why I believe in the Eucharist

[katherine2001]

Recon3rd, if Jesus didn't mean His words literally because the flesh profits nothing, what are you basing your salvation on? If Jesus meant that His flesh profits nothing, then nothing He did in the flesh profits anything, and we have no salvation. If Christ's flesh profits nothing, then His incarnation in the flesh and His taking on a human body, nature, and personhood profits nothing. His sinless life, His healings, His crucifixion, and His resurrection profit nothing, and we are still dead in our sins. If the "flesh profits nothing" is going to be used to argue that we are not to eat His flesh and drink His blood (especially when He showed how we are to do that at the Last Supper), then the "flesh profits nothing" has to be applied across the board. If His flesh profits nothing, then what is our idea that we are saved being based on? Obviously, Jesus was not talking about His own flesh when He said that "the flesh profits nothing", because if that was true, why did He become incarnate, die on the cross, and resurrect from the dead, all in the flesh? Remember that the passage says that Jesus was totally aware of what the people were saying among themselves and their total bewilderment about what He was saying, and yet He didn't correct them or chase after them when many disciples left Him after His words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The idea that Communion was only symbolic didn't come into the church until the Reformation. Before that, the church both East and West believed in Real Presence prior to that. All the apostles believed that the bread and the wine is Christ's Body and Blood. If they were wrong about that, what else in the Scriptures were they wrong about? Having been Baptist for 25 years before I converted to EO, I am pretty aware that the only time the Scriptures are not taken literally is when people can't accept what is said if it is taken literally. Somehow, the Son of God, who participated in the Creation of the universe isn't capaple of saying what He really meant to say, so obviously, people just misunderstood what He meant (including the apostles).

 

[yashualover]

Rome teaches what Jesus taught.

Rome gave you the bible, after all.

Re: Salvation in the Catholic Church:


II. GRACE
1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46 1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

But don't forget:


2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"50
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.51 2002 God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of "eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

Please read the 2001 carefully.

It's saying you chose Him, that's salvation by works.

The word says "I have chosen you, you have not chosen me"

A dead man can not revive himself.

The 2001 says that God has placed in mankind a longing for truth, where is that in the bible? nowhere, a dead man can not and will never choose God.

Only those who have been predestined to receive the free gift of faith will choose Him and not before.

Since the fall man is depraved and loves sin and hates God and will never choose God, a supernatural intervention from God is required BEFORE man will choose Him, it's called being born again.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Yes, but a man has to cooperate with God and choose to use the grace God gave him to believe.

Otherwise scriptures would be wrong when it says when we refuse to believe we again crucify Him.

SO, God chooses us, by sending us the gifts of grace, but we either accept or refuse....thus in our free will we do choose.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Please read the 2001 carefully.

It's saying you chose Him, that's salvation by works.

The word says "I have chosen you, you have not chosen me"

A dead man can not revive himself.

The 2001 says that God has placed in mankind a longing for truth, where is that in the bible? nowhere, a dead man can not and will never choose God.

Only those who have been predestined to receive the free gift of faith will choose Him and not before.

Since the fall man is depraved and loves sin and hates God and will never choose God, a supernatural intervention from God is required BEFORE man will choose Him, it's called being born again.

I totally disagree.

I was 'dead' but didnt realise it.
I read messages from our Lady and it woke me up that I was actually not 'going to be saved' just because i believed...
So i was pretty much walking the broad path to my self destruction...and i didnt know it.

IT was when I...'I' began crying over my sins and felt remorse...that i was finally cooperating with the graces i always had, but didnt use.


It was in my own choice to 'let go' of the flesh to desire to have God...that i was finally alive.

His graces were there, but my spirit was willing and my flesh was weak.

I could list for you the host of sins i was filthy with and didnt even realise...
But after the gifts began 'in use' [so to speak] when I wanted to use them...did i finally see my sins and see that i needed to repent.

So, i was dead, but He called me always to return, i just finally 'got it thru my thick head' and have tried to resolve with His help, to quit sinning.

 

[yashualover]

Recon3rd, if Jesus didn't mean His words literally because the flesh profits nothing, what are you basing your salvation on? If Jesus meant that His flesh profits nothing, then nothing He did in the flesh profits anything, and we have no salvation. If Christ's flesh profits nothing, then His incarnation in the flesh and His taking on a human body, nature, and personhood profits nothing. His sinless life, His healings, His crucifixion, and His resurrection profit nothing, and we are still dead in our sins. If the "flesh profits nothing" is going to be used to argue that we are not to eat His flesh and drink His blood (especially when He showed how we are to do that at the Last Supper), then the "flesh profits nothing" has to be applied across the board. If His flesh profits nothing, then what is our idea that we are saved being based on? Obviously, Jesus was not talking about His own flesh when He said that "the flesh profits nothing", because if that was true, why did He become incarnate, die on the cross, and resurrect from the dead, all in the flesh? Remember that the passage says that Jesus was totally aware of what the people were saying among themselves and their total bewilderment about what He was saying, and yet He didn't correct them or chase after them when many disciples left Him after His words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The idea that Communion was only symbolic didn't come into the church until the Reformation. Before that, the church both East and West believed in Real Presence prior to that. All the apostles believed that the bread and the wine is Christ's Body and Blood. If they were wrong about that, what else in the Scriptures were they wrong about? Having been Baptist for 25 years before I converted to EO, I am pretty aware that the only time the Scriptures are not taken literally is when people can't accept what is said if it is taken literally. Somehow, the Son of God, who participated in the Creation of the universe isn't capaple of saying what He really meant to say, so obviously, people just misunderstood what He meant (including the apostles).

Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, are are life.
Joh 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray him.

The flesh, the natural man without the Spirit can profit nothing. The natural man without the Spirit loves his sin and will not and can not choose God, he is dead to spiritual things.

Man must be born again first before he will have the ability to choose God.

That blows free will out of the water.

 

[yashualover]

I totally disagree.

I was 'dead' but didnt realise it.
I read messages from our Lady and it woke me up that I was actually not 'going to be saved' just because i believed...
So i was pretty much walking the broad path to my self destruction...and i didnt know it.

IT was when I...'I' began crying over my sins and felt remorse...that i was finally cooperating with the graces i always had, but didnt use.


It was in my own choice to 'let go' of the flesh to desire to have God...that i was finally alive.

His graces were there, but my spirit was willing and my flesh was weak.

I could list for you the host of sins i was filthy with and didnt even realise...
But after the gifts began 'in use' [so to speak] when I wanted to use them...did i finally see my sins and see that i needed to repent.

So, i was dead, but He called me always to return, i just finally 'got it thru my thick head' and have tried to resolve with His help, to quit sinning.

The fact that you felt remorse for your sins is proof that YHVH changed your heart and gave you a heart of flesh, without that supernatural intervention you would have not felt remorse. The natural man does not truly feel remorse for his sins, they are just sorry that they have been caught, there is no fear of God before their eyes. The natural man does not recieve the things of God, and that includes genuine repentance.

The fact that you have genuine remorse for your sins is proof of regeneration, regeneration comes first, genuine repentance comes only after the Holy Spirit revives a dead man. As Jesus said to Nicodemus "you must be born again" The Holy Spirit blows where He wills. Man can not make himself born again, it's by grace and grace alone.

 

[chestertonrules]

Please read the 2001 carefully.

It's saying you chose Him, that's salvation by works.

The word says "I have chosen you, you have not chosen me"

A dead man can not revive himself.

The 2001 says that God has placed in mankind a longing for truth, where is that in the bible? nowhere, a dead man can not and will never choose God.

Only those who have been predestined to receive the free gift of faith will choose Him and not before.

Since the fall man is depraved and loves sin and hates God and will never choose God, a supernatural intervention from God is required BEFORE man will choose Him, it's called being born again.

Here's what the word ACTUALLY says:

- Romans 2:6-7 "For He will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life."

-1 Peter 1:17 Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.

-- John 6:53-54 "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 you; he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

- Matthew 6:14 "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

 

[katherine2001]

Yeshualover, Jesus's sinless life, His miracles, His crucufixion, and His resurrection all were done in the flesh. The Son had to become man and do all of this so that He could save us. If His flesh profits nothing, then we are not saved. Jesus didn't do those things in the Spirit. He had to become incarnate in the flesh as a man in order for us to be saved. What is not assumed is not healed. If the argument is going to be made that the flesh profits nothing when it comes to eating His flesh and drinking His blood, which He tells us we must do, then that argument must be argued across the board. Jesus was not just a spirit. He became incarnate, and through His mother, became human like us. He is still God-Man to this day. We will one day see Him sitting on His throne in his glorified, resurrected body.

 

[yashualover]

Yeshualover, Jesus's sinless life, His miracles, His crucufixion, and His resurrection all were done in the flesh. The Son had to become man and do all of this so that He could save us. If His flesh profits nothing, then we are not saved. Jesus didn't do those things in the Spirit. He had to become incarnate in the flesh as a man in order for us to be saved. What is not assumed is not healed. If the argument is going to be made that the flesh profits nothing when it comes to eating His flesh and drinking His blood, which He tells us we must do, then that argument must be argued across the board. Jesus was not just a spirit. He became incarnate, and through His mother, became human like us. He is still God-Man to this day. We will one day see Him sitting on His throne in his glorified, resurrected body.

Amen! I agree

 

[NoDoubt]

I don't have to eat His "flesh" yet I know I am saved.

I doubt anyone will take the time to read THIS all the way through but I'll give it a go.

(Let's see how long it takes for anyone to read this by the response time)

 

[yashualover]

I don't have to eat His "flesh" yet I know I am saved.

I doubt anyone will take the time to read THIS all the way through but I'll give it a go.

(Let's see how long it takes for anyone to read this by the response time)

Amen, last time I checked salvation was a free gift.

 

[NoDoubt]

Amen, last time I checked salvation was a free gift.

yes

 

[Giver]

Amen, last time I checked salvation was a free gift.

(John 6:53-55) “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? They said. Jesus replied: ‘I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.”

 

[NoDoubt]

(John 6:53-55) “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? They said. Jesus replied: ‘I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.”

Please read the explanation in the link. Thank you.

 

[NoDoubt]

Some people still aren't getting it.

They think just like those who had no spiritual discernment. They are still doing it!!!!

 

[yashualover]

I don't have to eat His "flesh" yet I know I am saved.

I doubt anyone will take the time to read THIS all the way through but I'll give it a go.

(Let's see how long it takes for anyone to read this by the response time)

Transubstantiation: Great article, thanks.

I fully agree with the teaching in that article.

 

[yashualover]

Some people still aren't getting it.

They think just like those who had no spiritual discernment. They are still doing it!!!!

They need to measure everything they are taught against the word, man makes many mistakes, cursed be the man who puts their trust in man.

 

[MoNiCa4316]

Something I found...

http://lordshadowblade.deviantart.com/art/The-Sacrament-of-Love-70640313

that's beautiful! thank you for sharing!

Rome teaches what Jesus taught.

Rome gave you the bible, after all.

Re: Salvation in the Catholic Church:


II. GRACE
1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46 1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

But don't forget:


2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"50
Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.51 2002 God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of "eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

QFT

Recon3rd, if Jesus didn't mean His words literally because the flesh profits nothing, what are you basing your salvation on? If Jesus meant that His flesh profits nothing, then nothing He did in the flesh profits anything, and we have no salvation. If Christ's flesh profits nothing, then His incarnation in the flesh and His taking on a human body, nature, and personhood profits nothing. His sinless life, His healings, His crucifixion, and His resurrection profit nothing, and we are still dead in our sins. If the "flesh profits nothing" is going to be used to argue that we are not to eat His flesh and drink His blood (especially when He showed how we are to do that at the Last Supper), then the "flesh profits nothing" has to be applied across the board. If His flesh profits nothing, then what is our idea that we are saved being based on? Obviously, Jesus was not talking about His own flesh when He said that "the flesh profits nothing", because if that was true, why did He become incarnate, die on the cross, and resurrect from the dead, all in the flesh? Remember that the passage says that Jesus was totally aware of what the people were saying among themselves and their total bewilderment about what He was saying, and yet He didn't correct them or chase after them when many disciples left Him after His words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. The idea that Communion was only symbolic didn't come into the church until the Reformation. Before that, the church both East and West believed in Real Presence prior to that. All the apostles believed that the bread and the wine is Christ's Body and Blood. If they were wrong about that, what else in the Scriptures were they wrong about? Having been Baptist for 25 years before I converted to EO, I am pretty aware that the only time the Scriptures are not taken literally is when people can't accept what is said if it is taken literally. Somehow, the Son of God, who participated in the Creation of the universe isn't capaple of saying what He really meant to say, so obviously, people just misunderstood what He meant (including the apostles).

that's a really good point!

I don't have to eat His "flesh" yet I know I am saved.

I doubt anyone will take the time to read THIS all the way through but I'll give it a go.

(Let's see how long it takes for anyone to read this by the response time)

I read it... well I think that saying "How could Jesus, still present in His own body, say that bread and wine were His body and blood?" really limits God. He made matter, can He not do anything He wants to with it? btw it is not true that St. Augustine didn't believe in the Eucharist...he was a Catholic, everyone at the time believed in the Eucharist. It wasn't until people like Zwingli. The author of this article took what Augustine said out of context and misinterpreted it. I'm sorry this article didn't change my mind at all... if Communion is only symbolic, why did Apostle Paul write that if we take it unworthily, we are sinning against the very Body and Blood of the Lord? And why did the entire early Church believe in the Eucharist? what about St. Justin Martyr, who lived around 150 AD? Well most of all I know that the Eucharist is real because it is changing my life and the lives of many others. There is a lot of grace in the Eucharist if we take it with faith. I'm sad that so many do not believe in it it is such a gift..and it is a free gift.

Some people still aren't getting it.

They think just like those who had no spiritual discernment. They are still doing it!!!!

Did no one have 'spiritual discernment' until Zwingli?

They need to measure everything they are taught against the word, man makes many mistakes, cursed be the man who puts their trust in man.

You're right, that is why I am trusting God and His Church that is lead and protected by the Holy Spirit...not theologians from a couple hundred years ago.

Peace

monica

 

[MoNiCa4316]

NoDoubt, another thing about that article...it shows a very, very poor understanding of the Eucharist. For example, this is NOT true.. This is not what the Catholic church teaches (the underlined part):

If the Eucharist really becomes the blood of Christ, then we are sinning by eating it! A fourth problem is that the Catholic Catechism claims that Jesus is sacrificed at every Mass,13 while the Bible claims that Jesus' one sacrifice was sufficient:

• When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit. (John 19:30)
• For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. (Romans 6:10)
• For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. (Hebrews 7:26-27)
• But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:11-12)
• Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 9:26)
• so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. (Hebrews 9:28)
• By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10)
• But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 10:12)
• For by one offering</B> He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)
• For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; (1 Peter 3:18)

This is actually a very common misunderstanding. If anyone actually took the time to learn what the Catholic church teaches, well they would see it's actually different.

No, Jesus is not sacrificed again and again at every Mass!!! What happens is we are taken back to His original sacrifice on the Cross 2000 years ago, and it is made present before us. It is the same sacrifice!! During Mass, we worship at Calvary with all the angels and saints in heaven..on a spiritual level, it's a timeless event. That is what the Catechism is saying, and all the knowledgeable Catholics I've talked to about this say the same thing. Please learn Catholicism from Catholic sources

 

[NoDoubt]

Need I say more???

Here you go...

Click this