us. He desires a unity with our complete being - that is, body and soul.
**As physical human beings, the only way something comes right into us and becomes part of us is by eating it. **
(Possible exception is by medical injection
)God, as Spirit, does unite with us. And it is perhaps possible that Jesus could come directly into us with His risen immortal body. But then we would have no tangible experience of it to know that it had occurred.
(Here on earth, we are not able to perceive things that take place only on the spiritual plane, with no accompanying physical aspects.) So God united the spiritual with the material in a miraculous way and gave us the Eucharist.
John 17:21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 17:22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 17:23* I in them and thou in me**, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. *
Those are some of my speculative thoughts as to why God decided to do it through “eating”.
M
missal
Guest
We are called by God"… to be transformed into Christ."…and it is by the sacraments especially the Eucharist by which we grow into His image.View attachment 5349Only God can answer the “why” for sure; but we can speculate.
My thoughts are that He wanted us to know how closely He desires to be united to us - so close that He wants to enter right in and become one with us. He desires a unity with our complete being - that is, body and soul.
**As physical human beings, the only way something comes right into us and becomes part of us is by eating it. **
(Possible exception is by medical injection
God, as Spirit, does unite with us. And it is perhaps possible that Jesus could come directly into us with His risen immortal body. But then we would have no tangible experience of it to know that it had occurred.
(Here on earth, we are not able to perceive things that take place only on the spiritual plane, with no accompanying physical aspects.) So God united the spiritual with the material in a miraculous way and gave us the Eucharist.
John 17:21 that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 17:22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 17:23* I in them and thou in me***, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.
Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Those are some of my speculative thoughts as to why God decided to do it through “eating”.
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SHW
Guest
The Holy Mass Royal Priesthood of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the OT priesthoods, both of the Melchizedek priesthood which sacrificed bread and wine and the Levitical priesthood which sacrificed the blood sacrifice of the paschal lamb. (It is the blood which gives life to the flesh but it is the Spirit of God which gives life to the blood.) The paschal lamb sacrifice had to be eaten according to the law of Moses.
Jesus is our Paschal lamb whom we receive under the appearances of bread and wine. We eat His body and blood in order to have spiritual life within us. The Eucharist is the fulfillment of both OT sacrifices because it combines them into one perfect sacrifice and this one Eucharistic sacrifice now gives us eternal life if we receive It worthily.
Pax,
SHW
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