The Bread of Life

Today's Gospel was from John 6:

Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The lady minister discussed Holy Communion, the sacrament in which Christians partake of bread and wine that represent the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Then she gave a quick overview of transubstantiation and consubstantiation, doctrines that Christians have argued about for centuries. The former is the Catholic tenet that the bread and wine are actually transformed into Jesus' body and blood, while the latter is a belief that the bread and wine remain intact but are joined with Jesus' body and blood during the mass.

Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I (1533-1603), before she became Queen of England, rejected both doctrines and accepted the Calvinist principle that the bread and wine were but symbols; Jesus Himself wasn't physically present during Communion, though God was. She wrote:

Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.

Elizabeth I of England, along with Isabella of Spain, were among the greatest--and keenest--monarchs in European history. Their actions (financing Columbus' expeditions, driving the Moors out of Iberia during the Spanish Inquisition, defeating the Spanish armada and keeping England independent from Spain) shaped the world today.

Four centuries before women's rights, these powerful women didn't understand that they should have stepped aside to let white males control everything.