Saturday, May 22, 2010

News From Rome

Looking After a Eucharistic Miracle: Franciscan Recounts His Special Mission in Siena

Here's one I didn't know- If a consecrated host deteriorates, the real presence of Christ disappears. How was this determined? Drop me a comment, and save me some time-

Recap:
Aug. 14, 1730: Eve of the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. That day in all the churches of Siena the priests consecrated additional hosts for those who might wish to receive the Body of Christ the following day. 351 Consecrated hosts stolen during the night.

Aug. 14, 1730: The hosts were returned, unharmed.

The hosts were full of dust and cobwebs. The priests cleaned them with great care. Then there was a day of adoration and reparation. Thousands of faithful arrived in the basilica in thanksgiving for the finding of the hosts. They were not distributed, it seems, because the Franciscans wanted the pilgrims to adore them until the moment they deteriorated (because on being deteriorated, the real presence of Christ would disappear).

But the hosts remained intact. The people began to consider them miraculous and increasingly pilgrims went to pray before them. A few were distributed on special occasions.

Today: 223 hosts remain, in the same state they were in the day they were consecrated.

Interpretation of the priest in charge of "looking after" this miracle:

The Eucharistic miracle of Siena "represents a proof of the love of God for us and the presence to sustain us against doubts, difficulties -- the miracle with which God the Father is helping the Church not to be afraid, to live the presence of her founder sent by the Father to do his will."

"Here two miraculous things happen," explained Father Spring pointing to the hosts consecrated almost three centuries ago. "Time does not exist, it has stopped"; and "composite bodies and organic substances are subject to withering. For these hosts, neither fungus nor elements that break them down subsist. It is a living, continuous miracle. We do not know until when the Lord will permit it."
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38 comments:

John Bugay said...

I can't speak to this specific story, but when I was growing up, our old priest used to tell us that, because it would take seven or eight minutes for the host to be digested, so Christ was still present in us for just that long. The implication being that we ought not to sneak out the back until the words "The Mass is ended, go in peace to love and serve the Lord" were uttered.

5:12 PM, May 22, 2010
Carrie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
5:50 PM, May 22, 2010
Carrie said...

"composite bodies and organic substances are subject to withering. For these hosts, neither fungus nor elements that break them down subsist..."

I never could understand transubstantiation with the substance changing but the accidents remaining, but this sounds similar to the argument against the process with regards to people with Celiac Disease. If the bread is only bread in appearance, then what exactly are fungi feeding on?

I'm sure Catholics have an answer for this, I just couldn't find it.

5:53 PM, May 22, 2010
James Bellisario said...

Do your own research. All you will do is mock the answer anyways like you do everything else that has to do with Catholicism. You should rename your blog, Mockers All.

7:14 PM, May 22, 2010
John Bugay said...

Matthew -- I think if you would come over here and behave like a decent human being, you wouldn't get mocked. As for Catholicism, especially as defined by Trent, it provides its own ample need to be mocked.

Carrie -- "For these things are not mutually contradictory, that our Savior Himself is always seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven according to the natural mode of existing, and yet that in many other places sacramentally He is present to us in His own substance by that manner of existence which, although we can scarcely express it in words [and yet we can curse anyone who does not agree with us], yet we can, however, by our understanding illuminated by faith, conceive it to be possible to God, and which we ought most steadfastly to believe." (Trent, Session XIII, Chapter 1, Denzinger 874, emphasis supplied).

So Christ is not really really present, only sacramentally really present.

9:16 PM, May 22, 2010
zipper778 said...

Always beating around the bush. Business as usual for Rome. I didn't realize that they actually acknowledged that the host deteriorates, but their escape is that when this happens that Christ's presence is gone. That's ridiculous. I can only imagine what must go through their minds about not knowing for sure if they are worshipping Christ or a piece of bread that has deteriorated.

9:41 PM, May 22, 2010
James Bellisario said...

John, God will not be mocked and neither will His mother. I pity you all on judgement day. .

10:56 PM, May 22, 2010
Rhology said...

Yeah, the Holy Spirit gets real mad when you insult His momma. So be nice.


You know, this "Eucharistic miracle" does nothing for me - why not attribute any "incorruptibility" to demonic activity? Some RC needs to give a reason why not to.

11:24 PM, May 22, 2010
James Bellisario said...

Keep spitting in the face of God Rhology and see where you end up. Your insulting mockery of God and His incarnation is truly sickening. What is even more atrocious is that you are too blind to even see you are doing it.

11:47 PM, May 22, 2010
EA said...

When I was a kid, we got the stories of the "thieves" that stole the Eucharists and stuck them with a pin only to be shocked that the hosts bled.

Apparently this is a big problem in Catholic Churches - thieves stealing the consecrated hosts and sticking them with a pin. Never saw any thieves with pins myself, just heard about them.

11:55 PM, May 22, 2010
John Bugay said...

Matthew Bellisario: John, God will not be mocked and neither will His mother.

Couple of things.

1. We're not mocking God; we're merely mocking what mocks him (i.e. Catholicism).

2. We don't mock his mother. We have a healthy respect for her as a member of the one true church. As Eric Svendsen notes in the conclusion of his work on Mary, the New Testament portrays her as someone who initially receives the word of God with great enthusiasm; who then struggles to understand her true role vis a vis the conflict between her old role as mother of Jesus (in which she exercises her will over him) and her new role as servant of Jesus (in which she humbly submits to his will); who at times gets it right, while other times not; who at times even opposes Jesus' mission and sides with those who deem Jesus "insane"; who then finally becomes a full-fledged disciple. (Eric Svendsen, "Who Is My Mother?" pg 234.)

It is Roman Catholics who mock her by turning her into an iteration of the goddesses Isis, Artemis, and Diana.

I pity you all on judgement day.

Don't pity us. We're forgiven by God and the perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. So yes, while we are all vile sinners, we stand on (and in) the promises of the Word of God and ultimately, we will stand.

You should worry maybe about your own inherent righteousness. Will you have piled on enough "works of the church" to be "good enough" to stand before an awesome, holy and righteous God?

7:00 AM, May 23, 2010
John Bugay said...

EA: When I was a kid, we got the stories of the "thieves" that stole the Eucharists and stuck them with a pin only to be shocked that the hosts bled.

Apparently this is a big problem in Catholic Churches - thieves stealing the consecrated hosts and sticking them with a pin. Never saw any thieves with pins myself, just heard about them.

LOL!

Note to Matthew Bellisario: Where is the real mockery in EA's comment here?

7:30 AM, May 23, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

I don't "know", but I'm sure I can offer a good guess: we have to destroy the moldy Bread, by using a destruction that is not defiling (since the elements are sacred): usually by fire or by letting it flow down a clear stream of water (something impossible to find now these days, with all the pollution going on, etc) -- the same goes for old and decayed icons or Bibles or holy books -- ... so I'm *guessing* that the Catholics, being their usually scholastic and over-analyzing, over-rationalizing selves, thought that they have to invent a (new) dogma which would make this non-defiling destruction more acceptable...

7:43 AM, May 23, 2010
Rhology said...

Bellisario, if you think I was mocking the Incarnation, you're just all too ready to be offended. Rather, I was mocking your imprecision. You said "God's mother". The Holy Spirit is God; I presume you mean He had a mother.

7:52 AM, May 23, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

You know, this "Eucharistic miracle" does nothing for me - why not attribute any "incorruptibility" to demonic activity? Some RC needs to give a reason why not to.


Probably because the Catholics, just like us, use to read the Exorcisms in such cases. (Well, at least that's what we do).

10:09 AM, May 23, 2010
bkaycee said...

I wonder if chucking the second commandment is mocking God?

Exodus 20 4-6 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

2:07 PM, May 23, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Bkaycee,


The trouble with the book of Exodus is that it doesn't end with chapter 20...


Exodus 25:18  And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat.
19  And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof.
20  And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
21  And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.
22  And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.


Exodus 26:1  ¶Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.


Exodus 26:31  ¶And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made:


Exodus 36:8  ¶And every wise hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle made ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work made he them.


Exodus 36:35  ¶And he made a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubims made he it of cunning work.


Exodus 37:7  And he made two cherubims of gold, beaten out of one piece made he them, on the two ends of the mercy seat;
8  One cherub on the end on this side, and another cherub on the other end on that side: out of the mercy seat made he the cherubims on the two ends thereof.
9  And the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy seatward were the faces of the cherubims.

3:33 PM, May 23, 2010
bkaycee said...

So you feel that because God commanded the cheribum to be made, that gave the green light for the church to ignore the second commandment.

That mindset explains alot in regards to other novelties.

4:42 PM, May 23, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

No,.. what it did was give green light for the Church to... to make Cherubim, Seraphim, Angels, and (later on) Saints, to adorn the walls of the Holy Place with holy figures of Holy People...

5:07 PM, May 23, 2010
Rhology said...

Lvka,

You forgot to quote the parts of Exodus where it says: "And God commanded the people to bow down to them as to God and to worship them."

5:11 PM, May 23, 2010
James Swan said...

Catholic Encyclopedia:

"In the absence of Scriptural proof, the Church finds a warrant for, and a propriety in, rendering Divine worship to the Blessed Sacrament in the most ancient and constant tradition, though of course a distinction must be made between the dogmatic principle and the varying discipline regarding the outward form of worship"

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

5:18 PM, May 23, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

We don't bow down to them as to God. (Obviously)

7:48 PM, May 23, 2010
Carrie said...

"Transubstantiation refers to the fact that the substance of bread and wine are annihilated and cease to exist at the moment of consecration. The substance of the bread and wine disappears and is replaced by the substance of Jesus Christ's body and blood. The Eucharistic elements are no longer bread and wine, and are really the body and blood of Jesus Christ" source

Back to my question, is the statement above correct? Is the substance of the bread and wine "annihilated and cease to exist at the moment of consecration"?

8:47 AM, May 24, 2010
Carrie said...

In case you enjoy Catholic legends:

"The Eucharist has been the object of a great many miracles often referred to in ecclesiastical history; not all, however, have been well enough authenticated to place them beyond doubt. In some of the miracles the host appears as transformed into a new substance; sometimes it has remained intact during a considerable period; sometimes blood has flowed from it, etc....

...These miracles have been selected from among a multitude of others, and we have not pretended to emphasize either the most authentic or the most marvellous. Moreover, the subject we have just treated is so vast that it would be easy to compile from the historical material a work of great theological interest, both conclusive and detailed."

Source

8:52 AM, May 24, 2010
Rhology said...

We don't bow down to them as to God. (Obviously)

Actually, it's far from obvious. What exactly is the difference? And don't say "intention".

10:33 AM, May 24, 2010
Rhology said...

Also, it would appear that Lvka can't provide a Bible psg that tells us to bow down to those cherubim and ask them for stuff. Which means they're irrelevant. Which means, as usual, that Lvka has added nothing to the conversation.

10:34 AM, May 24, 2010
Viisaus said...

The term "proskuneo/proskynesis" that EOs claim to stand for merely second-class, harmless "veneration" is often used in the Bible to describe acts of foul idolatry. Thus we can see that "proskynesis" is not an innocent word.

Take Acts 7:43 for example (in original Greek alphabet at the link):

http://www.greeknewtestament.com/B44C007.htm#V43

"kai anelabete thn skhnhn tou moloc kai to astron tou qeou umwn remfan touV tupouV ouV epoihsate PROSKUNEIN autoiV kai metoikiw umaV epekeina babulwnoV"

"Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to WORSHIP them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon."


Or Revelation 9:20:

http://www.greeknewtestament.com/B66C009.htm#V20

"kai oi loipoi twn anqrwpwn oi ouk apektanqhsan en taiV plhgaiV tautaiV ou metenohsan ek twn ergwn twn ceirwn autwn ina mh PROSKUNHSWSI ta daimonia kai ta eidwla ta crusa kai ta argura [kai ta calka] kai ta liqina kai ta xulina a oute blepein dunatai oute akouein oute peripatein"

"And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not WORSHIP devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:"

12:00 PM, May 24, 2010
Viisaus said...

Also, in his famous teaching about the impossibility of serving two masters, Christ used the term "douleia", another term which RCs and EOs claim to differ from the first-class divine worship of "latria" - Luke 16:13:

http://www.greeknewtestament.com/B42C016.htm#V13

"oudeiV oikethV dunatai dusi kurioiV DOULEUEIN h gar ton ena mishsei kai ton eteron agaphsei h enoV anqexetai kai tou eterou katafronhsei ou dunasqe qew DOULEUEIN kai mamwna"

"No servant can SERVE two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot SERVE God and mammon."

12:07 PM, May 24, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

V.,


we don't venerate idols, in case you haven't noticed that. (ie, You won't see me crossing myself and kissing a statue of Buddha anytime soon..)

Of idols the Scripture says: Thou shalt NOT bow down thyself to them, NOR serve them. (Exodus 20:5)

12:50 PM, May 24, 2010
Rhology said...

You won't see me crossing myself and kissing a statue of Buddha anytime soon

But we DO see you doing the same thing to pictures of dead people of whom you have no idea whether they are in Heaven or Hell.

12:51 PM, May 24, 2010
Viisaus said...

"(ie, You won't see me crossing myself and kissing a statue of Buddha anytime soon..)"

Ah, the joke is on you. For due to an ignorant medieval misunderstanding (part of that "tradition" you say we should consider equal to the Bible), both RCs and you EOs ended up "venerating" Buddha under the guise of imaginary but popular "Saint Josaphat".

Read about the whole silly affair here (which modern EO scholars do not even try to deny):


"How the Buddha became a Catholic Saint

"At any rate, around the same time the Kalilah and Dimnah was being translated by the Jews, there lived a Christian monk called John of Damascus in the court of al-Walid ibn Abdul Malek, the Caliph of Baghdad. St. John was born around 676 A.D. and died sometime between 754 A.D and 757 A.D. He wrote a series of works defending the Christian faith. The Arabs, who ruled most of the world at the time, were very secure about Islam (seeing it as extension of Christianity); the Caliph gave St. John a free hand. One of the good father's books was a religious romance - the first Western one - called Barlaam and Joasaph.

The story of Barlaam and Joasaph is that of a young Indian prince, Josaphat (or Joasaph), being converted to Christianity by the arguments of Barlaam. Josaphat's story (before his conversion) is almost exactly the story of the Sakyamuni Buddha. Indeed, "Josaphat" is nothing but a Greek-formulation of "Bodhisat." This is fairly well established."

http://desicritics.org/2006/03/21/001747.php


Catholic Encyclopedia confirms:

"Barlaam and Josaphat found their way into the Roman Martyrology (27 November), and into the Greek calendar (26 August). Vincent of Beauvais, in the thirteenth century, had given the story in his "Speculum Historiale". It is also found in an abbreviated form in the "Golden Legend" of Jacobus de Voragine of the same century.

The story is a Christianized version of one of the legends of Buddha, as even the name Josaphat would seem to show. This is said to be a corruption of the original Joasaph, which is again corrupted from the middle Persian Budasif (Budsaif=Bodhisattva)."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02297a.htm

1:19 PM, May 24, 2010
Ben said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
4:24 PM, May 24, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Josaphat is a Biblical name... -- was this ancestor of Christ from St. Matthew's Gospel a Buddhist Hindu as well? :-\


Anyway... to my humble knowledge, it's 'Joasaph', not 'Josaphat'. (Obviously, no link to Biblical names such as Asaph, Abiasaph, Eliasaph, or Ebiasaph should be sought in this case either... instead, we should take for granted the words of secular or Catholic sources [the later being notorious for rejecting the Jesus prayer eversince the Palamite controversy in the 14th century]).


Either way, the name is as Jewish as Shavuot. -- Yom Tov, BTW!

6:49 PM, May 24, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Rho,


I assure You: I only pray to THOSE dead people on whose eternal destiny I'm sure of. :-)

6:53 PM, May 24, 2010
The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

(LOL! :-) I'm surprised you didn't also add that 'Judah' is a form of `Buddah`...) :D

7:24 PM, May 24, 2010
Ben said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
7:57 PM, May 24, 2010
EA said...

I assure You: I only pray to THOSE dead people on whose eternal destiny I'm sure of

Like maybe Luther and Calvin? LOL!!!

haw haw haw - WOW...lame

12:36 AM, May 25, 2010
Rhology said...

Lvka,

How are you sure of ANYONE's eternal destiny? Be specific.

1:32 PM, May 25, 2010

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