Remembering the Lord

Bulletin

Dan Peters
05/07/23 - Lord's Supper

The bread stays bread, nothing “mystical happens” to it. But the Catholic Catechism, 1994, states, “the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” p.346 But a 2019 Pew research study showed about 70% of Catholics believe that the bread and wine are, “symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ”- wiki. Hence, the people in the pew seem to have a better understanding than their priests, or do they?
John Wycliffe was one of the earliest to attack this official teaching of the Catholic church. He brought up, “the famous controversy as to whether a mouse, partaking of the sacramental elements, really partakes of Christ's body is discussed in the first pages of the treatise on the eucharist.
Wycliffe pronounces the primary assumption false, for Christ is not there in a corporal manner. An animal, in eating a man, does not eat his soul. The opinion that the priest actually breaks Christ's body and so breaks his neck, arms and other members, is a shocking error.
What could be more shocking… than that the priest should daily make and consecrate the Lord's body, and what more shocking than to be obliged to eat Christ's very flesh and drink his very blood…. The words of institution are to be taken in a figurative sense…. In saying, I am the vine, he meant that the vine is a symbol of himself.” (p.336, Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 6).
Wycliffe got people to think. When Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1ff), Jesus is obviously speaking figuratively, metaphorically. Jesus is not literally a piece of wood. You may call someone a couch potato, but you do not mean they are literally an edible vegetable.
So the official Catholic church got it wrong and they won’t change. Yet most Catholics, according to Pew research, believe the Lord’s supper is a “symbol”. So why follow a church you really don’t believe teaches the truth? If we know better, should we not do better, teach better?
Jesus asked us to “remember” as we eat the bread and drink the fruit of the vine (Luke 22:19). “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 yourselves.” (John 6:53). Then Jesus qualifies, explains, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” (John 6:63). Take Jesus seriously, eat his words until they become a part of you. Dan Peters