Eucharist Elements

[RandyPNW]

That is why great care is taken. It is not just bread one can be careless with.

Okay, you win brother--I'm stupified! There will always be crumbs of "Christ" dropping on the floor unintentially. I think "Christ" can handle it!

I'm not mocking you. I love ya, brother. You seem very kind and self-controlled. That matters much more than this discussion.

 

[RandyPNW]

Our denominations statement is that the bread and wine are a means of grace by which we commune with the risen Christ. In practice, this tends to be receptionist, which means the communion of Christ is only in the eating and drinking of the bread and wine. This is similar to other historic Reformed churches. So not transubstantiation, but more than just a symbol.

We have a beautiful old Scottish hymn in our older hymnal that we still use, "Here, Oh my Lord, I see Thee face to face / here faith can touch and handle things unseen". The physical part of communion is important. God uses tangible, visible means to give us grace.

Well, I think that's more than fair. It *is* a special rite--an important sacrament of remembrance. So it is certainly more than just eating bread and drinking wine in honor of Christ. It is a form of participating in him, just as prayer, service, or obedience is a form of participating in Christ's actual presence.

 

[FireDragon76]

Lutherans don't actually believe in "consubstantiation". They believe in sacramental union. Christ isn't present in the bread and wine mixed in with the bread and wine, but present in the same way that God is present. And some are receptionists also: both Consecrationism and Receptionism are theologically valid in Lutheranism, though Consecrationism tends to be associated with "high church" Lutheranism, it isn't rare.

The main difference between Lutherans and Reformed is due to the legacy of Zwingli's argument with Luther. Zwingli wanted to preserve biblical language about Christ being at the right hand of God, whereas Luther wanted to preserve sacramental realism, because it was essential to how he thought of grace and justification working. I tend to think Luther had the better argument. Calvin and other reformers walked back somewhat from Zwingli's sacramental theology, but sometimes ended up making vague and confusing theology. Later Revivalism in the US, and Common Sense Realism (a philosophical movement that was popular in early America), didn't do good things for the Reformed doctrine of the sacrament, and by the 19th century, Memorialism was widespread in many Reformed churches in the US.

Prior to joining my local United Church of Christ congregation, I was a Lutheran. The UCC are technically Reformed Congregationalists and typically only have Communion once a month, though, which is common in many Reformed churches.

 

[jas3]

I don't believe the bread and wine are *in themselves* sacred.

Nobody does, when considered apart from the sacrament. Rejecting this idea doesn't mean that memorialism or anti-sacramentalism is the only remaining option.

Again, my point was that if someone does associate the pagan offerings with their sacred pagan nature, then watching a Christian eat them would seem to encourage compromise with paganism.

You're still not getting the fact that the "sacred pagan nature" doesn't exist because Zeus and Baal don't really exist, notwithstanding that there are demons who pose as them. The only reason a separation of the imagined nature and the meat can be made is because the nature is not real. I hope I don't have to explain why that doesn't apply in the case of Christian sacraments.

I've read through the years. If you have the issue, you do the study. I can respond to an issue you believe is real, and that I question. I would have to look for something that may not be there.

You're the one making claims about how the true believers initially held the Eucharist to be metaphorical and over time the nominal believers introduced the idea that it's literal and a means of grace. That is an invented history, plain and simple.

The Early Church quickly fell into Arianism--how would you explain that?

I wouldn't call a time scale of multiple centuries "quick," but the Arians weren't part of the Church anyway, properly speaking. They may have held ecclesiastical offices and titles, but they excluded themselves from the Body of Christ by their heresy, as many do today.

I've read through all of Church history, and I've read a good amount of the Church Fathers.

Then it should be trivial for you to cite a single one in defense of the claims you've made.

 

[RandyPNW]

Nobody does, when considered apart from the sacrament. Rejecting this idea doesn't mean that memorialism or anti-sacramentalism is the only remaining option.

You're still not getting the fact that the "sacred pagan nature" doesn't exist because Zeus and Baal don't really exist, notwithstanding that there are demons who pose as them. The only reason a separation of the imagined nature and the meat can be made is because the nature is not real. I hope I don't have to explain why that doesn't apply in the case of Christian sacraments.

I'll try not to prolong this, and still respond. The association between food and paganism is in fact a real association, whether or not the particular pagan gods exist. For Paul, we're just talking about food because the dedication does not contaminate the food with something that doesn't exist--you're right about that.

But that does *not* separate the association for those weak in faith. Don't you understand that? If so, then sacramentalists who see the Eucharistic elements as associated with Christ's flesh can be, in my view, "weak" as well, because the bread is *not* really the flesh!

I don't mean this as an insult to you personally, because I have no idea how "weak" your faith is? But it seems more likely that you just want to resist my suggestions because you seem unable to understand them.

If it was important for Paul to recognize the association of food with the idols it was dedicated to, it is equally important for me to recognize the association of bread and wine with Jesus' flesh and blood they are dedicated to. In my view, neither association is real. But they are based on a real position those weak in faith have in these matters.

You're the one making claims about how the true believers initially held the Eucharist to be metaphorical and over time the nominal believers introduced the idea that it's literal and a means of grace. That is an invented history, plain and simple.

I know the Church Fathers would speak of a "change" caused by the dedication of elements to represent Christ. But the notion of this change without explanation in terms of actual substance means that the dedication simply rendered the act of eating and drinking *spiritual acts.*

Early Christians were undoubtedly afraid to deny what Jesus plainly said, that the elements were, in fact, his flesh and blood. But he could easily have meant that they *represented* his body and blood, and were only "changed" in the sense that they were now being treated *as if* they were Jesus' flesh and blood.

So there's really no solution here. You can find "change" in the early centuries and in the Church Fathers, but they had no way to express this apart from dedicating something common and making it sacred, as opposed to some kind of physical transformation.

What happened later in history was the Catholics tried to produce the language of Transubstantiation to make up for the lack of explanation as to how a "change" takes place when there really is no physical change.

I wouldn't call a time scale of multiple centuries "quick," but the Arians weren't part of the Church anyway, properly speaking. They may have held ecclesiastical offices and titles, but they excluded themselves from the Body of Christ by their heresy, as many do today.

Not according to my reading of Church history. The Arians took over a large part of the Early Church at one point. You might as well call the entire church "false Christians."

Then it should be trivial for you to cite a single one in defense of the claims you've made.

It isn't relevant. The language of "change" is there, but what did that mean? I can't prove any more than it's just indicating common elements become a sacred thing, and thus, the elements could be eaten as Christ himself. It sounds more like an effort to just do what Jesus said without really understanding it.

Since there was no real discussion of what this "change" consisted of, I don't count it as "Transubstantiation," which came much later in Church history. That's when the Catholics tried to be more specific in describing this change as a real substantial change.

Trouble is, it doesn't work. There is no change in substance. Hence, there is no physical change, or transubstantiation, at all.

As indicated early in Christian history, there is a change. But I believe personally that the change is purely the matter of dedicating the elements for sacred use. Then they can be taken *as if* they are Christ himself. The elements are symbolic of Christ, and in taking his representative elements we are showing that we have been and are taking him. But he is *not* the elements themselves!

And they symbolize the fact that we do and have partaken of Christ himself. This was an act of "remembrance," as Jesus himself said. And so, it was more about something in the past than just the observance in the present.

Where then do you think the priority is, on take the Communion or remembering how we should be living? Of course we should be taking Communion. But the ritual is not the main thing, but rather, its value is in remembering Christ's cross in the past, and the rights he won for us to benefit from it. My view only...

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Okay, you win brother--I'm stupified! There will always be crumbs of "Christ" dropping on the floor unintentially. I think "Christ" can handle it!

I'm not mocking you. I love ya, brother. You seem very kind and self-controlled. That matters much more than this discussion.

Thank you. Your questions are very good and I think all Catholics should consider them. What do we mean by "real presence". We always say that but what does it mean and how does it differ from Christ present among those gathered in his name, the body of Christ as church, or ever present God? Is there such a thing as sacred times, places and objects? If so what makes them sacred?

Quite a while ago Rudolf Otto wrote a book entitled The Idea of The Holy. I started it but got distracted into other things. I will have to return to it.

 

[Jipsah]

The problem has been that many Catholics think that by rendering Jesus' statement "symbolic" we reduce the sacrament from something spiritual to something banal.

Which is observably the case across most of Protestant thought. the Eucharist is a sip and a nibble that's taken now and then "in remembrance", no big deal. It's just something you do sometimes at church.

 

[prodromos]

Jesus' flesh and blood are not edible in the context of the Eucharist either.

Jesus says otherwise, in fact He doubles down on it.
A serious problem with your position is that the Jews do have a non literal understanding of what it means to eat someone's flesh, which is to destroy that person.

 

[jas3]

I don't mean this as an insult to you personally, because I have no idea how "weak" your faith is? But it seems more likely that you just want to resist my suggestions because you seem unable to understand them.

In my view, the weakness of faith lies in refusing to believe that our Lord would work a miracle with bread and wine and that His Church would transmit the correct Apostolic understanding of this sacrament down through the generations.

I know the Church Fathers would speak of a "change" caused by the dedication of elements to represent Christ. But the notion of this change without explanation in terms of actual substance means that the dedication simply rendered the act of eating and drinking *spiritual acts.*

Again, you haven't provided a single actual example of this, you're just vaguely gesturing toward the Church Fathers and saying they said it.

Not according to my reading of Church history. The Arians took over a large part of the Early Church at one point. You might as well call the entire church "false Christians."

No, because they didn't take over the whole Church. But Arians were not and are not Christians.

It isn't relevant. The language of "change" is there, but what did that mean? I can't prove any more than it's just indicating common elements become a sacred thing, and thus, the elements could be eaten as Christ himself. It sounds more like an effort to just do what Jesus said without really understanding it.

You haven't even substantiated the assertion that the Church Fathers talked about "change." I really don't understand your aversion to taking a few seconds to search for "Ignatius Eucharist" or "Justin Martyr Eucharist" and being able to talk about what was actually said.

Where then do you think the priority is, on take the Communion or remembering how we should be living? Of course we should be taking Communion. But the ritual is not the main thing, but rather, its value is in remembering Christ's cross in the past, and the rights he won for us to benefit from it. My view only...

Given that our Lord said if you don't eat His flesh and drink His blood, you have no life in you, I think a proper understanding of His teaching is actually really important.

 

[o_mlly]

With respect to Transubstantiation, this is called a "miracle," but is actually only an attempt to explain, literally, what Jesus meant by calling the Eucharistic elements his blood and body. If we take these elements of bread and wine as though they are Jesus' body and blood, how can that be explained?

I favor combining the reflections of John Chrysostom, St. Augustine and, soon to be Blessed, Archbishop Fulton Sheen. At Eucharist, we experience a moment in eternity: Christ's sacrifice, once and for all, is made present.

In reflecting on the Cana miracle, Chrysostom and Augustine note that in eternity the water is wine as all moments, past and future, in eternity are present. Sheen reflects on how in the natural order, the hierarchy of living things transforms the lower into higher forms in order that the lower might share life more abundantly. In the Eucharist, the bread and wine that the living Christ consumed, and in consuming transformed them into Himself, is made present to us as His body, blood, soul and divinity for us to consume that we might have life everlasting.

John Chrysostom (Homily 22 on John's Gospel) says, "But now to show that it is He who transmutes water in the vine plants, and who converts the rain by its passage through the root into wine, He effected that in a moment at the wedding which in the plant is long in doing."

In De Trinitate, Augustine says that miracles are the acceleration of events that occur in nature over time. Significantly, he begins his explanation by saying that God draws the rainwater through the roots to the branches of the vine and makes wine. Christ's changing of the water into wine at Cana is the same process done with "unusual speed" (De Trin. III, 5).

And Fulton J. Sheen, (Life of Christ) reflects on the Last Supper:

Everything in nature has to have communion in order to live; and through it what is lower is transformed into what is higher: chemical into plants, plants into animals, animals into man. And man? Should he not be elevated through communion with Him Who “came down” from heaven to make man a partaker of the Divine nature? …

When Our Lord, after He changed the bread and wine to His Body and Blood, told His Apostles to eat and drink, He was doing for the soul of man what food and drink do for the body. Unless the plants sacrifice themselves to being plucked up from the roots, they cannot nourish or commune with man. The sacrifice of what is lowest must precede communion with what is higher. First His death was mystically represented; then communion followed. The lower is transformed into the higher; chemicals into plants; plants into animals; chemicals, plants, and animals into man; and man into Christ by communion. Animals have life more abundantly than plants; man has life more abundantly than animals. He said that He came to give a life beyond the human. As the oxygen could not live the more abundant life of the plant, unless the plant came down to it, so neither could man share Divine Life unless Our Lord came down to give it.

 

[RandyPNW]

I favor combining the reflections of John Chrysostom, St. Augustine and, soon to be Blessed, Archbishop Fulton Sheen. At Eucharist, we experience a moment in eternity: Christ's sacrifice, once and for all, is made present.

Yes, as I've been saying Jesus said the Eucharist was a kind of memorial. It was to help us remember our Christian commitment and what it cost Christ to save us from our sins. That realization becomes *very present!*

In reflecting on the Cana miracle, Chrysostom and Augustine note that in eternity the water is wine as all moments, past and future, in eternity are present. Sheen reflects on how in the natural order, the hierarchy of living things transforms the lower into higher forms in order that the lower might share life more abundantly. In the Eucharist, the bread and wine that the living Christ consumed, and in consuming transformed them into Himself, is made present to us as His body, blood, soul and divinity for us to consume that we might have life everlasting.

Well, that's the idea, to remind us that we've been transformed--past tense. And so, we have to continually partake of Christ via his Spirit so that we remain like him and continue to be like him. That is the Gospel--to partake of him so as to become like him and to then remain like him forever.

John Chrysostom (Homily 22 on John's Gospel) says, "But now to show that it is He who transmutes water in the vine plants, and who converts the rain by its passage through the root into wine, He effected that in a moment at the wedding which in the plant is long in doing."

In De Trinitate, Augustine says that miracles are the acceleration of events that occur in nature over time. Significantly, he begins his explanation by saying that God draws the rainwater through the roots to the branches of the vine and makes wine. Christ's changing of the water into wine at Cana is the same process done with "unusual speed" (De Trin. III, 5).

Interesting way to look at it. I think most of us believers recognize what a miracle life itself is, together with Nature. What do we see that isn't miraculous? It is just a process made instant in the miracle.

And Fulton J. Sheen, (Life of Christ) reflects on the Last Supper:

Everything in nature has to have communion in order to live; and through it what is lower is transformed into what is higher: chemical into plants, plants into animals, animals into man. And man? Should he not be elevated through communion with Him Who “came down” from heaven to make man a partaker of the Divine nature? …

We are changed from glory to glory over time, as we grow and mature in Christ. This process isn't the Communion, nor do we need to eat "divine bread" to grow in Christ. But the Eucharist does symbolize this, and reinforces, in our participation, that we accept that change is essential to our well-being and spiritual health.

When Our Lord, after He changed the bread and wine to His Body and Blood, told His Apostles to eat and drink, He was doing for the soul of man what food and drink do for the body.

Wait a minute! Jesus is not said to have "changed" the course elements into something substantially human! It doesn't say he "changed" anything at all!

What he did say was that for purposes of the Eucharist the ceremony was a remembrance. And so, it is as it were a skit or diarama--a shortened version of what our life in Christ should be, partaking of Christ, our daily bread, every day, and not just in the Eucharist.

Unless the plants sacrifice themselves to being plucked up from the roots, they cannot nourish or commune with man. The sacrifice of what is lowest must precede communion with what is higher. First His death was mystically represented; then communion followed. The lower is transformed into the higher; chemicals into plants; plants into animals; chemicals, plants, and animals into man; and man into Christ by communion. Animals have life more abundantly than plants; man has life more abundantly than animals. He said that He came to give a life beyond the human. As the oxygen could not live the more abundant life of the plant, unless the plant came down to it, so neither could man share Divine Life unless Our Lord came down to give it.

Yes, we do need to partake of Christ to grow spiritually.

 

[RandyPNW]

Jesus says otherwise, in fact He doubles down on it.
A serious problem with your position is that the Jews do have a non literal understanding of what it means to eat someone's flesh, which is to destroy that person.

Well, we don't need to carry our disagreement too far. I don't personally feel that the Eucharist is that essential, although I admit that Jesus encouraged it *as a remembrance.*

You are using, I hope you know, a non sequitur argument, that the Jews having a non-literal understanding of eating flesh necessarily cancels out any other non-literal understanding of eating flesh? That is, there doesn't have to be just one kind of "non-literal understanding of eating flesh."

A 2nd kind of non-literal understanding of eating flesh would be the Eucharist. We are not eating Christ's flesh and blood, but only simulating it so as to show that we remember what we are called to be doing always--not just during the Eucharist but always.

Jesus did not "double down" on any literal interpretation of saying the wine was his blood and the bread was his body, in my opinion. One can use a metaphor more than once without being literal.

We may refer to Jesus' body as being a "temple." We may even say it twice. But it doesn't mean Jesus is a literal physical wood and stone temple. And we don't feel that in entering a physical temple, though it may be dedicated to Christ, that we're somehow entering into Jesus' literal body.

There may be other ways of saying Jesus isn't a literal temple. That doesn't mean that in saying Jesus is a temple that it definitely has a literal meaning because some other conventional use of symbolic language is not used.

 

[prodromos]

Well, we don't need to carry our disagreement too far. I don't personally feel that the Eucharist is that essential, although I admit that Jesus encouraged it *as a remembrance.*

The word translated as "remembrance" means "to make present". It is not simply a memorial.

You are using, I hope you know, a non sequitur argument, that the Jews having a non-literal understanding of eating flesh necessarily cancels out any other non-literal understanding of eating flesh? That is, there doesn't have to be just one kind of "non-literal understanding of eating flesh."

So far you have not provided any evidence of any other non-literal understanding.

A 2nd kind of non-literal understanding of eating flesh would be the Eucharist. We are not eating Christ's flesh and blood, but only simulating it so as to show that we remember what we are called to be doing always--not just during the Eucharist but always.

This meaning only exists in your imagination.

Jesus did not "double down" on any literal interpretation of saying the wine was his blood and the bread was his body, in my opinion. One can use a metaphor more than once without being literal.

Jesus used extremely carnal language which would have been inappropriate for a metaphor. In John 6:54 and John 6:56 He uses the word τρώγων, "to gnaw, to crunch", instead of φάγητε, "to eat"

We may refer to Jesus' body as being a "temple." We may even say it twice. But it doesn't mean Jesus is a literal physical wood and stone temple.

When and where do we ever refer to Jesus' body as a temple?

And we don't feel that in entering a physical temple, though it may be dedicated to Christ, that we're somehow entering into Jesus' literal body.

See above. I don't know anyone who refers to Jesus' body as a temple

There may be other ways of saying Jesus isn't a literal temple. That doesn't mean that in saying Jesus is a temple that it definitely has a literal meaning because some other conventional use of symbolic language is not used.

Seeing as neither I nor anyone I know considers Jesus as a temple, your argument is basically just noise to me.

 

[David Lamb]

The word translated as "remembrance" means "to make present". It is not simply a memorial.

Not according to the Greek lexicons I have access to. The Greek word is anamnesis, the opposite of the word from which we get the English word "amnesia." My lexicons give:

364 ἀνάμνησις anamnesis [an-am’-nay-sis]

from 363; n f; TDNT-1:348,56; [{ See TDNT 62 }]

AV-remembrance 3, remembrance again 1; 4

1) a remembering, recollection


364. αναμνησις̀̀ anamnesis; from 363; [remembrance:--]

NAS-remembrance (3), reminder (1).


364. ἀνάμνησις anamnesis [an-am’-nay-sis]; from 363; recollection: — remembrance (again).

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

John 6:52-57

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him."

 

[RandyPNW]

The word translated as "remembrance" means "to make present". It is not simply a memorial.

Okay, this event "made present" to the memory.

So far you have not provided any evidence of any other non-literal understanding.

This meaning only exists in your imagination.

It requires less imagination for me to see wine as *symbolic* of Jesus' blood than see the wine as *literally* Jesus' blood. What kind of "imagination" sees the wine as *literally* Jesus' blood?

Jesus used extremely carnal language which would have been inappropriate for a metaphor. In John 6:54 and John 6:56 He uses the word τρώγων, "to gnaw, to crunch", instead of φάγητε, "to eat"

It is irrelevant to distinguish "gnaw" or "crunch" from "eating." A metaphor is not contingent upon how "carnal" the language sounds.

When and where do we ever refer to Jesus' body as a temple?

See above. I don't know anyone who refers to Jesus' body as a temple

Seeing as neither I nor anyone I know considers Jesus as a temple, your argument is basically just noise to me.

John 2.21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

 

[prodromos]

John 2.21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

In that particular case Scripture plainly states it was a metaphor. There is no such explanation regarding eating Jesus Flesh and drinking His blood even when He was losing disciples over it

 

[RandyPNW]

In that particular case Scripture plainly states it was a metaphor. There is no such explanation regarding eating Jesus Flesh and drinking His blood even when He was losing disciples over it

There is another possibility. Unbelievers often cannot see past the literal meaning of things, and were thrown off by Jesus saying something unliteral that they could not understand. That is, they knew he was not being literal, but couldn't understand the spirituality that lay behind the saying. That is the thing those of faith partake of, in my view.

 

[prodromos]

There is another possibility. Unbelievers often cannot see past the literal meaning of things, and were thrown off by Jesus saying something unliteral that they could not understand. That is, they knew he was not being literal, but couldn't understand the spirituality that lay behind the saying. That is the thing those of faith partake of, in my view.

Yes it is your view, but is bereft of any supporting evidence. You claim the Church went off the rails with the doctrine of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist but you can't point to any evidence showing how and when it happened. It's simply a claim you make because that's what you assume must have happened. You interpret the Church Fathers according to what you've already decided.

 

[RandyPNW]

Yes it is your view, but is bereft of any supporting evidence. You claim the Church went off the rails with the doctrine of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist but you can't point to any evidence showing how and when it happened. It's simply a claim you make because that's what you assume must have happened. You interpret the Church Fathers according to what you've already decided.

I wouldn't say it is "without evidence" that unbelievers fail to see the unseen faith behind Jesus' statement, "this bread is my body, and this wine is my blood." We know that from all through the Gospel accounts. It wasn't likely that they were angry that Jesus was sanctioning canibalism of *himself!* No, it is that they understood Jesus was saying something that they couldn't understand, which was being kept from them. Remember the parables? They couldn't understand those either. Evidence, my friend.

No, I cannot say what was in the mind of every Church Father who wrote on the Eucharist. Certainly they would simply repeat what Jesus said, and we would end up with the same dilemma: was Jesus suggesting that for purposes of the ceremony that the wine became blood and the bread became Jesus' body? If so, they weren't suggesting Transubstantiation, which doubles down on the idea of an actual change in substance or in "accident," as you wish. They were just stating that for the purpose of practicing the rite, these elements *became* those things in the form of substitutes, or symbols.

A lot of this is just common sense. Who is saying the elements changed form? Nobody. Who is saying that for the purposes of the cereemony, the elements converted to a different use? Everybody.

Draw your own conclusion. If you like the word "Transubstantiation," I will just take you it you don't know what you're talking about, because a change of substance without a change in appearance is just pretense or misrepresenting what is in plain sight. The so-called "change" isn't real.

But I won't fault you for it either. This has been an issue in the Church for so long now that we could just be repeating those who've argued it before us?

In my view the most important thing is faith in the invisible Christ. We partake of him, not of the bread that serves as its substitute. It is partaking of Christ himself, who is *not* the actual bread, but the thing the bread represents. If we partake of *him* we will do well. Perhaps we can all agree on that?