The bread of life

[thessalonian]

I just finished and anti-Catholic book by a Mr. Jim Tetlow. It generals bashes on Marian Apparitions but the last chapter is on the Eucharist, which is the end result of what the Marian apparitions point to. This of course adds much credibility to them to me.

One hangup Mr. Tetlow has with regard to the Eucharist is the many times that it is called bread after it is consecrated in scripture. A couple of examples:

1 Cor 11
[27] Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
[28] Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.


Acts.20
[11] And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed.


I have been thinking about this and want your thoughts as well. I think we as Catholics sometimes have a hangup with regard to the Eucharist in forgetting that after the consecration the reality of bread before the consecration becomes a figure afterward. The figure of flesh before becomes the reality. Let me explain as best I can my thinking.

Jesus says in John 6, I am the bread of life. This is a metaphor. Jesus is not bread. But bread symbolizes whom he is. It tells us something about him. How the grains of wheat die and are are crushed and brought together to one loaf make bread. The bread is broken as he was broken. The bread feeds us.

But is there a problem with calling the Eucharist bread. I don't think so. The phrase bread of life still applies to it as much as it did Jesus in John 6 when he said "I am the bread of life". But it is not oddly enough a reality but a metaphor for the Eucharist is not bread but his flesh. It is mana in the desert, bread from heaven. Yet these thing in the Old Testament were metaphors for him as well. So I see no problem at all if the scriptures call the Eucharist bread after it has been consecrated. What do you think.

Thessalonian

[phatcatholic]

this is an excellent thought. i think the event that best illustrates your point is the one from Luke, where Jesus appears to the apostles after his resurrection, but they don't recognize him until [i][b]after[/b][/i] the breaking of the bread:

[b]Luke 24:30,31,35[/b]
[b]30 [/b]When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them.
[b]31 [/b]And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. ....
[b]35 [/b]Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

just as Jesus is a figure of the bread from heaven and the loaves before the consecration, the bread is a figure of Jesus after the consecration. how freakin awesome is that!!

Edited February 24, 2005 by phatcatholic