The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

This Sunday we commemorate the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  And for this occasion I thought I’d bring out another solid argument on the Real Presence of our Lord in the Eucharist.

In today’s second reading we find Paul reciting what he was told about Jesus’ words at the Last Supper but what you don’t hear is the explanation on why this is not a mere symbolic remembrance.  At the end of today’s reading, the very next verse and following we find Paul stating: 

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.  Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.  That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.” (1 Cor 11:27-30)

The clue that precludes a mere symbolic understanding of the Eucharist is St. Paul’s usage of “guilty of blood,” which is a figure of speech connoting murder (Nm 35:27; Ez 35:6).  One incurs the “guilt of blood” only if the victim is present in person.  If someone fires a gun at a picture of the President of the United States, that person is not guilty of the President’s blood.  But if someone actually shoots the President, then that person is guilty of the President’s blood.

St. Paul says that we are guilty of Jesus’ blood if we partake of the Eucharist unworthily.  Therefore, we cannot conclude that St. Paul understood the Eucharist to be a mere symbol.  He must mean the Eucharist is Jesus present in person, with his body, blood, soul, and divinity.

And lastly, There are several other ways Jesus could have more clearly indicated that His words of institution (This is my body, this is my blood) was symbolism if He had wished to do so.  Aramaic [Jesus’ native language] has around three-dozen words that can mean ‘represents.’  That’s why Paul warns us that we are to discern the body (if we partake in an unworthy manner, then we are guilty of the blood of Christ.  Now, how can we ‘discern’ the body if it’s merely a symbol?  We can’t!  We are to discern the body in the Eucharist because the Eucharist IS the body.

God Bless
Nathan

Adapted from a Catholic Answers Newsletter

Question for Catholics - part 5 The Eucharist and John 6

For this section, Mr. Prasch asks about John 6 and the Eucharist and challenges that he has yet to have a priest be able to answer him and "perhaps you can?"  I hope Mr. Prasch did not mean that rhetorically and is actually looking for responses and will acknowledge them. 

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But I have yet another question.

In the Gospel of St. John 6 I've heard it quoted, quoted, quoted, and re-quoted as applying to the Eucharist. We read the following, I’m beginning in verse 47…

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.

Notice St. John, quoting Jesus, says that Jesus said if you believe in Jesus you have eternal life. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” – the Gospel of St. John 3:36 in the Roman Catholic Bible. Jesus said, “If a man believes in Me though he die yet shall He live for he’s passed from death to life” – the Gospel of St. John 5:24 according to the Roman Catholic Bible. Belief is the key to eternal life.

A point I like to bring out in response to this argument, Prasch has brought up himself, but glosses over it.  "He who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him."  So, if the Son commands you, not once, not twice, not even five or six times, but NINE TIMES in a single context to eat His body and/or drink His blood - you should obey Him, if you want eternal life in you!  Do not try to rationalize your way out of this nine-fold command, just obey it!  What kind of belief do you have if you refuse to obey Him?  Let us continue with Prasch's question(s) and arguments.

Let us continue...

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”

Unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you cannot live.  I'm told this is the Eucharist and it is the key to eternal life. That's what I was taught in Catholic school. The context, however, going all the way back to verse 32 is the Exodus. No fewer than three places Jesus says in the same passage that the key – the key – to eternal life is belief.

Again, it is "no fewer than three places," it is actually nine places in this small section.  In John 6, nine times Jesus commands we partake of His body and/or blood stating His flesh is real food and His blood is real drink - not symbolism or parable.

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The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah said the following in 15:16…

Your words were found and I ate them…

The Word becomes flesh. You “eat” the Word by believing it. “He who believes has eternal life”. Jesus says in John 6, the flesh profits nothing. How could it possibly be the key to eternal life? You have three problems; that's what I discovered as a Catholic.

Prophetic vision statements of eating "words" are not the same thing as obeying Jesus' nine-fold command to eat/drink His flesh/blood.  So, how could this possibly be the key to eternal life?  Because Jesus said it is!  Jesus did not just issue the commands and then leave everyone to figure it out for themselves.  No, to those who had faith in Him, did not turn and walk away from Him, He provides the means of fulfilling this command in instituting the Eucharist.

Back in John 6, the Jews accepted Jesus' words as literal - and they walked away because they could not believe His words.  Jesus did not chase after them and say, "Hold on guys!  That was symbolic language, I was speaking in parables."  No, He did not, and when He spoke in parables, He explained the meaning of the parables to His Apostles - did He explain away the literal meaning here?  No!  He doubled down and said, "Will you also leave?"  No fluffy rationalizations, He meant what He said and the Jews and many of His own disciples "turned and walked with Him no more" (John 6:66-67).  

  The key IS belief, and part of believing would include obeying our Lord and Savior.  He commanded it, so don't try to use rationalizations to get out of accepting Him, Jesus Christ, at His word.  It's time to come home, Jacob.

For the full-length answer please go to: http://cathapol.blogspot.com/2015/10/questions-for-catholics-part-5.html

God Bless
Nathan

The Bread of Life

Today I would like to talk about one particular verse from today’s Gospel reading but first I strongly suggest you go to you Bible and read the Bread of Life discourse where we find this particular verse.

Go ahead and read carefully the Gospel of John, Chapter 6, verses 22 through 58.  About this section about being the Bread of Life and that we must eat this bread and drink this blood to have eternal life.

 

1. The first thing to notice is “what else could Jesus have said to make it any more plain?”  Six times He tells them that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood.  6 times!
    
2. Second, He doesn’t correct those that leave Him for misunderstanding Him since they thought He spoke literally while He supposedly spoke only symbolically.  My question is: why didn’t He say so before they left Him?
    
3. Thirdly, the apostle John recounts Jesus using two different words when speaking of ‘eating’ His flesh.  In the beginning of His discourse He uses the word “PHAGO” which is defined as ‘eat’ and which can sometimes be taken symbolically.  But when the Jews have difficulty accepting Jesus’ second attempt at clarifying His teaching Jesus switches to the word “TROGO” in verse 54 when speaking of ‘eating’ His flesh, a word which is NEVER used symbolically in Scripture and means to ‘munch, gnaw or crunch’ His Flesh making it extremely clear that Jesus was speaking literally.
    
   And so Jesus let the Jews leave because they understood Him correctly, they just couldn’t accept this ‘hard teaching.’

And so Jesus let the Jews leave because they understood Him correctly, they just couldn’t accept this ‘hard teaching.’

And my favorite verse of the whole ‘Bread of Life’ discourse is verse 51.

Verse 51 of John 6 says this: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”

Jesus is the living bread.  We are to eat this bread.  This bread that He gives for us to eat is the flesh that He will give for the life of the world.    If the bread is symbolically His flesh then the flesh that He gives for the life of the world must be symbolic as well.  That’s how Jesus describes it.  Was the flesh on the cross symbolic? Or real?  The flesh that we are to eat, is it symbolic or real?  If the flesh on the cross is real then the bread that we are to eat is that same flesh.  This verse makes it impossible to accept a symbolic reckoning of the flesh we are to eat and the blood we are to drink.

God Bless
Nathan

 

The Constant Teaching of the Church

The Constant teaching of the Church

 

Individuals can make mistakes or misunderstand their teachers BUT the fact that we find a continuous and unbroken chain of believing in the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist is extremely strong evidence that this belief was in existence from the very first moments of Christian history.

 

I mean, a follower of Jesus could reject what He taught but the others who were taught directly by Jesus would not teach the same error.

 

Let’s go back through time to find what Christians believed on the Real Presence. In our Catechism, the official teaching of the Church on the Eucharist, we find: the catechism quoting the council of Trent from 1551 that the belief in the real presence to have been at least from 1551 to today:

 

1551 AD

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again , that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."

 

The Reformation brought on the need for the Council of Trent because many started teaching contrary to the Church on many matters including the Real Presence. But what about before that time?

 

431 AD

Council of Ephesus

"We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all.  And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving" (Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431]).

 

c.400 AD

"[Christ] took the bread and the cup, each in a similar fashion, and said: 'This is My Body and this is My Blood.' Not a figure of His body nor a figure of His blood, as some persons of petrified mind are wont to rhapsodize, but in truth the Body and the Blood of Christ." (Marcus the Magnesian)

 

c. 370 AD

"You ought to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. The chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. " (St Augustine)

 

325 AD

Council of Nicaea I

"It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters [i.e., priests], whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] s hould give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it] " (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).

 

212 AD

The flesh is anointed, so that the soul may be dedicated to holiness. The flesh is signed, so that the soul too may be fortified. The flesh is shaded by the imposition of hands, so that the soul too may be illuminated by the Spirit. The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ, so that the soul too may fatten on God. (Tertullian)

 

c.180 AD

He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be His own Blood, from which He causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, He has established as His own Body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.  When, therefore, the mixed cup and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the Body of Christ , and from these the substance of our body is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life. (Ireaneus of Lyons)

 

c. 150 AD

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. (St Justin Martyr)

 

c.110

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 . (Ignatius of Antioch)

 

Or

 

They [the Gnostics] 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 the Father, in his goodness, raised up again. (Ignatius of Antioch)

 

Now consider this, Ignatius learned from the Apostles themselves. Did he misunderstand them? Isn’t it much more likely that he remembered what he was taught and taught others who would succeed him as Justin Martyr did, and Irenaeus, Augustine even councils speaking for the whole church teaching as the first followers of the original Apostles taught and all speaking with one voice on the matter?

 

God Bless

Nathan

Real Presence, Part 4

“A type is a person, thing, or event in the Old Testament that foreshadows something to come later in time. It is like a taste or hint of something that will be fulfilled or realized. Types are like pictures that come alive in a new and exciting way when seen through the eyes of Christ’s revelation.” The type is always lesser than the anti-type. The anti-type (New Testament event) is always greater than its type (shadow of an event in the Old Testament). And both are independent of each other.

Many of the first Christians used this method to find new insights in the Scriptures. We see these‘types’, or ‘figures’ or examples in many places in Scripture like in 1 Cor 10:11 and Heb 11:19 for example.

One of these instances can be found in the Gospel of Matthew where we see that the Egyptian Exodus told in Hosea 11:1 is quoted exactly in Matt 2:15 when speaking of Jesus’ return to Israel from Egypt: “where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of EgyptI called my son."”

What Matthew has done here is he took an historical event and interpreted it as a shadow of something greater to come in the future, which he sees as ‘fulfilled’ in the person of Jesus the Messiah.

Other examples of Jesus Christ type/antitype pairs are:

A) Jonah in the belly of the whale is a type of Christ in the tomb. For Jonah stayed in the belly for three days as did Christ stay buried for three days until His resurrection as Jesus explained Himself “In the same way that Jonahspent three days and nights in the big fish, so will the Son of Man spend three days and nights in the depths of the earth. “(Matt 12:40)

B) The deadly bites of serpents are healed by the brazen serpent, which was lifted up that those bitten might look at it and live (Num 21:9). Jesus Himself gives the explanation of this: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him may not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:14)

C) In God’s request that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac (Gen 22:2) we find another type of Christ. The birth of both was supernatural (remember, Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah an elderly woman when she bore Isaac). Both are sons of promise. Both were called “the only begotten son.”Both carried the wood of their own demise up the same mountain, Moriah. Both consented to endure death. Both were bound. Both were offered by their fathers. Both were laid on the wood. Both were in the vigor of life, and both live again after the offering.

D) Melchizadek is another type of Christ. We see evidence of this in Heb 6:20 “On our behalf Jesus has gone in there before us and has become a high priest forever, in the priestly order of Melchizedek.” and “Melchizedek, who was king of Salem and also a priest of the Most High God, brought bread and wine to Abram [whose name was later changed to Abraham] and blessed him, and said, "May the Most High God, who made heaven and earth, bless Abram!”(Gen 14:18)

In the Paschal lamb which the Israelites were commanded to eat as part of the Passover celebration is another strong foreshadowing of Christ. Each family is commanded to take a lamb without blemish and to sacrifice it (Exo 12:7-8). The lamb was to be roasted and eaten with unleavened bread and wild lettuce. The Paschal Lamb prefigured symbolically Christ, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

We can agree that Jesus is a priest forever of the order of Melchizedek (Heb 6:20), and that he is also the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) because we find these statements in Holy Scripture. By putting these to types together we see that Jesus is a priest forever but also the sacrificial lamb to atone for our sins. Jesus as priest offers up to God a perfect sacrifice to atone for our sins, Himself. That sacrifice, as in the Passover sacrifice of the lamb, we are to EAT the lamb. Now, how are we to eat the lamb when the sacrifice is in the form of bread and wine? We find the solution in Jesus’ own words in the Last Supper when He raises up the bread and then the wine and says: “this is my body…this is my blood”. The bread and wine presented and consecrated is transformed into the body and blood of our Lord but in keeping the same form of bread and wine! A perfect fulfillment of both types including a third type where Jesus calls Himself the true bread of Heaven which gives eternal life! John 6:48-50 states “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they died. But the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die.”

The difference between Christ’s death on the cross – the event- and the Eucharist – the sacrament – is the difference between history and liturgy. The historical event happened once and it will never again be repeated (Heb 9:25-26). The liturgical sacrament, however, not only keeps the past from being forgotten; through it the Eucharist of history –Jesus’ passion and death – is made present again. While his act of physical death will never be repeated, Jesus’ act of total self-giving to the Father for us (Rom 8:32) continues eternally in Love – that is, the Holy Spirit.

This moment in salvation history is the culmination of all of Scripture. As the Israelites were to sacrifice and eat the Passover lamb, so now are we to re-present His sacrifice forever in the form of bread and wine and eat His body and drink His blood because HE is the perfect sacrificial Lamb that we are to eat for our salvation (John 6:51). As the first Isrealites had to eat the sacrificial lamb, so too must we do the same.

God Bless
Nathan