Richard Rohr<\/p>\n
Eucharist\nReal Presence\nTuesday, July 24, 2018\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>All my life as a Catholic, I have held the orthodox belief that the \u201cReal Presence\u201d of Christ is communicated in the bread and wine of the sacred meal (rather shockingly taught by Jesus in John 6:35-58). This is not a magical idea, but simply the mystery of incarnation taken to its logical conclusion\u2014from creation itself, uniquely to Jesus\u2019 body, to the human Body of Christ that we all are, and then to the very elements from the earth and human hands like bread and wine to serve as food for the journey. Why believe the universal Presence is \u201cReal\u201d if it is not also real in one concrete ordinary spot? (We are meant to struggle with this realization, as we see in John 6:60-66.)<br \/>\nThe very notion of presence is inherently and necessarily relational and also somehow embodied. Note that Jesus did not say \u201cThink about this,\u201d \u201cProve this,\u201d \u201cLook at this,\u201d \u201cCarry this around,\u201d and, surely not, \u201cArgue about this.\u201d He just said, \u201cEat this . . . and drink all of you\u201d (Matthew 26:26-27). As Augustine (354-430) would preach later, the message is that you are what you eat and drink! [1]<br \/>\nWe spent much of our history arguing about the \u201chow\u201d and the \u201cif\u201d and who could do what Catholics called the \u201ctransubstantiation\u201d of the bread and wine instead of simply learning how to be present. We made the Eucharist into a magic act to be believed instead of a personal transformation to be experienced. We changed bread more than people, it seems to me. We emphasized the priest as the \u201ctransformer\u201d instead of the people as the transformed. We made \u201cReal Presence\u201d into a doctrine (which has its very good meaning!), but we seldom taught people how to be really present (which is contemplation). When you are really present, you will experience the Real Presence for yourself.<br \/>\nThe Eucharist is an encounter of the heart, knowing Presence through our available presence. In the Eucharist, we move beyond mere words or rational thought and go to that place where we don\u2019t talk about the Mystery; we begin to chew on it.<br \/>\nWe must move our knowing to the bodily, cellular, participative, and unitive level. Then we keep eating and drinking the Mystery until one day it dawns on us, in an undefended moment, \u201cMy God, I really am what I eat!\u201d Henceforth we can trust and allow what has been true since the first moment of our existence: We are the very Body of Christ. We have dignity and power flowing through us in our naked existence\u2014and everybody else does too, even though most of us do not know it. This is enough to guide and empower our entire faith journey. If Christians did not already have Eucharist as our central ritual, we would have to create something very similar.<\/p>\n<p>_____________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Young,<\/p>\n<p>Jesus Calling<\/p>\n<p>July 24, 2018<\/p>\n<p>THANKFULNESS OPENS THE DOOR to My Presence. Though I am always with you, I have gone to great measures to preserve your freedom of choice. I have placed a door between you and Me, and I have empowered you to open or close that door. There are many ways to open it, but a grateful attitude is one of the most effective. Thankfulness is built on a substructure of trust. When thankful words stick in your throat, you need to check up on your foundation of trust. When thankfulness flows freely from your heart and lips, let your gratitude draw you closer to Me. I want you to learn the art of giving thanks in all circumstances. See how many times you can thank Me daily; this will awaken your awareness to a multitude of blessings. It will also cushion the impact of trials when they come against you. Practice My Presence by practicing the discipline of thankfulness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PSALM 100:4; Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>PSALM 31:14;\u00a0\u201cYou are my God.\u201d My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1 THESSALONIANS 5:18;\u00a0In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr Eucharist Real Presence Tuesday, July 24, 2018 All my life as a Catholic, I have held the orthodox belief that the \u201cReal Presence\u201d of Christ is communicated in the bread and wine of the sacred meal (rather shockingly taught by Jesus in John 6:35-58). This is not a magical idea, but simply the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17063"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17063"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17070,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17063\/revisions\/17070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}