8013	Forums / Theology Forum / Catholic Apologists	on: January 18, 2007, 04:27:51 PM
St. John 6 \"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 on the last day.\" \"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?\" Easy! \"For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink\" How? St Matt.26:26, St. Mark 14:22,St.Luke 22:19, 1 Cor. 10:4-21 \"Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and he had given thanks he gave it to them,saying, Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins\" Any comments so far before we move to the next one? We do not accept transubstantiation because we do believe that Christ was fully God and fully Man, and that these natures were unmixed. We believe that His body is local, not being mixed with His eternal nature. So that it is impossible for His body to be spread all over the universe. It is a fundamental difference in our views of the trinity. We see that what is of nature the water and the bread are not changed into what is not natural. All natural things remain in the natural. Any other attributed form to natural is mysticism. That is the perceived truth comes out of the mind of man, and is not revealed truth. There are those who see the elements of communion as like saying the pledge of allegiance. That is when we face the flag we remember our independence and we have that as a remembrance strictly. So with the elements of bread and wine. They are strictly a remembrance. But really we are proclaiming the Lords death and resurrection by taking the communion. The elements are what nature made them but the Spirit takes the elements gives us grace, these are a means of grace. We are being strengthened by the Holy SPirit in taking communion. We are having a very profound experience of fellowship in the death and resurrection of Christ in the sacrament. We are receiving life by His body and blood. He is speaking to us a peace that surpasses any experience we could have on this earth. He is coming as Lord to us in the communion. We should have a profound sense of wonder, love and amazement from partaking of His body and blood by the Spirit applying grace through the sacrament.