From the beginning, orthodox Christianity has confronted the heresy that denies the Incarnation. In his epistles, St John writes about those who denied that the Christ had come in the flesh, and we know that that line of thought continued – as indeed it does to this day. If Christ was not human, our flesh is not redeemed and our nature is not sanctified; St Gregory of Nazianzus rightly pointed out that: ‘what was not assumed cannot be saved.’ Like St Athanasius and St Cyril of Alexandria, St Gregory fought hard against the gnostic heresy which sees us as ‘spirit’ and our bodies as merely vehicles for that spirit. Yes, we are spirit, but we are also body, and when we are resurrected, it will not be as disembodied spirits, but rather embodied ones – our sinful bodies are made clean by His body, and just as Christ was raised in the flesh – the first-fruits of Redemption, so, too, shall we be raised.
It is that central truth which we celebrate at Corpus Christi – the solemnity of the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. As today’s Gospel reading shows, what we do at the Mass is what Jesus did at the Last Supper. The Last Supper is not the first Mass, but it does prefigure the Mass. Jesus had told his disciples that he was offering his body and blood for them, and that if they were to be saved, they had to receive these elements. We know, because St John tells us, that some of his followers found this saying so hard – after all the word used in St John is the word for ‘gnaw’ – that despite being in his presence for some time, many walked away. They could not accept the hard saying.
And how shall we? From early on, as early as the first reports of Pliny the Younger, those outside the Church accused its members of a type of cannibalism. Some Christians have preferred to concentrate on the memorialising aspects of the Eucharist, and ignored the fact that Christ says ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood’. St Paul tells us that those who eat and drink ‘unworthily’ do so to their own damnation – not something which one would expect from something that was merely a memorial. To the rationalist and the sceptic, this whole line of doctrine is folly.
Latin theologians of the Middle Ages, confident in their ability to explain even the deepest mysteries (would that we had but a trifle of that boldness) came up with the notion of transubstantiation to explain how the bread and wine could be both His body and blood, but stay, to all appearances, bread and wine. Some Orthodox Christians have found that notion too specific for their tastes, whist some say it is all too time-bound, using, as it does, the language of Aristotelian physics. All of that is a pity if it perpetuates division.
the Real Presence of Our Lord in the consecrated bread and wine is the deepest of mysteries, a perpetual miracle, the continuation of the promise he made that he would be with us evermore. We are made one with him, through him, and in him. It is this we celebrate on this day – and with it, the long continuity in faithfulness with what the Lord taught in the Upper Room, performed at Calvary, and vindicated through the Resurrection. He is with us ever more, even to the end of this world.
Servus Fidelis said:
“The Last Supper is not the first Mass, but it does prefigure the Mass.”
I suppose you know already that this is held differently by different theologians and saints. The quick answer for EWTN has this: http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage.asp?number=401012&Pg=&Pgnu=&recnu=
But the other argument can be described as this: https://whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/why-the-last-supper-was-not-the-first-mass/
For my part I would suppose that it depends on whether you believe, as in the ‘immaculate conception” that the Passion and Resurrection was pre applied or whether it operated simply in a temporal manner as an institution of Mass (a mockup of the Mass to be presented after His death and resurrection).
I prefer the first though I can see how you and others might prefer the second.
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chalcedon451 said:
For me, the second one is the more persuasive 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
The problem there for me is then; what did the Apostles receive? Was it merely a ‘symbol’; trans-signification to be exact? Seems like an apologetic for the transubstantiation deniers of our day.
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chalcedon451 said:
They received a prefiguration of what was to come. I think the problem many have with transubstantiation is it uses terms which meant a great deal to medieval men and women and the way they saw the world, but less so to us. As I have said to Nicholas, I accept is because it is what the Church teaches, and because I know who it is I encounter at the Eucharist. I have no real need to know the technicalities – He is there, and by Him I am redeemed – the rest can be safely left for those who want to argue 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
I wonder why it has lost meaning, my friend, except that it is no longer taught very well. It is still important to me and to many a Catholic as well as the Catholic Church which still holds to this description:
CCC
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ
1376 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.”
It was never taught as a ‘technical answer’ to an unfathomable mystery but as a means to differentiate other ideas that did not verify by their explanations that Christ is substantially present and not just symbolically or as a mere memory.
The prefiguration theory as above leaves me wondering how Christ could say this IS my body and this IS my blood if it really wasn’t. I cannot abide by that theory at all – though apparently you find it satisfactory.
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chalcedon451 said:
But what does it mean to most people to say ‘species of bread and wine’? Trent itself, of course, does not use the word ‘accidents’, and by ‘substance’ most people now would assume you were talking not about the accidents but about what is in the cup. By using language no one understands, and never teaching it to anyone, the Church, as so often, does itself and its people no favours.
We simply do not know how He is present, any more than we know how He arose again from the dead and ascended into heaven, or how he is one with the Father and the Spirit. All of these things, rightly, are great mysteries, and I get fearful of the sin of Adam when men try to delve deeper than their wits can take them.
Christ was telling them that the bread and wine would be his body and his blood, something they understood only after the Resurrection. If, at the Mass, we are present at Calvary, that is fitting; but we are not, I think, nor has the Church taught, that we are in the Upper Room. That is why, for some of us, the Last Supper is not the first Mass – it is the sacrificial setting.
How much better if mankind could simply accept there are things it cannot know and can never explain? I have not the slightest idea why the Son of Man died for me. I am a miserable sinner deserving whatever punishment my sins have incurred – and yet at the Mass I encounter my Lord and know Him.
In all of that there is nothing I understand – or feel I need to. To obey, as best I can, and do His will, as best I can, and to love Him as best I can; that is all 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
Most people today never read the Baltimore Catechism or heard the preaching of Fulton Sheen and others who could easily have set them straight. As Sheen often said, anyone who says they understand transubstantiation they lie; for it is a mystery. They catechisms teach the same. But at the same time, just because something is a mystery does not mean that we cannot know some things about it; and it is is in the effort to prevent errors from arising in our thinking about that great mysteries of the faith that set down that which we can know. We would have the same problem with the Virgin Birth, the Ascension, the Resurrection, God-man, and on and on. It seems to me that the explanations you loathe are there to prevent disbelief and an attitude that just because it is a mystery we cannot find in it a demonstration of rationality that makes it worthy of faith. Better without this? I would completely disagree.
If as the article in support of your position was saying, the calling down of the Holy Spirit had not happened yet, I would simply state that the calling down at Pentecost was for a particular purpose: for the Church. It does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not seen throughout the Bible from blowing over the oceans, to the pillar of fire, to the private revelations where the Spirit came upon people or the special coming of the Spirit to Our Lady as Divine progenitor of our Lord from Mary. My point is when did the Mass become a Mass? When was the first anamnesis or epiclesis done in according to the way we do it now? It is just as likely that where Christ is, so too is the Father and the Spirit. And that by special action as in the case of Mary, the first Mass did indeed give the newly ordained priests the gift of the Eucharist as mysterious in that setting as it is in today’s. Not sure I understand your point about the upper room and I’m not sure that the apostles were not expecting the suffering and death of Christ as He had told them of it. Being done the day before the Pasch, it was obvious that this was a new Rite with a a new covenant attached. Did the understand what it meant? Do we now? Probably as much as we do.
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chalcedon451 said:
And if they don’t, why isn’t the Church doing something about it? Ah, well, my friend, we might ask that about so much!
For me, it comes down to our being at the sacrifice at Calvary. I cannot see how we can be there before ‘there’ was there, so to say 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
I do understand my friend and it is the same question Protestants ask us about how Mary can be born without sin before Christ died on the Cross. I accept both and you accept the first but not the second. Anyway, an interesting topic to me and how we come to think as we do. 🙂
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chalcedon451 said:
Indeed, and the Church is happy to allow us both to believe and be within its bounds. But how I do wish it would do more by way of catechesis 😀
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Servus Fidelis said:
You’ll find no objection from me on that score C. We presently have the illiterate teaching the illiterate which isn’t a a recipe for angel cake.
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ginnyfree said:
Perhaps the poor boy was thinking that Mass in it fullest as we know it today hadn’t been said there by God at the Last Supper. There needs to be a charitable understanding of his boo boos somewhere. I still recommend Oreos and milk for his problems though. Sometimes these poor boys work too hard at getting it right and in their need to please a few, they loose sight of the many. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I was thinking that it has something to do with the SJ after their names. 🙂
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ginnyfree said:
From where they get their bad reputation sometimes. And it is usually the ones that go kinda sour that make it harder for their Brothers and said Brothers who spend not a few hours explaining the boo boos of their less fortunate Brothers, and it gets to be quite an ecclesial soap opera after a few hundred years…….Yikes. Did I say that? Oh H E double toothpicks. I’m gonna get attacked by some Jesuits if I keep it up. And they can be soooooo mean. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Act of Faith in The Divine Eucharist
I believe in my heart and openly profess that the bread and wine which are placed upon the altar are by the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of the Redeemer substantially changed into the true and life-giving Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ Our Lord and after the Consecration there is present the true Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary and offered up for the salvation of the world, hung upon the Cross, and now sits at the right hand of the Father and there is present the true Blood of Christ which flowed from his side. They are present not only by means of a sign and of the efficacy of the Sacrament, but also in the very reality and truth of their nature and sub- stance. Amen. __ Saint Gregory VII
Happy Feast Day!
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ginnyfree said:
And that, my friend, is why Sister Mary Knows It All always reminded everyone “It is called a Mystery for a reason boys n girls.” And so it is. The Mystery of all Mysteries.
All the words every used to describe the Sacred Species and what it says to the human heart in those holy moments when one is alone with God after receiving cannot say it all……………………….God bless. Ginnyfree.
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ginnyfree said:
Hello SF. As Father Mitch likes to say, “….not so much….” The Second point of the second link says this: “2. A Mass requires the Resurrection. It would only lead to heresy, in my opinion, to posit that when Jesus said at the Last Supper: “This is my body,” the bread became his body. What body did it become? His physical body? That is heretical. His resurrected body? More likely… except the resurrection had not happened yet. Catholic theology has always taken temporality and history very seriously, so I think it is important that we not think that Jesus could somehow offer himself to his disciples in his resurrected form before the resurrection had even taken place!”
The poor theology student has forgotten that God is out of time and not bound by it and this same basic principle is how Jesus was Mary’s Savior in the fullest sense while she was being conceived in the womb. All of God salvific works came into play at the moment of her conception so she could say in her Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” But maybe he’s been at the books a little too long. He needs a Oreos and milk break to get his head back on straight. Sheesh. I could nit pic a little more about some other things but that will do for now. Thanks for the link. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Servus Fidelis said:
That is a very logical response and the same reaction that I got. Another case of putting God in a box and disallowing Him to operate outside of said box.
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ginnyfree said:
In limiting the limitless God, they limit themselves.
Hell, that’s almost a cliche’
Pretty good for a Ginnyfree, don’t you think? I might be getting smarter from hanging around some pretty smart guys here at AATWT and elsewhere. happy Feast day.
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ginnyfree said:
O Sacrament most Holy, O Sacrament Divine. All Praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.
A good reminder there in those few words as to what we owe and should pay at each and every opportunity, whether in Mass, at Adoration or just visiting a chapel or a Church where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved: praise and thanksgiving.
God bless. Ginnyfree.
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bozoboy87 said:
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
To be accurate, Jesus didn’t hand out factory made stamped cookie cutter crackers. He took a loaf and tore pieces off of it.
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chalcedon451 said:
To be accurate, it was not just any loaf but unleavened bread. As used by Calvary?
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theophiletos said:
The difference between those who use unleavened bread and those who use leavened is probably the example of exegetical differences leading to differences of practice which I find most interesting. Historically, Armenians and Latins used unleavened bread because they asserted that the Last Supper was a passover meal, while Greeks and Syriac used leavened bread because they asserted that the Last Supper was not a passover meal. (I don’t know which side the Copts came down on.)
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chalcedon451 said:
I know who it is I meet in the Eucharist. I wish you could feel that too, and pray, one day, you shall, in the Lord’s good time.
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bozoboy87 said:
I don’t recall it being unleavened bread. I think that is unimportant anyway. But to be accurate, it was torn off a loaf, not a factory stamped Styrofoam wafer.
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chalcedon451 said:
Indeed, and many Orthodox still do that. But in most parishes, it has become the custom to do it this way.
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No Man's Land said:
And of course even that Bosco fellow could have some of the blessed bread, not the Lamb though, I’m afraid.
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chalcedon451 said:
He’ll be along to tell you that he is bathed in the Lambs blood. 🙂
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No Man's Land said:
🙂
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bozoboy87 said:
That’s rite. Im bathed in the blood of the Lamb. You catholics can eat crackers till dooms day.
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chalcedon451 said:
Now, now. It has been explained to you that we believe what Jesus said – the bread is his body. Either we treat each others’ views with respect, Bosco, or we don’t – and that last would leave you in a tiny minority as a kind of Westboro’ Baptist. We tend not to mock you, unless you mock us, so back to cease fire on that, eh?
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bozoboy87 said:
The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is the second-highest governing body in the Church (the First Presidency being the highest). Apostles are special witnesses of Jesus Christ, called to teach and testify of Him throughout the world.
https://www.lds.org/church/leaders/quorum-of-the-twelve-apostles?lang=eng
The Mormon Church is the true church that Christ founded. They have all 12 apostles, not just one measly one.
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chalcedon451 said:
As they say, if you believe that, I have a bridge in Manhattan I can sell you.
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bozoboy87 said:
How much? Can I make payments?
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chalcedon451 said:
As you get the deeds to the island with it, all you have to do is give me the details of your bank account and they go off to this guy in Nigeria 🙂
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ginnyfree said:
Oh my Gosh Bosco. Where have we gone wrong? You’re going Mormon??????? OH Hell. Please say it ain’t so Sam!!!! God bless. Ginnyfree.
P.S. Happy Feast of Corpus Christi
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theophiletos said:
Don’t worry about Bosco joining the Mormons. His point was merely that some arguments used by Roman Catholic apologists are formally identical to arguments used by Mormon apologists. Of course, he forgets that not all who have claimed to be apostles are, as even Paul found out (2 Cor 10). I’m not sure where this connects to the Eucharist…
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bozoboy87 said:
Good sister ginny is always the last to know.
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njb4725 said:
The Catholics are right to treat the Eucharist with respect…whatever differences I have with them over some of the “technical” aspects, I respect the pride of place and sanctity they observe regarding His Body and Blood.
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chalcedon451 said:
Thank you, Nicholas. I long ago gave up worrying about the technical aspects – He is there at every Mass – faith believes, nor questions how 🙂
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njb4725 said:
Now that is the first time I’ve heard a Catholic speak about the Eucharist in a way that makes me relax. That sounds awfully like the Orthodox mystic in you, C, rather than Thomas Aquinas’ shade…good for you.
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chalcedon451 said:
I fear I have never been able to get on with the Angelic Doctor. I understand what he’s saying, but it fails to move me 🙂
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njb4725 said:
Indeed. I like detail in some areas, but not in that…as much as I need to know – no more.
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chalcedon451 said:
When I was Orthodox and I used to hear arguments about this subject, I forbore to enter them. I know who it is I encounter there, and of that, so little can be put into words, that it is best to rest content in his presence and let those who wish to argue do so 🙂
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njb4725 said:
Wise indeed. That is also how I feel about the Table – I don’t think it can be “policed” in strict terms beyond obvious disorder. The rest is conscience and careful teaching.
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chalcedon451 said:
I agree. The whole thing is so sacred and so special that it is almost impossible to talk about intelligibly. Words go so far, and here, they fail and falter before the Awesome reality which is so far beyond them.
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Rob said:
Are there any Christians who clime that He not there when they gather to show His death? I have nit heard of any.
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chalcedon451 said:
There seem to be many who say the bread is not his body and the wine his blood, just as many walked away in John 6.
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ginnyfree said:
Thanks. I’ll take it!
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bozoboy87 said:
Treat the euchrist with respect. Ive seen picture of Ratzinger and Bergoglio holding the gold sun symbol up and they have it wrapped in some cloth. I guess one has to handle god gingerly. God is a sensitive kind guy. he bruises easy.
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chalcedon451 said:
It is a sign of respect. Holy things for the holy – and perhaps the unholy do not get that?
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njb4725 said:
You could also cite the Torah against that argument – Table of Shewbread etc.
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chalcedon451 said:
One could. I rather like the way the second of Servus’ links puts it. For me it is the encounter with Calvary and the sacrifice of the Lord – when I am, as the hymn put is, ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’.
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njb4725 said:
Ah, the hymn. “Because of Jesus’ unfailing love, I am forgiven, I am restored.” I used to sing that one at HT.
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chalcedon451 said:
A wonderful hymn. One of the great gifts of Protestantism to English worship. There is scarce a hymn-writer of the standard of Charles Wesley 🙂
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NEO said:
That is something that Rome tends to do that puts me off. Not that it’s necessarily wrong, mind, it’s just more detail than I want. I need to know He is in the bread and wine, but I don’t really care about the mechanics of it. I like a bit of mysticism/mystery in my Christianity, for all that I’m a pretty rational guy.
A few at their best may be as good as Wesley, but mostly their good days were his mediocre ones, and he had many, many good ones. 🙂
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chalcedon451 said:
At the same time as admiring the intellectual boldness, energy and self-confidence of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which, of course, in faith, I accept, I’ve never found it useful or necessary. If you accept the Real Presence it is because you know He is there.
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NEO said:
Yes, intellectually I admire it greatly, as in so many areas the teaching is wonderfully bold, and self confident. It just doesn’t move me as emotionally as just knowing that He is there. Maybe that’s why I like Luther’s construction, “in, under and around” works for this old Norwegian.
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bozoboy87 said:
Hold that golden sun symbol gingerly. We don’t want to jostle god.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Adoro Te Devote
Hidden God, devoutly I adore Thee,
Truly present underneath these veils:
All my heart subdues itself before Thee,
Since it all before Thee faints and fails.
Not to sight, or taste, or touch be credit,
Hearing only do we trust secure;
I believe, for God the Son hath said it–
Word of Truth that ever shall endure.
On the Cross was veiled Thy Godhead’s splendor,
Here Thy manhood lieth hidden too;
Unto both alike my faith I render,
And, as sued the contrite thief, I sue.
Though I look not on Thy wounds with Thomas,
Thee, my Lord, and Thee, my God, I call:
Make me more and more believe Thy promise,
Hope in Thee, and love Thee over all.
O Memorial of my Saviour dying,
Living Bread that givest life to man;
May my soul, its life from Thee supplying,
Taste Thy sweetness, as on earth it can.
Deign, O Jesus, pelican* of heaven,
Me, a sinner, in Thy Blood to lave,
To a single drop of which is given
All the world from all its sin to save.
Contemplating Lord, Thy hidden presence,
Grant me what I thirst for and implore,
In the revelation of Thine essence
To behold Thy glory evermore.
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
I’ve heard an explanation for Non-Catholics of Transubstantiation is an analogy.
Those that believe in being, “Born Again” through the Holy Spirit have a spiritual epiphany. If you touch them they are Fred or Mary and yet internal they are spiritually different. In their minds, they deny the power of Christ to change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood while the specie remain the same….What a Divine limitation you put on the Triune God!
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Servus Fidelis said:
An interesting analogy David and yes some do seem to create boundaries for God, outside of which, He cannot seem to operate.
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ginnyfree said:
Yes, very much so SF. And in so doing they create a god in their own image. Not smart. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Steve Brown said:
Very good!
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theophiletos said:
I wonder whether theologians tend to over-read transubstantiation as saying more than it is, by importing some of the modern materialist meaning of “substance” (= “stuff”) into the Aristotelian use of the term (= “what something really is”). Aristotelian philosophy and Aquinean theology are two very deep swimming pools, and I can only cling to the walls, but I wonder whether “transubstantiation” is not any more technical than the formulation “real presence” which has found favor among Lutherans, some Anglicans, and Eastern Orthodox: perhaps all it’s really saying is that Christ is really there. In the same way “purgatory” doesn’t mean anything more than “the place where people are purged”; insisting on a word foreign to non-Roman-Catholics may be erecting a fictional boundary that doesn’t really exist.
That said, I have a scruple about eucharistic adoration, and I’d appreciate it if any of you Roman Catholics could explain it to me. I have no trouble saying that God can make one created thing into another created thing, with or without the sensory “evidence” (what Aristotle called the “accidents”), but I have a big problem with anyone saying that a created thing can be made into God and therefore rightly worshiped, as adoration is reserved to God alone. I’ve read some of the official documents on the subject, but could not construe them without violating the unbridgeable chasm of being between Creator and created. So I suspect I’ve misunderstood the official teaching, as I doubt that the Roman Catholic hierarchy would permit any doctrine which is as blatantly idolatrous as my (mis-)understanding of eucharistic adoration. Any clarification would be very welcome!
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ginnyfree said:
Perhaps, but not today. I go to Adoration and it is marvelous to be able to be there with God whole and entire in the Blessed Sacrament. My suggestion to you is to simply give it a try. An Adoration Chapel near you may be found by following this link: http://www.masstimes.org/ I’d find one, go visit and plan on asking your question while there. Then sit with your Bible ready for about half an hour, then open it to the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, read it and ask our Lord if what He says on those pages is indeed true. But be warned, the answer may change your life permanently.
God bless. Ginnyfree.
P.S. Go for it. All you have to lose is your doubts.
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ginnyfree said:
PPS. Here is a better link up for Adoration Chapels: http://www.acfp2000.com/Chapels/usa.htm God bless. Ginnyfree.
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theophiletos said:
Romans 14:23
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Servus Fidelis said:
Theo, it seems rather a development in our understanding of the substantial presence of God hidden beneath the accidents of the Holy Eucharist. It stems all the way back to St. Paul:
1 Corinthians 11:29
29 For all who eat and drink[a] without discerning the body,[b] eat and drink judgment against themselves.
Now it would make sense that if one discerns the body of Christ (the risen glorified body of our Lord) in the Eucharist that it would be natural to adore our Lord before we receive Him . . . which we are supposed to do which we accentuate by a sign of adoration; receiving on our knees, genuflecting or making the sign of the cross as we approach. Another long time practice has been use of a verbal ejaculation such as “My Lord and my God” when approaching the Blessed Sacrament. That said, it is a short trip to allowing the people to adore the Lord in the Sacred Host for an extended period of time and praying before His substantial presence. And yes, we know that He is always present but only in the Eucharist is He substantially present among us. So it is a development of our love and understanding of how Christ is giving Himself to us in a special way and that we are never left as orphans for He is always present in a most mysterious and extraordinary way.
How this differs from God becoming a tree or a car or any other created thing is rather obvious; for it is only after the priest does as Christ has asked him to do, uttered the words of consecration over the bread and wine that such occurs. Nowhere else in creation does this happen. The closest thing I can even think of is the Holy Spirit appearing as a pillar of fire or as a dove. But that was showing himself in a sensible manner to those present under a form that could be witnessed. With the Eucharist, it is only with the eyes of faith that behold the Risen Christ.
Did that answer it?
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ginnyfree said:
Good answer Sf! As always. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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theophiletos said:
I’m afraid your answer seems to explain more how the practice might have developed than how it might be theologically explained in a way other than idolatry, but your postscript below perhaps gave me the language to articulate my qualms more clearly.
We know that Christ is both God and human. Christ is worshiped as God. Christ died as a man. Because of the communicatio idiomatum, it is fitting to say things like “God died,” meaning by that phrase that Christ who is God personally died. It is not fitting to say things like “God died” if what one means is that God the Father experienced death, or even that Christ’s divine nature is capable of suffering and dying. Christ suffered and died as a human.
So when Christ said, “This is my body which is broken for you,” of the Eucharistic host, he is not saying, “This is my glorified, resurrection body” except perhaps by continuity between the body which died and the body which was raised. In any event, it is clear that the Eucharistic host contains/is Christ’s human body, not Christ’s divinity. To worship it, therefore, is to worship a creature (Christ’s human body) instead of Christ as God.
When I tried to figure out how the Roman Catholic Church justifies eucharistic adoration, I came across a document (I forget which) which said that the divine nature was present in the eucharistic elements. This seems to be what you imply in your postscript as well. But this seems to me a basic category error, a confusion of the divine and human natures in Christ of the type prohibited by the Council of Chalcedon under threat of anathema. I see no reason to believe, from the Bible or tradition before the emergence of this disputed late medieval practice, that the divine nature is, or indeed could be, present in the elements in the way required. The divine substance is not like created substances in that it is capable of multiple instantiations or even spatial location. The uncreated divine nature is omnipresent, but that does not mean it is spread out through space like one smears peanut butter on bread. Instead it means that no place is outside of God’s knowledge, awareness, activity, and control, so God might be said to be fully present everywhere. When Scripture talks about God being especially present in particular locations (such as the Temple), this is not a location of the divine substance (which cannot be located, because it is illimitable), but rather the presence of God’s glory and name, and a pledge of special divine attentiveness (e.g. 2 Chron 7:12-16). God, of course, is not so much present in Jesus, as God is incarnate as Jesus, so that’s not a question of location at all.
Now, I recognize that the metaphysics of the divine nature are very deep, and we fallen mortals do not necessarily have reliable intuitions on the subject. But I had thought that the Roman Catholic Church had imbibed enough Aristotle and enough Boethius that notions of the divine nature being unable to be spatially located would have been pretty basic. That’s why it seemed to me that talk about the divine nature being present in the Eucharist as a result of transubstantiation were nonsense – no created substance can be transformed into or replaced by an uncreated substance. But on that perspective, either the eucharistic adoration means something other than the idea (preposterous from the perspective I had assumed the RCC held) that the divine nature can be located and present to be worshiped, or it is idolatry. I have no idea what else eucharistic adoration could mean and still be defensible, but this is what I hoped to hear from you who hold that it is a reasonable form of worship. Because if it is not an acceptable form of worship, then the Roman Catholic Church is very severely astray, more than even I had thought. On the other hand, the fact that eucharistic adoration developed so late in the tradition (14th-15th centuries, if I’m not mistaken, hardly a time of doctrinal purity in the Latin church) and only in Latin churches (not Greek, Syriac, Coptic, or any of the newer eastern Churches) seem to me good prima facie reasons for rejecting the practice. But those are only prima facie, and I’m happy to consider arguments in favor of the practice and in favor of an understanding of the practice which is not idolatrous, if one can be procured. But such arguments need to explain how it is that God is being worshiped in a transubstantiated eucharistic host.
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Servus Fidelis said:
You imply that metaphysically the person of Christ did not suffer or die which is precisely what the Catholic Church teaches. Just as the person of Christ could suspend His Divinity in a way to be ‘tempted’ by the Devil, He could also suspend His Divinity to be abandoned by Divinity during His Passion: ‘why have you abandoned me?’ We as humans cannot separate His humanity from His Divinity no more than we can separate our spirit from our bodies. When our body sins against God our soul also sins against God. So the mysteries of which you speak abound. When Christ became sin for us and was hung on a tree the Father could not look upon Him, in anthropomorphic terms. And when Paul says that he makes up in his body for what was laking in Christ what on earth can he be speaking about. Does Christ, in His resurrected body stand like a lamb slain before the Father in Revelations showing His Glorious wounds for our account or no? Does Christ cease to be Divine though His humanity is now divinized in Heaven? In other words, Christ never is separated from the human body He assumed at His incarnation. That is part of His essence and the mystery of His incarnation for love of we, created beings. Can God then divinize a part of His creation or not? Can we be adopted sons and daughters and join His household? Did God become man so that we might become as gods? Is it not this mystery and the substance of the argument put forward that you and others are trying to understand that which the elect will contemplate unceasingly for eternity such is the depth? It is also part of the mystery of His substantial presence in the Eucharist that one cannot divide His substance no matter how many small particles the bread has been turned into. He is whole and entire in all the pieces.
So yes, we are saying that Christ is substantially whole and entire in the eucharist for it is His will to do so. It is His will to replace what was the substance of bread with the substance that is Christ; body, blood, soul and divinity. That no more limits God in the rest of your analogy than it does to limit him in a single particle and exclude him from the others; for He can never be divided but is capable of being substantially present wherever He wills. And if He, who holds all things in being, wills to allow the substance of the bread to fall into nothingness, and to Himself become, as it were, for lack of a better analogy, bread from Heaven, a living bread that is Himself substantially (body blood soul and divinity as stated before) then that is what Christ will manifest for love of us. He wants to be our food and our strength and our God both materially and spiritually. It is the same problem that we see in the Our Father where if rendered properly we pray daily for our daily super-substantial food. A usage that is nowhere else found in the Greek. And so it is with Christ: Who becomes our super-substantial Bread; the manna from Heaven which is none other substantially than Jesus Himself – both human and Divine.
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bozoboy87 said:
Don’t drop god. he hates being dropped.
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theophiletos said:
You seem to be confusing the categories of person and substance, conflating the person (God the Word = Jesus Christ) with the two substances (divine and human). No theologian I’ve ever heard of (except perhaps John Zizioulas) believes that the substance is the person. So I certainly did not deny that the person of Christ suffered and died; indeed, I specifically affirmed that. I said that the divine nature cannot suffer and die, because it is impassible, which your church also teaches.
I think your language of Christ “suspend[ing] his Divinity” is problematic: anyone who is God cannot cease to be God, and all of God’s attributes are essential, not accidental, so none of the divine attributes can be given up even briefly. So in Christ we simultaneously see human weakness and divine strength, human mortality and divine immortality, without interruption. Christ does not cease to be divine.
I fully agree that the person Christ is never separated from his human body, soul, and spirit (although I’m not sure that that is meaningful in spatial terms) or from his divinity (that certainly is not meaningful in spatial terms). But I do know that Roman Catholic doctrine, following the Council of Chalcedon, teaches that Christ does not have a singular “essence” or a singular “substance.”
The language of “divinizing” creation makes the divine nature sound like the result of an alchemical operation. When theologians said, as you quote, “God became man so that we might become as gods,” they did not mean that we become uncreated, or otherwise partakers of the “incommunicable” attributes of God, which cannot be shared. Instead they meant that we share (contingently and dependently) in the divine life, character, goodness, and all the “communicable” attributes of God which can be shared, and that doing so eternally we will be so much more exalted than our current decaying state that we will be “as gods,” or so like unto God as the image in a mirror is to the object reflected that we will be “like God.” This does not make any created thing uncreated, as that is impossible. But frankly I don’t see how most of what you appeal to is relevant to my question or my objections. I cite those scriptures, and I quote those fathers, and they do not imply that the divine nature can support created accidents, or even that the divine nature is the substance of the transubstantiated host.
When you speak of “the substance [singular] that is Christ,” you deny the Council of Chalcedon. I am confident that the Roman Catholic Church does not deny the Council of Chalcedon, and thus I conclude that your answer does not accurately represent the precise teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. What that teaching is, precisely, I still do not know.
It is possible, however, that idolatry only involves worshiping something that you do not believe to be God. If that is the case, then even though the divine nature cannot be the substance of the transubstantiated Eucharistic host, as long as one thinks one is worshiping the uncreated Creator, then one is not committing idolatry. It would be error, yes, but plenty of error is compatible with God’s final grace, while all idolatry is anathema.
Precisely because the Latin “supersubtantialem” (Greek epiousion) is found nowhere else, its meaning is subject to a wider range of interpretation. How do you interpret the word?
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Servus Fidelis said:
I am confused by your use of the word substance. You seem to have invoked it to mean the two natures of Christ, both human and divine, that live in hypostatic union and are inseparable and yet complete and distinct. As I, as a person (who I am) cannot separate my person from my nature (what I am) is a given. What is the unfathomable mystery is that Christ a Divine Person answers the who question without any further problems. However after the incarnation the what question becomes more mysterious for we can say that He is both human and divine – the God-man. Where the person is after his incarnation also dwells his natures (both of them in their entirety) and yet you say that His divinity cannot be ‘substantially present in the Eucharist” which is what would be the heresy here. The glorified Christ in heaven still is a divine person with both a human and divine nature. So when you speak of the human dying and suffering you are saying that this is somehow separated from the Divine person and this is not the case. Make no mistake that the second person (a divine person) died on the cross. When He died he descended immediately to hell to free the just. He did not ascend to His father until the ascension.
As to God being able to destroy or let the substance of a created thing to back into nothingness from which He holds it in existence seems nonsensical. He holds creation in existence and can allow it to return to nothingness if He is God. Substance is that which is only conceived as an idea such as God or bread. We only know anything in this world by its accidents and make our discernment of ‘what’ it is by the presence or absence of these accidents or attributes. But substance is something that cannot be seen by eye or by scientific instrument. It is deduced by our faith in the thing. In this case our faith that the bread is bread before consecration and the faith that it is the Risen and Glorified Christ after consecration. He is there whole and entire: and he is in every particle as He is also in Heaven with His Father. This is not a question of what a human person can do but what God can do. We now have a God that has a human nature and a divine nature and they are never again going to be separated. They are wholly the natures of the second person of the Trinity.
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ginnyfree said:
Hello Theo. Perhaps this will help you clear up your doubts when you state: “I see no reason to believe, from the Bible or tradition before the emergence of this disputed late medieval practice, that the divine nature is, or indeed could be, present in the elements in the way required.”
John 6:51: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” If God calls His own flesh bread that will give life, what else is there? God bless. Ginnyfree.
P.S. Refer back to SF’s Biblical quotes as well.
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theophiletos said:
Your use of John 6:51 fails to recognize the distinction between the humanity and the divinity of Christ. Christ, who is God and human, calls himself life-giving bread, and then specifies that to refer to his flesh, i.e. his humanity.
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Steve Brown said:
No theo, i.e. his flesh.
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No Man's Land said:
As for the real presence, I argued with our friend, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, over that same point on some thread a while back. He insisted I was wrong.
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chalcedon451 said:
He would, for despite never having been elected Pope, he’s never let that get in the way of his claim to personal infallibility 😀
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No Man's Land said:
He seems a decent and clever fellow. However peremptory certitude combined with feelings of enmity for others is not piety; but mere fanaticism.
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Bingo! 🙂
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bozoboy87 said:
How much does a box of god crackers cost the CC? maybe they take bids.
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Servus Fidelis said:
P.S.
I also think that that is another reason why the understanding of the concept of transubstantiation is so valuable and important. For God is not ‘becoming’ a created thing if you believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation. He is wholly and entirely replacing the created with the Uncreatedness of Himself but leaving behind the accidents of a substance that is no longer present. Only God remains under the ‘appearance’ but not ‘substance’ of the bread or wine. Where there once was bread there is now only the Risen Christ.
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bozoboy87 said:
What happens if a crumb hits the ground and a rat eats it.?
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chalcedon451 said:
You may have rats in the Calvary Chapel, but you shouldn’t assume that Catholic Churches are as unhygenic.
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bozoboy87 said:
These are legit questions
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chalcedon451 said:
We take enormous care that this does not happen – indeed it is one of the reasons for not using straight bread.
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bozoboy87 said:
Jesus spoke of little else
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chalcedon451 said:
If I were the one not believing what Jesus said: ‘This is my body … this is my blood’, I’d be a little careful about reminding us of the words of Jesus. He also said that Peter was the rock on which he would build his church, and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
Good to be reminded of Jesus’ words – thank you.
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Bosco the Great said:
Well, good brother, I beg to differ. Nowhere, and I stress nowhere, did Jesus say that he built his church on Peter or any man for that matter. men don’t figure into the plan of salvation. But that doesn’t stop men from building their religions on men. We see this all the time.
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chalcedon451 said:
Well, I have this verse in my KJV – did they leave it out of yours?
Jesus says:
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Bosco says Jesus didn’t say it.
Any explanation for this one Bosco?
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ginnyfree said:
Hello Bosco. You stepped in it with this one: “men don’t figure into the plan of salvation”
Christ to His disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” MEN BOSCO! Men who would figure in the plan of salvation silly man. If you forgot, which obviously you did, it is called the Great Commission and it was given to men. Any questions. I love it when you fudge. Tee Hee. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Bosco the Great said:
Men spread the good news that Jesus died in their place. men had nothing to do with it. Jesus laid down his life. No man took it from him.
If any Pharisee botherd to look at the conversation between Jesus and Peter, they would see the topic was…who do men say that I AM. Peter replied….thou art the Christ. Jesus replied …this is the Rock that his church is built on. God has always been the Rock of ages. But religions can feel free to build on men…..and they do. just look at the consequences.
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theophiletos said:
Actually, I’m pretty sure that Bosco’s question was anticipated by the medieval scholastics. I forget their answer, however.
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bozoboy87 said:
You say the calvary chapels are un hygienic. But the CC is top heavy with pervert priests. First, im not a card carrying member of the Calvery Chapel. Second, there are saved that attend my lo9cal CC. Im willing to bet 1000$ there are no saved in your temple that you attend.
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chalcedon451 said:
I think you’ll find that was a joke, a little bit of irony. Is it true Americans don’t do irony?
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bozoboy87 said:
yOUR JOKES ARENT FUNNY. kEEP YOUR DAY JOB.
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chalcedon451 said:
Humour is always hard to convey – especially to those without a sense of it 🙂
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bozoboy87 said:
I beg your pardon. Humor is my middle name.
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bozoboy87 said:
Why am I Bozoboy? I didn’t push any buttons. I am Bosco the Great.
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chalcedon451 said:
That is often the case with those who don’t get jokes; I find they have usually given themselves the name, perhaps because no one else did?
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theophiletos said:
Some of us appreciate the humor, but most of us don’t appreciate it when directed at us… =-)
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theophiletos said:
I’m entertained that you use CC first to refer to the (Roman) Catholic Church, and then to refer to your Calvary Chapel. On the face of it, you seem to be asserting that there are saved Roman Catholics, but none attend Chalcedon’s parish!
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bozoboy87 said:
Jesus broke bread with his boys. He didn’t break bread with just anybody. the unsaved religious think they participate by eating crackers. Communion is for the saved. The unsaved eat and are damned.
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chalcedon451 said:
Jesus broke bread with the Apostles, who founded his Church and from whom our bishops descend in unbroken succession. I know that your pastors claim that the Spirit moves them, but any one can, and many do, so in the absence of any historical link to the Church Jesus founded, is there any reason to believe your chaps? No, thought not. As Bishop Butler said, this pretending to the gifts of the Holy Spirit is a very terrible thing.
You are slipping back into your old ways Bosco. Do remember, when throwing out allegations of others being unsaved, that we have only your word for you being saved; if you are going to doubt our testimony, why should we give you any credence? Except recently, most of what you post shows not only no evidence of being inspired by the Spirit, but quite the opposite.
Now go back to behaving well.
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
To which bishop Butler are you referring?
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chalcedon451 said:
This one, David:
http://bishopbutler.deviousfish.com/index.html
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
OK, I had a Headmaster at Downside, a Dom. Christopher Butler, who later became Bishop of Ely. He was England’s Fulton Sheen but at a much higher level. At VatII he was one of the few who addressed them in Latin.
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bozoboy87 said:
“our bishops descend in unbroken succession”
I was under the false impression that you fancy yourself a historian of sorts.
The chair of Peter has been bought, sold, killed for, left vacant, duplicated, unkempt, and sundry other reasons, just a office to be passed around.
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
St. Bisto, back to your history books.
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Bosco the Great said:
So good brother David, what did I get wrong?
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chalcedon451 said:
Which bit of that means there is an unbroken succession?
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theophiletos said:
The issue of course is what “unbroken succession” means, and what sort of break would be necessary to result in a broken succession, or to convince people that the succession had been broken. Is the succession broken if there is no legitimately elected pope? Clearly not, as this happens for a time (up to a few years) after each pope’s death. Is the succession broken if there is no bishop in Rome for over a generation? Evidently not, since the papacy moved to Avignon for a few generations. Is the succession broken if none of the current claimants to the office are valid? Evidently not, since that is what the Council of Constance decided when it deposed all current popes (three of them) and elected a replacement. With this sort of continuity, what could count as discontinuity? Even if Rome were destroyed and uninhabited, and the bishop of Rome left unreplaced, the faithful could still look to a future restoration of the papacy and boast of an unbroken succession. It seems that the idea of the unbroken succession is either trivially true or meaningless.
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chalcedon451 said:
In a way you’ve provided your own answer. The Church, through the Apostolic college, has ways of ensuring the succession to Peter, even if at times it takes time.
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ginnyfree said:
Hello Bosco. Fair to say more than one clown of a man sat in the seat? Alexander VI was the worst I think. Incest. How absolutely horrid! I think also that since none of them managed to deliver a permanently devastating blow to the church herself it proves what Christ promised to His Church so long ago, that the gates of the netherworld wouldn’t prevail. They haven’t. Our bad Popes are proof. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Bosco the Great said:
My favorite is Sixtus III. He had brothels for the clergy to enjoy. Also they made money for the church that Christ founded. Then he had a brainstorm…. purgatory. And not only that, but one can buy uncle lefty out of this purgatory. It made more money than he imagined.
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chalcedon451 said:
And there is a point to this? You may remember that one of the 12 betrayed Jesus and the rest ran off. Perhaps your God can only work through perfect men? In which case, he can’t be working through you can he?
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Bosco the Great said:
Unbroken succession . one pope was killed by a husband that caught him in sex with his wife. Another fled town because of his flagrant misdeeds. This doesn’t suggest a unbroken line to Peter. It suggests a fairytale told to children.
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
Hey, guess what Bisto there have been bad Popes. The line of Succession has never been broken.
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Bosco the Great said:
Well, if you say so good brother. Me , personally, I just follow the Lamb.
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