Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist

thumb|Catholics give adoration to Christ, whom they believe to be really present, in body and blood, soul and divinity, in sacramental bread whose reality has been changed into that of his body. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, sometimes shortened Real Presence, is the Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist, not merely symbolically or metaphorically, but in a true, real and substantial way. __NOTOC__ Quotes B God created the world through an active speech. God's Word is not descriptive, it is creative. God speaks the worls is being...God's Word changes, it is effective, makes things happen...What God says, is. If Jesus is just a spiritual teacher among many, one great religious figure, okay, fine. But there are thousands of those. What claims the Church is He is not a human figure amomg many, but He is the Word made flesh. The very embodiement of God [as a] transformative and creative work. The night before he dies, that Jesus took bread, the Pasqual bead, and said: "This is my Body." Taking the goblet with the meal, said: "This is the chalice of my Blood". If that [was said] by a human being, a great hero, a philosopher, a social reformer, okay, we say: "He is using a symbolic talk." But who is saying that? The Word made flesh. The Word whose speech constitutes reality at the deepest level. Just as if God spokes you to be, so Jesus speaks His presence into being, over the appearence of bread and wine...We move into His very identity at that point. We now commence to speak in the first person, saying: "Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my Body given for you." We speak in persona Christi, we speak in the very Word of Jesus. Msgr. Robert Barron, The Real Presence of Jesus Christ God in the Eucharist (February 27, 2020) The real presence of Christ is the ultimate reality of the world – the world is real through its participation in that presence. Divo Barsotti, Ebbi a cuore l'eterno. Diario mistico 1962-1965, Rusconi, 1981 ...it is recognised in England that home drinking is no real pleasure. We pray in a church and booze in a pub: profoundly sacerdotal at heart, we need a host in both places to preside over us. In Catholic churches as in continental bars the host is there all the time. But the Church of England kicked out the Real Presence and the licensing laws gave the landlord a terrible sacramental power. Ted was giving me grace of his own free will, holding back death – which is closing time – making a lordly grant of extra life. Anthony Burgess, The Right to an Answer (1960) E 'Twas God the Word that spake it,He took the Bread and brake it:And what that Word did make it,That I believe and take it. Elizabeth I of England. Verses on the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist whilst prisoner in Woodstock Palace (c. 1554), quoted in Queen Elizabeth's Opinion concerning Transubstantiation, Or the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; with some Prayers and Thanksgiving composed by Her in Imminent Dangers (1688) F The new Mass has shortcomings and hides dangers. Of course, not every new Mass is directly scandalous, but the repeated celebration of the new Mass leads to a weak faith and even to its loss. We see how every day there are fewer and fewer priests who still believe in the Real Presence. La nuova messa ha delle lacune e nasconde dei pericoli. Naturalmente non ogni nuova messa costituisce direttamente uno scandalo, ma la celebrazione ripetuta della nuova messa porta a una fede debole e persino alla sua perdita. Vediamo come ogni giorno sono sempre meno i preti che credono ancora alla Presenza Reale. From an interview of Lorenzo Prezzi to Msgr. Bernard Fellay, Lefebvriani: il successore di Fellay. Settimana News (July 12, 2018) G Ecclesiastical Freemasonry seeks to destroy this reality with a false ecumenism, which leads to the acceptance of all Christian Churches, claiming that each of them possesses a part of the truth. It cultivates the plan to found a universal ecumenical Church, formed by the fusion of all Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church. Ecclesiastical Freemasonry, in many subtle ways, seeks to attack the ecclesial piety towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It values only the aspect of the Supper, tends to minimise its sacrificial value, and seeks to deny the real and personal presence of Jesus in the consecrated hosts. For this reason, all external signs indicative of faith in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist have been gradually suppressed, such as genuflections, public hours of adoration, and the holy custom of surrounding the Tabernacle with lights and flowers. La massoneria ecclesiastica cerca di distruggere questa realtà con un falso ecumenismo, che porta all'accettazione di tutte le Chiese cristiane, affermando che ciascuna di esse possiede una parte della verità. Essa coltiva il disegno di fondare una Chiesa ecumenica universale, formata dalla fusione di tutte le confessioni cristiane, fra cui la Chiesa cattolica. La massoneria ecclesiastica, in tante e subdole maniere, cerca di attaccare la pietà ecclesiale verso il Sacramento della Eucarestia. Di essa valorizza solo l'aspetto della Cena, tende a minimizzare il suo valore sacrificale, cerca di negare la reale e personale presenza di Gesù nelle Ostie consacrate. Per questo si sono gradualmente soppressi tutti i segni esterni, che sono indicativi della fede nella presenza reale di Gesù nella Eucarestia, come le genuflessioni, le ore di adorazione pubbliche, la consuetudine santa di circondare il Tabernacolo di luci e di fiori. Stefano Gobbi, Messaggi di carattere spirituale e profetico/escatologico della B.V: Maria don Stefano Gobbi, profezie3m.altervista.org. URL archived on l'8 August 2019, under Creative Commons license. H In any proposed external communication from God, the channels of human faculty are never to be got rid of; so, if they do not in their own native quality constitute divine vouchers, they must operate as barriers to any communication with God. Of God, who is essentially supersensible, there can be no such thing as a presentation directly to our senses; and all belief that sensible facts mean his real presence must rest at last on inferential judgments of our reason, while these will be nothing but self-continuing circles, worthless for evidence, unless our reason is granted to have in itself the real revelation of what accords with the Divine mind. An absolutely direct utterance of God in the external world, evident strictly in itself, is thus upon close examination unintelligible and unthinkable. Yet this is what is implied in a consistent doctrine of Authority.” George Holmes Howison, The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Ch. The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.240-1 A weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger; and therefore, were the doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in scripture, it were directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it. It contradicts sense, though both the scripture and tradition, on which it is supposed to be built, carry not such evidence with them as sense; when they are considered merely as external evidences, and are not brought home to every one's breast, by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, X: Of Miracles, Part I J I am compelled, almost alone, to engage with enemies, I know not whether to call them foreign or domestic ones. They are indeed our own countrymen, but enemies in heart, dwelling in a hostile land... [O]ur enemies, when they accuse our cause of novelty, both wrong us and deceive the people; for that they approve new things as if they were old, and condemn as new things of the greatest antiquity; that private masses, and mutilated communions, and natural and real presence, and transubstantiation, &c. (in which things the whole of their religion is contained), have no certain and express testimony either of holy scripture, or of ancient councils, or of fathers, or of anything that could be called antiquity. Letter of John Jewel to Heinrich Bullinger (8 February 1566), quoted in The Works of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury. The Fourth Portion (1850), p. 1268 There is very great need to have the unique aspect of spirit in man and its relation to the divine spirit in the universe freshly interpreted in a world that has become bogged down with material conceptions of life and the world.' There is very great need of a more vital grasp of the unique Person at the headwaters of our faith linked up with the Real Presence of the inward Christ who is the Life of our lives... Rufus Jones (writer), What Will Get Us Ready (1944) K Let us not forget that the sunlight is God's smile of benediction; that the sunshine is Heaven's light and life and glory, the true Shekinah, the real presence with which the temple needs most to be filled; that the cooling breeze is the breath of heaven, a veritable messenger of life, carrying healing on its wings. John Harvey Kellogg, The Living Temple, edited by Battle Creek, MI: Good Health Publishing Company, (1903). Full text online, p. 412 The Authority of the 'man of the moment' pertains to the fact that it is he, par excellence, who represents 'actuality', the Present, the 'real presence' of something in the world (Hegel's Gegenwart), as opposed to the 'poetic' unreality of the past and the 'utopian' unreality of the future. Alexandre Kojève, The Notion of Authority (2020) [1942], pp. 49–50 L If we trivialize Communion, we trivialize everything, and we cannot lose a moment as important as that of receiving Communion, of recognizing the real presence of Christ there, of the God who is the love above all loves, as we sing in a hymn in Spanish. Msgr. Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Spanish cardinal recommends that Catholics receive Communion on the tongue (28 July 2011) Catholic News Agency S The crisis that the clergy, the Church, the West and the world are experiencing is radically a spiritual crisis. It is a crisis of faith in God. One cannot say that there is no crisis of faith, when we see clearly that the churches in most European countries are empty. As an example: In Germany, every year, there are 200,000 Catholics who leave the Catholic Church, in parallel, 300,000 Protestants who leave the Protestant church. The decline of faith in the real presence of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the current crisis of the Church and its decline, especially in the West. There is really no longer a belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ. After watching a priest celebrate the mass, one can know if he has the faith or not... When the priest has the Eucharist one can know if he has the faith or not... By how they behave when people come to ask for the Eucharist on the language one can know if he has faith or not, the father who treats them badly (that is, he does not know what he has in his hands). One has frequently said (says George Bernanos), one frequently sees with tears of helplessness, laziness, or pride, that the world is becoming de-Christianized, but the world has not conquered Jesus Christ... It is we who have received it through him , it is from our hearts that God withdraws... It is we who de-Christianize ourselves... miserable... Cardinal Robert Sarah, Spiritual crisis of faith, quoted in Javier Oliveira Ravasi, [https://www.infocatolica.com/blog/notelacuenten.php/2111111006-fue-asi-como-impedimos-la-ord "Fue así como impedimos la ordenación de una mujer". Cardenal Sarah. Conferencia] (November 16, 2021) Christianity is not an encyclopaedia of contents and values, nor a list of battles to be fought, but an openness to the surprise of God. Without the experience of his Real Presence, without the encounter with the person of Christ, Christianity becomes a rigid ideology. But beware! God is to be sought and found everywhere in the world. He is present and active in the world and in history. He is not necessarily where we think He is. Antonio Spadaro, quoted in Spadaro (Civiltà Cattolica): Francesco chiede di aprirci al Mistero, non di fare battaglie, Il Sussidiario (August 28, 2014) The Hindu religion appears … as a cathedral temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance — crumbling or badly outworn in places, but a cathedral temple in which service is still done to the Unseen and its real presence can be felt by those who enter with the right spirit. Sri Aurobindo, Letters, Vol. II (1949) p. 53; also in The Soul of India'' (1974) by Satyavrata R Patel. See also Eucharist In persona Christi Transubstantiation External links Category:Jesus Category:Christian theology