The Eucharist
What is the eucharist? Is it plausible that it is actually the body and blood of Christ.
I found this article from Catholic Answers to sum up a lot of important evidences from the bible.
What did the people who saw and spoke with Jesus think he was saying? Did they think he was using symbolic language? If they misunderstood him, why didn't he correct them? Christ repeats himself to three different groups to emphasize his point. He does not withdraw it.
When Jesus first made his claim, his hearers began to argue with one another. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" They thought he was saying to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. And so they rejected this teaching and left. Did Christ change his teaching? Did he tell his hearers, "No, no, you've misunderstood, here is what I really meant"? He did not.
Many of the disciples who followed Christ-like many people of today-had this to say about the Eucharist: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" When they left Christ, did he try to correct their thinking? It is unlikely that he would have allowed them to remain in error. Unlike the Jewish leaders he would later stand before, these were his followers, the ones favorably disposed to him. But even to them he repeated rather than retracted this hard teaching (John 6:60-66).
Next, he challenged the Twelve Apostles on the issue: "Do you also wish to go away?" He did not correct the "misconception" of his audience or the Twelve. Why? Because their understanding was true. They had not heard him wrong. There was no misconception. Just like he didn't correct the members of the Sanhedrain when confronted over his Messiah-ship, he did not correct even the thinking of those who loved him most because there was nothing to correct. There was no misunderstanding; the teaching was true and to be accepted. The disciples responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the holy one of God" (John 6:67-69). They were saying in essence, "Yes, this is a hard teaching, but we will take it on faith, for you are the Christ."
When we look at how his audience, disciples, and the Twelve interpreted the teaching of Christ, we soon discover that there was no other option left open to them other than the literal teaching of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The merely symbolic reading wasn't left open to them, and it isn't left open to us.
When John wrote his gospel, receiving the Eucharist was already a common practice. The readers of this gospel account would have understood that the above passage of John referred to the Eucharist. He deliberately included words to emphasize the literal interpretation of the Eucharist. In fact, John uses types from the Old Testament to make his point stronger.
It is said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. This is never clearer than when studying the Eucharist throughout Scripture. Doing so will help us defend our faith to others as well as lead us to a greater appreciation of this sacrament.
"Typology" is the study of things from the Old Testament that foreshadow or prefigure things in the New Testament. There are numerous "types" in the Old Testament. For example, Abraham's uncompleted sacrifice of his son, Isaac, to the completed sacrifice of God's only begotten son, Jesus. Typology can help show us that eating Christ's body and blood was God's intention throughout time and was later fulfilled. There are many types that could be examined in depth, but for the sake of space four examples will suffice.
"Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram" (Genesis 14:18).
Melchizedek is referred to only twice in the Old Testament, but his meaning should not be overlooked. Paul writes extensively about him in chapter seven of his letter to the Hebrews. He compares Melchizedek to Christ and shows that Christ is a non-Levitical priest of the same sort as Melchizedek, and thus not in the order of Aaron. Thus, the law of the Levitical priesthood does not lead to salvation. As Melchizedek went out to bless Abram he brought bread and wine instead of a bull or a lamb. Melchizedek was a priest prefiguring the Christ to come, and the bread and the wine prefigures the Eucharist.
"'Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.' But the priest answered David, 'I don't have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here.' . . . So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away" (1 Samuel 21:3-6).
Here David, leading his soldiers, stopped to request some food. The priest did not have regular bread and so gave David and his men consecrated bread. This bread was known as the Bread of the Presence. This bread is an example of the "Bread of Life" to come in Christ Jesus as well as the Eucharistic meal. We see here that consecration of bread is not a Catholic invention starting at New Testament times, but an ancient tradition going back thousands of years, long before Christ was born.
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I will prove them, whether they will walk in my law or not' . . . And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.' . . . And the people of Israel ate the manna forty years . . . till they came to the border of the land of Canaan" (Exodus 16:4, 14-15, 35).
This is type from the Old Testament prefiguring the manna to come, Christ Jesus. Jesus refers to himself as the "Bread of Life" and then compares himself to the manna that his audience's forefathers ate (John 6:25-40). John places this teaching directly before he writes Christ's teaching of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Those who read this account would understand the comparison John is drawing. Notice that the Israelites ate this bread out of obedience to God and in order to survive. Likewise, we need Christ to survive our daily lives.
"Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. . . . Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. . . . And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's passover" (Exodus 12:5, 7-8, 10-11).
Christ's passion began with the Last Supper, the beginning of Passover. Christ is the Lamb of the greatest Passover of all time, the human race. John the Baptist called Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). This lamb is our sacrifice. He died for our sins so that we might have life. It is by consuming his flesh through the Eucharist that we partake in the Christian Passover. This is no accident. When Christ says, "It is finished," he is saying that the Passover of the human race has been accomplished, the Law fulfilled, and communion with God restored. The Eucharist then becomes the sign of this New Covenant and also the means of building communion with God not just once, but continually (Matt. 26:27; Luke 22: 19).
I found this article from Catholic Answers to sum up a lot of important evidences from the bible.
What did the people who saw and spoke with Jesus think he was saying? Did they think he was using symbolic language? If they misunderstood him, why didn't he correct them? Christ repeats himself to three different groups to emphasize his point. He does not withdraw it.
When Jesus first made his claim, his hearers began to argue with one another. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" They thought he was saying to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood. And so they rejected this teaching and left. Did Christ change his teaching? Did he tell his hearers, "No, no, you've misunderstood, here is what I really meant"? He did not.
Many of the disciples who followed Christ-like many people of today-had this to say about the Eucharist: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" When they left Christ, did he try to correct their thinking? It is unlikely that he would have allowed them to remain in error. Unlike the Jewish leaders he would later stand before, these were his followers, the ones favorably disposed to him. But even to them he repeated rather than retracted this hard teaching (John 6:60-66).
Next, he challenged the Twelve Apostles on the issue: "Do you also wish to go away?" He did not correct the "misconception" of his audience or the Twelve. Why? Because their understanding was true. They had not heard him wrong. There was no misconception. Just like he didn't correct the members of the Sanhedrain when confronted over his Messiah-ship, he did not correct even the thinking of those who loved him most because there was nothing to correct. There was no misunderstanding; the teaching was true and to be accepted. The disciples responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the holy one of God" (John 6:67-69). They were saying in essence, "Yes, this is a hard teaching, but we will take it on faith, for you are the Christ."
When we look at how his audience, disciples, and the Twelve interpreted the teaching of Christ, we soon discover that there was no other option left open to them other than the literal teaching of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The merely symbolic reading wasn't left open to them, and it isn't left open to us.
When John wrote his gospel, receiving the Eucharist was already a common practice. The readers of this gospel account would have understood that the above passage of John referred to the Eucharist. He deliberately included words to emphasize the literal interpretation of the Eucharist. In fact, John uses types from the Old Testament to make his point stronger.
Old Testament Typology
It is said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. This is never clearer than when studying the Eucharist throughout Scripture. Doing so will help us defend our faith to others as well as lead us to a greater appreciation of this sacrament.
"Typology" is the study of things from the Old Testament that foreshadow or prefigure things in the New Testament. There are numerous "types" in the Old Testament. For example, Abraham's uncompleted sacrifice of his son, Isaac, to the completed sacrifice of God's only begotten son, Jesus. Typology can help show us that eating Christ's body and blood was God's intention throughout time and was later fulfilled. There are many types that could be examined in depth, but for the sake of space four examples will suffice.
"Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, and being a priest of God Most High, he blessed Abram" (Genesis 14:18).
Melchizedek is referred to only twice in the Old Testament, but his meaning should not be overlooked. Paul writes extensively about him in chapter seven of his letter to the Hebrews. He compares Melchizedek to Christ and shows that Christ is a non-Levitical priest of the same sort as Melchizedek, and thus not in the order of Aaron. Thus, the law of the Levitical priesthood does not lead to salvation. As Melchizedek went out to bless Abram he brought bread and wine instead of a bull or a lamb. Melchizedek was a priest prefiguring the Christ to come, and the bread and the wine prefigures the Eucharist.
"'Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find.' But the priest answered David, 'I don't have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here.' . . . So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away" (1 Samuel 21:3-6).
Here David, leading his soldiers, stopped to request some food. The priest did not have regular bread and so gave David and his men consecrated bread. This bread was known as the Bread of the Presence. This bread is an example of the "Bread of Life" to come in Christ Jesus as well as the Eucharistic meal. We see here that consecration of bread is not a Catholic invention starting at New Testament times, but an ancient tradition going back thousands of years, long before Christ was born.
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I will prove them, whether they will walk in my law or not' . . . And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.' . . . And the people of Israel ate the manna forty years . . . till they came to the border of the land of Canaan" (Exodus 16:4, 14-15, 35).
This is type from the Old Testament prefiguring the manna to come, Christ Jesus. Jesus refers to himself as the "Bread of Life" and then compares himself to the manna that his audience's forefathers ate (John 6:25-40). John places this teaching directly before he writes Christ's teaching of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Those who read this account would understand the comparison John is drawing. Notice that the Israelites ate this bread out of obedience to God and in order to survive. Likewise, we need Christ to survive our daily lives.
"Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. . . . Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. . . . And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's passover" (Exodus 12:5, 7-8, 10-11).
Christ's passion began with the Last Supper, the beginning of Passover. Christ is the Lamb of the greatest Passover of all time, the human race. John the Baptist called Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). This lamb is our sacrifice. He died for our sins so that we might have life. It is by consuming his flesh through the Eucharist that we partake in the Christian Passover. This is no accident. When Christ says, "It is finished," he is saying that the Passover of the human race has been accomplished, the Law fulfilled, and communion with God restored. The Eucharist then becomes the sign of this New Covenant and also the means of building communion with God not just once, but continually (Matt. 26:27; Luke 22: 19).
posted by Sean at 9/15/2005 08:51:00 AM
10 Comments:
Great post!
Many of these passages listed played part in my return to the Catholic Church. John 6 is indeed a powerful chapter.
1 Cor. 11:27–28
Where do you go to mass?
There's one verse in John 6 that I've been curious about, when Jesus tells his followers that those who do not eat his flesh and blood do not have life in them. Now, if we accept the Catholic understanding of this passage, that means we must partake of the Eucharist to have life.
Obviously, this isn't so because all Christians have eternal life. And it's tough to argue with the words since Jesus said them. One might say that it was meant to be a metaphor or in the spiritual sense, but it doesn't sound that way to me.
Anyway, gots to run... we should have another theology fight-- er, discussion sometime :)
I go to Incarnation Catholic Church, a little church in the southend of Louisville.
The terms are aristilian but the process is not. The early church fathers believed that the wine and bread actually was made into the body and blood of Christ. Transubstantiation just happens to explain it better than anything else out there. Before that they called it transmutation. The fact is no matter what word you use to describe what happens doesn't change the fact that the early church believed a substantial and total change takes place during the eucharistic prayer.
And I'm sure you use Pagan Philosophical terms and ideas everyday to explain reality. Just because certain ideas originated in non christian studies does not negate the truth that lies behind them. Again the early church apologist relied on greek philosophy to explain who Christ was as the Logos.
I suggest reading "the hidden manna" by Fr. James T. O'Conner, its a great study on the view of the eucharist throughout history.
Well, the man stranded on an island theory is pretty extreme. I'm not sure how to apply that to real life, where it's easy to find Christians who understand and reject the sacraments and Real Presence, yet I wouldn't say they have no life in them because their lives do bear fruit.
According to the monk at St. Anthony's, I'll be attending "the best RCIA class in Louisville," so along with learning about principles like humility, I'll ask about this whenever the topic comes up.
where are you going to rcia at?
At St. Anthony's, like I said... if you read carefully. It's in the West End at 22nd & Market. I think some Fransiscian friars live there. A couple years ago Lachlan's community group went down there to help renovate their old convent so they could let churches send groups on mission trips there to stay and work on projects around the West End.
Anyway, their RCIA class doesn't start until the first Sunday of October, so I don't know what it's actually like.
for some reason i thought the monks name was st. anthony.
i wasnt thinking.
I need to go through rcia but i dont want to go to the one at st. martins because it sucks. I really am interested in checking the one out at st. anthony's. is it on sundays all the time?
i think st. martins is on weds. and i have to play soccer on weds.
are you thinking about becoming catholic or something?
St. Martin's is on Sunday mornings at 9am starting in October. The obvious downside is that you have to get up early, but the plus is that you don't have to make a trip on Sunday for Mass and drive back on another night for RCIA.
I was thinking about either becoming Catholic or Hindu.
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