Proper Christian living in a multi-religious context

Originally posted by Conrau K
Actually, Catholics do believe that they are part of the Trinity, not as another member of the Trinity, but in participating in the Trinity through Christ. We believe that we receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and we believe that the Holy Spirit dwells within us in prayer (1Cor 16:19). We do not believe that we become another member of the Trinity but in being united in the body of Christ we participate in the life of the Trinity.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
did i not state that the reference is with regard to unity, but no, those Calvinists and protestants use it as a pretence for establishing their dogma! I partook of the Eucharist once, at a friends funeral, young guy who was like a member of our family died on a motorcycle at 21, him and my brother were really close, any how, i was not a catholic, n ...[text shortened]... little wafer i can remember, with not much taste. was i part of the trinity then? i doubt it.

Originally posted by Conrau K
No. For several reasons, you were not really participating in the life of the Trinity. If you were raised a JW, you would not have received a valid baptism which is a necessary prerequisite for any further valid sacraments. all sacramental grace comes through baptism. You also did not have faith which is requisite for any sacrament. You basically committed ...[text shortened]... sacrilege (although, I stress, since you were unaware of it, no one could condemn you for that.)

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
no i was not raised a Jehovahs witness, but a kind of catholic/protestant, father catholic mum protestant. why did no one stop me, i mean committing sacrilege in a chapel at Mass is no small thing, i think, albeit in ignorance. Anyhow i am glad that i was not part of the trinity 🙂

Originally posted by Conrau K
No one stopped you because no minister has the right to stop you unless they know they were not a Catholic. Anyway, you show sheer ignorance. St. Paul talks of the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ that unites us in his body and with one another. How can you scorn that?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i do not scorn it, nor do i believe that it literally becomes the body nor the blood of Christ, nor do i feel that by eating a piece of bread and drinking fermented grapes that i will in anyway be made more Christ like.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i do not scorn it, nor do i believe that it literally becomes the body nor the blood of Christ, nor do i feel that by eating a piece of bread and drinking fermented grapes that i will in anyway be made more Christ like.

Originally posted by Rajk999
Christ said to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of him. The disciples and early church did it weekly. What possible justification can you have for not doing it or at least recognising its importance apart from "your feeling"? If you go by your feelings the JW doctrine is joke.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
well i am quite sure we can dispense with church tradition, after all, we don't want it making the word of God invalid now do we? therefore if you actually look at the account, you will see that it was instituted on the passover celebration, a yearly event! corresponding to the Jewish month of Nissan, and was held after sundown. Therefore if you wan ...[text shortened]... ice that Christ gave, making possible our relationship with God. It is not a mundane occasion.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Since the old law has been abolished, Christians do not celebrate it on an annual basis in the context of the passover celebration. While the gospels do authoritatively record that the Lord's supper happened during the passover, it does not prescribe this as the norm for future celebrations. So in the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is celebrated every day o ...[text shortened]... t is wrong to enter another church and refer to their offering as 'bread and grape juice'.

Jesus commanded that his death be memorialized, not his resurrection. And since the Jewish Passover falls on a different day each year according to the Gregorian calendar that we now use, it is only natural that the same would be true of the Memorial. Many therefore stuck to the original arrangement and observed the Lord’s Evening Meal on Nisan 14 each year. In time they came to be called Quartodecimans, meaning “Fourteenthers.”

Some scholars recognized that these “Fourteenthers” were following the original apostolic pattern. One historian said: “As regards the day for observing the Pascha [the Lord’s Evening Meal], the usage of the Quartodeciman churches of Asia was continuous with that of the Jerusalem church. In the 2nd century these churches at their Pascha on the 14th of Nisan commemorated the redemption effected by the death of Christ.”—Studia Patristica, Volume V, 1962, page 8.

While many in Asia Minor followed the apostolic practice, Sunday was set aside for observance in Rome. About the year 155 C.E., Polycarp of Smyrna, a representative of the Asian congregations, visited Rome to discuss this and other problems. Unhappily, no agreement was reached on this matter. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in a letter: “Neither could Anicetus [of Rome] persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord and the other apostles with whom he consorted; nor yet did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, for he said that he ought to hold to the custom of the elders before him.” (Eusebius, Book 5, chapter 24) Note that Polycarp reportedly based his stand on the authority of the apostles, whereas Anicetus appealed to the custom of previous elders in Rome.

This dispute intensified toward the end of the second century C.E. About 190 C.E., a certain Victor was elected bishop of Rome. He believed that the Lord’s Evening Meal should be observed on a Sunday, and he sought the support of as many other leaders as possible. Victor pressured the Asiatic congregations to change to the Sunday arrangement.

Replying on behalf of those in Asia Minor, Polycrates of Ephesus refused to bow to this pressure. He said: “We keep the day without tampering with it, neither adding, nor subtracting.” He then listed many authorities, including the apostle John. “These all,” he maintained, “observed the fourteenth day for the Pascha according to the Gospel, in no way deviating therefrom.” Polycrates added: “I for my part, brethren, . . . am not affrighted by threats. For those better than I have said, We must obey God rather than men.”—Eusebius, Book 5, chapter 24.

Victor was displeased with this reply. One historical work says that he “excommunicated all the Asiatic Churches, and sent his circular letters to all Churches that were of his opinion, that they should hold no communion with them.” However, “this rash and bold act of his was ill resented by all wise and sober men of his own party, several of whom wrote sharply to him, advising him . . . to preserve charity, unity, and peace.”—Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book 20, chapter 5.

Despite such protests, the Christians in Asia Minor became increasingly isolated on the issue of when to celebrate the Lord’s Evening Meal. Variations had crept in elsewhere. Some celebrated the whole period from Nisan 14 through the following Sunday. Others were holding the occasion more frequently—weekly on Sunday.

In 314 C.E. the Council of Arles (France) tried to force the Roman arrangement and suppress any alternative. The remaining Quartodecimans held out. In order to settle this and other matters that were dividing the professed Christians in his empire, in 325 C.E. the pagan emperor Constantine called an ecumenical synod, the Council of Nicaea. It issued a decree that instructed all in Asia Minor to conform to the Roman usage.

It is interesting to note one of the principal arguments advanced for abandoning the observing of the Memorial of Christ’s death according to the date on the Jewish calendar. A History of the Christian Councils, by K. J. Hefele, states: “It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of all festivals, to follow the custom (the calculation) of the Jews, who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded.” (Volume 1, page 322) To be in such a position was viewed as a “‘humiliating subjection’ to the Synagogue which irked the Church,” says J. Juster, quoted in Studia Patristica, Volume IV, 1961, page 412.

Anti-Semitism! Those who celebrated the Memorial of Jesus’ death on the same day that he died were viewed as Judaizers. It was forgotten that Jesus himself was a Jew and that he had given the day its meaning by then offering his life in behalf of mankind. From then on, the Quartodecimans were censured as heretics and schismatics and were persecuted. The Council of Antioch in 341 C.E. decreed that they were to be excommunicated. Nevertheless, there were still many of them in 400 C.E., and they persisted in small numbers long thereafter.

Since those days, Christendom has failed to return to Jesus’ original arrangement. Professor William Bright admitted: “When a special day, Good Friday, came to be devoted to the commemoration of the Passion as such, it was too late to restrict to it the ‘paschal’ associations which St. Paul had connected with the sacrificial death: they had been freely applied to the Resurrection-festival itself, and a confusion of ideas established itself in the ritual language of Greek and Latin Christendom.”—The Age of the Fathers, Volume 1, page 102.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
yes the Law had been abolished, however the lords evening meal, was not a celebration or an extension of the passover, it was entirely a new celebration and since the former was held only once a year, on Nisan 14, to commemorate Israels deliverance from Egyptian bondage. (Exodus 12:6, 14; Leviticus 23:5) so we hold that the death of “Christ our passo ...[text shortened]... e of mind, i dont want to suffer your wrath, nor to encroach upon that which you hold sacred!

Originally posted by Conrau K
I doubt the honesty of these translations. Standard translations refer to the 'breaking of bread' in all these examples, not 'the partaking of food'. The Greek used here is 'artos' which even still in Greek churches is the name for the Eucharist.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
i see, how very interesting, but you cannot doubt the context, can you, clearly showing that breaking of bread is not in this instance in anyway to be associated with the lords evening meal, how telling dont you think? my wife read hers in her Urdu translation, and it basically says the same, if you like we can look at the Greek interlinear, but it ...[text shortened]... tandard translations also refer to the Word as God almighty, which we know is clearly erroneous.

On the first day of the week when we gathered to break bread, Paul spoke to them because he was going to leave on the next day, and he kept on speaking until midnight.

The first day of the week: the day after the sabbath and the first day of the Jewish week, apparently chosen originally by the Jerusalem community for the celebration of the liturgy of the Eucharist in order to relate it to the resurrection of Christ.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Jesus commanded that his death be memorialized, not his resurrection. And since the Jewish Passover falls on a different day each year according to the Gregorian calendar that we now use, it is only natural that the same would be true of the Memorial. Many therefore stuck to the original arrangement and observed the Lord’s Evening Meal on Nisan 14 ea ...[text shortened]... the ritual language of Greek and Latin Christendom.”—The Age of the Fathers, Volume 1, page 102.