Blood and Body

[talib-al-kalim]

I understand that the Eucharist is an important ceremony for Christians, installed by Jesus himself on the last supper with his disciples, probably on Seder evening.

What I don't understand is why there is a difference in interpretation.

Catholic dogmatics insist that it is an essential Catholic belief that the bread and the wine REALLY become the Blood and Body of Jesus.

I don't get this: Just imagine it REALLY became human blood, would you drink it? And the bread, if it REALLY became raw human meat, would you eat it?

Now, the Reformed say, it's a symbol. I don't think that anyone in the Roman Catholic Church would say that it REALLY transforms in the way I said above. But if not, what is the difference to those who say, it's a symbol?

 

[RJM]

I understand that the Eucharist is an important ceremony for Christians, installed by Jesus himself on the last supper with his disciples, probably on Seder evening.

What I don't understand is why there is a difference in interpretation.

Catholic dogmatics insist that it is an essential Catholic belief that the bread and the wine REALLY become the Blood and Body of Jesus.
I don't get this: Just imagine it REALLY became human blood, would you drink it? And the bread, if it REALLY became raw human meat, would you eat it?
Now, the Reformed say, it's a symbol. I don't think that anyone in the Roman Catholic Church would say that it REALLY transforms in the way I said above. But if not, what is the difference to those who say, it's a symbol?

No -- it's not a symbol -- it is the real body and blood of Christ -- but in the form of bread and wine as He (the Christ) sanctified it. He did away with blood sacrifice -- in the final sacrifice of Himself.

Christ is risen

 

[talib-al-kalim]

No -- it's not a symbol -- it is the real body and blood of Christ -- but in the form of bread and wine as He (the Christ) sanctified it. He did away with blood sacrifice -- in the final sacrifice of Himself.

Christ is risen

What is "real" in this context?

 

[RJM]

What is "real" in this context?

The Christ is the bridge between man and God -- between nature and Spirit. The Christ is far more than the physical warrior Messiah saviour of the Jewish people.

Spirit weaves nature. The sacrament of the Eucharist is the bridge.

 

[talib-al-kalim]

The Christ is the bridge between man and God -- between nature and Spirit.

Spirit weaves nature. The sacrament of the Eucharist is the bridge.

You mean, Jesus leads to God, and so does the Eucharist, in the sense of the saying of Jesus,

"Where there are two or three men of God, they are in/with God"

But would other denominations not share such interpretation?

 

[RJM]

It's not a cult of Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of the Christ. Anyway ... it's all just words

The greater wheel of Spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it.

 

[talib-al-kalim]

It's not a cult of Jesus.

In my understanding of the Word I quoted above, reading Ev. Th 30 in parallel with the Synoptics, "in My Name" and "I am with/in them" in Mt.

Th writes "Were there are 2 or 3 Elohim (men of God) in My Name, they are in Elohim (in God)". Hebrew play of words that cannot be translated into Greek or English. In this sense, it's not in Jesus ' name, but in God's Name, and "I" is God.

Jesus is the embodiment of the Christ. Anyway ... it's all just words

... sounds like Baha'i in my ears...

 

[RJM]

To me, Christ promises to be present in the Eucharist. He left us the Sacrament

 

[EricPH]

I am a Catholic, and I believe it to be the body and blood of our Lord. Taking the wine can be a test of faith for some people, traditionally, we queue up to take the wine from the same chalice. You could be number thirty, you don't know if anyone in front of you; has some kind of infectious virus. Some will not take the wine for this reason.

I ask myself, what has more power, any virus, or the blood of our Lord? With that in mind, I am always at peace, when I take the wine, even when I am at the back.

These are my own views, which very few people share, Covid presented a challenge of faith. There was a period of time when congregations could not worship together. When we were allowed back in church we had to wear masks. Then there was almost a normality, but we were only allowed to take the host, but not the wine. This was a great sadness for me, was the church saying, Covid had more power, and we should be cautious.

Did we bow to public opinion, that would have said, we would be irresponsible to drink from the same cup.

 

[talib-al-kalim]

I am a Catholic, and I believe it to be the body and blood of our Lord.

My focus was on what is the difference between is the body and blood and represents the body and blood.

Taking the wine can be a test of faith for some people, traditionally, we queue up to take the wine from the same chalice. You could be number thirty, you don't know if anyone in front of you; has some kind of infectious virus. Some will not take the wine for this reason.

I ask myself, what has more power, any virus, or the blood of our Lord? With that in mind, I am always at peace, when I take the wine, even when I am at the back.

These are my own views, which very few people share, Covid presented a challenge of faith. There was a period of time when congregations could not worship together. When we were allowed back in church we had to wear masks. Then there was almost a normality, but we were only allowed to take the host, but not the wine. This was a great sadness for me, was the church saying, Covid had more power, and we should be cautious.

Did we bow to public opinion, that would have said, we would be irresponsible to drink from the same cup.

I am surprised that you take wine. Any time I saw a Catholic Eucharist (little less than 10 times, of which only once during Corona), the common people just got an oblate, and the priest had the wine with a few other people who had a particular role whereas Protestant and Orthodox always share it with all who are there, and they offered grape juice without alcohol in separate bowls (I have joined a Protestant Eucharist several times although I don't share the opinion that it's a symbol for a fortfait forgiveness, as some Protestants believe but I wouldn't share with Catholics because they expect me to share a belief that I don't really understand)

 

[wil]

No -- it's not a symbol -- it is the real body and blood of Christ -- but in the form of bread and wine as He (the Christ) sanctified it. He did away with blood sacrifice -- in the final sacrifice of Himself.

Christ is risen

Not a symbol to you and yours...but the rest of the world differs.

I honor your belief, and your belief agrees with an orthodox catholic belief there are even some Protestants (Lutherans, some baptists) that hold the same belief.

I can commute with others on many understandings...but this is one I definitely don't grock.

 

[Thomas]

What I don't understand is why there is a difference in interpretation.

Simply put, the rationalising process of the Western Mind.

Catholic dogmatics insist that it is an essential Catholic belief that the bread and the wine REALLY become the Blood and Body of Jesus.
I don't get this: Just imagine it REALLY became human blood, would you drink it? And the bread, if it REALLY became raw human meat, would you eat it?

Ah ... there's a whole philosophical debate here on the nature of 'real'.

The Eucharist has been at the core of traditional Christian belief for two millennia now – so add together all the bread eaten and all the wine drunk and the volume is considerably greater than the volume of a human being.

The Catechism (para 1374) says:
"The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."

Now, the Reformed say, it's a symbol. I don't think that anyone in the Roman Catholic Church would say that it REALLY transforms in the way I said above. But if not, what is the difference to those who say, it's a symbol?

By saying it's a symbol, they're to some degree refuting the idea of 'presence'. Is Christ present in the Eucharist? Symbolically, yes, actually, no ... that kind of argument.

Whereas the Catholic argument is that Christ is ACTUALLY present.

(The Catholic belief is that Christ is present under the Eucharistic species, that the bread and wine appear as bread and wine (rather than physical flesh and blood) ... This the Orthodox reject, as they see 'under' as a dualism – the body and blood/bread and wine – whereas they assert a non-dual belief that the bread and wine is the body and blood.)

The Reformers were divided about the matter, for Luther, Christ is not as present in the Eucharist as He is for a Catholic, but He's more present than He is for Calvin ... so we see an argument by degree, a matter of rationalising, and trying to explain what is, essentially, a mystery.

At his point I side with the Orthodox Church – the Latin West has always felt the pressure to 'explain' the mysteries, whereas the Orthodox say it is a mystery, ergo it cannot be explained; if it could be explained, it would not be a mystery ... and so the dialogue, sometimes heated, between Roman Catholic and Orthodox.

+++

For centuries, the Church did not find it necessary to formally define the Holy Eucharist. Despite all the theological disputes that wracked the Church, significant conflict over the understanding that Christ is present in the Eucharist never arose.

The Church was united in the real identification of the consecrated bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ. Through the supernatural power of consecration, the eucharistic bread and wine not only represent and symbolise, convey and communicate the body and blood, they actually are the body and blood.

It is so because it is in Christ's power to transform (or transubstantiate) any material thing according to His will.

+++

 

[Thomas]

I can commute with others on many understandings...but this is one I definitely don't grock.

If you did, it wouldn't be a mystery, would it?

 

[RJM]

can commute with others on many understandings...but this is one I definitely don't grock.

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 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 feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.

These things he said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, he said to them, “Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray him. And he said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my Father.”

John 6: 47-67

 

[Thomas]

My focus was on what is the difference between is the body and blood and represents the body and blood.

Because the word 'represents' says it all.

A very poor way of answering would be to say the essence of Christ 'indwells' the Eucharist, in the same way the Holy Spirit can 'indwell' the soul – in both cases Christ and the Holy Spirit are there (as they always are and are never separate), yet outwardly the bread and wine, and the soul, remain the same 'stuff'.

 

[RJM]

The Eucharistic practice was the reason that got early Christians murdered by Nero for supposed cannabalism as written about by Tacitus

... a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular

It is also possibly what is meant in the
Gospel of Thomas 13

When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"

Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."

 

[muhammad_isa]

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, he said to them, “Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”

Mmm .. it is about our spiritual life .. a way of remembering him.

Without remembrance, what have we got?

 

[RJM]

It is spiritual. But to Catholics the Eucharist is more than the memory of Jesus -- it is the actual presence of Christ

Christianity takes the concept of the Christ beyond the limits of the physical messiah saviour of the Jewish people from their physical enemies, to the spiritual saviour of all people: Emmanuel, God with us

 

[Thomas]

For more than a thousand years, from the establishment of the church until around the 12th century, the Church was seen as one element of the Triforme Corpus Christi – the Threefold Body of Christ:

• the corpus natum – the physical body, born of the Virgin,
• the corpus mysticum – the mystical body, the eucharist,
• the corpus verum – the true body, the Church, the body of believers.

This threefold designation was nevertheless regarded as one body, in its different aspects. The three aspects – the historical, the sacramental, and the ecclesial – were not seen as three separate bodies, but as three aspects of the one body of Christ.

In his monumental work "Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages", Henri de Lubac explained that the adjective 'mystical' came from the noun 'musterion' (μυστήριον), which both the Latin mysterium and sacramentum correspond.

Medieval theologians talked about the “mystical body” of the Eucharist and about the “mystery” of the Eucharist both to indicate that the Eucharist was a sign of something else (Augustine would define 'sacrament' as "an outward sign of an inward grace" – 'grace' being the Divine Presence) and to refer to the "obscure depths" hidden in the Eucharist.

The ecclesial body was the sacramental reality to which the Eucharist pointed and which the Eucharist made present – Christ is not present as a bit of Christ in each and every communion wafer, rather, He is there.

Furthermore, the true focus should not be on the elements, which in the modern mindset it so often is in everything, but in the dynamic movement from Christ to the Sacrament and from the Sacrament to Church.

As de Lubac put it: “(A) mystery, in the old sense of the word, is more of an action than a thing."

The medieval understanding of the term “mystery” did not have the modern connotation of 'a secret', nor the idea that further rational, discursive thought would gradually be able to uncover and explain it. It's not contained in a book, or a word, or a sign ...

The Eucharistic body is a 'mystical body' in that rather than being something that represents here (in the bread) the body of Christ, as something else; rather, it re-presents that in itself, that while materially it appears as bread and wine, it is substantially a deeper reality.

 

[talib-al-kalim]

@Thomas, @RJM, Thanks for your explanations. I must admit that your beliefs stay foreign to me; I can't share it, and I won't share your Eucharist as a consequence, but at least I know a bit more about the background of it.