I have been sitting on a comment in my blog from Aug 4, because I have not had time to respond to it. I did respond, finally. But another reason I sat on it was because I was angered by the comment, and what I wanted to say was not at all nice. The comment was made in response to the Professor who desecrated a Consecrated Host.
Anonymous said...
As an active, practicing mainline Protestant, I must confess that while tasteless and disrespectful, I find the professor's actions hysterical. It's a real commentary on why the fathers of the Reformation had the foresight to say in the Thirty-Nine Articles that transubstantiation "cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture." They were so right and the professor proves a good point. The Catholics would rather carry on willy-nilly over a cracker than focus on the real work of mission there is to be done in the world.
8/04/2008 2:50 PM
So, my response to him/her?
I want to know how John 6: 15-69, (esp verses 50-58) is understood by this person, who probably takes literally many parts of Scripture:
This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
So Jesus said to them, "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.
For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.
This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."
While I am at it, I'd also want to know how this person understands Jesus' teaching on Divorce and a second subsequent marriage, but that is not germaine to his comment, other than Jesus is VERY clear in what He says about both topics in the Gospels, and many 'practicing mainline Protestants' seem to find a way around both of those very clear topics.
I want to know how he/she understands 1Cor 10:16:
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
I want to know how he/she understands 1Cor 11: 23-27:
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
I want to know if he/she has ever read the Church Fathers... such as:
Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386) said, "Now that you have had this teaching and are imbued with surest belief that what seems to be bread is not bread, though it has the taste, but Christ's body, and what seems to be wine is not wine, even if it appears so to the taste, but Christ's blood." John Chrystostom (d. 407) said, "It is not the man who is responsible for the offerings becoming Christ's body and blood, it is Christ himself, who is crucified for us. The standing figure [at Mass] belongs to the priest who speaks these words, the power and the grace belong to God. 'This is my body,' he says. This sentence transforms the offerings." Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) wrote, "He used a demonstrative mode of speech, `This is my body' and 'This is my blood,' to prevent your thinking that what is seen is a figure; on the contrary what has truly been offered is transformed in a hidden way by the all-powerful God into Christ's body and blood. When we have become partakers of Christ's body and blood, we receive the living giving, sanctifying power of Christ." I'd like him/her to read the article that those quotes came from, which also has a quote from
Fr. Louis Bouyer, a former Lutheran minister
"Transubstantiation is a name given in the Church . . . Although Tertullian had already used the word, Christian antiquity preferred the Greek expression metabole, translated into Latin by conversio. "The word transubstantiation came to be used by preference during the Middle Ages, both as a reaction against certain theologians like Ratramus, who tended to see in the Eucharist only a virtual and not a real presence of the body and blood of the Lord, and against others like Paschasius Radbertus, who expressed his presence as if it were a question of a material and sensible one. "To speak of transubstantiation comes down then to stating that it is indeed the very reality of the body of Christ that we have on the altar after the consecration, yet in a way inaccessible to the senses and in such a manner that it is neither multiplied by the multiplicity of the species, nor divided in anyway by their division, nor passible [subject to suffering] in anyway whatsoever. I'd like to point him/her
to this site as well, but I doubt very much that he/she will ever read anything that could explain why a Consecrated Host is NOT a 'cracker'.
To come anonymously to an obviously Catholic blog and mock the Main teaching of that person's Church (which shows HIS/HER own ignorance much more than it shows any
"Catholics would rather carry on willy-nilly over a cracker than focus on the real work of mission there is to be done in the world."
I would like to remind him/her that MANY of the first hospitals in the US and elsewhere were started by Catholic Nuns. MANY of the earliest schools were begun by nuns! MANY food pantries (and soup kitchens) were run (and
are run) by Catholics. And Catholic Relief has helped in other nations for a long time.
Today, more Catholics are at Abortion Centers than 'mainline' churches of other denominations, and a LOT of those who WERE non-Catholic are now CATHOLIC (including Dr Bernard Nathansen, Norma McCorvey, Randall Terry, and many others).
Catholics also help women who had abortions heal through groups like Project Rachel. WE became parents because the birthmothers went to Catholic Social Services (now Catholic Charities) to place their children for adoption after choosing LIFE for their three daughters!
I am really tired of people telling me that Catholics do not "focus on the real work of mission there is to be done in the world."We also TEACH about Jesus Christ, often by actions and when necessary, by words (as St Francis Assisi said)... Notice Mother Teresa of Calcutta and others like her!!
So, anonymous... take your 'cracker' comment and ... never mind. That isn't very Christian of me. Rather, "Father, forgive him/her, for he/she knows not what he/she does"... and God bless.
Oh...
by the way.... he/she is not really "anonymous"...
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