The way I see it, we are all 'broken' to one extent or another. Jesus came to heal our brokenness. I've searched myself and concluded that a homosexual expression of my sexuality would make me very unhappy and reverse the progress I have made. I do not see how it would not inflict physical, emotional and spiritual damage.
The Cellar Bar wrote:You are not broken, macgamer!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the name of everything you might understand in such terms - in the name of everything merciful, junk that thought out of your head once and for all. You are not broken, you are not faulty, you are not defective. If nothing else - in terms once again that you will understand - you are made in God's image. And just how can it be, therefore, in your terms that you and by implication, your God, is faulty?
Matthew 5 wrote:'You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that he who casts his eyes on a woman so as to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye is the occasion of your falling into sin, pluck it out and cast it away from you; better to lose one part of your body than to have the whole cast into hell. And if your right hand is an occasion of falling, cut it off and cast it away from you; better to lose one of your limbs than to have your whole body cast into hell.'
Mark 7 wrote:'Listen to me, all of you, and grasp this; Nothing that finds its way into a man from outside can make him unclean; what makes a man unclean is what comes out of a man. Listen, you that have ears to hear with.'
Matthew 19 wrote:'And I tell you that he who puts away his wife, not for any unfaithfulness of hers, and so marries another, commits adultery; and he too commits adultery, who marries her after she has been put away.' At this, his disciples said to him, 'If the case stands so between man and wife, it is better not to marry at all.'
'That conclusion,' he said, 'cannot be taken in by everybody, but only by those who have the gift. There are some eunuchs, who were so born from the mother's womb, some were made so by men, and some have made themselves so for love of the kingdom of heaven; take this in, you whose hearts are large enough for it.'
The Cellar Bar wrote:But believe me my friend - with apologies for anything that might sound flippant - you sure as hell are not broken!!!!
The Cellar Bar wrote:Thanks for the reply, macgamer. I appreciate the fact that you at least read it and saw fit to reply.
The Cellar Bar wrote:One does bother/concern me is the appearance of words such as "weakness" and "struggle" and "suffering" and "unclean" and "crosses to bear" through your reply and it still concerns me that you seem to be willing to accept who you are in terms such as those. What I'd tried to do throughout was to convince you otherwise. And to at least try and point you towards what I understand the texts to mean.
Matthew 16 wrote:From that time onwards Jesus began to make it known to his disciples that he must go up to Jerusalem, and there, with much ill usage from the chief priests and elders and scribes, must be put to death, and rise again on the third day. Whereupon Peter, drawing him to his side, began remonstrating with him; 'Never, Lord, he said; no such thing shall befall you.' At which he turned round and said to Peter, 'Back, Satan; you are a stone in my path; for these thoughts of yours are man's, not God's.' Jesus also said to his disciples, 'If any man has a mind to come my way, let him renounce self, and take up his cross, and follow me. The man who tries to save his life shall lose it; it is the man who loses his life for my sake that will secure it. How is a man the better for it, if he gains the whole world at the cost of losing his own soul? For a man's soul, what price can be high enough? The Son of Man will come hereafter in his Father's glory with his angels about him, and he will recompense everyone, then, according to his works. Believe me, there are those standing here who will not taste of death before they have seen the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'
The Cellar Bar wrote:All that text says is that for various reasons, some men are not inclined to marriage. Marriage itself. Not entered into for the sole and specific purpose of ONLY reproducing but simply the actual fact of a relationship between a man and a woman.
Genesis 2 wrote:Adam said, 'Here, at last, is bone that comes from mine, flesh that comes from mine; it shall be called Woman, this thing that was taken out of Man.' That is why a man is destined to leave father and mother, and cling to his wife instead, so that the two become one flesh. Both went naked, Adam and his wife, and thought it no shame.
The Cellar Bar wrote:Beyond that, I read or see nothing that suggests that that failure to want to requires some form of suffering or anguish on the part of those men who don't feel inclined, for whatever reason, to do so.
1 Corinthians 9 wrote:All that I do, I do for the sake of the gospel promises, to win myself a share in them. You know well enough that when men run in a race, the race is for all, but the prize for one; run, then, for victory. Every athlete must keep all his appetites under control; and he does it to win a crown that fades, whereas ours is imperishable. So I do not run my course like a man in doubt of his goal; I do not fight my battle like a man who wastes his blows on the air. I buffet my own body, and make it my slave; or I, who have preached to others, may myself be rejected as worthless.
The Cellar Bar wrote:But your general view of yourself, is that since you have recognised in yourself a "disinclination" to follow the path of a relationship with a woman, that you are therefore required to serve some form of penance. Which, with what you see as help and support from Jesus, you will survive and somehow "make good" what you see as a failure on your part to live up to some sort of expectation to "go forth and multiply". To somehow make up for what you actually describe as a "disfigurement". I see nothing in that actual text that implies or requires any such thing.
The Cellar Bar wrote:Why do you believe or seek to imply that those who essentially "enter Orders" do so because they are homosexual? Where in any of that is there some sort of "grading", any moralising evaluation of the three "categories", any suggestion that the last of those options is in itself some form of penance for failing to fall into the first category?
The Cellar Bar wrote:That's possibly the part I find most frustrating when I hear of another human being having to face something that isn't actually implied in the bedrock of his faith. The point is that you have chosen to impose that view on your own circumstances, assisted by the way in which that observation has been interpreted and passed on to you, not by your Jesus, but by your present day teachers and the general environment in which you have attended to the teachings.
The Cellar Bar wrote:I'm not only straight - I'm also an agnostic And from that observation point, the one thing that I feel sure that your Jesus would not have recognised was the bias and emphasis that has been grafted onto your faith in favour of pain and suffering and grief and anguish and despair. Of abstention and doing without. You talk of it yourself as if it were some virtue to deprive yourself of various things. But I find nothing in the New Testament that makes that an imperative.
The Cellar Bar wrote:I find nothing in it where your Jesus demands that on account of the fact that "I am about to sacrifice my life for your sake you are to spend the rest of your life mourning that and recreating in practically everything you do, an equivalent form of suffering just so you don't forget what I went through for you" I read plenty about care and love for others, of the beauty of life, of how life can be bountiful and rich in what it brings to people. Of the imperative to live among and care for and be aware of your responsibility to others and not just yourself. All that is there in His teaching. But not a great deal in the way of self-inflicted pain, flagellation and the willingness to repress your innermost feelings and values because some other human being has deemed them to be wrong.
The Cellar Bar wrote:All I can say is please do not ever judge yourself as being someone as "faulty" as require some extra penance on your part to make good what has been twisted or broken since you were conceived. If you don't feel the inclination to marry and bring on the next generation then fine. Like the Man said " "take this in, you whose hearts are large enough for it.' the goy isn't inclined to have kids, get over it already!! Do what you choose to do because it is in you - not because you feel duty-bound to make up for some failure you perceive on your part. Because - I repeat - there is none!!!!
The Cellar Bar wrote:First off - I would agree with your description of the "joining together of Adam and Eve". Agree in no small measure because it pretty much reflects what I said myself. But I would repeat the question - where in either of our descriptions does it specify, make an imperative, of procreation being the one and only reason for that union in the first place.
The Cellar Bar wrote:Other sects at the time wrote that on examination what was revealed was that there is an Adam and an Eve in ALL of us. That there is an Adam who represents the male side of EACH of our natures - thoughtful, rational, clinical, dispassionate in analysing situations. And that there is an Eve - peceived as caring, selfless, emotional, compassionate. And that in their attempt to explain perceived differences between Human kind and the rest of the animal kingdom, that it was only when we emerged with both an Adam and an Eve in ALL of us that we became human beings. That to me if nothing else is an incredibly perceptive and insightful understanding of what makes us the way we are. It's at least 5,000 years old yet it recognises the nature of ALL of us. That the Church should then take it and translate it into what became an essentially mysoginistic view where Eve become some sort of adjunct to man is part of my problem with how texts can be distorted for later agendas.
The Cellar Bar wrote:Because in neither of our descriptions is there any such implication. That union only refers to the joy and strength that comes about between a man and a woman. It doesn't imply or demand offspring as a result. So in that respect, your adjunct to it, that same sex genital unions can't - don't - result in the same sense of community and care doesn't apply. That is the result of the "education" you have received and acepted from other human beings at a later date to the original texts being written. It certainly does not appear in the text themselves.
The Cellar Bar wrote:But I'd also still raise questions as to why you accept that there is an imperative to concentrate and almost delight in the concept of pain and misery and suffering as some way to remain fixed in one's faith. You talk of "fasting" in terms of suffering and discomfort. Yet none of that is implied in the way that Jesus talks of it. As it is, there are two elements in the nature of "fasting" Both major religions from there - both Judaism and Islam - have periods set aside for "fasting". No matter how much it is now wrapped up in some sort of religious service, it was in fact an entirely intelligent process that reflects an understanding of the importance of "a healthy mind in a healthy body". It was recognised waaay back then, that it did us no harm whatsoever to periodically stand back from our normal diet and essentially give our bodies a chance to detox. That was all it was ever intended to do!! It was never intended to play some sort of religious salute to (y)our Creator and remind oneself of the value of pain and suffering. It has more to do with the admonitions in Numbers in terms of diet, personal hygiene and a whole raft of instructions on how to prepare food properly, when it was safe to eat particular kinds of meat. There is nothing contained in any of that thati mplied that "fasting" - what you seem to imply is painful starvation was a bonus in terms of religious practice.
The Cellar Bar wrote:It was designed to achieve what He would have looked on as a positive result.
The Cellar Bar wrote: Which is why it concerns me that you consider that "If my SSA is my cross, then I should take it up joyfully and allow Jesus to save me with it" Why save? And save you from what precisely because I have yet to read anything in any Scriptural text that suggests that you have been dumped with anything to "bear" from which you need saving? That is still you persisting in believing that somehow you are betraying or falling short in your adherence to His faith and teaching.
The Cellar Bar wrote:And then tell me why, that despite being named first and being some form of unrighteous element in our society, that thieves liars and drunkards haven't received the same vicious fatal opprobium from which homosexuals have suffered? They are self-evidently at least as "unrighteous" as homosexuals since they figure FIRST, yet seem to have been passed over when it comes to discrimination and hatred in our society? Wonder why?
The Cellar Bar wrote:ONE element of your life is causing you concern. Essentially your view that you are not in a position to father children. Basically - big deal. Other elements of your life suggest a concern for others, an "extended" intelligence, massive amounts of insight into the human lot. You probably are also capable of forming trusting positive relationships with men and women in public and make a contribution to their lives. Given all of that, I'd suggest that you use those God-given talents and "serve" your God by influencing this world by "taking up your Cross" through those talents.
The Cellar Bar wrote:Dammit man, you say it yourself - "It is love that people want and need most of all, sex is just one way of expressing it." Now fuckin' get out there and do something about it!!
Frank wrote:Of course, that's what's believed. By 2007 it became far too much to bear, the massive, elaborate house of cards collapsed. I quickly lost faith. Fortunately, I didn't lose my identity.
Frank wrote:You can still recognise the origins, the effect, the importance and personal significance of Catholicism, the cultural momentum of it in your life without wholly subscribing and forcing yourself to do the (frankly unnecessary [or should I say 'Frankly unnecessary'? ] ) mental acrobatics just to justify the facts of your existence (SSA) with vast, Byzantine edifice that's a massive hangover from two-thousand years of other peoples' existence (Church)?
Frank wrote:There's a compatibility issue in there and, truth be told, I think Apostasy's the word you're in need of.
Join me, reclaim it. It needn't be complete renunciation of everything, it could be a temporary Heresy until someone on the other side meets you halfway and says "Well, it turns out that accepting SSA isn't the abomination we thought it was". When that happens, you can happily go back to not having to pick & mix your beliefs from the Creed and everything else that followed it.
Matthew 16 wrote:Back, Satan; you are a stone in my path; for these thoughts of yours are man's, not God's.
Corrections have been made in the past. It's not to say that you're in charge of them, but that association with the Church is key. You can renounce parts of it (openly and in dialogue with the church, if you can) and de facto be renouncing the whole of it, but if you're able to recognise what's alright and what's not...I can't see the harm.)
Alas, we are not without original sin. The inclination to evil or to seek good things in wrong or selfish ways is something we have to face until our time on this earth ends. The account in Genesis of our 'first parents' is an interesting one. Their expression of sexuality is presumably without such conflicts. You can see the difference in their attitude to their sexuality after their Fall. They experience shame and after the expulsion from the Garden it gets much worse with their offspring, Cain and Abel.
macgamer wrote:Faith is not just subscribing to a list of beliefs and theology. It is a gift from God which is accepted freely has the power to bring about inner transformations and drives people to seek a personal relationship with God. Last year, despite the hellish nature of it, bore great spiritual fruit and demonstrated to me what a personal relationship with God can be like. Lively faith need to be sustained by participation in the sacraments, openness with God and mental prayer (akin to meditation) in which one can bring our problems to God and be attentive to His voice.
I'm curious, what were your stumbling blocks? Don't feel obliged to discuss it.
macgamer wrote:That may have be a justifying comment to make to me about six months ago or more and you may have convinced me then. Now, I have reconciled by SSA with my faith. I see no conflict. Sex is for marriage and children, I'm not called to that vocation. This does not mean I must deny myself love and affection.
macgamer wrote:Matthew 16 wrote:Back, Satan; you are a stone in my path; for these thoughts of yours are man's, not God's.
Again I see that there is concern in your words. However, as I've written before, I am one who needs philosophical consistency. If I start picking and choosing between the bits I find easy or hard the consistency is lost. I'd find it more consistent to be an atheist if I started rejecting a few bits of Catholicism here and there.
macgamer wrote:Corrections have been made in the past. It's not to say that you're in charge of them, but that association with the Church is key. You can renounce parts of it (openly and in dialogue with the church, if you can) and de facto be renouncing the whole of it, but if you're able to recognise what's alright and what's not...I can't see the harm.)
Remind me of some major theological 'corrections'.
RedCelt69 wrote:Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...
...sex is the motion of flesh on flesh. It is a handshake; a slightly messy handshake, as we are but a bag of chemicals that sometimes excrete. Of course, sex is a very enjoyable motion of flesh on flesh, but joy is merely a trick of the mind - the release of chemicals that stimulate the neurons that sit on top of our central nervous system.
RedCelt69 wrote:Ascribing sex as something belonging on a pedestal is the act of a virginal mind that sees it as something above and beyond a sensory trigger for a sensory mind.
RedCelt69 wrote:The universe doesn't care which orifice you use. The universe doesn't care about anything.
You are but you, a pinprick of existence in a vastness of non-existence.
RedCelt69 wrote:If you choose to use that brief existence as a platform for self-flagellation and the denial of the pleasures that are available to you, it is your loss. And you come here to advertise that loss... why, exactly? To receive pity? To proselytise? To feel better about your loss, and to strengthen your self-denial? Every action has a motive. What's your motive, macgamer?
Psalm 103(104) wrote:BLESS the Lord, my soul; O Lord my God, what magnificence is yours! Glory and beauty are your clothing. The light is a garment you do wrap about you, the heavens a curtain your hand unfolds. The waters of heaven are your ante-chamber, the clouds your chariot; on the wings of the wind you do come and go. You will have your angels be like the winds, the servants that wait on you like a flame of fire.
The earth you have planted on its own firm base, undisturbed for all time. The deep once covered it, like a cloak; the waters stood high above the mountains, then cowered before your rebuking word, fled away at your voice of thunder, leaving the mountain heights to rise, the valleys to sink into their appointed place! And to these waters you have given a frontier they may not pass; never must they flow back, and cover the earth again. Yet there shall be torrents flooding the glens, watercourses among the hills that give drink to every wild beast; here the wild asses may slake their thirst. The birds of heaven, too, will roost beside them; vocal is every bough with their music.
From your high dwelling-place you do send rain upon the hills; your hand gives earth all her plenty. Grass must grow for the cattle; for man, too, she must put forth her shoots, if he is to bring corn out from her bosom; if there is to be wine that will rejoice man's heart, oil to make his face shine and bread that will keep man's strength from failing. Moisture there must be for the forest trees, for the cedars of Lebanon, trees of the Lord's own planting. Here it is the birds build their nests; the stork makes its home in the fir-branches; finds refuge there such as the goats find in the high hills, the coney in its cave.
He has given us the moon for our calendar; the sun knows well the hour of his setting. You do decree darkness, and the night falls; in the night all the forest is astir with prowling beasts; the young lions go roaring after their prey, God's pensioners, asking for their food. Then the sun rises, and they slink away to lie down in their dens, while man goes abroad to toil and drudge till the evening. What diversity, Lord, in your creatures! What wisdom has designed them all! There is nothing on earth but gives proof of your creative power.
There lies the vast ocean, stretching wide on every hand; this, too, is peopled with living things past number, great creatures and small; the ships pass them on their course. Leviathan himself is among them; him, too, you have created to roam there at his pleasure. And all look to you to send them their food at the appointed time; it is through your gift they find it, your hand opens, and all are filled with content. But see, you hide your face, and they are dismayed; you take their life from them, and they breathe no more, go back to the dust they came from. Then you send forth your spirit, and there is fresh creation; you do repeople the face of earth.
Glory be to the Lord for ever; still let him take delight in his creatures. One glance from him makes earth tremble; at his touch, the mountains are wreathed in smoke. While life lasts, I will sing in the Lord's honour; my praise shall be his while I have breath to praise him; oh, may this prayer with him find acceptance, in whom is all my content! Perish all sinners from the land, let the wrong-doers be forgotten! But you, my soul, bless the Lord. Alleluia.
The Cellar Bar wrote:It wasn't a miracle - it was a representation of the fact that at some point Jesus was "promoted" - elevated - by the Essenes group to which he belonged to the status of healer. Just a pity in that respect that even the Bible uses the motif of the serpent as a form of "advance" in his career to a position of respect because of the skills of healing and medicine and knowledge that it referred to. It is also the very reason why every single medical association throughout the world - including the BMA - uses the motif of a serpent coiled around a staff as their logo! It goes waay back to the story of Draco and the healing powers it is believed to enshrine.
the community of Christ as laid down by, err, Christ. E.g. looking back, the important bits are commemorating the last supper, enacting the sacraments, doing those with faith in God.)
I always thought it was a reference to Moses and the construction of a bronze serpent in Exodus for healing from serpent bites.
Frank wrote:(To round out the story: after almost being ran over and developing the anecdote where "that job was so bad, I lost religion!" [they were contemporaneous, but I don't think there was substantial causal connection], I soon after went off on a big ol' holiday with some money an old neighbour'd set aside when I were a wean for my 21st. The series of escapades involved a trip to Manchester [into an 18 bed dorm to wait for the plane...managed to unwittingly pick Gay Pride weekend...], Magaluf with old school friends [horrific, as you can imagine, but pleasant time with friends], Barcelona, Nice, Rome, the Vatican, Albania for a week, Skopje, Belgrade, Budapest, Warsaw [and a visit to Auschwitz], Frankfurt, Prasis, Bruges then Rosyth.
Frank wrote:So, yes, tears otherwise strode for the massive loss, but the realisation is pretty powerful. A sort of...inversely numinous experience or three. It'd be easy to describe it as 'closing my eyes' or 'blocking God out', but it very much felt a lot more like opening my eyes and seeing the thing I thought was there...wasn't. Like stabilisers on a bike or...this. Gently but profoundly absurd, to an extent.)
Frank wrote:Quite so. Though by my above analogy, I'd be half-tempted to suggest something like "Well that just means your scaffolding is now well built and well patched". I heartily sympathise with the suspicion of 'easy answers', the simply integrity of not wanting to settle for an answer or shy away from something because it's too big or too complex to be correct. (E.g. an awfully hamfisted application of [a badly misunderstood] Occam's Razor. "It's too difficult therefore it's wrong! I demand easy answers.")
Frank wrote:Sex isn't for marriage and children though, of course. I've used it (along with a few prophylactics) for neither. (Then again, I wash my hands to prevent me contaminating things and I cook food & drink filtered, treated water. None of this I see as particularly unnatural. [I do invoke demons for my cheese-on-toast though; that is unnatural, I'll grant.])
Frank wrote:As I'm sure you've encountered and considered before: my argument & viewpoint would nowadays be along the lines of the Church's moral authority not being 100%...provided you step away from it. Of course, you wouldn't really even be tempted to step away from it, as the belief you hold as a Catholic (or at least the beliefs I held) indicate a certainty, a towering conviction that the Church's moral authority is pretty close to absolute...and in the 'odd' bits (e.g. the oft-touted paedophiles) are 'accommodated' by other reasoning (they are sinners, they are headed hellwards, it's a complete non-sequitar and misunderstanding of what Catholicism actually preaches in terms of communal, institutional responsibility & authority, etc).
Frank wrote:To put it more simply, the scaffolding can be replaced with (what in my mind feels & seems to be) a far more solid and consistent scaffolding, a more essential and 'sensible' framework which doesn't require wacky beliefs or tie you down to unnecessary edifices. (Sufficient & necessary?)
I'd say that my morality, my integrity and my conviction is much stronger now than it was before. There's still a profound faith in certain things (compassion, humour), a fair distaste/disapproval for rampant indulgence and compromising integrity, a severe dislike of inconsistency and so forth. (It's perhaps no surprise that I paint my 'ideal' as stoicism, even though I'm as good a [textbook] stoic as I ever was good as a [textbook] Catholic.)
Frank wrote:I think there's value, though, in not placing consistency highest amongst your concerns. To (slightly facetiously) paint it as a problem solving technique, you'll always be checking for consistency, but at the risk of ignoring such wonderful things as elegance, amusement and even something simple like relevance.
Frank wrote:Pithily, the Jesus' answer to "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?", strikes me as a big ol' correction, but that surely highlights my own ignorance of/amateurism in theology, not something that's likely to inspire you to throw of your shackles and embrace Xenu.
Frank wrote:More pithily still: eat some fish on a Friday.
Frank wrote:The repeated schisming of Christianity is a pretty difficult one to reconcile for me. It's certainly the case that I was quite happy to believe that Catholicism is blatantly the correct/original one. But then, more seriously, I think there's an intriguing case to made for its hijacking of that mantle - I can't quite see how the Quakers are 'doing it wrong', except for the fact that they're separate from the Church. To play with it in an even more unhelpful way, it's worth considering the decisions made throughout - why settle for the specifics of the Councils of Nicaea? There's (surely) a massive political shenanigan afoot there, bringing us to the "these thoughts of yours are man's, not God's" line of thinking.
Frank wrote:Sorry to hijack the thread, o'course. I realise that except inadvertently ending up in the middle of Gay Pride four and a half years ago, this has very little to do with being Gay & Catholic. (Call it serendipity.)
The Cellar Bar wrote:Note too as a point of historical fact, that the Hebrews were led out of the Exodus by the combined efforts of Moses and Aaron - Moses a the temporal leader or King and Aaron as the spiritual leader. That was the prophesy, that was the necessity right up until the time of Jesus. That the Kingdom of God on Earth was to be established and then governed by TWO Messiahs - one temporal and one spiritual. That was why to the Jews that the death of John the Baptiser - Jesus cousin - was so devastating. Jesus was seen as the rightful King of the Jews - INRI - and John was to be the spiritual leader and between them they would rule the new Kingdom. Leading to the fact that James, Jesus brother, then took on the mantle.
The Cellar Bar wrote:Pound to a penny, if there is such a thing as the Second Coming, then one of the real problems that will take some explaining, is just how the enactment of drinking someone's blood and eating their flesh has any part in the original "Christianity". It's otherwise known as cannabalism and there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that it would have been invoked by your Jesus if he had been allowed a say. It's an abhorrent notion to most....but for true proper Jews it flies in the face of injunctions in the Old Testament in Numbers(?) about not even sucking your finger if you cut yourself to stem the flow of blood.
John 6 wrote:'Believe me when I tell you this; the man who has faith in me enjoys eternal life. It is I who am the bread of life. Your fathers, who ate manna in the desert, died none the less; the bread which comes down from heaven is such that he who eats of it never dies. I myself am the living bread that has come down from heaven. If any one eats of this bread, he shall live for ever. And now, what is this bread which I am to give? It is my flesh, given for the life of the world.' Then the Jews fell to disputing with one another, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Whereupon Jesus said to them, 'Believe me when I tell you this; you can have no life in yourselves, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood. The man who eats my flesh and drinks my blood enjoys eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, lives continually in me, and I in him. As I live because of the Father, the living Father who has sent me, so he who eats me will live, in his turn, because of me. Such is the bread which has come down from heaven; it is not as it was with your fathers, who ate manna and died none the less; the man who eats this bread will live eternally.'
He said all this while he was teaching in the synagogue, at Capharnaum. And there were many of his disciples who said, when they heard it, 'This is strange talk, who can be expected to listen to it?' But Jesus, inwardly aware that his disciples were complaining over it, said to them, 'Does this try your faith? What will you make of it, if you see the Son of Man ascending to the place where he was before? Only the spirit gives life; the flesh is of no avail; and the words I have been speaking to you are spirit, and life.' But there are some, even among you, who do not believe. Jesus knew from the first which were those who did not believe, and which of them was to betray him. And he went on to say, That is what I meant when I told you that nobody can come to me unless he has received the gift from my Father. After this, many of his disciples went back to their old ways, and walked no more in his company.
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