I am a former Catholic, having left the Catholic Church about three years ago. I left the Catholic Church because I found that many Catholic teachings had no basis in scripture (for example: penance, purgatory, indulgences, veneration of Mary, prayers to the dead, prayers for the dead, etc.) I came to realize that I was saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for my sins. I realized that I could not be saved through the sacramental system of the Catholic Church.

I do have a concern with the following scripture verses: John 6:53-56 "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him."

Catholics use these verses to prove that in the Eucharist, they actually receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. What is your understanding of these verses? Thank you. [Donna]

Donna, this is the one subject that has sent may Christians to their deaths. The Lords Supper has been and ever shall be a way to REMEMBER the Lords sacrifice! As for John 5:53-56, it is a Spiritual verse that by the catholics has become a literal verse.  Many religious people seem to have a hard time separating the Spiritual from the natural! The Savior was trying to tell Nicodemus in John 3 about being Born Again and he just couldn't seem to grasp it! John 3:9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 3:10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? 3:11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

Do you remember seeing the letters I.H.S., on the bread when you took the mass? These initials are supposed to represent, "Iesus Hominum Salvator", "Jesus the Savior of men". To the pagans in Rome it meant: "Isis, Horus, & Seb", which was, "The Mother, the Child, (reincarnated) and the Father (or husband who dies) of the gods", in other words, "The Egyptian Trinity". When the women of Arabia began to adopt this wafer and offer the "unbloody sacrifice" the real Christians saw very quickly the real character of their sacrifice. These Christians were treated as heretics. But Rome saw that the heresy might be to their benefit in controlling the congregations; and therefore the practice of offering and eating this "unbloody sacrifice" was instituted by the Papacy; and now, throughout the whole bounds of the Roman Catholic communion, it has replaced the simple, but most precious ordinance, the Supper instituted by our Lord Himself.

In performing the mass, the priests are supposed to be given the power to transform a piece of bread into the very body of Christ, and the wine into His blood. Transubstantiation is the changing of one substance into another; hence the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, but this is an unbloody sacrifice of the sun goddess and not the Lord's supper. It is not the crucifying of Christ afresh, but the unbloody sacrifice that is implied in the mass that dismisses a man's sins! Sounds like blasphemy to me. The papacy teaches that after the consecration the body and blood as well as the soul of divinity of the Lord Jesus Himself are present in "the Eucharist". If you refuse to take the Eucharist, the priest is said to have the power to deny you of your salvation! That's just plain hogwash. If you said the Lords Supper was a symbolic event to bring us to remembrance of the Saviors sacrifice, in centuries past you would have been burned at the stake or even worse.

Once you receive your salvation, you are in the hands of the Savior and if you are in the hands of the Savior, you are also in the hands of God Almighty. Look at what Jesus said about that: John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 10:30 I and my Father are one.