Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 285.  Thu  4-09-92  8:47  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Nancy Collingwood
 Subject: Real Presence of Christ

+-
| Recently, I had the experience of hearing a Roman Catholic priest tell me
| that when you receive the Holy Eucharist, you are NOT receiving Christ's
| actual body.  He stated that you are receiving a Jesus's special grace
| and NOT receiving Christ in His Divinity or His physical body.  Iobjected
| to this statement, and told him that I believed he was very wrong!  I
| later recalled another priest telling me of an occurance in a town called
| Lansiono, Italy where a priest, upon consecration had personal doubts
| about it becoming the actual 'body' of Christ; at that moment, the
| consecrated host actualy bled!
| If anyone gave give me an actual refrence of this event, please post the
| information here so I can follow-up on it, and show it to that poor
| confused priest I recently encountered.  Thank you in advance!
+-[NC=>All]
 
 
Dear Nancy,
 
In John 6, Christ affirms four times that he is going to give His
flesh and blood to his disciples as food and drink, and that without
this food and drink they could not be saved.  Scandalized, most of
his disciples left him  then and there.  He challenged  those
remaining: "Will you also go away?"  Peter answered:  "Lord, to whom
shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life."
 
In 1st Corinthians, Paul warns his converts that anyone  who ate and
drank unworthily, would be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord.
"Is not this cup we bless,"  he says, "a participation in Christ's
Blood? Is not the Bread we break a participation in Christ`s Body?"
 
The doctrine of the Real Presence was defined as Catholic doctrine by
the Council of Trent in the 16th Century.  But from the beginning we
have held this faith.  In the 2nd Century, St. Ignatius of Antioch
wrote "The Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ  which
suffered for our sins and which the Father in his loving kindness
raised again." Theodore of Mopsuestia said:  "The Lord did not say:
This is a symbol of my body, and this is a symbol of my blood, but
rather: This is my Body and my Blood.  He teaches us not to look to
the nature of what lies before us and is perceived by the senses,
because the giving of thanks and the words spoken over it have
changed it into flesh and blood."
 
Every century provides such testimonies of our unchanging Christian
faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
 
It is the word and promise of Christ in Scripture and the unchanging
doctrine of the Church that win our allegiance.  Miracles of the sort
you mention have undoubtedly occurred; but some miracle stories
cannot be substantiated and others are mere fiction.  It is sufficient
and necessary  to go to the Bible and the  testimony of the Church's
belief in every century.
 
I hope and pray your efforts will be successful in winning this man
back to the faith.  Otherwise, he has simply ceased to be a Catholic. 
You must be very clear on that.
 
                                Sincerely in Christ,
 
                                Father Mateo