Bread of Life

BREAD OF LIFE
 this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. (john 6: 50)
The miracle of God’s physical presence to us at every Mass is the truest testament to Christ’s love for us and His desire for each of us to have a personal relationship with Him. Jesus Christ celebrated the first Mass with His disciples at the Last Supper, the night before He died. He commanded His disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). The celebration of the Mass then became the main form of worship in the early Church, as a reenactment of the Last Supper, as Christ had commanded. Each and every Mass since commemorates Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross through the Holy Eucharist. Because the Mass “re-presents” (makes present) the sacrifice on Calvary, Catholics all around the world join together to be made present in Christ’s timeless sacrifice for our sins. There is something fascinating about continuing to celebrate the same Mass—instituted by Christ and practiced by the early Church—with the whole community of Catholics around the world…and in heaven.

THE REAL PRESENCE

Why does the Catholic Church believe Christ is really present in the Eucharist?
The Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence is the belief that Jesus Christ is literally, not symbolically, present in the Holy Eucharist—body, blood, soul and divinity. Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because Jesus tells us this is true in the Bible:

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” - John 6:48-56
Furthermore, the early Church Fathers either imply or directly state that the bread and wine offered in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is really the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In other words, the doctrine of the Real Presence that Catholics believe today was believed by the earliest Christians 2,000 years ago!

This miracle of God’s physical presence to us at every Mass is the truest testament to Christ’s love for us and His desire for each of us to have a personal relationship with Him.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

IS ABORTION SURGERY OR MURDER?

by David Servant

It is universally agreed that murder is a supreme act of selfishness,and only the most depraved among the human race would be in favor of legalizing it.

Yet there is one group of American people for whom it is legal and socially acceptable to murder, and fifty million of them have had their lives snuffed out since abortion was legalized in 1973.

Is this a moral issue of any importance to God? His prohibition of murder is included in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:13). Murderers were punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Num. 35:16-30). Murder is also a violation of the Golden Rule, as no one wants to be murdered.

God has placed within every humna conscience the instinctive knowledge that murder is a heinous evil. Scripture warns that God hates hands that shed innocent blood (Prov. 6:16-17), and that all murderers will one day be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8).

Incredibly, however, people argue that abortion is not murder.

So what is abortion? How should it be classified? What is is most like? Is it most comparable to a woman's rightful choice to have a cancerous tumor removed? Or is it better compared to an appendectomy?

I would suggest that what is removed from a woman's body during an abortion resembles, more than anything else, a living human being, with a head, face, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, heart, brain, liver, arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet and toes. If it were not aborted, it would become what no sane person would deny is a human being.

All human beings on the planet used to be what abortionists rip from female wombs. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that what abortionists always refer to as "fetuses” are in fact undeniably humans, created in God's image.

Before they are aborted, they are alive with their own beating hearts, but after they are aborted they are dead. Abortion kills them. Abortion is nothing less than the murder of a human being.

This is such a self-evident truth that it is incredible that anyone would deny it. Yet murderers of babies and their promoters hide behind the euphemism "pro-choice," a smoke-screen that attempts to conceal the unspeakable horror of the daily national murder of 3,500 babies. "Pro-baby-killings" is a more accurate label for those who are in favor of this holocaust.

Imagine a group of people who were in favor of the brutal killing of newborn babies choosing to identify themselves with the misleading label "pro-choice." They would be universally mocked to scorn. And can you imagine the Supreme Court making a ruling that read, "Every woman has the right to privacy in the matter of what has been issued from her own body, and so we must protect her liberty to rip her newborn children to shreds with a knife and suction machine"?
What is the difference between a new born baby and an unborn baby? Only a stage of human development, which is no different than any other stages of human development, such as childhood or adulthood. “But there is a big difference between an eight-week fetus and an eight-week-old newborn," some quip.

Yes, and there is also a big difference between an eight-week-old newborn and an eight-year-old child or an eighty-year-old adult. Does that make acceptable the murder of any human being at any stage of human development? Can you imagine if our Supreme Court proposed the idea that children, or those over age sixty-five, were not persons who are entitled to the right to life that is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment?

Any politician who is in favor of the legality of the brutal murder of unborn babies is just as morally unfit to hold a public office as if he were in favor of the legality of the brutal murder of newborn babies or people over age sixty-five.

Any person who votes to put in office or keep in office a politician who is in favor of abortion casts his vote for babies to be gruesomely butchered. Obviously, no genuine follower of Christ would vote for such a political candidate.

Some professing Christians argue that there are other issues which must be considered when we elect governmental leaders, and thus they excuse themselves for casting votes in favor of pro-baby-killer candidates. That there are other issues is without doubt, but this most fundamental moral issue towers above most, if not all, others.

If a person is in favor of the legality of baby slaughtering, his moral compass has completely lost its bearings and is spinning out of control. If a political candidate is on the wrong side of this moral issue, one cannot help but wonder about his or her ability to make a proper judgment regarding any moral issue.

If you looked out your window and saw your neighbor hacking to pieces his or her screaming six-month-old baby daughter while a political candidate stood at that neighbor's side giving a speech in favor of parents' rights to murder their newborn children, would you consider that politician to be a viable candidate for public office?

No, you and all the rest of humanity would consider such a politician to be worthy of being locked behind prison bars for the rest of his life. How does such an imaginary politician differ from those perverse and depraved politicians whom we continue to elect who think there is nothing wrong with the legality of the gruesome slaughter of unborn human beings?

To vote for such people in the hope that they will govern us is unconscionable.

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