Eucharist/Symbol???

[Phyllo]

Hi,

I attended a little talk by a Catholic Deacon on the Eucharist.
He started out by saying that the Eucharist is a symbol. He explained it this way:

There are symbols and they are hard symbols.
If you see a stop sign you will either stop or not=symbol
If you see a stop sign fastened to a brick wall you will either stop or hit the wall=hard symbol

So he is saying that the Eucharist is a hard symbol with a substantial underlying meaning.
He said that he wasn't making this up that it was in the Baltimore Catechism. I was able to check the catechism on line and didn't find anything.

I said that I was raised in Catholic Schools and was taught that the Eucharist is NOT a symbol.

I don't know where this guy is coming from. Any comments?

Has any one heard this before? Was it something said by a Church Father?

Thanks

[rainbow1]

Originally Posted by Phyllo

Hi,

I attended a little talk by a Catholic Deacon on the Eucharist.
He started out by saying that the Eucharist is a symbol. He explained it this way:

There are symbols and they are hard symbols.
If you see a stop sign you will either stop or not=symbol
If you see a stop sign fastened to a brick wall you will either stop or hit the wall=hard symbol

So he is saying that the Eucharist is a hard symbol with a substantial underlying meaning.
He said that he wasn't making this up that it was in the Baltimore Catechism. I was able to check the catechism on line and didn't find anything.

I said that I was raised in Catholic Schools and was taught that the Eucharist is NOT a symbol.

I don't know where this guy is coming from. Any comments?

Has any one heard this before? Was it something said by a Church Father?

Thanks

Nope, he is wrong. The Eucharist is not a symbol . A symbol represents something. The Eucharist is the actual "flesh" of our crucified Lord. It is not a symbol for anything. It is what it is. There are many Eucharistic miracles (which can be googled) that show that the Eucharist is human flesh ( it is heart muscle tissue, to be exact......this has been proven scientifically). If I were affiliated with this deacon, I would discuss this with him because he could easily lead alot of people astray saying this......

[Phyllo]

Originally Posted by rainbow1

Nope, he is wrong. The Eucharist is not a symbol . A symbol represents something. The Eucharist is the actual "flesh" of our crucified Lord. It is not a symbol for anything. It is what it is. There are many Eucharistic miracles (which can be googled) that show that the Eucharist is human flesh ( it is heart muscle tissue, to be exact......this has been proven scientifically). If I were affiliated with this deacon, I would discuss this with him because he could easily lead alot of people astray saying this......

This is exactly what I believe and my sister told me to stop listening to him. His explanation made no sense to me. A symbol is a symbol no matter how you slice it.
So you don't know of any church fathers who might have said something about the symbol part? I tried to Google it but all I came up with were things like chalices, wafers, but nothing resembling what the Deacon said?
He is only on lone here till we get a pastor and that is probably a good thing.

Thanks for the response