Y'all be like, Okay, Catholics can be pretty based, but what is up with the creepy Mass stuff?
You're way off. The Eucharist is the coolest part about being #Catholic. ⛪🌾🍇
Discussion
Respect The Eucharist really is the heart of it
They just hate us, cuz they ain't us. 🤙🏻
appropriate for those of us who think eating transmuted "actual" flesh is low key cannibalism
Thanks for admitting that transubstantiation is a real thing. I agree.
*if* it's real *then* it's some kind of cannibalism ritual.
the way i learned it was based on the text which says "eat and drink in rememberance of me" and i connect it to the thing of blessing the meal as being a variant of the same ritual of gratitude.
transubstantiation is not merely rememberance it's something more like frankenstein reassembly.
No it’s not cannibalism. That’s just not the right way to think about it at all.
And while the transsubstantiation as a specific word referring to the catholic sacrament is a triple miracle mystery, substantial change in and of itself is pretty much part and parcel of life as physical being right?
I do not think you meant differently but I did not understand the frankenstein reassembly reference so I wanted to clarify as it might give the impression substantial change itself is exotic.
After all even a non sacred piece of bread eaten as a remembrance started as its own substance, bread, and then substantially changed into you. It ceased to be bread and became the substance that is you soon after you ate it. And you are not some frankensteinian assembly of substances of all your past bread pieces eaten, you are just you.
The substance that is a human has that transformative power over bread, bread does not have that power over humans. Nor can bread resist being substantially changed into you. Bread cannot resist the transformation once you consume it.
“You are what you eat” is thus quite often used wrong; rather what you ate “are now” you.
So (mere) humans can effect substantial change all the time. That power is evident within us (albeit with limitations).
But you are eating the literal body and blood of Christ. 😱
He told us to love our enemies, so we don't drink out of their vanquished skulls. We make do with chalices that look like something out of a Dan Brown movie.
For the bling.
the text, with a little more context:
16 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
17 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
18 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you.
19 For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
20 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
21 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.[fn]
22 But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.
the body of christ is the church. the pouring out of the blood was his execution, and for which reason he did it.
it is just another example, IMO, of how so much of the bible text is misunderstood. the jews had a ritual of hospitality to their guests that required them to specifically cook meat over fire as a proper "friendly" offering. the last supper was this same thing, he wasn't literally saying they were eating him. probably the translation misunderstood the meaning of "this is my ..." in the sense of representation, not literal. of a reference to the jewish rituals around eating.
IMO, transubstantiation doctrine is a perversion of the intent of hospitality and specifically for the case of the last supper, to bring to mind the sacrifice that he gave in order to bring about the end of the empire of darkness.
not only is the translation bad from the original greek to english, in most translations, being old, the translation from old english idiom to modern is also bad.
idioms in languages are a funny thing, they often use words that can be misunderstood in a literal sense, when they are not literal. "he covered me with his grace" might be an example. grace is not a substance, so covering you does not mean draping some invisible thing over you, it means placing a shield around you that protects you from condemnation, and grants you wisdom. similarly, "this is" as a translation does not mean the same as if i hold up an egg and say "this is an egg" because it's clearly not whatever i say "this is". we even still use this - "this is a misunderstanding" what is a misunderstanding? context makes a very big difference and interpreting this above text to mean literally eating his flesh, and that he "transformed it" is beyond naive and childish. it was a symbol, and the subject was the mind.
another point, in verse 19 it says that he will not eat again until the kingdom of God comes. this is a reference to Judgement Day which is a time that is still to come. he left the planet, and there is no grapes of earth where he went.
this reinforces the interpretation that what he meant by it was to partake of communion, in order to summon his *spirit* to be in your presence (remember means to bring to mind a memory, not to piece together broken parts). and it should be further noted that the ritual of blessing the meal in prayer is essentially communion, though not many frame it that way, and the ravenous hunger of the attendees often distracts from the thoughtful rememberance of the fact it is referring to summoning the Lord to bless the people at the table with health.
it isn't on my back to bear the burden of accepting twisted interpretations of the bible that more than subtly resemble conflating the text with the pagan practices of idolatry and sun worship. even the orthodox at least reject the literal embodying of saints in the form of carved representations. and the orthodox also acknowledge the importance of Enoch who appears in genesis and jude, by keeping the book, which the catholics basically memoryholed from europe for 1400 years.
but it is petty, in the context, to be contentious beyond simply pointing out how these doctrines are perversions of the intent of Jesus and the saints, to people who are otherwise faithful. i just want to say that "don't trust, verify" was a motto of Jesus also, and that includes making your own personal interpretation of your understanding of the text instead of believing what others say.
just like how communists talk about the "revolution of the proletariat" not understanding that they are acting as puppets for yet another group of bourgoisie, jesus was not saying to believe that the food and drink *becomes* his literal flesh. both idolatry and cannibalism both connect to such an idea, which means that the ritual being interpreted this way is affirming perversity.
anyhow, it's your judgement day to justify your accepting these doctrines. i'm not accepting them. though it does remind me to remember when i eat. gonna start praying before i eat now. that seems like a good idea.
nostr:npub1ecdlntvjzexlyfale2egzvvncc8tgqsaxkl5hw7xlgjv2cxs705s9qs735 nostr:npub1wqfzz2p880wq0tumuae9lfwyhs8uz35xd0kr34zrvrwyh3kvrzuskcqsyn nostr:npub1w4jkwspqn9svwnlrw0nfg0u2yx4cj6yfmp53ya4xp7r24k7gly4qaq30zp is it wrong to horrify our sensitive, delicate Protestant Brethren by being too based in public?
Should we tell them about the way we sometimes put skeletons behind glass coffins in the churches, so that they can smile at us in the pews, or nah? 😂
Tell "em about all the #SRA by all the catholic leaders, if you really want to horrify them.
Then tell 'em the protestant are no different at the root (or better, crown).
Remind them that half the SRA are french catholic aristocrats
European catholics and American Catholics are not the same. I have actually never seen an ossuary in America. Also, all of the Catholics i know in the us lean more towards npcs than based, the Orthodox here are the based people
Don't mention the #Orthodox. They're still angry at us about 1204, and they always show up and start trying to out-based us. 😂
they totally win at being more based tho. and their churches are both more beautiful and more modest looking
And a quick mention that many french priests hold the Steppe heritage to be a founding pillar without which western civilization has no leg to stand on
the byzantine empire was a very important centre of learning back in the day. it pretty much went to shit when the ottomans took over tho.
And 1054.
☦️
I don't know. The Catholics I know in Maryland and Texas are pretty based.
Maybe it's regional.
all of the catholics i've met have been pretty based. one of my neighbours in my previous place was this awesome kind but quite straightforward lady who was always telling me about how mean her cousin, my landlord, was. haha.
Last year, the skull of St Thomas of Aquinas stayed at our parish for a month.
St Mary Magdalene's skull is on display at the Madeleine Church in Paris.
Imagine you're a protestant, even a high protestant, just going normally to church, and there you got your catholic bros all like "BEHOLD, the skull of St Thomas of Aquinas"
All of reality is pretty horrifying, nice to belong to the church that owns it.
By ay chance did you just watch "Father Stu" ?
Respectfully, equating the Eucharist to cannibalism is naive.
A woman giving birth is nothing at all like a woman menstruating even though a naive view might somehow equate both with “human tissue goes through the canal”.
Cannibalism is not eating a living being and in cannibalism the (collection of) substance (s) that is dead physical flesh becomes the physical substance of the eater. In the Eucharist the Christ does not die, He does not become the eater (if anything the opposite), and He persists after the act.
The whole idea of it is fascinating and raises a number of questions and discussions as to why it is necessary, but this exploration cannot happen if it’s labeled something it totally is not.
It's more similar to breastfeeding, really, than cannibalism, but both analogies fall very short. I am happy to own the cannibalism charge, tho, as it was thrown at the first Christians and is proof of the tradition of the Mass.
>> At the last supper, Jesus did say, ‘This is my body’ and ‘This is my blood’. So the Church developed the theory of transubstantiation. This is still Roman Catholic doctrine: that, even though the appearance of the bread and wine remains unchanged, their all-important inner ‘substance’ is radically and really changed into the actual body and blood of Jesus.
The opposite, very Protestant view is that the bread and wine are simply symbols of the living Christ. The Church of England’s middle position since the Reformation, shared by most of the Reformed churches, is of the Real Presence of Christ in the bread and wine.<<
https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/news/cannibalism-surely-not-sung-eucharist-15-08-21/
i read the text closely and decided it wasn't a symbol either. but rather "body" to mean "to ask for the presence" and blood "to remember the sacrifice". and that it isn't supposed to be something special but what you do every time you eat (they were having lunch, after all).
idioms in old languages being insensitively interpreted as literal is hilarious especially when the text clearly is analogical.
read the accounts of sex in genesis for an example of how the idiom is foreign to modern english "he went in unto her"... in the hebrew it probably was basically contemporary colloquialism "so abraham fucked sarah"
I do get that.
At some level, the cannibalism charge is natural from the language and to give credit to those who levy it, it comes from I think a position of taking the seriousness of what is going on into account.
But respectfully, my understanding of the sacrament convinces me that to try to own the cannibalism charge will permit ignorance of the basic physics of the process in those levying that charge.
Taking the body only, the transubstantiation is a piece of bread into the whole living body of Christ. Consuming the whole, living, body of Christ is just not the same as chewing a piece of flesh.
Not only would it be completely inappropriate to tear up the Christ with our teeth, but any regular piece of flesh has truly ceased to be a substance (and becomes a collection of bits of different, substances) once “bitten off” from whoever or whatever it was. And soon those bits of substances- muscle, sinew, etc will be substantially changed into the eater- and cease to exist as substances. That is cannibalism- and that is not happening in churches.
In the Eucharist (again just considering the body) Christ is not wholly present at the consecration moment but then mechanically transformed into a bunch of different body parts and substances by chewing.
Rather His whole living body becomes present at consecration, remains whole at consumption, still the same whole substance in/as each particle of the consumed species, and for as long as the underlying species exists. And whenever all particles of the species cease to exist inside the consumer, Christ whole living body is entirely gone from the physical place it had been (but Christ has/was not substantially changed).
This is my understanding.