Humility and Obedience in the Priest
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
It may seem a bit strange that all the major exhortations of the modern Popes to priests stress the importance of the virtues of humility and obedience, with no exception. On second thought, however, it is not unexpected. You would expect priests to be reminded to practice especially the two virtues on which so much depends in their lives and ministry. Why? In answering this question I will take up each virtue separately and try to show why it is so important for priests, if they wish to be priestly priests, to be humble and obedient, and how they can grow in humility and obedience.
The virtue of humility in all of us is that disposition of will which makes us see ourselves for what we really are in relationship to God and our neighbor. In relationship to God, if we are humble, we see ourselves totally dependent on His power and His love; in a word, it is recognizing our creaturehood. In relation to our neighbor, we see ourselves, as a fellow creature, and by seeing ourselves we are fully conscious of our sins. In a word, humility is truth. It is keeping ourselves within our own bounds, not going outside the fence within which God has placed us.
As we apply these ideas to a priest, we see immediately that he will have difficulties above the ordinary in keeping himself humble. Faith tells him, and the faithful recognize the fact, that he is possessed of extraordinary powers. On his consecrated words depends the Real Presence of Christ on earth. No priests, no Eucharist. On his intention to separately consecrate the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ depends the continuance of the sacrifice of Calvary. On his words of absolution depends the reconciliation of sinners with God. On his anointing of the sick depends their remission of sin and the gaining of strength, when needed, to enter into eternity. On his teaching the revealed Word depends the faithful's possession and preservation of the faith. On his counsel depends, in large measure, the growth of souls in sanctity.
And so the list might go on. Every facet of the ministry is the exercise of such influence in the lives of others that no one under Heaven is more exposed to the temptation of pride than a priest. Perhaps some people, especially in academic circles, still wonder why the Church is suffering so gravely at the hands and lips of her priests. We need not wonder. Most of the chaos in the Catholic Church today is due to the pride of priests.
What adds to the gravity of the situation is that the media (the radio and television, newspapers, magazines and publishers) give priests so much occasion for publicity and such opportunities for recognition, especially if they have strange ideas, that unless priests are extremely careful, their vanity and desire for praise will be exploited by the enemies of the Church to the detriment of the people of God. It is hard enough to be humble when a person is educated, as priests certainly are, or not to be held in honor just in virtue of their office. A youngster in his mid-twenties is just ordained, and immediately the faith of the people sees in him a man apart. He gets respect and attention that no one else, naturally speaking, could get.
Combine all these factors and we begin to see what a great responsibility a man assumes when he is ordained: the responsibility for the practice of the most fundamental of virtues, humility. How hard is the task he has to face, as no one but a priest understands.
When the great Doctor of the Church, Saint John Chrysostom, as a simple hermit was being urged to become a priest, he strenuously resisted what he called not an invitation but a temptation, before he finally was ordained. Later on he wrote a book about it, a masterpiece on the priesthood. One of his main fears, as he confessed, was the dread of pride. He said to his friend Basil (later on, Basil the Great), who was telling him to be ordained, "I beg and beseech you, I know my own soul, my weakness, my infirmities. I know too the greatness of this ministry and all the difficulties of its office. The waves which break upon the priestly soul are greater than those which the winds raise upon the seas and the worst of these is that most terrible rock which is pride." Is it any wonder that the greatest mystic since Saint Paul, Francis of Assisi, did not dare to be ordained? Thus spoke and acted the saints and thus speaks every honest priest in the depths of his heart. He knows that his single worst enemy in the world is the demon of pride.
How does the priest cultivate this indispensable humility? The simple answer would be, as everyone else cultivates humility: by humble prayer; by daily reflection on his failings and sins; by humbly performing the menial duties and not looking for positions or places where he can shine. In the case of a priest there is, I believe, one distinctive path to humility, one specially his own, and this is not seeking to please; and when duty requires it, and it often will, being willing to displease. It is impossible for a priest to remain humble if he is always trying just to please people.
His time is for all who need his ministrations and not only for the more insistent or those who make demands. His message of salvation is the teaching of Christ, which includes penance and self-denial and carrying the cross. Not everybody, to say the least, wants to hear about the cross. But if a priest is to be humble, he will not qualify the hard sayings of the Master. His affection is to be universal; to be given to all without discrimination, according to their spiritual needs. He must be willing to displease, humbly, those who would monopolize his attention and preoccupy his heart. And he must hold his heart with both his hands; otherwise, somebody is sure to steal it from him.
A humble priest is therefore no respecter of persons. And if anything, he prefers the poor and unimportant, the simple and unattractive, the lowly, the ignored-people who will not nourish his self-conceit, or throw fuel on his pride.
There is a long passage in the Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests that deals with the subject of their obedience, and it intertwines the practice of obedience with the virtue of charity. Certain key passages in that Decree bring to the surface important implications for priestly obedience.
Priests are told that, "The priestly ministry, being the ministry of the Church itself, can only be fulfilled in the hierarchical union of the whole body of the Church." Consequently, a priest is obedient and obediently working with and under and through the hierarchy, or his work will not be blessed by God. There is no such thing as a priest going off on his own, independent of ecclesiastical obedience, and expecting God to grace his labors. A priest is not ordained for himself; he is ordained as the Vulgate has it "ad alios", for others. But being a priest, he is not only ordained for others; he must also work with others, "cum allis", and those others are his fellow priests united under the hierarchy.
There is an important observation to be made regarding bishops, because all that I have said about priests applies, sometimes with greater importance, to bishops. The Church teaches that a priest must be united with the hierarchy to expect God to bless his work; that also means that bishops must be united among themselves as the successors of the apostles and under the Vicar of Christ. This condition is so imperative that where and insofar as a bishop is not obedient to the Vicar of Christ, to that extent he loses the divine light to know what to teach and what is most terrifying, he loses the divine right to command people. They are to obey him only insofar as he obeys the Vicar of Christ.
Second, priests are told by the Second Vatican Council that by obedience they dedicate their own wills to God. Obedience is the sacrifice of the human will to God. The dignity of any sacrifice is measured by the sublimity of that which is offered. There is nothing that man possesses that is more precious to him than his own will. This is the heart of the priest as sacrificer, because standing at the altar, though he does indeed offer the Holy Sacrifice, yet there he is only the instrument of the great High Priest Jesus Christ who is the principal priest sacrificer at Mass. But the one thing which the priest can most call his own, his own free will, is what he surrenders when he obeys. It is that surrender that is so pleasing to God and so demanded by God of the priest.
Third, priests are told to carry out obediently the commands and suggestions of the Pope, their bishop and their superiors. There are two profound insights here. The first is that perfect obedience in anyone, here in a priest, does not wait to be commanded. In fact, by the time a person has to be commanded, he or she may still obey of course, but that is not the main function of obedience, to give solemn commands. True obedience responds even to the suggestions or intimations of ecclesiastical authority.
Notice too, that the first one that a priest is told to obey is the Pope. Thirty or forty years ago, had a Council been held at that time, that Council probably would not have felt it necessary to explicitate Pope, bishops and superiors. In today's Church this can be a difficult obedience indeed. Part of the crisis in the Catholic Church is that some of the most explicit directives of the Holy See are given lip service but are not seriously put into practice, or for priests, are not preached.
We have, for example, the Pope's most formal, authentic, and solemn condemnation of contraception. How seldom in these United States do we find any pastoral letters from bishops, or sermons from priests reemphasizing the Church's solemn teaching; a recent poll claims that between seventy and ninety percent of Catholic American married couples practice contraception.
The Holy See insists on first confession for children before their first Communion. Yet, in traveling across the country, I hear some of the most pathetic stories from mothers who are trying to find priests who will hear the confessions of their young children.
The Holy See has given the clearest declarations on the grave obligation to recite the Divine Office. The Pope, following the Council, gave unequivocal directives on clerical garb. Is it any wonder so many religious women have removed their habits? Priests, who themselves are disobedient to the Church's directives for them, in turn tell the women religious that they too don't have to be identified as consecrated to God. The Holy See has repeated forthright statements on the sacred vestments to be worn for the offering of the Mass. I've attended the Divine Service where angels would weep to see how the priest or priests were undressed at the altar. They would show more respect to a policeman than to the Son of God.
Rome has repeated warnings about following the prescriptions of the Liturgy, about not making up one's own Eucharistic Canons or substituting other prayers or readings for those clearly indicated and prescribed, with manifold options, but nevertheless prescribed by the Church.
Anyone who knows the state of affairs today can testify, a priest's obedience is mightily tested, especially in these crucial areas of the mind of the Vicar of Christ and of the Holy See.
How is a priest to cultivate this priestly obedience which the Church tells him is so needed in his sacerdotal ministry? He must of course pray, especially when either the directives are hard or, what may be harder today, when he sees his fellow priests disobedient. He must pray and ask his Lord,"Help me; keep me straight".
But especially, he needs to meditate, first of all on the blessings that God will give him if he is obedient. We do nothing without our reason. Being obedient has cost the priest much these days. He needs to be strongly motivated. But meditation shows the priest that obedience will give him power and influence over souls and absolutely nothing else can substitute for it. His meditation will also show him that if he wants people to listen to him, he must listen to those to whom he owes obedience.
The priest should read, maybe just a page or two a day, from the life of some great priest whose life reflects the influence of obedience on souls. They must read of such men like the Cure of Ars, who was almost illiterate but who created a history of his own because he was simply and totally obedient. The priest might also, once in a while, reflect on some of the giants in the priesthood that he knew or that he reads about who, because of their disobedience, not only fell from their priestly office, but did incalculable damage to the Church of Christ.
A priest should also ask the faithful to pray for him, and pray especially asking the dear Lord that God might keep him humble and obedient. In his humility and obedience is the strength of Christ, who will work through him, provided he is little in his own eyes and totally submissive to the authority that Christ placed over him, in order that through him, humble and obedient, souls might return to God.
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Copyright © 1998 Inter Mirifica
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Priesthood and the Sacrifice of the Mass
The Priesthood and the Sacrifice of the Mass
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
By now, there must be as many definitions of the priesthood as there are dictionaries in print. But in the Catholic Church, the priest exists for one main purpose: to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.
So true is this that, without the priesthood, there would not only be no Sacrifice of the Mass. There would be no Catholic Church. This may sound strange, even exotic. But the fact of life is that God became man in order to sacrifice Himself on the Cross by dying for the salvation of the world. Having died once on Calvary, He continues offering Himself in every Mass so totally that He would be willing to die every time that Mass is offered.
It is impossible to exaggerate this identification. The Catholic Church exists mainly that the Sacrifice of the Mass may continue to be offered from thousands of altars every day, even until the end of time. True, Jesus died only once physically. But every time that Mass is offered, He is ready and willing to die and offer His life for the salvation of the world.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of identifying Christianity with the Cross. The human race began to sin from the time of our first parents. It has continued sinning over the centuries throughout the world. We can safely say that God would long ago have destroyed the world because of its sin, except that the Sacrifice of the Mass had been offered by now on thousands of altars throughout the world. People may wonder why the Catholic Church so emphasizes the importance of the Mass, or why Catholics are encouraged to assist at the Mass, not only once a week, but even every day. For those who have the faith, the reason is obvious. The world was saved from destruction only because the mercy of God has been appeased by now through thousands of Masses offered every day.
To begin to appreciate the importance of the Catholic priesthood, we must first understand the tragedy of sin from our first parents to the present day. God is a just God. The human race has deserved to be annihilated many times because of its sins. What has appeased the anger of God? What has placated the justice of God? Why has the world been spared over these centuries? The world has been spared the penalty it deserves because God became man, He died on the Cross on Calvary to redeem a sinful mankind. But His death on Calvary has been repeated, and is being repeated every time that Mass is being offered. It is no exaggeration to say that except for the Sacrifice of the Mass, the human race would long ago have been destroyed by an offended God for its countless crimes.
But then we ask the most important question: what makes the Mass possible? The Mass is possible only because Christ’s death on Calvary is literally repeated in every Mass offered on Catholic altars throughout the world. This is not indulging in rhetoric. This is the literal truth! Except for the Mass, the justified anger of God would long ago have wiped out the human race because of its multitude of sins.
How we need the Mass! But there is no Mass without the priesthood. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the priesthood, to ensure that His sacrifice on Calvary would be renewed and repeated in every Mass until the end of time. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Mass being offered on thousands of altars every day. Except for the Mass, I repeat, the world would long ago have been destroyed because of its sins.
That is the fundamental meaning of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Its daily oblation throughout the world ensures the appeasement of God’s mercy on a sin-laden world.
Copyright © 1999 Inter Mirifica
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
By now, there must be as many definitions of the priesthood as there are dictionaries in print. But in the Catholic Church, the priest exists for one main purpose: to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.
So true is this that, without the priesthood, there would not only be no Sacrifice of the Mass. There would be no Catholic Church. This may sound strange, even exotic. But the fact of life is that God became man in order to sacrifice Himself on the Cross by dying for the salvation of the world. Having died once on Calvary, He continues offering Himself in every Mass so totally that He would be willing to die every time that Mass is offered.
It is impossible to exaggerate this identification. The Catholic Church exists mainly that the Sacrifice of the Mass may continue to be offered from thousands of altars every day, even until the end of time. True, Jesus died only once physically. But every time that Mass is offered, He is ready and willing to die and offer His life for the salvation of the world.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of identifying Christianity with the Cross. The human race began to sin from the time of our first parents. It has continued sinning over the centuries throughout the world. We can safely say that God would long ago have destroyed the world because of its sin, except that the Sacrifice of the Mass had been offered by now on thousands of altars throughout the world. People may wonder why the Catholic Church so emphasizes the importance of the Mass, or why Catholics are encouraged to assist at the Mass, not only once a week, but even every day. For those who have the faith, the reason is obvious. The world was saved from destruction only because the mercy of God has been appeased by now through thousands of Masses offered every day.
To begin to appreciate the importance of the Catholic priesthood, we must first understand the tragedy of sin from our first parents to the present day. God is a just God. The human race has deserved to be annihilated many times because of its sins. What has appeased the anger of God? What has placated the justice of God? Why has the world been spared over these centuries? The world has been spared the penalty it deserves because God became man, He died on the Cross on Calvary to redeem a sinful mankind. But His death on Calvary has been repeated, and is being repeated every time that Mass is being offered. It is no exaggeration to say that except for the Sacrifice of the Mass, the human race would long ago have been destroyed by an offended God for its countless crimes.
But then we ask the most important question: what makes the Mass possible? The Mass is possible only because Christ’s death on Calvary is literally repeated in every Mass offered on Catholic altars throughout the world. This is not indulging in rhetoric. This is the literal truth! Except for the Mass, the justified anger of God would long ago have wiped out the human race because of its multitude of sins.
How we need the Mass! But there is no Mass without the priesthood. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the priesthood, to ensure that His sacrifice on Calvary would be renewed and repeated in every Mass until the end of time. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Mass being offered on thousands of altars every day. Except for the Mass, I repeat, the world would long ago have been destroyed because of its sins.
That is the fundamental meaning of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Its daily oblation throughout the world ensures the appeasement of God’s mercy on a sin-laden world.
Copyright © 1999 Inter Mirifica
Eucharist Paper Outline
Freshman Religion
Eucharist Paper
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Point Three:
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Eucharist Paper
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Thesis: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Theological Grades of Certainty
The Theological Grades of Certainty
1. The highest degree of certainty appertains to the immediately revealed truths. The belief due to them is based on the authority of God Revealing (fides divina), and if the Church, through its teaching, vouches for the fact that a truth is contained in Revelation, one's certainty is then also based on the authority of the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Church (fides catholica). If Truths are defined by a solemn judgment of faith (definition) of the Pope or of a General Council, they are "de fide definita."
2. Catholic truths or Church doctrines, on which the infallible Teaching Authority of the Church has finally decided, are to be accepted with a faith which is based on the sole authority of the Church (fides ecclesiastica). These truths are as infallibly certain as dogmas proper.
3. A Teaching proximate to Faith (sententia fidei proxima) is a doctrine, which is regarded by theologians generally as a truth of Revelation, but which has not yet been finally promulgated as such by the Church.
4. A Teaching pertaining to the Faith, i.e., theologically certain (sententia ad fidem pertinens, i.e., theologice certa) is a doctrine, on which the Teaching Authority of the Church has not yet finally pronounced, but whose truth is guaranteed by its intrinsic connection with the doctrine of revelation (theological conclusions).
5. Common Teaching (sententia communis) is doctrine, which in itself belongs to the field of the free opinions, but which is accepted by theologians generally.
6. Theological opinions of lesser grades of certainty are called probable, more probable, well-founded (sententia probabilis, probabilior, bene fundata). Those which are regarded as being in agreement with the consciousness of Faith of the Church are called pious opinions (sententia pia). The least degree of certainty is possessed by the tolerated opinion (opimo tolerata), which is only weakly founded, but which is tolerated by the Church.
from:http://www.trosch.org/the/ottintro.htm
1. The highest degree of certainty appertains to the immediately revealed truths. The belief due to them is based on the authority of God Revealing (fides divina), and if the Church, through its teaching, vouches for the fact that a truth is contained in Revelation, one's certainty is then also based on the authority of the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Church (fides catholica). If Truths are defined by a solemn judgment of faith (definition) of the Pope or of a General Council, they are "de fide definita."
2. Catholic truths or Church doctrines, on which the infallible Teaching Authority of the Church has finally decided, are to be accepted with a faith which is based on the sole authority of the Church (fides ecclesiastica). These truths are as infallibly certain as dogmas proper.
3. A Teaching proximate to Faith (sententia fidei proxima) is a doctrine, which is regarded by theologians generally as a truth of Revelation, but which has not yet been finally promulgated as such by the Church.
4. A Teaching pertaining to the Faith, i.e., theologically certain (sententia ad fidem pertinens, i.e., theologice certa) is a doctrine, on which the Teaching Authority of the Church has not yet finally pronounced, but whose truth is guaranteed by its intrinsic connection with the doctrine of revelation (theological conclusions).
5. Common Teaching (sententia communis) is doctrine, which in itself belongs to the field of the free opinions, but which is accepted by theologians generally.
6. Theological opinions of lesser grades of certainty are called probable, more probable, well-founded (sententia probabilis, probabilior, bene fundata). Those which are regarded as being in agreement with the consciousness of Faith of the Church are called pious opinions (sententia pia). The least degree of certainty is possessed by the tolerated opinion (opimo tolerata), which is only weakly founded, but which is tolerated by the Church.
from:http://www.trosch.org/the/ottintro.htm
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Effects of Holy Communion
Effects of Holy Communion
Since the earliest times, the benefits of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ were spelled out to encourage frequent, even daily, Holy Communion. Thus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem (died 387) said that reception of the Eucharist makes the Christian a "Christbearer" and "one body and one blood with Him" (Catecheses, 4,3). St. John Chrysostom (died 407) speaks of a mixing of the Body of Christ with our body, "…in order to show the great love that He has for us. He mixed Himself with us, and joined His Body with us, so that we might become one like a bread connected with the body" (Homily 46,3).
These and other comparisons of how Communion unites the recipient with Christ are based on Christ's own teaching, and St. Paul's statement that, "the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the Body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, all that partake of this bread." (I Corinthians 10:16-17).
So, too, the church officially teaches that "Every effect which bodily food and bodily drink produce in our corporeal life, by preserving this life, increasing this life, healing this life, and satisfying this life - is also produced by this Sacrament in the spiritual life" (Council of Florence, November 22, 1439). Thus:
Holy Communion preserves the supernatural life of the soul by giving the communicant supernatural strength to resist temptation, and by weakening the power of concupiscence. It reinforces the ability of our free will to withstand the assaults of the devil. In a formal definition, the Church calls Holy Communion "an antidote by which we are preserved from grievous sins" (Council of Trent, October 11, 1551).
Holy Communion increases the life of grace already present by vitalizing our supernatural life and strengthening the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit we possess. To be emphasized, however, is that the main effect of Communion is not to remit sin. In fact, a person in conscious mortal sin commits a sacrilege by going to Communion.
Holy Communion cures the spiritual diseases of the soul by cleansing it of venial sins and the temporal punishment due to sin. No less than serving as an antidote to protect the soul from mortal sins, Communion is "an antidote by which we are freed from our daily venial sins" (Council of Trent, October 11, 1551). The remission of venial sins and of the temporal sufferings due to sin takes place immediately by reason of the acts of perfect love of God, which are awakened by the reception of the Eucharist. The extent of this remission depends on the intensity of our charity when receiving Communion.
Holy Communion gives us a spiritual joy in the service of Christ, in defending His cause, in performing the duties of our state of life, and in making the sacrifices required of us in imitating the life of our Savior.
On Christ's own promise, Holy Communion is a pledge of heavenly glory and of our bodily resurrection from the dead (John 6:55). St. Irenaeus (died 202) simply declared that, "when our bodies partake of the Eucharist, they are no longer corruptible as they have the hope of eternal resurrection" (Against the Heresies, IV, 18,5).
Pocket Catholic Catechism, John A. Hardon, S.J., An Image Book, Published by Doubleday
Copyright © 1989 by John A. Hardon, All Rights Reserved
Since the earliest times, the benefits of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ were spelled out to encourage frequent, even daily, Holy Communion. Thus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem (died 387) said that reception of the Eucharist makes the Christian a "Christbearer" and "one body and one blood with Him" (Catecheses, 4,3). St. John Chrysostom (died 407) speaks of a mixing of the Body of Christ with our body, "…in order to show the great love that He has for us. He mixed Himself with us, and joined His Body with us, so that we might become one like a bread connected with the body" (Homily 46,3).
These and other comparisons of how Communion unites the recipient with Christ are based on Christ's own teaching, and St. Paul's statement that, "the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the Body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, all that partake of this bread." (I Corinthians 10:16-17).
So, too, the church officially teaches that "Every effect which bodily food and bodily drink produce in our corporeal life, by preserving this life, increasing this life, healing this life, and satisfying this life - is also produced by this Sacrament in the spiritual life" (Council of Florence, November 22, 1439). Thus:
Holy Communion preserves the supernatural life of the soul by giving the communicant supernatural strength to resist temptation, and by weakening the power of concupiscence. It reinforces the ability of our free will to withstand the assaults of the devil. In a formal definition, the Church calls Holy Communion "an antidote by which we are preserved from grievous sins" (Council of Trent, October 11, 1551).
Holy Communion increases the life of grace already present by vitalizing our supernatural life and strengthening the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit we possess. To be emphasized, however, is that the main effect of Communion is not to remit sin. In fact, a person in conscious mortal sin commits a sacrilege by going to Communion.
Holy Communion cures the spiritual diseases of the soul by cleansing it of venial sins and the temporal punishment due to sin. No less than serving as an antidote to protect the soul from mortal sins, Communion is "an antidote by which we are freed from our daily venial sins" (Council of Trent, October 11, 1551). The remission of venial sins and of the temporal sufferings due to sin takes place immediately by reason of the acts of perfect love of God, which are awakened by the reception of the Eucharist. The extent of this remission depends on the intensity of our charity when receiving Communion.
Holy Communion gives us a spiritual joy in the service of Christ, in defending His cause, in performing the duties of our state of life, and in making the sacrifices required of us in imitating the life of our Savior.
On Christ's own promise, Holy Communion is a pledge of heavenly glory and of our bodily resurrection from the dead (John 6:55). St. Irenaeus (died 202) simply declared that, "when our bodies partake of the Eucharist, they are no longer corruptible as they have the hope of eternal resurrection" (Against the Heresies, IV, 18,5).
Pocket Catholic Catechism, John A. Hardon, S.J., An Image Book, Published by Doubleday
Copyright © 1989 by John A. Hardon, All Rights Reserved
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Writing Assignment on the Eucharist
Freshman Religion
Writing Assignment on the Eucharist
Objective: By finishing this assignment, I would like you to come to a more profound understanding of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. On the blog, I have posted several articles that explore central aspects of this mystery as understood by the Church over the centuries. We need to think carefully and to pray sincerely and persistently in order to embrace the reality of this most precious gift of God to his Church and therefore to each one of us.
Paper: We will go over in some detail each of the articles on the Eucharist that is posted on the blog. These, with the Gospels, are to be the source material for the paper. This paper should:
*be between three and five typed pages long (double-spaced)
*have a clear title explaining its topic
*have a clear introductory paragraph with a thesis
*quote at least three times from one of the Gospels
*argue its main thesis with compelling logic and evidence
*have a clear conclusion that summarizes the thesis and its support
Possible Topics:
1. How is the Catholic Mass a Sacrifice?
2. How is Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist?
3. How does the Eucharist relate to Christian Marriage?
4. What is the Meaning of Priesthood in the Catholic Church?
5. How does a Christian Live the Mass?
6. Transubstantiation: History and Reality
7. Adoration Before the Holy Eucharist
Writing Assignment on the Eucharist
Objective: By finishing this assignment, I would like you to come to a more profound understanding of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. On the blog, I have posted several articles that explore central aspects of this mystery as understood by the Church over the centuries. We need to think carefully and to pray sincerely and persistently in order to embrace the reality of this most precious gift of God to his Church and therefore to each one of us.
Paper: We will go over in some detail each of the articles on the Eucharist that is posted on the blog. These, with the Gospels, are to be the source material for the paper. This paper should:
*be between three and five typed pages long (double-spaced)
*have a clear title explaining its topic
*have a clear introductory paragraph with a thesis
*quote at least three times from one of the Gospels
*argue its main thesis with compelling logic and evidence
*have a clear conclusion that summarizes the thesis and its support
Possible Topics:
1. How is the Catholic Mass a Sacrifice?
2. How is Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist?
3. How does the Eucharist relate to Christian Marriage?
4. What is the Meaning of Priesthood in the Catholic Church?
5. How does a Christian Live the Mass?
6. Transubstantiation: History and Reality
7. Adoration Before the Holy Eucharist
Eucharist as Sacrifice
The most serious challenge to the Catholic faith in the Eucharist was the claim that the Mass is not a real but merely a symbolic sacrifice.
To defend this basic Eucharistic mystery, the Council of Trent made a series of definitions. Originally drafted as negative anathemas, they may be reduced to the following positive affirmation of faith.
The Mass is a true and proper sacrifice which is offered to God.
By the words, "Do this in commemoration of me" (Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:24), Christ made the apostles priests. Moreover, He decreed that they and other priests should offer His Body and Blood.
The Sacrifice of the Mass is not merely an offering of praise and thanksgiving, or simply a memorial of the sacrifice on the Cross. It is a propitiatory sacrifice which is offered for the living and dead, for the remission of sins and punishment due to sin, as satisfaction for sin and for other necessities.
The Sacrifice of the Mass in no way detracts from the sacrifice which Christ offered on the Cross (Council of Trent, Session XXII, September 17, 1562).
Volumes of teaching by the Church's magisterium have been written since the Council of Trent. There has also been a remarkable development of doctrine in a deeper understanding of the Mass. For our purpose, there are especially two questions that need to be briefly answered: 1) How is the Sacrifice of the Mass related to the sacrifice of the Cross? 2) How is the Mass a true sacrifice?
Relation of the Mass to Calvary.
In order to see how the Mass is related to Calvary, we must immediately distinguish between the actual Redemption of the world and the communication of Christ's redemptive graces to a sinful human race.
On the Cross, Christ really redeemed the human family. He is the one true Mediator between God and an estranged humanity. On the Cross, He merited all the graces that the world would need to be reconciled with an offended God.
When He died, the separation of His blood from His body caused the separation of His human soul from the body, which caused His death. He willed to die in the deepest sense of the word. He chose to die. In His own words, He laid down His life for the salvation of a sinful mankind.
But His physical death on Calvary was not to be an automatic redemption of a sin-laden world. It would not exclude the need for us to appropriate the merits He gained on the Cross; nor would it exclude the need for our voluntary cooperation with the graces merited by the Savior's shedding of His blood.
The key to seeing the relation between Calvary and the Mass is the fact that the same identical Jesus Christ now glorified is present on the altar at Mass as He was present in His mortal humanity on the Cross.
Since it is the same Jesus, we must say He continues in the Mass what He did on Calvary except that now in the Mass, He is no longer mortal or capable of suffering in His physical person. On Calvary He was, by His own choice, capable of suffering and dying. What He did then was to gain the blessings of our redemption. What He does now in the Mass is apply these blessings to the constant spiritual needs of a sinful, suffering humanity.
Before we look more closely at the Mass as a sacrifice of propitiation and petition, we should make plain that it is first and foremost, a sacrifice of praise (adoration) and thanksgiving. No less than He did on Calvary, in the Mass Jesus continues to offer Himself to the heavenly Father. Since the highest form of honor to God is sacrifice, the Mass is a continuation of Christ's sacrifice of praise and gratitude to God the Father. But, whereas on Calvary, this sacrificial adoration was bloody, causing Christ's physical death by crucifixion, in the Mass the same Jesus is now sacrificing Himself in an unbloody manner because he is now glorified, immortal, and incapable of suffering or dying in His own physical person.
We now turn from the Mass as a sacrifice of adoration and thanks (referring to God), to the Mass as a sacrifice of propitiation and petition (referring to us).
Notice we use two words, propititation and petition. They are not the same.
The Mass is the most powerful means we have to obtain propitiation for sin. This occurs in different ways.
Through the Mass, God's mercy makes reparation for the want of divine love that we have shown by committing sin.
Through the Mass, God's mercy removes the guilt of repented venial sins and moves the sinner estranged from Him to return to God.
Through the Mass, God's mercy remits more or less of the punishment still due on earth to forgiven sins.
Through the Mass, God's mercy also remits more or less of the punishment which the souls in purgatory have to undergo before entering heaven.
The Mass is a powerful means of petition to God for the graces that we and others need in our pilgrimage through life.
Graces are necessary for the mind to know what is God's will and how it should be fulfilled. Graces are necessary for the will to desire what pleases God, to choose what He wants us to do, and to sustain our choice by loving Him above all things.
In both ways, as a means of propitiation and petition, the Mass is a sacrament. It confers the graces needed from God's mercy to expiate the sins of the past and the graces needed from God's bounty to obtain His blessings for the future.
The Mass a True Sacrifice.
Since the first century of her existence, the Church has considered the Mass a sacrifice. The earliest manual of the liturgy (before 90 A.D.) has this directive for the attendance of Sunday Mass.
"On the Lord's own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks. But first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. However, no one quarreling with his brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 14)."
Why is the Mass a true sacrifice? Because in the Mass the same Jesus Christ who offered Himself on Calvary now offers Himself on the altar. The Priest is the same, the Victim is the same, and the end or purpose is the same.
The Priest is the same Jesus Christ whose sacred person the ordained priest represents and in whose Name he offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
The Victim is the same, namely the Savior in His human nature, with His true Body and Blood, and His human free will. Only the manner of offering is different. On the Cross, the sacrifice was bloody; in the Mass it is unbloody because Christ is now in His glorified state. But the heart of sacrifice is the voluntary, total offering of oneself to God. Christ makes this voluntary offering in every Mass, signified by the separate consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Redeemer.
The end or purpose is the same, namely to give glory to God, to thank Him, to obtain His mercy, and to ask Him for our needs. But, as we have seen, whereas on Calvary Christ merited our salvation, it is mainly through the Mass that He now dispenses the riches of His saving grace.
Pocket Catholic Catechism, John A. Hardon, S.J., An Image Book, Published by Doubleday
Copyright © 1989 by John A. Hardon, All Rights Reserved
To defend this basic Eucharistic mystery, the Council of Trent made a series of definitions. Originally drafted as negative anathemas, they may be reduced to the following positive affirmation of faith.
The Mass is a true and proper sacrifice which is offered to God.
By the words, "Do this in commemoration of me" (Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:24), Christ made the apostles priests. Moreover, He decreed that they and other priests should offer His Body and Blood.
The Sacrifice of the Mass is not merely an offering of praise and thanksgiving, or simply a memorial of the sacrifice on the Cross. It is a propitiatory sacrifice which is offered for the living and dead, for the remission of sins and punishment due to sin, as satisfaction for sin and for other necessities.
The Sacrifice of the Mass in no way detracts from the sacrifice which Christ offered on the Cross (Council of Trent, Session XXII, September 17, 1562).
Volumes of teaching by the Church's magisterium have been written since the Council of Trent. There has also been a remarkable development of doctrine in a deeper understanding of the Mass. For our purpose, there are especially two questions that need to be briefly answered: 1) How is the Sacrifice of the Mass related to the sacrifice of the Cross? 2) How is the Mass a true sacrifice?
Relation of the Mass to Calvary.
In order to see how the Mass is related to Calvary, we must immediately distinguish between the actual Redemption of the world and the communication of Christ's redemptive graces to a sinful human race.
On the Cross, Christ really redeemed the human family. He is the one true Mediator between God and an estranged humanity. On the Cross, He merited all the graces that the world would need to be reconciled with an offended God.
When He died, the separation of His blood from His body caused the separation of His human soul from the body, which caused His death. He willed to die in the deepest sense of the word. He chose to die. In His own words, He laid down His life for the salvation of a sinful mankind.
But His physical death on Calvary was not to be an automatic redemption of a sin-laden world. It would not exclude the need for us to appropriate the merits He gained on the Cross; nor would it exclude the need for our voluntary cooperation with the graces merited by the Savior's shedding of His blood.
The key to seeing the relation between Calvary and the Mass is the fact that the same identical Jesus Christ now glorified is present on the altar at Mass as He was present in His mortal humanity on the Cross.
Since it is the same Jesus, we must say He continues in the Mass what He did on Calvary except that now in the Mass, He is no longer mortal or capable of suffering in His physical person. On Calvary He was, by His own choice, capable of suffering and dying. What He did then was to gain the blessings of our redemption. What He does now in the Mass is apply these blessings to the constant spiritual needs of a sinful, suffering humanity.
Before we look more closely at the Mass as a sacrifice of propitiation and petition, we should make plain that it is first and foremost, a sacrifice of praise (adoration) and thanksgiving. No less than He did on Calvary, in the Mass Jesus continues to offer Himself to the heavenly Father. Since the highest form of honor to God is sacrifice, the Mass is a continuation of Christ's sacrifice of praise and gratitude to God the Father. But, whereas on Calvary, this sacrificial adoration was bloody, causing Christ's physical death by crucifixion, in the Mass the same Jesus is now sacrificing Himself in an unbloody manner because he is now glorified, immortal, and incapable of suffering or dying in His own physical person.
We now turn from the Mass as a sacrifice of adoration and thanks (referring to God), to the Mass as a sacrifice of propitiation and petition (referring to us).
Notice we use two words, propititation and petition. They are not the same.
The Mass is the most powerful means we have to obtain propitiation for sin. This occurs in different ways.
Through the Mass, God's mercy makes reparation for the want of divine love that we have shown by committing sin.
Through the Mass, God's mercy removes the guilt of repented venial sins and moves the sinner estranged from Him to return to God.
Through the Mass, God's mercy remits more or less of the punishment still due on earth to forgiven sins.
Through the Mass, God's mercy also remits more or less of the punishment which the souls in purgatory have to undergo before entering heaven.
The Mass is a powerful means of petition to God for the graces that we and others need in our pilgrimage through life.
Graces are necessary for the mind to know what is God's will and how it should be fulfilled. Graces are necessary for the will to desire what pleases God, to choose what He wants us to do, and to sustain our choice by loving Him above all things.
In both ways, as a means of propitiation and petition, the Mass is a sacrament. It confers the graces needed from God's mercy to expiate the sins of the past and the graces needed from God's bounty to obtain His blessings for the future.
The Mass a True Sacrifice.
Since the first century of her existence, the Church has considered the Mass a sacrifice. The earliest manual of the liturgy (before 90 A.D.) has this directive for the attendance of Sunday Mass.
"On the Lord's own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks. But first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. However, no one quarreling with his brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 14)."
Why is the Mass a true sacrifice? Because in the Mass the same Jesus Christ who offered Himself on Calvary now offers Himself on the altar. The Priest is the same, the Victim is the same, and the end or purpose is the same.
The Priest is the same Jesus Christ whose sacred person the ordained priest represents and in whose Name he offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
The Victim is the same, namely the Savior in His human nature, with His true Body and Blood, and His human free will. Only the manner of offering is different. On the Cross, the sacrifice was bloody; in the Mass it is unbloody because Christ is now in His glorified state. But the heart of sacrifice is the voluntary, total offering of oneself to God. Christ makes this voluntary offering in every Mass, signified by the separate consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Redeemer.
The end or purpose is the same, namely to give glory to God, to thank Him, to obtain His mercy, and to ask Him for our needs. But, as we have seen, whereas on Calvary Christ merited our salvation, it is mainly through the Mass that He now dispenses the riches of His saving grace.
Pocket Catholic Catechism, John A. Hardon, S.J., An Image Book, Published by Doubleday
Copyright © 1989 by John A. Hardon, All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Natural Philosophy - Substance and Accident
Natural Philosophy - Substance and Accident
What the meaning of "IS" is First, as a kind of preliminary and as tool for philosophical discourse, one should be familiar with the basic distinctions of Aristotle's logic. The basic logical distinction for our purposes is between accident (what exists in and is said of another) and substance (what does not exist in another & not said of another). As an example of what Aristotle means, consider what is named by the word "white." The reality that this word names (a particular color) can be said of some other thing as eg. "This thing is white." "White" is said of "this thing" as though the color belonged to "this thing." Furthermore, it is understood to exist in "this thing;" one does not find any "white" except that is in "this thing" or some other thing. This way of speaking can be contrasted with another, as for example "This thing is Socrates." "Socrates" does not name the same kind of reality that "white" does in the previous example. "Socrates" is not said of "this thing" in the same way as "white" is, and "Socrates" does not exist IN "this thing." Rather, "Socreates" IS "this thing," and the sentence "this thing is Socrates" is understood to assert an identity between the two realities named.
This basic notion of Aristotle's logic reflects the basic distinction in the way reality is stuctured and reflects the basic way that we view reality. The fundamental distinction is between substance and accident. Substance is whatever is a natural kind of thing and exists in its own right. Examples are rocks, trees, animals, etc. What an animal is, a dog for example, is basically the same whether it is black or brown, here or there, etc. A dog is a substance since it exists in its own right; it does not exist in something else, the way a color does.
Substance and Accidents
Accidents are the modifications that substance undergo, but that do not change the kind of thing that each substance is. Accidents only exist when they are the accidents of some substance. Examples are colors, weight, motion. For Aristotle there are 10 categories into which things naturally fall.
They are
Substance,
and
Nine Accidents:
Quantity,
Quality,
Relation,
Action,
Passion,
Time,
Place,
Disposition (the arrangement of parts), and
Rainment (whether a thing is dressed or armed, etc.)
All these distinctions are basically logical, but in a sense they reflect the structure of reality. One never finds any substance that we experience without some accidents, nor an accident that is not the accident of a substance. Every dog, for instance, has some color, place, size. Nevertheless, it is obvious that what a dog is is not the same as its color, or its size, etc.
from:http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/index.html
What the meaning of "IS" is First, as a kind of preliminary and as tool for philosophical discourse, one should be familiar with the basic distinctions of Aristotle's logic. The basic logical distinction for our purposes is between accident (what exists in and is said of another) and substance (what does not exist in another & not said of another). As an example of what Aristotle means, consider what is named by the word "white." The reality that this word names (a particular color) can be said of some other thing as eg. "This thing is white." "White" is said of "this thing" as though the color belonged to "this thing." Furthermore, it is understood to exist in "this thing;" one does not find any "white" except that is in "this thing" or some other thing. This way of speaking can be contrasted with another, as for example "This thing is Socrates." "Socrates" does not name the same kind of reality that "white" does in the previous example. "Socrates" is not said of "this thing" in the same way as "white" is, and "Socrates" does not exist IN "this thing." Rather, "Socreates" IS "this thing," and the sentence "this thing is Socrates" is understood to assert an identity between the two realities named.
This basic notion of Aristotle's logic reflects the basic distinction in the way reality is stuctured and reflects the basic way that we view reality. The fundamental distinction is between substance and accident. Substance is whatever is a natural kind of thing and exists in its own right. Examples are rocks, trees, animals, etc. What an animal is, a dog for example, is basically the same whether it is black or brown, here or there, etc. A dog is a substance since it exists in its own right; it does not exist in something else, the way a color does.
Substance and Accidents
Accidents are the modifications that substance undergo, but that do not change the kind of thing that each substance is. Accidents only exist when they are the accidents of some substance. Examples are colors, weight, motion. For Aristotle there are 10 categories into which things naturally fall.
They are
Substance,
and
Nine Accidents:
Quantity,
Quality,
Relation,
Action,
Passion,
Time,
Place,
Disposition (the arrangement of parts), and
Rainment (whether a thing is dressed or armed, etc.)
All these distinctions are basically logical, but in a sense they reflect the structure of reality. One never finds any substance that we experience without some accidents, nor an accident that is not the accident of a substance. Every dog, for instance, has some color, place, size. Nevertheless, it is obvious that what a dog is is not the same as its color, or its size, etc.
from:http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/index.html
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Eucharist: Foundation of the Christian Family
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
We do not normally associate the Holy Eucharist with marriage and the family. But we should. Without the Eucharist, there would not be a livable Sacrament of Matrimony or a stable Christian family.
What are we saying? We are saying that Christ intended these two sacraments to be related as condition and consequence. The Eucharist is the condition, and matrimony as the core of the family is the supernatural consequence.
Surely this calls for an explanation, and a clear explanation.
Needless to say, this is a most important subject. It is so important that the survival of Christian marriage and the Catholic family depend on it. Are we serious? Yes. The Holy Eucharist is indispensable for living out the supernatural, and therefore humanly impossible, demands that Christ places on those who enter marriage in His name.
Our plan is to cover the following areas of this fundamental issue.
Christian marriage in the family is a life long commitment to selfless love.
This selfless love is impossible without superhuman strength from God.
The principal source of this superhuman strength is the Holy Eucharist.
Christian spouses and their families are a living witness to Christ's power to work moral miracles in the world today.
The single most important need for Christian families is a renewed faith in the Holy Eucharist
Christian Marriage and Selfless Love
Christ instituted the sacrament of marriage in order to restore marriage to its monogamous position before the fall of our first parents.
When some Pharisees came to test Jesus by asking Him: “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any reason?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Therefore now, they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:3 6).
But Christ did not stop there. He not only told His followers that marriage is a lifelong commitment that no human authority can dissolve. He further commanded those who call themselves Christians to love one another with such selfless charity as to be willing to die for one another after the example of His own selfless love of dying for us on the Cross.
This is Christian marriage as elevated by Him to the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is a lifetime covenant between husband and wife, to remain faithful to each other until death. It is also a lifelong promise, made to God under oath, to love one another with selfless charity, enduring patience, and whole hearted generosity. Even more, it is a solemn vow to accept the children that God wants to send them and educate their children for eternal life in Heaven with God.
Since the time of Christ, there have been many breaks in Christian unity. There have been many departures from the Catholic Church. There have arisen numerous churches, calling themselves Christian. Why the departures? The main single reason has been the unwillingness to accept Christ's teaching on the indissolubility and fruitfulness of Christian marriage, founded on selfless charity.
Need for Superhuman Strength
It takes no great intelligence to see that a faithful and fruitful marriage requires superhuman strength. Change the word “superhuman” to “supernatural” and we begin to see what we are talking about.
Catholic Christianity is unique among the religions of the world, whether ancient as among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans before Christ, or among the living religions of the human race.
Catholic Christianity is unique in making demands on the morality of its believers that are beyond human nature by itself to live up to. The two hardest demands are the practice of Christian chastity and Christian charity. Combine these two virtues, and we begin to see why Christian marriage and the family require, indeed demand, superhuman power from God to remain faithful to for a lifetime.
This is what Christianity is all about: living a superhuman life by means of superhuman grace provided by Christ to those who believe that He is God who became man to enable us to witness to His name.
That is why Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. He had to, otherwise what He commanded His married followers and their families would be an idle dream.
There are certain things that human nature, by itself cannot, and the word is “cannot” do. Like what? Like living for a lifetime in loving family partnership, without being seduced by selfishness and sexual perversion that surround us like the atmosphere we breathe.
The Eucharist Provides Superhuman Strength
Entering marriage for believing Catholics is one thing. Living in Christian marriage and raising a Christian family are something else. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The moment we say, “Sacrament of the Eucharist,” we mean a triple sacrament:
The Sacrifice Sacrament of the Mass
The Communion Sacrament of Holy Communion, and
The Presence Sacrament of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist to give those who believe in Him the power they need to remain alive in His grace. For married Catholics and their families this means the light and strength they must constantly receive if they are to live out the sublime directives of the Holy Spirit for Christian believers.
They have no choice. The world in which they live is an abortive world, that murders unborn children in their mothers' wombs. Not to be deceived by this world, whose prince, Christ tells us, is the devil, Catholic husbands and wives and their families need the light that only Christ can give. He is available with this grace through the Holy Eucharist. Not to be seduced by this world, master minded by Satan, Catholics need the courage that only Christ can give. He tells us not to be afraid. Why not? Because, as He says, “Have confidence, I have overcome the world.”
What is He telling Christian spouses and their children? He is assuring them that He is still on earth in the Blessed Sacrament; that He is still offering Himself daily on our altars in the Sacrifice of the Mass; that He is literally, physically giving Himself to them in Holy Communion. Why? In order to enable them to do what is humanly beyond their natural intelligence to comprehend and beyond their natural will power to perform.
Catholic families have no choice. The psychological pressure from the world, the flesh and the devil is too strong to cope with by themselves.
The Holy Eucharist must remain, if it already is, or become, if it is not, the mainstay of their family lives. This is no option. It is a law of spiritual survival for Catholic marriages and families in every age, and with thunderous emphasis, in our day.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Pope St. Pius X identified the first meaning of the petition of the Lord's prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The primary meaning of this petition refers to the Eucharist. We are asking God in the Our Father to open the minds and hearts of believers to their need for daily Mass, daily Holy Communion, and some daily praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Why? To provide us with the daily sustenance that our life of grace requires.
I am speaking to professed Catholics. I am speaking about Catholic marriage and the family. I am speaking to those whose union in Christ must be preserved by Christ, nourished by Christ, grow in loving chastity and charity as prescribed by Christ.
Nineteen plus centuries of Catholic Christianity proves that the Holy Eucharist is absolutely necessary for married Christians to remain faithful to each other, and selfless in their mutual love. The Holy Eucharist is absolutely necessary for Catholic families to remain united in a world of selfish instability.
Witness to Christ's Power to Work Miracles
If there is one thing that stands out in Christ's visible life in Palestine it is His power to work miracles.
In one chapter after another of the Gospels, Christ performed signs and wonders that testified to His claims to being one with the Father and that, without Him, we can do nothing to reach our eternal destiny.
Christ changed water into wine at Cana in Galilee.
Christ restored sight to the blind, and speech to the mute.
Christ cured paralytics so they could use their limbs.
Christ calmed the storm at sea by a single word.
Christ even raised Lazarus from the grave. When He told the dead man to “Come forth,” what had been a decaying corpse came out of the tomb as a living human being.
But Christ's greatest miracles were not His power over the physical laws of nature. They were His power to change unbelieving hearts to become men and women of heroic virtue.
The pagans of the first three centuries A.D. were converted to Christ when they saw Christians practicing chastity and charity. It was especially the faithful and fruitful love of married Christians and the stability of Christian families, that changed pagans into believing Christians and, in the process, changed the history of the human race.
Where did the early Christians receive the incredible strength they needed to live in Holy Matrimony and propagate the faith through their saintly families? Remember, to become a Christian in those times meant to expect martyrdom. Where did Christians receive the superhuman power to live such superhuman lives? Where? From the Holy Eucharist.
It is not commonly known but should become known that in the early Church Christians heard Mass and received Holy Communion every day. The Holy Eucharist was brought to them in prison as they were awaiting martyrdom by fire or the sword, or by being devoured by wild beasts. We turn to our own day. What Christ did during His visible stay on earth in first century Asia Minor, He has continued doing down the ages by the exercise of His almighty power available in His invisible presence in the Holy Eucharist.
It is the same
Physically same,
Historically same,
Geographically same,
Really same Jesus Christ who worked miracles at the dawn of Christianity, who is now present in the Blessed Sacrament, offering Himself in the Mass, and received by us in the Holy Eucharist.
What do we conclude from this? Obviously, that Catholic families be witnesses in our day to Christ's power in their lives, as were the Christians who were mangled by lions in the Roman Colosseum, or, like St. Thomas More, were beheaded by order of a lecherous king who discarded his wife in sixteenth century England.
The Greatest Need Today
This brings us to our final reflection. I make bold to say that the single most important need for Christian marriage and the family is a renewed faith in the Holy Eucharist.
There is an outstanding statement in the Gospels about Christ performing miracles. The evangelists tell us that Jesus could not work miracles among some people because of their lack of faith.
Notice what we are saying. We are saying that the Almighty Master of Heaven and earth, the Creator of the sun, moon and stars, when he became Man was unable to exercise His omnipotence because of some people's lack of faith. Of course, this means that He could not, because He would not, work miracles where the people refused to submit their minds in humble belief to His Divinity.
Now we turn to our own time and place. Would anyone doubt that in our nation in the last decade of the twentieth century, we need an avalanche of moral miracles to preserve marriage and the family from disintegration by the demonic forces let loose in our country today?
Only God can work a miracle and we need to change the figure, an ocean of miracles in America, as in Canada as in England, and France and Germany and Scandinavia, to mention just a few materially wealthy countries that are in desperate need of divine grace where so many are walking in darkness and the shadow of eternal death.
Jesus Christ is the infinite God who became man. He became man not only to die for us on Calvary. He became man to live with us in the Holy Eucharist. Catholics have a grave responsibility. They are to stir up their faith in this continued presence of Jesus, now on earth, in our midst, in our day.
They are to obtain for themselves and for their contemporaries the power to live their married lives according to the teaching of Jesus Christ. He instituted the Sacrament of Matrimony and the Christian family to be a constant witness in an unbelieving world to what only Godbecome man can achieve.
This divine power is accessible in the Holy Eucharist to those who have the humility to believe.
Copyright © 2002 Inter Mirifica
We do not normally associate the Holy Eucharist with marriage and the family. But we should. Without the Eucharist, there would not be a livable Sacrament of Matrimony or a stable Christian family.
What are we saying? We are saying that Christ intended these two sacraments to be related as condition and consequence. The Eucharist is the condition, and matrimony as the core of the family is the supernatural consequence.
Surely this calls for an explanation, and a clear explanation.
Needless to say, this is a most important subject. It is so important that the survival of Christian marriage and the Catholic family depend on it. Are we serious? Yes. The Holy Eucharist is indispensable for living out the supernatural, and therefore humanly impossible, demands that Christ places on those who enter marriage in His name.
Our plan is to cover the following areas of this fundamental issue.
Christian marriage in the family is a life long commitment to selfless love.
This selfless love is impossible without superhuman strength from God.
The principal source of this superhuman strength is the Holy Eucharist.
Christian spouses and their families are a living witness to Christ's power to work moral miracles in the world today.
The single most important need for Christian families is a renewed faith in the Holy Eucharist
Christian Marriage and Selfless Love
Christ instituted the sacrament of marriage in order to restore marriage to its monogamous position before the fall of our first parents.
When some Pharisees came to test Jesus by asking Him: “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any reason?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Therefore now, they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:3 6).
But Christ did not stop there. He not only told His followers that marriage is a lifelong commitment that no human authority can dissolve. He further commanded those who call themselves Christians to love one another with such selfless charity as to be willing to die for one another after the example of His own selfless love of dying for us on the Cross.
This is Christian marriage as elevated by Him to the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is a lifetime covenant between husband and wife, to remain faithful to each other until death. It is also a lifelong promise, made to God under oath, to love one another with selfless charity, enduring patience, and whole hearted generosity. Even more, it is a solemn vow to accept the children that God wants to send them and educate their children for eternal life in Heaven with God.
Since the time of Christ, there have been many breaks in Christian unity. There have been many departures from the Catholic Church. There have arisen numerous churches, calling themselves Christian. Why the departures? The main single reason has been the unwillingness to accept Christ's teaching on the indissolubility and fruitfulness of Christian marriage, founded on selfless charity.
Need for Superhuman Strength
It takes no great intelligence to see that a faithful and fruitful marriage requires superhuman strength. Change the word “superhuman” to “supernatural” and we begin to see what we are talking about.
Catholic Christianity is unique among the religions of the world, whether ancient as among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans before Christ, or among the living religions of the human race.
Catholic Christianity is unique in making demands on the morality of its believers that are beyond human nature by itself to live up to. The two hardest demands are the practice of Christian chastity and Christian charity. Combine these two virtues, and we begin to see why Christian marriage and the family require, indeed demand, superhuman power from God to remain faithful to for a lifetime.
This is what Christianity is all about: living a superhuman life by means of superhuman grace provided by Christ to those who believe that He is God who became man to enable us to witness to His name.
That is why Christ elevated marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. He had to, otherwise what He commanded His married followers and their families would be an idle dream.
There are certain things that human nature, by itself cannot, and the word is “cannot” do. Like what? Like living for a lifetime in loving family partnership, without being seduced by selfishness and sexual perversion that surround us like the atmosphere we breathe.
The Eucharist Provides Superhuman Strength
Entering marriage for believing Catholics is one thing. Living in Christian marriage and raising a Christian family are something else. That is why Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The moment we say, “Sacrament of the Eucharist,” we mean a triple sacrament:
The Sacrifice Sacrament of the Mass
The Communion Sacrament of Holy Communion, and
The Presence Sacrament of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist to give those who believe in Him the power they need to remain alive in His grace. For married Catholics and their families this means the light and strength they must constantly receive if they are to live out the sublime directives of the Holy Spirit for Christian believers.
They have no choice. The world in which they live is an abortive world, that murders unborn children in their mothers' wombs. Not to be deceived by this world, whose prince, Christ tells us, is the devil, Catholic husbands and wives and their families need the light that only Christ can give. He is available with this grace through the Holy Eucharist. Not to be seduced by this world, master minded by Satan, Catholics need the courage that only Christ can give. He tells us not to be afraid. Why not? Because, as He says, “Have confidence, I have overcome the world.”
What is He telling Christian spouses and their children? He is assuring them that He is still on earth in the Blessed Sacrament; that He is still offering Himself daily on our altars in the Sacrifice of the Mass; that He is literally, physically giving Himself to them in Holy Communion. Why? In order to enable them to do what is humanly beyond their natural intelligence to comprehend and beyond their natural will power to perform.
Catholic families have no choice. The psychological pressure from the world, the flesh and the devil is too strong to cope with by themselves.
The Holy Eucharist must remain, if it already is, or become, if it is not, the mainstay of their family lives. This is no option. It is a law of spiritual survival for Catholic marriages and families in every age, and with thunderous emphasis, in our day.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Pope St. Pius X identified the first meaning of the petition of the Lord's prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” The primary meaning of this petition refers to the Eucharist. We are asking God in the Our Father to open the minds and hearts of believers to their need for daily Mass, daily Holy Communion, and some daily praying before the Blessed Sacrament. Why? To provide us with the daily sustenance that our life of grace requires.
I am speaking to professed Catholics. I am speaking about Catholic marriage and the family. I am speaking to those whose union in Christ must be preserved by Christ, nourished by Christ, grow in loving chastity and charity as prescribed by Christ.
Nineteen plus centuries of Catholic Christianity proves that the Holy Eucharist is absolutely necessary for married Christians to remain faithful to each other, and selfless in their mutual love. The Holy Eucharist is absolutely necessary for Catholic families to remain united in a world of selfish instability.
Witness to Christ's Power to Work Miracles
If there is one thing that stands out in Christ's visible life in Palestine it is His power to work miracles.
In one chapter after another of the Gospels, Christ performed signs and wonders that testified to His claims to being one with the Father and that, without Him, we can do nothing to reach our eternal destiny.
Christ changed water into wine at Cana in Galilee.
Christ restored sight to the blind, and speech to the mute.
Christ cured paralytics so they could use their limbs.
Christ calmed the storm at sea by a single word.
Christ even raised Lazarus from the grave. When He told the dead man to “Come forth,” what had been a decaying corpse came out of the tomb as a living human being.
But Christ's greatest miracles were not His power over the physical laws of nature. They were His power to change unbelieving hearts to become men and women of heroic virtue.
The pagans of the first three centuries A.D. were converted to Christ when they saw Christians practicing chastity and charity. It was especially the faithful and fruitful love of married Christians and the stability of Christian families, that changed pagans into believing Christians and, in the process, changed the history of the human race.
Where did the early Christians receive the incredible strength they needed to live in Holy Matrimony and propagate the faith through their saintly families? Remember, to become a Christian in those times meant to expect martyrdom. Where did Christians receive the superhuman power to live such superhuman lives? Where? From the Holy Eucharist.
It is not commonly known but should become known that in the early Church Christians heard Mass and received Holy Communion every day. The Holy Eucharist was brought to them in prison as they were awaiting martyrdom by fire or the sword, or by being devoured by wild beasts. We turn to our own day. What Christ did during His visible stay on earth in first century Asia Minor, He has continued doing down the ages by the exercise of His almighty power available in His invisible presence in the Holy Eucharist.
It is the same
Physically same,
Historically same,
Geographically same,
Really same Jesus Christ who worked miracles at the dawn of Christianity, who is now present in the Blessed Sacrament, offering Himself in the Mass, and received by us in the Holy Eucharist.
What do we conclude from this? Obviously, that Catholic families be witnesses in our day to Christ's power in their lives, as were the Christians who were mangled by lions in the Roman Colosseum, or, like St. Thomas More, were beheaded by order of a lecherous king who discarded his wife in sixteenth century England.
The Greatest Need Today
This brings us to our final reflection. I make bold to say that the single most important need for Christian marriage and the family is a renewed faith in the Holy Eucharist.
There is an outstanding statement in the Gospels about Christ performing miracles. The evangelists tell us that Jesus could not work miracles among some people because of their lack of faith.
Notice what we are saying. We are saying that the Almighty Master of Heaven and earth, the Creator of the sun, moon and stars, when he became Man was unable to exercise His omnipotence because of some people's lack of faith. Of course, this means that He could not, because He would not, work miracles where the people refused to submit their minds in humble belief to His Divinity.
Now we turn to our own time and place. Would anyone doubt that in our nation in the last decade of the twentieth century, we need an avalanche of moral miracles to preserve marriage and the family from disintegration by the demonic forces let loose in our country today?
Only God can work a miracle and we need to change the figure, an ocean of miracles in America, as in Canada as in England, and France and Germany and Scandinavia, to mention just a few materially wealthy countries that are in desperate need of divine grace where so many are walking in darkness and the shadow of eternal death.
Jesus Christ is the infinite God who became man. He became man not only to die for us on Calvary. He became man to live with us in the Holy Eucharist. Catholics have a grave responsibility. They are to stir up their faith in this continued presence of Jesus, now on earth, in our midst, in our day.
They are to obtain for themselves and for their contemporaries the power to live their married lives according to the teaching of Jesus Christ. He instituted the Sacrament of Matrimony and the Christian family to be a constant witness in an unbelieving world to what only Godbecome man can achieve.
This divine power is accessible in the Holy Eucharist to those who have the humility to believe.
Copyright © 2002 Inter Mirifica
Transubstantiation and Reason
Transubstantiation and Reason
John Young
Protestants reject transubstantiation, and so do many Catholic scholars. The average Catholic is vague concerning the nature of the Eucharistic presence of Christ, and one can sympathize with him, in view of the lack of clear teaching about the Most Blessed Sacrament.
The basic objection to the Catholic doctrine of the real presence is not that it is against Scripture, but that it is against reason. The words of Jesus seem plain enough. "This is my body." This is my blood." "Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life in you." "My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink." When some of his disciples complained, "This is a hard saying; who can accept it?", he didn't explain that he had not been speaking literally in saying he would give his body to eat and his blood to drink. Instead he let them go. As St. John tells us, many left him because they would not accept this teaching.
Our Lord's words are not interpreted non-literally because that is the obvious way to interpret them, but because a literal interpretation seems to be repugnant to reason. The conservative Protestant theologian Louis Berkhof, in his famous work Systematic Theology, insists that the Roman teaching "… violates the human senses, where it asks us to believe that what tastes and looks like bread and wine, is really flesh and blood: and human reason, where it requires belief in the separation of a substance and its properties and in the presence of a material body in several places at the same time, both of which are contrary to reason." [1]
Among Catholics firmly committed to all that the Church teaches, one finds much confusion and various misunderstandings regarding Christ's Eucharistic presence. Take these questions: Do we receive (for instance) Christ's head and arms and feet? If the accidents of bread were removed, would we see the substance of his body, as though a curtain had been drawn back? Are the bread and wine converted into his soul and divinity? Attempted answers to these questions show up the confusion existing in the minds of most Catholics.
Then there is the grave situation of those Catholics who think transubstantiation is against reason. Common sense and science, they believe, demand its rejection. It is an impossible theory based on the erroneous natural science of Aristotle.
This denial is extremely serious, for the Church teaches infallibly that Christ is present through transubstantiation. As the Council of Trent says, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats: "… by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation." [2] Trent pronounces an anathema against those who deny transubstantiation. [3]
Substance And Accidents
If one thinks transubstantiation is repugnant to reason, this may be due to not having understood what substance is, and how it is related to accidents. We can't see a substance or touch it or taste it, so it may seem unreal. Perhaps we tend to think of it as an inert something, having no function except to support the active qualities shown by the senses. George Berkeley (1685-1753) declared material substance to be a meaningless term. He says: "It neither acts, nor perceives, nor is perceived: for this is all that is meant by saying it is an inert, senseless, unknown substance: which is a definition entirely made up of negatives, excepting only the relative notion of its standing under or supporting." [4]
That notion of substance is grotesque, but it does not seem so to an empiricist philosopher because of his reduction of all knowledge to sense knowledge; and it continues to influence some theologians when they think about transubstantiation. That is one reason for the widespread rejection of this dogma, and the substitution of transignification or transfinalization.
The truth is that denial of the reality of substance is a contradiction of common sense. For something must either exist in its own right, such as water, a tree, a cat: or else it must exist in something else, such as color or shape. What "stands on its own feet," as it were, is a substance; what exists in something else is an accident. Denial of substances leaves color, size, weight and so on without a subject of inherence: which implies a color which is not the color of anything, size which is not the size of anything, weight which is not the weight of anything.
The substance is the essence, the nature, of a thing which exists in its own right. It isn't inert, as Berkeley imagined, but dynamic, for it is the source from which all the powers and activities emanate. The accidents depend on it for their existence and their operation.
Take a stone, by way of example. We experience its hardness, its smoothness, its color, its shape. But the substance that has these attributes eludes our observation. Even were we to break the stone in two we wouldn't see the substance; if we broke it into a hundred pieces we would be no more successful. So we might try some scientific tests, but still the results would be in the order of phenomena.
The substance of the stone is material, but it is not sensible. Yet it is not unknown, for its accidents manifest it. From the accidents perceived by sight and the other senses, the intellect gains an insight into the essence (the substance). Therefore words like stone, water, tree, horse have meaning: each brings to mind the thing named, and we have in our intellect the essence of the reality in question, although never perfectly, for no substance can be perfectly understood through abstraction from sense knowledge.
The dogma of transubstantiation teaches that the whole substance of bread is changed into that of Christ's body, and the whole substance of wine into that of his blood, leaving the accidents of bread and wine unaffected. Reason, of course, can't prove that this happens. But it is not evidently against reason either; it is above reason. Our senses, being confined to phenomena, cannot detect the change: we know it only by faith in God's word.
After the priest consecrates the bread and wine, their accidents alone remain, without inhering in any substance. They can't inhere in the bread and wine, for these no longer exist; nor do they inhere in Christ's body and blood, for they are not his accidents. The Catechism of the Council of Trent says: "… the accidents which present themselves to the eyes or other senses exist in a wonderful and ineffable manner without a subject." [5] St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that God directly sustains the quantity of bread (or wine) in being, and that the other accidents inhere in the quantity. [6] For quantity is the fundamental accident: the others, such as color, exist as quantified—as having extension. There is no such thing as a non-extended color.
Answers To Some Difficulties
I quoted Louis Berkhof's assertion that separation of a substance and its properties is contrary to reason. If we said this happened naturally it would indeed be contrary to reason. But what we say is that it happens through the supernatural action of God. He holds all things in being simply by an act of his will, the accidents depending on their substances as on secondary causes; and in the Eucharist he dispenses with those secondary causes.
What of the objection, also given by Berkhof, that a material body cannot be present in several places at the same time? Well, a substance becomes present in a place because of its quantity; substance of itself is indifferent to place. So when this unique conversion occurs, caused supernaturally by God—a conversion of substance into substance—Christ's body can be present in any number of places, being related to the place by reason of the accidents of bread which are situated there.
Berkhof asserts that it is a violation of what the senses show to be asked to accept that what tastes and looks like bread and wine is really flesh and blood. But what are we tasting and seeing? The accidents of bread and wine which remain after the consecration. They have not changed, and they taste and look as they did before the consecration. There is no denial of what the senses show.
Earlier I mentioned confusion among Catholics about the implications of Christ's Eucharistic presence, and I posed the question: Do we receive (for instance) Christ's head and arms and feet? Many today would be uncomfortable with an affirmative answer, which would savor, to them, of a grossly materialistic view of the Real Presence. Yet it is the right answer. Suppose we didn't receive those parts: then the same would have to be said of all the other parts of his body. So there'd be nothing left! We would not be receiving his body. As the Catechism of the Council of Trent says, in this sacrament are contained "… all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews…." [7]
Another question noted earlier asked whether the accidents are hiding the substance from our gaze, so that their removal would be like drawing back a curtain, allowing us to see Jesus' body. If one is tempted to say yes, a moment's reflection should show that the right answer must be no. A substance can't be seen or tasted or experienced by any of the senses. To think otherwise would reduce substances to the status of accidents, thus making it impossible to see what the dogma of transubstantiation means, and inevitably leading one into bewilderment when trying to explore the teaching.
A third question asked whether the bread and wine are converted into our Lord's soul and divinity. Most orthodox Catholics will instinctively answer yes, because they know well that we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. But that cannot be the answer, for it would involve the absurdity of a piece of bread becoming God. It would be converted from bread into divinity. A finite piece of matter would become the Infinite Spirit.
The Church teaches that the bread is changed into Christ's body and the wine into his blood, and that his soul and divinity become present through concomitance. He is one indivisible being, so when the bread is changed into his body, the whole Christ necessarily becomes present. But the actual transubstantiation—the changing of one substance into another—is only of his body and blood. It is the change of a material substance into another material substance.
As the Council of Trent says, the body is "… under the species of bread, and the blood under the species of wine, and the soul under both, by the force of that natural connection and concomitancy whereby the parts of Christ our Lord, who has now risen from the dead, to die no more, are united together: and the divinity, furthermore, on account of the admirable hypostatical union thereof with his body and soul." [8]
What of the accidents of Christ's body? They too are there; otherwise he would not be fully present. As St. Thomas says: "… since the substance of Christ's body is not really deprived of its dimensive quantity and its other accidents, hence it comes that by reason of real concomitance the whole dimensive quantity of Christ's body and all its other accidents are really in this sacrament. [9] But the mode of their existence is conditioned by the fact that Jesus becomes present through transubstantiation. Substance is converted into substance, and the accidents, consequently, are there in the manner of substance.
Think of quantity. It is the fundamental accident, as we have noted. Normally it is the accident whereby its substance occupies a place; but the essential thing it does is to give the substance parts. And in the Eucharist all the parts of Christ's body are present and are situated relatively to each other. But because of the unique way in which the quantity is there—in the manner of substance—the parts are not spread out in relation to the surrounding place. To put it another way: substance as such is distinct from quantity, and it occupies a place only because of its quantity. But when quantity becomes present through transubstantiation it exists in the manner of substance, and therefore without actual extension.
An insidious obstacle to an understanding of the Real Presence (of course it can never be fully understood in this life) is the almost overwhelming influence of the imagination. The imagination is a picture-making power which accompanies all our thinking; but it is distinct from the intellect and it deals only with what can be seen, touched or in some way sensed. The deeper level of being, accessible to the intellect, is beyond the reach of the imagination. However, the imagination still provides images, and these easily mislead us.
For example, the statement that Jesus is in the Eucharist with all his parts may bring a picture into the imagination of a tiny body small enough to fit in the host. We know it's not like that, but the imagery can still distort one's thought, or block it, or even tempt one to discard the Real Presence in favor of a symbolical or "spiritual" presence.
Deepening Our Faith
A clearer understanding of what God, through his Church, tells us about the Eucharist, and a consideration of the objections to the doctrine, should deepen our faith. Vagueness and perplexity about it are often associated with errors lurking deep in the mind—errors which, if allowed to surface, can bring temptations against faith. A right understanding will dissipate the errors and show that reason need not be embarrassed by transubstantiation, even though it far transcends reason.
Not only that, but exploration of the doctrine makes it more real to us. We realize more clearly that the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ are as truly present as they are in heaven, or as they were when he labored in his workshop in Nazareth. While that realization is dominant, every genuflection will be a conscious act of adoration of the Incarnate God; the Consecration will always absorb our attention; we will never want to hurry out of church as soon as Mass is over.
Jesus comes to us physically because of his great love for us. Anyone who loves wants to be physically close to the one who is loved, but it is sometimes impossible. It is not impossible for God. Divine power changes bread and wine into the real body and blood of Christ, and he dwells physically on earth in every tabernacle, and comes physically into us in Holy Communion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnotes
[1] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1958, p. 652.
[2] DS 1642; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1376.
[3] DS 1652.
[4] George Berkeley, On the Principles of Human Knowledge, section 68.
[5] The Catechism of the Council of Trent, translated by McHugh and Callan, Sinag-Tala Publishers, Greenhills, Phillipines, p. 229.
[6] Summa Theol., III, q. 77, a. 2.
[7] Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 233.
[8] DS 1640.
[9] Summa Theol., III, q. 76, a. 4.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. John Young, B.Th., is associated with the Cardinal Newman Catechist Centre in Marylands, N.S.W., Australia. He has taught philosophy in three seminaries, and is the author of an introduction to philosophy, Reasoning Things Out, published in the United States by Stella Maris Books, Fort Worth, Tex. Mr. Young writes on philosophical and religious topics for Australian publications. His last article in HPR appeared in March 1997.
© Ignatius Press - The Homiletic & Pastoral Review
John Young
Protestants reject transubstantiation, and so do many Catholic scholars. The average Catholic is vague concerning the nature of the Eucharistic presence of Christ, and one can sympathize with him, in view of the lack of clear teaching about the Most Blessed Sacrament.
The basic objection to the Catholic doctrine of the real presence is not that it is against Scripture, but that it is against reason. The words of Jesus seem plain enough. "This is my body." This is my blood." "Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life in you." "My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink." When some of his disciples complained, "This is a hard saying; who can accept it?", he didn't explain that he had not been speaking literally in saying he would give his body to eat and his blood to drink. Instead he let them go. As St. John tells us, many left him because they would not accept this teaching.
Our Lord's words are not interpreted non-literally because that is the obvious way to interpret them, but because a literal interpretation seems to be repugnant to reason. The conservative Protestant theologian Louis Berkhof, in his famous work Systematic Theology, insists that the Roman teaching "… violates the human senses, where it asks us to believe that what tastes and looks like bread and wine, is really flesh and blood: and human reason, where it requires belief in the separation of a substance and its properties and in the presence of a material body in several places at the same time, both of which are contrary to reason." [1]
Among Catholics firmly committed to all that the Church teaches, one finds much confusion and various misunderstandings regarding Christ's Eucharistic presence. Take these questions: Do we receive (for instance) Christ's head and arms and feet? If the accidents of bread were removed, would we see the substance of his body, as though a curtain had been drawn back? Are the bread and wine converted into his soul and divinity? Attempted answers to these questions show up the confusion existing in the minds of most Catholics.
Then there is the grave situation of those Catholics who think transubstantiation is against reason. Common sense and science, they believe, demand its rejection. It is an impossible theory based on the erroneous natural science of Aristotle.
This denial is extremely serious, for the Church teaches infallibly that Christ is present through transubstantiation. As the Council of Trent says, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats: "… by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation." [2] Trent pronounces an anathema against those who deny transubstantiation. [3]
Substance And Accidents
If one thinks transubstantiation is repugnant to reason, this may be due to not having understood what substance is, and how it is related to accidents. We can't see a substance or touch it or taste it, so it may seem unreal. Perhaps we tend to think of it as an inert something, having no function except to support the active qualities shown by the senses. George Berkeley (1685-1753) declared material substance to be a meaningless term. He says: "It neither acts, nor perceives, nor is perceived: for this is all that is meant by saying it is an inert, senseless, unknown substance: which is a definition entirely made up of negatives, excepting only the relative notion of its standing under or supporting." [4]
That notion of substance is grotesque, but it does not seem so to an empiricist philosopher because of his reduction of all knowledge to sense knowledge; and it continues to influence some theologians when they think about transubstantiation. That is one reason for the widespread rejection of this dogma, and the substitution of transignification or transfinalization.
The truth is that denial of the reality of substance is a contradiction of common sense. For something must either exist in its own right, such as water, a tree, a cat: or else it must exist in something else, such as color or shape. What "stands on its own feet," as it were, is a substance; what exists in something else is an accident. Denial of substances leaves color, size, weight and so on without a subject of inherence: which implies a color which is not the color of anything, size which is not the size of anything, weight which is not the weight of anything.
The substance is the essence, the nature, of a thing which exists in its own right. It isn't inert, as Berkeley imagined, but dynamic, for it is the source from which all the powers and activities emanate. The accidents depend on it for their existence and their operation.
Take a stone, by way of example. We experience its hardness, its smoothness, its color, its shape. But the substance that has these attributes eludes our observation. Even were we to break the stone in two we wouldn't see the substance; if we broke it into a hundred pieces we would be no more successful. So we might try some scientific tests, but still the results would be in the order of phenomena.
The substance of the stone is material, but it is not sensible. Yet it is not unknown, for its accidents manifest it. From the accidents perceived by sight and the other senses, the intellect gains an insight into the essence (the substance). Therefore words like stone, water, tree, horse have meaning: each brings to mind the thing named, and we have in our intellect the essence of the reality in question, although never perfectly, for no substance can be perfectly understood through abstraction from sense knowledge.
The dogma of transubstantiation teaches that the whole substance of bread is changed into that of Christ's body, and the whole substance of wine into that of his blood, leaving the accidents of bread and wine unaffected. Reason, of course, can't prove that this happens. But it is not evidently against reason either; it is above reason. Our senses, being confined to phenomena, cannot detect the change: we know it only by faith in God's word.
After the priest consecrates the bread and wine, their accidents alone remain, without inhering in any substance. They can't inhere in the bread and wine, for these no longer exist; nor do they inhere in Christ's body and blood, for they are not his accidents. The Catechism of the Council of Trent says: "… the accidents which present themselves to the eyes or other senses exist in a wonderful and ineffable manner without a subject." [5] St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that God directly sustains the quantity of bread (or wine) in being, and that the other accidents inhere in the quantity. [6] For quantity is the fundamental accident: the others, such as color, exist as quantified—as having extension. There is no such thing as a non-extended color.
Answers To Some Difficulties
I quoted Louis Berkhof's assertion that separation of a substance and its properties is contrary to reason. If we said this happened naturally it would indeed be contrary to reason. But what we say is that it happens through the supernatural action of God. He holds all things in being simply by an act of his will, the accidents depending on their substances as on secondary causes; and in the Eucharist he dispenses with those secondary causes.
What of the objection, also given by Berkhof, that a material body cannot be present in several places at the same time? Well, a substance becomes present in a place because of its quantity; substance of itself is indifferent to place. So when this unique conversion occurs, caused supernaturally by God—a conversion of substance into substance—Christ's body can be present in any number of places, being related to the place by reason of the accidents of bread which are situated there.
Berkhof asserts that it is a violation of what the senses show to be asked to accept that what tastes and looks like bread and wine is really flesh and blood. But what are we tasting and seeing? The accidents of bread and wine which remain after the consecration. They have not changed, and they taste and look as they did before the consecration. There is no denial of what the senses show.
Earlier I mentioned confusion among Catholics about the implications of Christ's Eucharistic presence, and I posed the question: Do we receive (for instance) Christ's head and arms and feet? Many today would be uncomfortable with an affirmative answer, which would savor, to them, of a grossly materialistic view of the Real Presence. Yet it is the right answer. Suppose we didn't receive those parts: then the same would have to be said of all the other parts of his body. So there'd be nothing left! We would not be receiving his body. As the Catechism of the Council of Trent says, in this sacrament are contained "… all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews…." [7]
Another question noted earlier asked whether the accidents are hiding the substance from our gaze, so that their removal would be like drawing back a curtain, allowing us to see Jesus' body. If one is tempted to say yes, a moment's reflection should show that the right answer must be no. A substance can't be seen or tasted or experienced by any of the senses. To think otherwise would reduce substances to the status of accidents, thus making it impossible to see what the dogma of transubstantiation means, and inevitably leading one into bewilderment when trying to explore the teaching.
A third question asked whether the bread and wine are converted into our Lord's soul and divinity. Most orthodox Catholics will instinctively answer yes, because they know well that we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. But that cannot be the answer, for it would involve the absurdity of a piece of bread becoming God. It would be converted from bread into divinity. A finite piece of matter would become the Infinite Spirit.
The Church teaches that the bread is changed into Christ's body and the wine into his blood, and that his soul and divinity become present through concomitance. He is one indivisible being, so when the bread is changed into his body, the whole Christ necessarily becomes present. But the actual transubstantiation—the changing of one substance into another—is only of his body and blood. It is the change of a material substance into another material substance.
As the Council of Trent says, the body is "… under the species of bread, and the blood under the species of wine, and the soul under both, by the force of that natural connection and concomitancy whereby the parts of Christ our Lord, who has now risen from the dead, to die no more, are united together: and the divinity, furthermore, on account of the admirable hypostatical union thereof with his body and soul." [8]
What of the accidents of Christ's body? They too are there; otherwise he would not be fully present. As St. Thomas says: "… since the substance of Christ's body is not really deprived of its dimensive quantity and its other accidents, hence it comes that by reason of real concomitance the whole dimensive quantity of Christ's body and all its other accidents are really in this sacrament. [9] But the mode of their existence is conditioned by the fact that Jesus becomes present through transubstantiation. Substance is converted into substance, and the accidents, consequently, are there in the manner of substance.
Think of quantity. It is the fundamental accident, as we have noted. Normally it is the accident whereby its substance occupies a place; but the essential thing it does is to give the substance parts. And in the Eucharist all the parts of Christ's body are present and are situated relatively to each other. But because of the unique way in which the quantity is there—in the manner of substance—the parts are not spread out in relation to the surrounding place. To put it another way: substance as such is distinct from quantity, and it occupies a place only because of its quantity. But when quantity becomes present through transubstantiation it exists in the manner of substance, and therefore without actual extension.
An insidious obstacle to an understanding of the Real Presence (of course it can never be fully understood in this life) is the almost overwhelming influence of the imagination. The imagination is a picture-making power which accompanies all our thinking; but it is distinct from the intellect and it deals only with what can be seen, touched or in some way sensed. The deeper level of being, accessible to the intellect, is beyond the reach of the imagination. However, the imagination still provides images, and these easily mislead us.
For example, the statement that Jesus is in the Eucharist with all his parts may bring a picture into the imagination of a tiny body small enough to fit in the host. We know it's not like that, but the imagery can still distort one's thought, or block it, or even tempt one to discard the Real Presence in favor of a symbolical or "spiritual" presence.
Deepening Our Faith
A clearer understanding of what God, through his Church, tells us about the Eucharist, and a consideration of the objections to the doctrine, should deepen our faith. Vagueness and perplexity about it are often associated with errors lurking deep in the mind—errors which, if allowed to surface, can bring temptations against faith. A right understanding will dissipate the errors and show that reason need not be embarrassed by transubstantiation, even though it far transcends reason.
Not only that, but exploration of the doctrine makes it more real to us. We realize more clearly that the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ are as truly present as they are in heaven, or as they were when he labored in his workshop in Nazareth. While that realization is dominant, every genuflection will be a conscious act of adoration of the Incarnate God; the Consecration will always absorb our attention; we will never want to hurry out of church as soon as Mass is over.
Jesus comes to us physically because of his great love for us. Anyone who loves wants to be physically close to the one who is loved, but it is sometimes impossible. It is not impossible for God. Divine power changes bread and wine into the real body and blood of Christ, and he dwells physically on earth in every tabernacle, and comes physically into us in Holy Communion.
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Endnotes
[1] Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1958, p. 652.
[2] DS 1642; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1376.
[3] DS 1652.
[4] George Berkeley, On the Principles of Human Knowledge, section 68.
[5] The Catechism of the Council of Trent, translated by McHugh and Callan, Sinag-Tala Publishers, Greenhills, Phillipines, p. 229.
[6] Summa Theol., III, q. 77, a. 2.
[7] Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 233.
[8] DS 1640.
[9] Summa Theol., III, q. 76, a. 4.
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Mr. John Young, B.Th., is associated with the Cardinal Newman Catechist Centre in Marylands, N.S.W., Australia. He has taught philosophy in three seminaries, and is the author of an introduction to philosophy, Reasoning Things Out, published in the United States by Stella Maris Books, Fort Worth, Tex. Mr. Young writes on philosophical and religious topics for Australian publications. His last article in HPR appeared in March 1997.
© Ignatius Press - The Homiletic & Pastoral Review
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
St. Bernard's Homily on Our Lady
"Amid dangers, difficulties, and doubts, think of Mary, invoke Mary's aid.... If you follow her, you will not stray; if you entreat her, you will not lose hope; if you reflect upon her, you will not err; if she supports you, you will not fall; if she protects you, you will not fear; if she leads you, you will not grow weary; if she is propitious, you will reach your goal...."
(St. Bernard, Second Homily on the Missus est: PL CLXXXIII, 70-71.)
(St. Bernard, Second Homily on the Missus est: PL CLXXXIII, 70-71.)
Updated Review Sheet for Mid-Term
Freshman Religion
Review for Mid-Term
Points from Compendium which will be on the examination:
252 270 304 336
253 271 309 338
256 272 317 339
258 275 318 341
260 276 319 343
262 278 320 344
263 282 325 346
266 286 326 347
267 297 331 349
268 300 332
269 303 333
Review for Mid-Term
Points from Compendium which will be on the examination:
252 270 304 336
253 271 309 338
256 272 317 339
258 275 318 341
260 276 319 343
262 278 320 344
263 282 325 346
266 286 326 347
267 297 331 349
268 300 332
269 303 333
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