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Kayla
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| First Name: | Kayla | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Atheist, kind-of Mormon, Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 04:49 pm |
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(I tried posting this once before and it didn't go through... odd)
Anywho, this may seem like an odd question, but... When we receive Christ in the Holy Eucharist, do we receive Christ's resurrected body?
I am reading a book by Peter Kreeft, and part of it deals with what our resurrected bodies will be like. It brought me to wonder whether or not, when Christ says "my flesh is true food and my blood true drink", if he is referring to his current body, or that of his resurrected body.
____________________
I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
Jesus, I trust in You!
There's not a lot of job security for us after death. I suppose that's one advantage of being a philosopher. - Peter Kreeft
http://kayla23mount.blogspot.com/
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LOVECC
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| First Name: | Lisa | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Cradle Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 05:09 pm |
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Hi Kayla,
It is my understanding that the Eucharist is Christ's resurrected body. As such, when the claim is made that Catholic's are cannibals, we can say "no" because a cannibal eats dead flesh. We are eating Christ's living flesh. The moderators can probably provide a more brilliant, official answer, but that is my understanding.
-Lisa
Last edited on Sun Dec 30th, 2007 05:09 pm by LOVECC
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 06:19 pm |
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Kayla wrote: when Christ says "my flesh is true food and my blood true drink", if he is referring to his current body, or that of his resurrected body.
Christ's "current" body is his glorified, resurrected body.
Words like "current" imply time, and of course heaven exists outside of time. Christ's glorified body exists outside of time, just as our resurrected, glorified bodies will exist outside of time when time ceases to exist on the last day.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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DrDave
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 06:25 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: Kayla wrote: when Christ says "my flesh is true food and my blood true drink", if he is referring to his current body, or that of his resurrected body.
Christ's "current" body is his glorified, resurrected body.
Words like "current" imply time, and of course heaven exists outside of time. Christ's glorified body exists outside of time, just as our resurrected, glorified bodies will exist outside of time when time ceases to exist on the last day.
I think the point was that he wasn't resurrected when he said it.
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 06:39 pm |
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DrDave wrote:I think the point was that he wasn't resurrected when he said it.
Yes, but even so, at the Last Supper he transformed the bread and wine into his glorified Body and Blood which exists outside of time. Remember, at the Transfiguration he presented himself glorified even though his resurrection had not yet taken place in this time-bound reality.
"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be."
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 06:42 pm |
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Kayla, the Catechism says (CCC 445), “After his Resurrection, Jesus’ divine sonship becomes manifest in the power of his glorified humanity.” Scripture also states, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” We therefore eat and drink his Eucharistic presence so that we, too, will be glorified as he is.
So the correct answer is that Christ is always present in the Eucharist in his glorified state so that he can glorify us in turn.
Does this mean that his body is not flesh? (This question gets asked a lot, so I am including it.) In the sense that we are changed in the resurrection (see 1 Corinthians 15:35–57), so Christ, being human, is also changed. Paul calls the result a “spiritual body” (v. 44). But in the sense that what is changed is still truly his body, it can be called “flesh,” which is the word he uses in John 6. The Church, in her wisdom, refers to Christ's presence in the Eucharist as his “sacramental presence” (CCC 1380) rather than “physical presence.”
Regarding glorified bodies, St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica deals with this topic in a number of places. This can be searched out on the New Advent website, which I am sure you are already familiar with. In particular, III.81.3 may be of interest because it treats of Christ’s giving of the Eucharist to the disciples at the Last Supper.
For the rest, I am in agreement with Rick’s statement that Christ’s essential being is in eternity. His sojourn in time did not interrupt that. Therefore, when he told the crowd in John 6 about his body being the food they need for eternal life, he was speaking from the standpoint of eternity, just as he did at the Last Supper.
David
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Kayla
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 07:03 pm |
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Thank-you all for your responses. It's an affirmation of what I was already thinking, but I wanted to be absolutely sure before going on...
As I mentioned, last night I was reading a book by Peter Kreeft, part of which was dealing with the idea of our glorified bodies. This led me to St. Augustine (City of God, book XIII), regarding the nature of these glorified bodies. I will check out St. Thomas as well, thanks David.
But as such... it seems to me that there is a great connection between the resurrection and the Holy Eucharist. I have some other musings, but they need more musing time. 
____________________
I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.
Jesus, I trust in You!
There's not a lot of job security for us after death. I suppose that's one advantage of being a philosopher. - Peter Kreeft
http://kayla23mount.blogspot.com/
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 09:01 pm |
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OK, Kayla. I used “glorified body” (phrase) as my search term on my own copy of the Summa (on my computer) and it came up with a good number of hits. St. Thomas obviously has quite a bit to say about it.
David
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Candlemass
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Posted: Wed Feb 20th, 2008 02:40 am |
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| So how do you answer one who says God would never do something He has forbidden, the eating of blood, to wit, canibalism, and what is meant by "real presence", the elements are still wine and bread?
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"For I the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for me!"
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Feb 20th, 2008 04:28 am |
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Candlemass wrote:
So how do you answer one who says God would never do something He has forbidden, the eating of blood, to wit, cannibalism, and what is meant by "real presence", the elements are still wine and bread?
This question is substantially answered by my first post above. For the sake of clarification, I will reword it.
Cannibalism assumes that the flesh is in its natural, earthly state, as physical meat. But the glorified body is, as both the bible (1 Corinthians 15:35–50) and theologians (St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were mentioned, as well as the Catechism) specify, “spiritual” rather than “physical.” The prohibition therefore does not apply.
To help us visualize this, the Church supplies a special vocabulary: Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is a “sacramental” presence rather than a “physical” presence (also mentioned and referenced above). Furthermore, this presence appears to us not as flesh meat but as bread and wine.
Jesus carefully explained much of this in John 6, but as you see, many of his disciples had the same thought as you: “He’s advocating cannibalism!” And they refused to follow him any farther.
By the way, Mark, I like your new avatar. No demons or vampires. It is the real you.
David
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CajunRick
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Posted: Wed Feb 20th, 2008 04:56 am |
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Candlemass wrote: So how do you answer one who says God would never do something He has forbidden, the eating of blood, to wit, canibalism, and what is meant by "real presence", the elements are still wine and bread?
The physical attributes of bread and wine remain, even though we know that the real substance has changed.
Look at it this way. You are a collection of minerals: so much hydrogen, so much oxygen, so much carbon, etc. If I collect all of those elements in the same weight and proportion as your body, I still can't make "Mark". What you are transcends the physical. With minor differences in weight and proportion, you and I and every other member of this forum (and every other creature on earth, for that matter, including fish and trees) are of essentially the same matter. And yet we are quite different people, and are even more different from other creatures. I am certainly quite different from Kayla, who no doubt could lay me out in a second if she ever needed to, and I am quite different from her in age, experience, and even gender. Yet we are the same essential physical substance.
The physical substance of the Eucharist, as far as science can ascertain, is idential to bread and wine. Yet it is more different than Kayla and I, or you and I, or a tree and I. A scientist examing a piles of minerals that make up our physical substance could never comprehend the person we were, any more than a scientist examining the Eucharist can discover the reality of the Savior. Its reality is not of this physical existence, in that the physical senses cannot comprehend it. It is something else. It is both bread and wine in human, physical reality, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the greater reality. "Senses cannot grasp this marvel!"
Or as we sing at Benediction in the Tantum Ergo:
Down in adoration falling,
This great sacrament we hail;
Over ancient forms of worship
Newer rites of grace prevail;
Faith will tell us Christ is present,
When our human senses fail.
Doesn’t that say it all?
(I know you're a sweetie, Kayla, and I would be quite safe in your presence. Kermie is an amphibian, not a rodent, and his true substance is sock.  I just picked on you because you're so cute and so disturbingly young!)
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Feb 20th, 2008 12:10 pm |
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Mark, I have just read a beautiful meditation on the Eucharist here. Notice that it does little more than organize the words of the bible and the Catechism into essay form.
The important point of the essay for you is this: “In ordinary eating, we assimilate food to ourselves. When we eat the body of Christ, however, He assimilates us to Himself. Through the Eucharist, Christ lives in us, and in this communion of love we are also united to both the Father and the Spirit.” This thought goes back to the Fathers of the Church in ancient times. It is expressed over and over in their writings. The Catholic understanding of “spiritual food” for “spiritual growth” makes the partaking of the Eucharist very different from cannibalism. The author of this essay develops the point very well, stressing like St. Irenaeus of Lyons the Eucharist’s effect on that other Body of Christ, the Church.
David
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Candlemass
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Posted: Wed Feb 20th, 2008 04:18 pm |
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The old avatars, demons/vampires, metephors my friend, mere metephors! 
I'm getting a grasp on this, I think, I'm trying to defend it to those who are attacking it, I just want to make certain I know what it is I'm defending. For now I'm pointing them to sites that pretty much explain it as you and Rick have, one of the sites being Dave Armstrong's. Though this seems to be one of those doctrines like the Trinity that can be apprehended w/out being fully comprehended, it seems some folk have "man sized" the Eucharist to make it more plausable to their own understanding, much like the modalist has done w/the Trinity.
____________________
"For I the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for me!"
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