What about the verse where Paul warns against not "discerning" the "Body" of Christ??? Surely, he is warning against not recognizing the Real physical presence of Jesus, isn't he?
How else could one interpret "discerning the body?"
Well, I guess the reality is that either the bread becomes the Body of Christ or it does not. This issue is very black and white. Either Catholics have been doing it wrong for 2000 years or Catholics have it right.
I will mention that there is an amazing grace when praying in front of the Most Holy Eucharist. It's a presence and a happiness that I can only feel there. For years, I (as a Catholic) wondered, "God, are you really there?" When praying in front of the tabernacle in a Catholic Church, you can really feel His presence.
It keeps drawing me back.
By the way, you failed to address 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17. It appears that Paul believes in the Transubstantiation (although he doesn't call it that.)
God bless,
Dennis
Dennis,
I hate to sound like Obi Wan Kanobi here, but you shouldn't trust in what you feel (whether transubstantiation is true or not).
"The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately wicked; who can understand it?" -Jeremiah 17:9
Saint and Sinner
Thanks for the advice Saint and Sinner. The only thing that I truly know is my own heart.
I don't know yours or Jim Gorham's or Dave's. I do know my own. I know that it cannot be calloused and hardened. I know that if I see God that I must recognize Him and honor Him.
And I know that I must love Him with all of my heart and my neighbor as myself.
As I said, Jesus Christ is either present in the Eucharist or He's not. If He is not, then the Catholics (me included) have been doing it wrong for 2000 years.
But if He is present and the Catholic Church is right, then we must recognize Him...for He is God.
And He will transform your life.
May God bless you and all who read helives.blogspot.com. I really like your writings. (I still don't fully understand how the yoyo will wind up but I'll figure it out eventually.)
Dennis
Dennis,
Thanks for the comments. You wrote:
"As I said, Jesus Christ is either present in the Eucharist or He's not. If He is not, then the Catholics (me included) have been doing it wrong for 2000 years."
Of course, it is not that clear-cut. The choices are not limited to transubstantiation vs. the Baptist-like "real absence"--there are intermediate views such as those held by Calvin or Luther. They would argue that Christ is present in the Eucharist, but not in the extreme sense that the elements become his actual body and blood (although Luther is close).
David,
I stand corrected. I'm not that familiar with the Protestant denominations and forgot about the consubstantiation beliefs of Calvin and Luther.
God Bless,
Dennis
Catholics and Baptists alike (you excepted, DH -- come on in, the waters of the Rhone are fine!) often set up a false dichotomy between "Either the Eucharist is purely a symbol that does nothing for you except remind you to be good, OR else the Eucharist requires a priest in unbroken succession from St Peter to re-enact the Sacrifice of Calvary and to cause the bread and wine to disappear and be replaced by literal flesh and blood that still looks like bread and wine and doesn't contravene Acts 15:29." Each side picks up disaffected converts who can't swallow the extreme they grew up with. The idea that "wherever two or three gather, I will be with you" is usually the excluded middle in this debate.
What do you mean, Tom? I hope you don't mean that Christ is only spiritually present in the communion elements, but that his body is up in heaven. that would be Nestorianism.
Sylvia,
It would most certainly not be Nestorianism. Do you believe that Christ is no longer omnipresent?
Real Presence is Scriptural. Human priests re-offering daily sacrifices to take away our sins, is not. Unfortunately the heirs of both Trent and Zwingli assume the two stand or fall together.
Tom, I don't understand what you said.
David: What does omnipresence have to do with anything?
Sylvia: I know what Tom means. He's expressing what is basically the Lutheran position: the bread and wine in the Supper truly are the body and blood of Christ ("This is my body"), etc - Lutherans accept entirely the historical doctrine of the church on this one.
However, the concept of the Mass as a sacrifice performed by human priests on behalf of the living and the dead is rejected by Lutherans. What matters in the Sacrament of the Altar is what Christ is doing, not what we (or a "priest" on our behalf) is doing.
The Roman Catholic Church's position is that the Real Presence and the Sacrifice of the Mass are inseparable, and accordingly it affirms both. The Reformed Church takes the same position, namely that the Real Presence and the Sacrifice of the Mass are inseparable, but rejects both. The Lutheran Church affirms the first but rejects the latter.
Tom, did I get that right? 
Ja, Johannes mein bruder (Sic, fratre Johanne).
... should add that, depending which Presbyterians you talk to, something like that is also the Presbyterian view (but *not* the general Reformed view -- ie, not Zwinglians, not Reformed Baptists, so not even all Calvinists).
Watching Catholics and Real Absentists repeatdly quoting 1 Corinthians and Hebrews (respectively) at each other sometimes feels like I imagine it would being a Trinitarian at a debate between Modalists and Tritheists...
Just to clarify one point, Catholics do not believe that Jesus is sacrificed over and over. We believe that He died once for us, and that that single sacrifice is presented to us at every Mass.
Yes, except you have to repeat [your participation in] that sacrifice over and over again, for it to have any benefit. A Mass you partook of ten years ago is no use to you now if you've sinned since. Hebrews speaks of Christ's once and for all sacrifice being sufficient, whereas no Catholic would claim a single Mass is sufficient. "Once and for all" is an Evangelical trademark.
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