I Love Being Catholic

chelcb · Mar 31, 2003

"...and never get back up!" to finish the quote.

Caedmon · Mar 31, 2003

Today at 09:40 PM panterapat said this in Post #40

I believe that it was Billy Graham (or another evangelist) who said:
"If I truly believed that Communion contained the Body and Blood of Jesus, I would crawl to the altar on my hands and knees."

We Catholics need to keep this in mind.

That took the words straight out of my heart.

isshinwhat · Mar 31, 2003

Joe, read about Padre Pio's celebration of the Mass. It will break your heart.

Hoonbaba · Apr 1, 2003

Yesterday at 11:37 PM isshinwhat said this in Post #43

Joe, read about Padre Pio's celebration of the Mass. It will break your heart.

Is it available on the net somewhere?

-Jason

isshinwhat · Apr 1, 2003

"Within the Mass, however, Padre Pio admitted to an intense mystical involvement with the unseen world. He apparently saw, as in a vision, the entire Passion, and actually felt, physically, the wounds of Jesus. During the offering of the bread and wine, Padre Pio often remained motionless for moments on end, as if 'nailed by a mysterious force,' gazing with moistened eyes upon the crucifix. At these moments, he said, his soul was 'separated from all that is profane.' At the Commemorations of the Living and the Dead, he maintained that he saw all his spiritual children at the altar, 'as if in a mirror.'"

This was from a website, but I don't remember which one. Your best bet is to get a good book (I've got one if you are interested) or do a google search.

God Bless,

Neal

isshinwhat · Apr 1, 2003

This one's really good...

http://www.sspx.ca/Angelus/1999_November/Padre_Pio.htm

People are wont to speak of "the Mass of Padre Pio." One reason for this is the frequent ecstasies which made it longer, sometimes as long as two or (rarely) even four hours. But at the altar, like every other priest, Padre Pio was only an instrument. The fact of bearing the stigmata added nothing to the intrinsic grandeur of his function. But his whole life centered around these hours in which he would lend to Christ his mouth, his hands, his eyes, to renew the sacrifice of the Cross. He would lend them in a real, physical way. Listen to one of the numerous witnesses of "his" Mass:

One would have to be blind not to see that the man who now goes up to the altar suffers. His step is heavy and stumbling. It is not easy to walk with pierced feet. His arms rest heavily upon the altar that he kisses. He has all the guarded reflexes of persons whose hands are wounded. Then, his head slightly raised, he looks at the cross.

Instinctively, I avert my eyes as if I had unwittingly looked on a lovers' tryst. The face of the Capuchin which a while ago had seemed jovial and mild, is now literally transfigured. Waves of intense emotion furrow it as if the debate into which he is drawn with invisible presences successively fills him with fear, joy, sadness, anguish sorrow....It is possible to read in these expressions the mysterious dialogue. Now he protests, shakes his head, awaits the reply. His whole body is frozen in mute pleading. After a moment, I continue to observe him with gripping emotion. Time seems to have stopped; or rather, let us say that it no longer counts. The priest who tarries before the altar seems to pull us into a new dimension where duration takes on a different meaning.

Suddenly, tears stream from his eyes and his shoulders, shaken by sobs, seem to bend under a crushing weight. I suddenly remember how it was during wartime with the men condemned to death. They have just heard the sentence. While the muscles of the face are immobile, the whole body, weighed down, writhes. To face the executioners, one must first pass through an agony, the hard apprenticeship of death.

Padre Pio is not acting out someone else's drama. Now there is no distance between him and Christ. "Vivo ego, iam non ego...." If the Head renews His sacrifice in an unbloody manner, are we thereby allowed to forget the price of Blood? On the contrary, does not each Mass invite the members to furnish their part of the redeeming Passion, because it is He who lives, suffers, and dies in His body? Are we not all workers of the Redemption? And is not the Mass, for each one of us, a place of transubstantiation, where our poor sufferings, assumed by Christ, acquire an everlasting worth.

But if such is the role of the simple Christian, how much more that of the priest, victim by vocation and mediator between God and His people.

I look at the face of Padre Pio, streaming with tears and think of the sins that he shoulders every day after unending hours spent in the confessional. It is no laughing matter that he confesses and absolves. The servant is not above the Master. The part of blood required of him is here, even more than in the stigmata. The soul's blood is heavier than the body's...Cloaked with the robe of Nessus,1 humiliated like a leper, alone between heaven and earth, he goes up to the altar of his God. Priest, he has no other reason for being than to make Christ appear.

After this dolorous ecstasy the Mass continues. I understand now why the crowd pressed around the altar holds its breath...what is happening at the altar moves it deeply. Between the people and the priest, lost in God, there is a secret bond. It is caught up and drawn in the wake of the drama. This Mass becomes my Mass.

Herein lies, it seems to me, one of the reasons for the extraordinary hold Padre Pio has on those who approach him. Like a sorcerer, from the desert of arid routine he is able to make the buried spring gush forth. After contact with him, souls "recognize" that they are Christians. Practices which have faded in meaning take on new savor and life. I defy anyone who has been to San Giovanni Rotondo to assist henceforth at the Mass as a mere spectator. "One might say that my eyes had been opened, someone told me, "and I discover in the Mass things I never suspected."

At the Offertory, the rhythm of the sacred drama intensifies. Raising the paten suppliantly, his eyes lost in an invisible light, Padre Pio shows the wounds of his hands, red and bloody. He remains in this attitude much longer than the recitation of the Suscipe requires. One would say that he remembers the whole world in this act of offering. His face, ravaged by tears, expresses a kind of challenge: "Behold, Eternal Father, what I offer Thee, in the name of Thy Son whom I represent: this human distress, this consuming anguish; these sufferings; these sins...Behold, I place all of this, pell-mell, in Thy Arms, on Thy Heart...Man among men, priest of men, I give Thee, O God, Creator, that which Thou dost restore more beautifully than Thou didst create it..."

The minutes flow like drops of blood. I understand suddenly that by the Mass we have access to eternity. The mystery of the Cross escapes time-duration in the exact measure that the crucified Man is God. In an ineffable way, absolutely inaccessible to the grasp of our intellects, Calvary is present in each Mass, and we are present at Calvary. Since this is a truth too obliterated in our restless, unquiet minds, isn't it necessary, from time to time, that to remind us of it, God deal us violent lessons like those at San Giovanni Rotondo?

At the Memento of the living, there is another halt, another ecstasy. There was a time when Padre Pio took such a long time to remember his children one by one to God that the Father Guardian, hidden in the choir, would mentally give him the order to continue.

walkaways · Apr 1, 2003

I've just been thinking on what was said about Catholics not taking Protestant Communion...but...hmm...if your heart knows what is true in the Catholic faith, and you take Communion in that way...how can that be wrong?
I'm not quite sure I understand.

CopticOrthodox · Apr 1, 2003

We believe that the Holy Spirit works through the priest to literally change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood. Since it's a literal change, and doesn't happen in Protestant Churches where the pastor saying the institution naritive doesn't believe that it changes, and even if he did, isn't a priest ordained in succession to the Apostles, no change takes place. So we blieve that the Communion in a Catholic or Orthodox Church is literally the Body and Blood, while in Protestant Churches it is only bread and wine, and so our attitude towards Communion wouldn't change what it objectively is.

jukesk9 · Apr 1, 2003

1st April 2003 at 02:44 PM walkaways said this in Post #47

I've just been thinking on what was said about Catholics not taking Protestant Communion...but...hmm...if your heart knows what is true in the Catholic faith, and you take Communion in that way...how can that be wrong?
I'm not quite sure I understand.

If a Catholic were to partake of Communion in a Protestant service believing that the grape juice were the Blood of Christ, it would be idolatry because a) only wine is to be used for a valid consecration  b) only a validly ordained priest (or above) can consecrate and c) it's still grape juice, not the Blood of Christ. 

****The above was taken from the book (not word for word but from a pretty good memory) Catholic Questions, Catholic Answers by Father Kenneth Ryan

Gordi · Apr 1, 2003

Jukes Im not being biased here, I think this is a reasonable question.

Why shouldn't juice be used?  For example if there are people in the church that used to be an alcoholic, then wouldn't it be for their benefit also?

And just thought I'd let you know that your wine aint Christ's blood either, its symbolic for it.

Miss Shelby · Apr 1, 2003

1st April 2003 at 03:13 PM Gordi said this in Post #50

Jukes Im not being biased here, I think this is a reasonable question.

Why shouldn't juice be used?  For example if there are people in the church that used to be an alcoholic, then wouldn't it be for their benefit also?

Well, then they could just receive the Bread and not the Wine.

And just thought I'd let you know that your wine aint Christ's blood either, its symbolic for it.

Click to expand...

So much for not being biased. LOL!

Gordi · Apr 1, 2003

1st April 2003 at 09:16 PM Miss Shelby said this in Post #51

Well, then they could just receive the Bread and not the Wine.

So much for not being biased. LOL!

Then if don't take the wine they are not taking part properly in communion.  Seeing if it's the blood of Christ it shouldn't taste of alcohol should it?

As for being biased, I know why you think that for the last comment that I made, but the fact is that even when Jesus was giving out bread and wine to his disciples it was still symbolic, it wasn't literally his blood.

 

Wolseley · Apr 1, 2003

No, Gordi, not according to Catholic teaching.

According to Catholic teaching, the bread and wine literally become the actual Body and Blood of Christ. Not a symbol, not a metaphor, not anything else---the literal, actual Body and Blood.

Symbolic communion is a Protestant concept, not Catholic or Orthodox.

You don't have to agree with it, and that's fine.

But don't come on to our forum and start telling us where we're "wrong" in our own beliefs and teachings.

Regards,
---Wolseley,
CF Forums Senior Admin.
One Bread/One Body Moderator.

Gordi · Apr 1, 2003

Ok sorry Wolseley

So, could I ask you, when you drink from the communion cup, then you actually taste blood literally? And not wine?

Cause after it's conscrated it's either wine or blood?

Miyu · Apr 1, 2003

It was a good question, though...why couldn't unfermented grape juice be used?

VOW · Apr 1, 2003

To Gordi:

No, the bread looks and tastes like bread, the wine looks and tastes like wine. There are technical terms used like substance and coincidence and accident and other words, but for the Catholic, it is the REAL, TRUE, ACTUAL Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Remember, too, at the Last Supper, when Jesus was with the Disciples, He broke the bread and said, "Take this and eat it, this is My Body." And with the wine, he took the cup and blessed it and said, "Take this and drink it, this is My Blood, the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant."

He didn't say, "This represents My Body," or "This wine symbolizes My Blood."

The original Passover meal in Egypt foreshadowed the Last Supper. The Jews killed an unblemished lamb, and drained the blood from it, and marked their doorposts. Then they roasted the meat and ate it.

Jesus is our Lamb. His Blood marks our hearts so the Angel of Death will "pass over" us. And we literally eat of His Body to have everlasting life.

Peace be with you,
~VOW

Gordi · Apr 1, 2003

Nice and well mannered explanation VOW, but it's either symbolic or it aint.  It's either Jesus' blood or wine, it's either Jesus' body or bread.

Thats why i agrue it is symbolic.  The reason I presume Jesus didn't say this is symbolic etc.. Is because they knew that, considering he was standing in front of them.

(Message was edited)

VOW · Apr 1, 2003

Well, Gordi...

The Apostles understood it to be actual, as did the Early Church Fathers. The concept of Communion didn't enter into the picture until 1500 years later.

It's a MIRACLE. If Jesus could rise from the dead, He certainly has the ability to turn Bread and Wine into His Body and Blood.

Peace be with you,
~VOW

Miyu · Apr 1, 2003

um...still waiting for an answer about the grape juice question...

*feels ignored*

CopticOrthodox · Apr 1, 2003

1st April 2003 at 05:15 PM Gordi said this in Post #57

Nice and well manner explanation VOW, but it's either symbolic or it aint.  It's either Jesus' blood or it wine, it's either Jesus' body or bread.

Thats why i agrue it is symbolic.  The reason I presum Jesus didn't say this is symbolic etc.. Is because they knew that, considering he was standing in front of them fully intact.

(Message was edited)

Let's take a look at Jn 6:

"Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. 27 Labour not F13 for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. 30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? 31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. 32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. 34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. 35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. 36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. 37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. 38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. 39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. 40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. 41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. 42 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? 43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. 44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. 46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. 47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. 48 I am that bread of life. 49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. 59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. 60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? 61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? 62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. 65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. 66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. 67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? 68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God."

He plainly says it's His Body and Blood, literally.  He says if you don't eat His Body and Blood, you have no life, so if it's just symbolic, we have no life since we're not eating His Body and Blood.  Those who walked no more with Him clearly understood it to mean literally His Flesh, otherwise they wouldn't have walked away saing it's hard.  And when they interpreted it that way, Christ didn't say, wait, I didn't mean it like that, it's just a symbol, don't go... And He always responds to what people are thinking when they're thinking something wrong and He needs to correct them.

Furthermore, St. Paul in 1 Cor 11 talks about people falling asleep and getting sick because of partaking unworthily, if it's just bread and wine, how can that be?  Bread and wine don't have that kind of power, the Body and Blood do.  He also says that we must partake worthily, descering the Body and Blood.

It tastes like wine, and it tastes like bread.  But Christ told us that it is His Body and Blood, and with simple trusting faith, we believe Him.  This is the believe that has been consistent throughout 2000 years of Christianity, and the idea that it is only a symbol was a new innovation that only came out of the Protestant movement in the 1500's.

I Love Being Catholic

'Totus tuus'

kawaii

Pro Deo et Patria

Catholic Preterist

Pro Deo et Patria

Pro Deo et Patria

humble thyself

Active Member

Dixie Whistlin' Papist

Thou shalt not!

Legend

Thou shalt not!

Beaucoup-Diên-Cai-Dāu

Thou shalt not!

Active Member

Moderator

Thou shalt not!

Moderator

Active Member

Active Member

Similar threads