Want to help answer if the Roman Catholic Mass Idolatry?

[john_Mark]

Kevin DeYoung is about to submit a manuscript on the Heidelberg Catechism. He's struggling with Lord’s Day 30, Q/A 80, which reads:

Q. How does the Lord’s Supper differ from the Roman Catholic Mass?

Anyone hear want to give him some input? Go to his post.

 

[dudley]

The Lord's Supper: r c transubstantiation,mass vs Reformed Protestant

The Lord's Supper: r c transubstantiation,mass vs Reformed Protestant

V. The Lord's Supper: transubstantiation (1373-1378), which results in the worship of the bread and wine.

The Lord is present spiritually only (HC 78-80, WCF 29)

Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22ff., Luke 22:19ff, 1 Cor. 11:24ff.

I have been contributing on the reformed blog site Reclaiming the Mind "Why I don't buy the rc teaching of transubstantiation in John 6" I am now a practicing and communing Presbyterian. I was at one time a roman catholic.

I am now a practicing and communing Presbyterian. However I have on numerous occasions in the last few years while exploring all Protestant denominations after leaving the Roman catholic church joined with a local Methodist congregation who welcome all believers to the Lords Supper and Table. What I like about Wesleyan theology is while I now see the heresy of the Roman catholic teaching of transubstantiation and see the rc mass as a blasphemy against Christ's sacrifice on Calvary I think I like the Methodist view that Holy Communion is a type of sacrifice. It is a re-presentation, not a repetition, of the sacrifice of Christ. Hebrews 9:26 makes clear that "he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself." Christ's atoning life, death, and resurrection make divine grace available to us. We also present ourselves as sacrifice in union with Christ (Romans 12:1; 1 Peter 2:5) to be used by God in the work of redemption, reconciliation, and justice. In the Great Thanksgiving, the church prays: "We offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us . . ." (UMH; page 10).

We Presbyterians know that John Calvin, founder of our Reformed tradition, recognized that the Roman Catholics were correct when they said that in the Eucharist we genuinely encounter Jesus, but mistaken when they said this happens because the elements of bread and wine are physically changed into Christ's body and blood. He noted that while no physical change takes place in the bread and wine it is incorrect in supposing that the absence of physical change means nothing is happening. I believe now as a Presbyterian Protestant that the physical nature of the bread and the wine does not change. And yet Jesus is genuinely present here, as he promised, through the Holy spirit and because of our faith to sustain and strengthen his people. And we receive him into our inmost being in reliance on and in obedience to that promise. we however eat the bread and drink the wine or juice to commemorate his atoning sacrifice on Calvary. We do not worship the bread wafer after the service of the Lords Supper which I now think is an abomination.

I think there are still many Christians including Roman Catholics still open to dialogue on an acceptable common understanding of the sacrament of the Lords Supper.

Christ did pray that we all be one and it is a shame that the meal and supper and sacrament and ordinance He established and left for us continues to be a dividing point. I totally renounce the rc catholic teaching of transubsantiation but perhaps we Reformed Protestants can help create a dialogue to lead others to the truth.
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In grace,
Dudley