The Eucharist
How
I got this way
Chris Robinson
From
the Editor
Marcus Grodi
Affirming
All Things
Dwight Longnecker
The
Real Presence
David Palm
Transubtantation
and the Eucharist
David Armstron
But
What do we Mean by "The Real Presence"?
Dwight Longnecker
St.
Augustine's Belief in the Real Presence
David Armstrong
The
Holy Eucharist
James Cardinal
Gibbons
The
Meal of Melkizedek
Scott Hahn Ph.D.
One
Step Enough
A Short History
of the St. Barnabas Society
Before
You Object...
Marcus Grodi
The
Eucharist in the Economy of Salvation
Other Journals
Welcome
to the third Edition of
The Coming Home Journal
There are many issues, both real and imagined, that separate non-Catholic and Catholic Christians. Some of these are really not all that crucial, and could be easily cleared up and set aside if either side just took the time to listen to one another with an open mind and charity. One of these might be our apparently different understandings of the priesthood of all believers. If Catholics and non-Catholics would study a document like Pope John Paul II’s Christifideles Laici (The Lay Member’s of Christ’s Faithful People) they would discover that on this issue we’re truly not that far apart—it’s just that in many ways Catholic laity haven’t discovered their birthright (I would also recommend a book by Russell Shaw entitled To Hunt, To Shoot, To Entertain (Ignatius Press).
Others issues that separate us are very important, but again if we took the time to patiently listen, we would discover how much we can celebrate together. Here we might include Mary, the mother of Jesus. On the surface, it appears that a gulf separates what Catholics and at least most conservative Protestants believe about Mary. But I believe once Protestants understand what we Catholics truly mean by what we believe, even with more difficult doctrines like Mary’s Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, or the proposed dogma of Coredemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate, they would discover that what we believe is not unreasonable. To help explain these things, we devoted our first edition of the CHJournal to Marian themes.
However, there are other issues that even once clearly explained and understood, the separations clearly remain. Hopefully, we’ve learned to understand and more honestly love one another, so that together we can stand one day without embarrassment before our Lord and respond with sincere hearts that though we disagreed we did so with charity. In the second edition of the CHJournal we covered one of these issues: the Authority of the Church. I hope the conversion stories and articles clearly explained why we accept and submit our consciences to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and believe that the Catholic Church, with all of her warts, is yet the "pillar and bulwark of truth" referred to by Paul in 1 Timothy 3.15.
In this third edition of the CHJournal, we begin to take on another of these issues, maybe one of the most significant issues that divides Christians: the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. This isn’t only a dogma that divides Catholics from other Christians, for there are a great variety of interpretations floating around Christendom, even amongst Christians of the same Protestant denominations. And given this wide berth of interpretations, some Christian leaders have avoided putting their weight on any particular opinion. Even John Wesley, who tried to hold a careful position between Protestantism, high liturgical tradition and the Church of England, is reported to have said in his later years that he would make no comment on the Real Presence for this was something for which only the angels knew the answer.
I say that we’re only beginning to cover this theme in this edition because there is much to cover when it comes to the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. I pray that with the conversion stories and articles in this edition, we can at least wet your appetite to study deeper and more historically the uninterrupted conviction that Christ’s words "This is my body…this is my blood" were meant to be taken literally and very seriously. We fully understand those who find this hard to believe, as did those who first heard Jesus refer to this and responded, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" (John 6.60) Granted, when the priest places the consecrated host on our tongues, it still feels and tastes like bread, and when we drink the consecrated wine, it still warms the gullet like the fine wine from which it came. However, as I hope these articles will help explain, we believe they are changed because Christ said so, the Apostles said so, the Early Fathers said so, the Church has continued to say so ever since the beginning, and because all things are possible with our loving Heavenly Father.
As we’ve said from the beginning of our work, the goals of the Coming Home Network International and this journal are not to proselytize, but rather to explain in clear terms the truth about and the truths of the Catholic Church. Almost all of our authors this quarter are converts to the Catholic Church, one having been an Anglican minister, and another a Presbyterian minister. The lone non-covert is James Cardinal Gibbons, former Archbishop of Baltimore. It is our prayer that these articles and stories are an encouragement to your faith. If you have any questions or comments, please either contact us or the person who gave you this free journal. We want to do whatever we can to help those outside the Catholic Church, those who have left the Church, or those who are life-long Catholics but have lost the "joy of their salvation," to discover the great joys and truth of the Catholic Faith.
May the Father richly bless you as you seek to follow Jesus His Son, through the loving guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Sincerely In Christ,
Marcus C. Grodi
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