Here's you chance Protestants

Fasting is not specific to the Catholic faith tradition. but is something that is relevant to all believers. If not now, when? What does your spiritual life consist of? Is it just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and that's it?

 

Funny, but I have never heard of the 1st Baptist Church of Jerusalem. And I thought it all began by a man named John Smyth? Silly me!

The Baptist faith tradition is so far from the Apostles it isn't even funny. They believed in the authority of the Church where the faithful listened to what they said. This is reflected in the letters Paul wrote to the outlying churches (parishes) telling them where they were going wrong in regards to Christian practices. No "church" was allowed autonomy to decide things for themselves and the Scriptures prove this.

 

What are the pagan practices? Saying the Lord's prayer perhaps? Receiving Holy Communion like Jesus and St' Paul tells us to do? Reading the Scriptures at Mass, including one from the OT, one Epistle from the NT and one of the four written gospels? Repenting when we sin? Praying for others? Taking a collection for the poor? Having but one wife or husband in Holy marriage? Pray, tell me, which one of those is a pagan practice?

You have left God's Holy Church to go to a church started by men and then listening to them give you their interpretation of things. An acquaintance of my wife's was going to a Baptist Church and they got a new pastor. Did the new pastor continue on with the same teachings as the old pastor? Nope, he changed some of the teachings and there was an uproar and this person along with others had to leave and go find a new church. That is what you are now involved in - chaos from beginning to end.

 

I trust Jesus Christ and His Church here on earth, they are one and the same. Hey, if you got a new pastor who came into your church and you did not agree with his interpretation of the Scriptures, what would you do?

 

It is what the Apostles believed and what the Christian Church taught and just about all of Christendom believed for millennia. When the first great schism occurred between East and West, the Eastern churches kept to this belief. Only the supposed "reformers" rejected this - and that was some 1600 years down the road of faith.

The Western Church wanted to describe what happens and they came up with the word "transubstantiation", while the Eastern Church calls what happens "a mystery". But forget about what the Eastern or Western churches say, what does Jesus say? He is unequivocal - "This is my Body" and "This is my Blood". He said it, the Scriptures record it, and the Church teaches it - that is the end of the story.

And that is exactly what the Latin Rite teaches!

1 Cor 11 25:27 …25In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. 27Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.…

1. There was wine in the cup, not grape juice.
2. It was unleavened bread, not crackers.
3. There is no limit on when this "communion" can or should be done.
4. Verse 27 tells us exactly what the Eucharist is i.e. the body and blood of the Lord - any other claim is blasphemy.

 

This is true, I never said otherwise.

It's all very nice if the individual decides to do something spiritual for him or herself, but is it not the job of the Pastor to lead those in his care?

 

And then came Jesus who taught us otherwise - "This is my Body" and "This is my Blood". You cannot get away from that truth no matter how much your new spiritual masters try to tell you.

 

Amen to that! And then knowing He would be leaving this earth, He left us Himself - really true and really present. If that were not true, why the whole exercise of the Last Supper? He tells us exactly what He was doing, leaving us the great sacrament of His Body and His Blood - the viaticum of the ages! (Even Satanists know what this really is, they always want a consecrated Eucharist to use in their evil rituals).

 

Yes, I have faith that is what it becomes upon the consecration of the bread and wine. This is not some kind of theology that has come up recently, it has been around since the beginning of the Christian faith. How you can so easily dismiss this teaching is beyond me.

 

Very well, you have your opinion. But tell me this, why the Last Supper in the first place? What exactly was all this "This is my Body...." etc. business then? Wouldn't that have been paganistic too? I didn't make up the words, Jesus said them and I only read them in the Bible. The whole thing was not the normal Passover Seder that's for sure, it was quite out of the ordinary. So really, what was Jesus's discourse all about then? I am really interested in your take on this.

 

Then why did He instruct us to "do this (recreate His action) in memory of me"? What you say in relation to the Last Supper discourse makes no sense at all.