As I am a Catholic, I obviously do not believe the stance of Dean Cooper is correct. I give it first in order then to give my refuations.
- Q
- Are the rituals of a Catholic Mass biblical?
https://www.quora.com/Are-the-rituals-of-a-Catholic-Mass-biblical/answer/Dean-Cooper-21
- Answer requested by
- Miguel Camino
- Dean Cooper
- Spent a decade researching true Mormonism and JW's
- Answered Sat
- No.
The mass is unbiblical.
Most Roman Catholics would be shocked to learn where the Mass originated. The proposal of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice was first made by a Benedictine monk, Radbertus, in the ninth century and was the subject of many fierce verbal battles by the bishops until Pope Innocent III declared it an official Roman doctrine in 1215 AD. Rome dominates and controls…is that what Jesus taught and wanted? Again think about it people.
There was no mass at all for the first one thousand years of the church. Not until the second millennium do we see the ritual of the Roman mass. Christ instituted the sacrament of the Lords Supper as spiritual food for our soul, Rome took it and made it into to a sacrificial meal where the supposed actual body and blood of Christ is re-sacrificed by the saying of magic words by her priest on an altar and turning bread and wine into the actual Jesus who is with the Father in heaven. That also is a violation of Chalcedon.
"The Sacrifice that is offered on the altar, says the Council of Trent, "is the same sacrifice that was offered in Calvary; it is the same Priest, the same Victim." "The lifting up of the victim as an offering to God," says Bossuet, "was formerly 1 of the ceremonies of sacrifice. "The Body & Blood are now lifted up in the same spirit, these being really & truly our Victim." The Mass therefore is a true sacrifice in which the Victim of Calvary is offered to God with all His infinite merits.
Just prior to the consecration of the mass, if someone added arsenic to the elements of bread and wine, would the poison within those elements be changed and made harmless after the consecration was finished, and would the priest and the people now partake of these changed substances, if not why not?
"Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the virgin Mary. While the blessed virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man not once, but a thousand times." "The priest speaks and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command." He has the power to go to heaven and pull Christ down, and sacrifice him again on the altar of the church.". - Faith of Millions APPROVED by the RCC and carrying the nihil obstat and imprimatur.
Jesus, after saying "this is my blood" in Matthew26:28 also said "I will not drink henceforth of this FRUIT OF THE VINE" in Matthew26:29, showing that the grapejuice was STILL wine and had NOT been changed into blood.
There is another good argument against the Roman Catholic idea that Christ was speaking literally when He said, **"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." **
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say Christ was speaking literally in that statement. If this is true then who was He refering to when He said, "given for **you**?" Who are the '**you**'?** If He is to be taken literally, then the '**you**' are only those in the room at that time. Not me, not you, not Mary or anyone else. We weren't there so clearly He wasn't speaking to any of us. He didn't say "given for **everyone***". If the Roman Catholics want to argue and say that '**you**' represents all of us, then they are saying '**you**' is symbolic of all of us. So they are admitting that Christ spoke figuratively in that verse. If I give one of my kids some money and say "this is for you" does that include everyone on the planet?
" Power of Consecrating: The supreme power of the priestly office is the power of consecrating. 'No act is greater,' says St. Thomas, 'than the consecration of the body of Christ.' In this essential phase of the sacred ministry, the power of the priest is not surpassed by that of the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal or the pope. Indeed it is equal to that of Jesus Christ. For in this role the priest speaks with the voice and the authority of God Himself. WHEN THE PRIEST PRONOUNCES THE TREMENDOUS WORDS OF CONSECRATION, HE REACHES UP INTO HEAVENS, BRINGS CHRIST DOWN FROM HIS THRONE, AND PLACES HIM UPON OUR ALTAR TO BE OFFERED UP AGAIN AS THE VICTIM FOR THE SINS OF MAN." - Faith of Millions APPROVED by the RCC and carrying the nihil obstat and imprimatur.
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=O-kj_LncEjAC&pg=PA256&lpg=PA256&dq=faith+of+millions+Of+what+sublime+dignity+is+the+office+of+the+Christian+priest+who+is+thus+privileged+to+act+as+the+ambassador+and+the+vicegerent+of+Christ+on+earth!&source=bl&ots=AZ5scJbMVK&sig=sSkNDpK60ud5zGYSSuJF97ADzFY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=m8YaUeqzHKn5igLrooGACA&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Must Christ be continually sacrificed in the mass, or was His blood sacrifice on the cross 100% sufficient to pay for all our sins for ever? In John19:30 Jesus said, "IT IS FINISHED", which in the Greek is "Tetelestai" meaning "to make an END, to ACCOMPLISH, to COMPLETE something, not mearly to end it, but to bring it to perfection or its intended goal."
The rcc says "Christ...commanded that his bloody sacrifice on the Cross should be daily renewed by an unbloody sacrifice of his body and blood in the Mass under the simple elements of bread and wine." (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, Pg. 13, Article: "Mass, Sacrifice of"). Jesus NEVER made such a command. If you'll check the references in Matthew 26 and I Corinthians 11, you'll see for yourself that the Lord's Supper is a MEMORIAL and a SHOWING of Christ's death until He comes again. It is not a sacrifice
Rome teaches that the Mass is a continual "sacrifice" of Jesus Christ, but God's word states that Jesus made the FINAL sacrifice on Calvary! This is made perfectly clear in Hebrews 10:10-12:"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." The mass is unnecessary and unscriptural.
The very record of history, (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and Hippolytus) which the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches love to quote as authority, proves that before 200 AD, the church viewed the bread and juice as symbols. Conversely, the earliest historical hint of transubstantiation was in the 4th century.
1 Corinthians 10:3,4 "All ate the same SPIRITUAL food, and all drank the same SPIRITUAL drink. For they drank of that SPIRITUAL Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." It doesn't get much easier to understand than that.
In John chapter 6 Christ is speaking about eating His flesh. Then He goes on to explain what He meant....."63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." He is clearly speaking figuratively when he says to 'eat His body and drink His blood'.
In JN 6:63 He even told us the words are SPIRITUAL! Jesus SAID the words are SPIRITUAL the FLESH profits NOTHING!
Ratranmus (sic) wrote: "The bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ in a FIGURATIVE sense" (De corpore et sanguine Christi)
Bread and wine are offered, being the FIGURE of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible bread eat, SPIRITUALLY, the flesh of the Lord. (Macarius, Homily xxvii.) Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300-391)
For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, CALLED Himself a vine, dignified the visible SYMBOLS by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had CHANGED their NATURE, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus.) Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, 393--457
The mass is a re-sacrificing of Christ. "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner," (CCC, 1367). What does the Catechism mean here?
Heb.7:27 "Who needeth NOT daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did ONCE, when he offered up himself."
Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because Jesus is not a liar: In Mt 26:29 after Jesus had said, "this is my blood" and prayed, he still referred to the contents as, "fruit of the vine". If transubstantiation of the juice into blood had occurred, as both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches say it was at this time, then Jesus would never have referred to it as "fruit of the vine' but rather "blood"...
This proves that when Jesus said "take eat & drink" he LITERALLY gave them bread and juice. In like manner, Paul also refers to the elements of the Lord's Supper as "eat this bread and drink the cup" in 1 Cor 11:26 after they should be transubstantiated.
Here's one paragraph from the catechism. "The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. The victim is one and the same. The same now offers through the ministry of priests who then offered Himself on the cross only the manner of offering is different."
As far as the New Testament is concerned, Jesus didn't pluck part of His flesh out to be eaten by His disciples at the Last Supper, which should be the primary example of celebrating the Lord's Supper afterwards. Where does the Bible say that the bread actually turns into Christ's flesh? The Last Supper was also symbolic, the Lord's supper is symbolic. Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross was the one true real thing.
When Christ said to eat His body and drink His blood He was speaking figuratively, not literally. The Book of John also says "unless a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Does this mean we need to be pushed out of our mother's womb again? Of course not. That would be impossible. Christ offered His body and blood on the cross for us. He wants us to accept His body and blood sacrifice for the atonement of our sins.
Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because Jesus instituted Lord’s Supper before his blood was shed and body broken! He spoke of His blood being shed, which was still yet future. This proves it was a symbol.
Obviously Jesus words, "this is my body" should be taken symbolically because it falls within a long list of symbolic statements Christ said: "I am the bread," (John 6:41), "I am the vine," (John 15:5), "I am the door," (John 10:7,9), "I am the good shepherd,"(John 10:11,12), "You are the world the salt, (Matthew 5:13), "You are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- Obviously Jesus words, "this is my body" should be taken symbolically because it falls within a long list of symbolic statements Christ said: "I am the bread," (John 6:41), "I am the vine," (John 15:5), "I am the door," (John 10:7,9), "I am the good shepherd,"(John 10:11,12), "You are the world the salt, (Matthew 5:13), "You are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)
The three first of these are not purely symbolic, but the second two refer to the Eucharist as truly Christ’s presence, exactly like the first one.
- Dean Cooper
- Original Author
- 14h ago
- No, it doesnt.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “ The proposal of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice was first made by a Benedictine monk, Radbertus, in the ninth century and was the subject of many fierce verbal battles by the bishops until Pope Innocent III declared it an official Roman doctrine in 1215 AD.”
Why then to Orthodox (split off before 1215), Copts (split off before 800), Armenians (split off before 800) and Nestorians (split off before 800) all agree with Radbertus and Innocent III?
“There was no mass at all for the first one thousand years of the church.”
False. For the reasons stated.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “That also is a violation of Chalcedon.”
No, but how do you figure it is?
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “Just prior to the consecration of the mass, if someone added arsenic to the elements of bread and wine, would the poison within those elements be changed and made harmless after the consecration was finished, and would the priest and the people now partake of these changed substances, if not why not?”
If arsenic were added, the poison would not be changed, since it is neither bread nor wine but quite another substance, and the elements changed would be adored, but not consumed.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “Jesus, after saying "this is my blood" in Matthew26:28 also said "I will not drink henceforth of this FRUIT OF THE VINE" in Matthew26:29, showing that the grapejuice was STILL wine and had NOT been changed into blood.”
Overinterpretation. Only necessary interpretation is His referring to it still looks like wine and is consumed like wine.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “There is another good argument against the Roman Catholic idea that Christ was speaking literally when He said, **"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." **
“Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say Christ was speaking literally in that statement. If this is true then who was He refering to when He said, "given for **you**?" Who are the '**you**'?** If He is to be taken literally, then the '**you**' are only those in the room at that time. Not me, not you, not Mary or anyone else.”
The full actual words would (as in the Mass) be “for you and for many”.
And he said to them: This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many.
Mark 14:24
We are included, since we are among the “many” He mentioned.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “Must Christ be continually sacrificed in the mass, or was His blood sacrifice on the cross 100% sufficient to pay for all our sins for ever?”
Both.
It was finished as to the payment, and the payment is there through the Mass.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “a SHOWING of Christ's death”
Well, if the bread really becomes His Flesh, the wine really becomes His Blood, then His death - which is a sacrificial death - really is shown.
Because on the altar His Flesh and Blood are made present as if separated on the Cross. They are no longer separate, but they are shown separate.
Ergo : His death is shown. Ergo : His sacrifice is shown.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “Rome teaches that the Mass is a continual "sacrifice" of Jesus Christ, but God's word states that Jesus made the FINAL sacrifice on Calvary!”
Where is your problem?
The sacrifice is final, so now no cohanic or pagan sacrifice will avail. It is continuous, and therefore “we have an altar” as it is said in Hebrews 13:10.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.
Yes, and He is making His sacrifice available to us by being at the same time on the altar. Confer also this description of Christ in Heaven:
and in the midst of the ancients, a Lamb standing as it were slain,
Apocalypse 5:6
For Mass to be truly His Flesh, truly His Blood, and truly His Sacrifice on Calvary, all He needs to do is make His Flesh and Blood present on altars on Earth as well.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “In John chapter 6 Christ is speaking about eating His flesh. Then He goes on to explain what He meant....."63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." He is clearly speaking figuratively when he says to 'eat His body and drink His blood'.”
He said nothing of the kind.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “The very record of history, (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and Hippolytus) which the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches love to quote as authority, proves that before 200 AD, the church viewed the bread and juice as symbols.”
I don’t think this is the case.
“Conversely, the earliest historical hint of transubstantiation was in the 4th century.”
I very much don’t think this is the case.
I am not taking the word or the learning of a Protestant for it.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “Ratramnus wrote: "The bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ in a FIGURATIVE sense" (De corpore et sanguine Christi)”
Sure, but his abbot and superior was Radbertus.
And the decision was in favour of Radbertus, not Ratramnus.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- Bread and wine are offered, being the FIGURE of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible bread eat, SPIRITUALLY, the flesh of the Lord. (Macarius, Homily xxvii.) Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300-391)
“Bread and wine are offered, being the FIGURE of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.”
Up to consecration, they are really still only the figure.
“They who participate in this visible bread eat, SPIRITUALLY, the flesh of the Lord.”
Yes, while the eating is spiritual, it really is (after consecration) the flesh of the Lord.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, CALLED Himself a vine, dignified the visible SYMBOLS by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had CHANGED their NATURE, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus.) Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, 393--457
It would appear then that Theodoret favoured the idea of Consubstantiation rather than Transsubstantiation.
He is one Church Father, not a consensus of all of them.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “As far as the New Testament is concerned, Jesus didn't pluck part of His flesh out to be eaten by His disciples at the Last Supper, which should be the primary example of celebrating the Lord's Supper afterwards.”
No Catholic says He did.
Rather we say all of His flesh was present under all of the quantitive dimension and other appearance of the bread.
The Flesh, while still Flesh, is present in a very spiritual way.
“Where does the Bible say that the bread actually turns into Christ's flesh?”
If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. John 6:52
The Book of John also says "unless a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Does this mean we need to be pushed out of our mother's womb again? Of course not. That would be impossible.
However, the second time He really is born again (made a new creature) from another water than that of the womb : baptism.
- Hans-Georg Lundahl
- Sat
- “Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because Jesus instituted Lord’s Supper before his blood was shed and body broken!”
At the supper, the Blood was in His veins and present in the chalice as such.
On Calvary, it was physically shed.
In a Eucharist after this, it is again the Blood in His veins, since He resurrected.
But the separate consecration of the Blood constitutes a symbolic shedding of it. A showing forth of what happened on Calvary.
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