But aren't you supposed to believe the host is inside the bread? That you are really and truly consuming the body and blood of Christ?
Muslim magazine journalists pretended to be Roman Catholics :D
- Thread starter Michael
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But aren't you supposed to believe the host is inside the bread? That you are really and truly consuming the body and blood of Christ?
Bells
Staff member
I doubt that if Christians were given the opportunity, and given the actual physical body and blood of Christ, that they pretty much would not dig in with a knife and fork while tapping his veins for his blood.
The words and the actions are meant to represent the words and actions of Jesus Christ before he was killed. I do not recall any religious teaching where he said 'Take this, all of you, and eat it, this is my body which will be given up for you' and the apostles then spread him out on the table and chowed down on his body. Instead they took the bread he offered them.
The Eucharist is central to Christianity, for example, Catholics, because it relives the last days of Christ, and the communion is a spiritual belief that one is partaking in that last supper and using the words of Christ and that one is accepting the sacrifice of Christ and taking the bread and the wine, just as the apostles did in the last supper. That is why communion, especially in the Catholic Church, is usually restricted to just Catholics, because you have to believe in Christ and what his message was to want to partake in it.
Bells
Staff member
I don't think Christ meant it in the literal sense.
I mean what would you do if you're eating a wafer and drinking a glass of wine and it turns into human flesh and blood? Go 'nom nom nom' and keep eating?
Why not? Why the feast of Corpus Christi? Why the Eucharistic miracle of cardiac tissues and spots of blood?
I take it your not a catholic?
Bells
Staff member
From what I remember and see at Mass when I take my son it is meant to be the breaking of the bred and Christ's words. I do not recall any religious teachings where Jesus hacked off some of his own flesh and body during that last supper.
I don't know if they ate it to be honest. The miracle of Lanciano had the congregation begging for mercy. I always took it as being symbolic and not literal.
As far as I know, and according to the priest who explained it to me, it is the Real Body and Blood of Christ.
Bells
Staff member
If it was, then Jesus would have been slaughtered in the last supper and the apostles would have feasted on his 'real body and blood'.
'He broke the bread and offered it to his disciples and said...'..
Kind of says it all, don't you think?
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I wondered about that. But then what would they do after dinner?
Bells
Staff member
Sing Kumbaya?
What is to be gained by ritual cannibalism? Is the symbolic eating of Christ supposedly passing on some of his attributes to the diners? If not then why chow down? I don't understand why believing in Christ & his message means you have to symbolically eat him.
well catholics do believe in transubstantiation
According to John, he asked them to:
John 6: 52-56:
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.
One may wonder what dear John did in his spare time.
What is that?
John 6: 52-56:
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.
One may wonder what dear John did in his spare time.
What is that?
Bells
Staff member
*Shrugs*
From memory, it was symbolic and not taken literally.
One may wonder indeed.Sam said:
But the words and Catholic teachings I remembered meant the words of Jesus as being symbolic and not literal. I never saw it as cannibalism because of that. Had he hacked away a piece of his flesh during that last supper and fed it to his disciples, then yeah, we'd have something to go on.
Bells
Staff member
Think of the Eucharistic Miracle, and more to the point, the Miracle of Lanciano, where the priest who was saying Mass saw the bread change and apparently become human flesh. Said flesh has apparently been preserved and has been on display before. It is, I think, the only such "miracle" of transubstantiation that the Catholic Church has ever recognised.
Bells
Staff member
No idea.
I know there are some tribal societies who do practice it or did in the past.
This whole debate now reminds me of my trying to explain why "the body of Christ looks just like a cracker" to my 4 year old son. It is difficult to make a child understand that when they say "this is the body of Christ" and hold up the wafer, that it is symbolic and not actually his real flesh and blood.