Quote Of The Day

“The only petition I would have you put forward on my behalf is that I may be given sufficient inward and outward strength to be as resolute in will as in words, and a Christian in reality instead of only in repute.”  - St. Ignatius of Antioch, martyr

The Feast of Corpus Christi: The Real Presence and Transubstantiation

 

I hear claims that Catholics worship Mary, or the saints.  This is wrong, and easily disproven.  It's a simple lack of understanding that PRAYER means "talking to", and not worshipping... that VENERATE means showing respect for, and not worshipping... and that the COMMUNION OF SAINTS tells us that we are one body of Christ, whether alive or dead.   We support one another, we implore our Heavenly Father on behalf of one another... whether alive or dead.  Any time a Christian asks another Christian to pray for them, they are doing no more than Catholics do with the saints or Mary.  We ask others to intercede on our behalf all the time.  Catholics just believe that it doesn't have to be limited to those few people who happen to be currently alive and walking the planet. To say otherwise... a misconception.

 If a person was really to accuse Catholics of something "scandalous" in the eyes of our modern world, they would convict us of something even crazier than "worshipping saints".  They would accuse us of "worshipping bread".   Funny that I've never heard this accusation leveled, amongst the thousands and thousands of anti-Catholic sentiments out there.  If someone DID make such a claim... a true Catholic would have to say "well, uh, YEAH.  I do."  Because the Eucharist is the heart and summit of all that we believe in Catholicism - and it's been that way since the very beginning of Christendom. 

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, and I've been trying to wrap my head around the concept of transubstantiation - the process by which ordinary bread and wine becomes CHRIST.  This was made a doctrine of the church in the middle ages - but it was the TEACHING of the church from the get go.  In  1 Cor. 10:16–17, Paul states "¹⁶ Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? ¹⁷ Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf."

Later in the same book (11:23–29) we read
²³ For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
²⁷ So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. ²⁹ For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.;

But is Jesus speaking metaphorically?  Symbolically?  Is He just giving one more parable, like the mustard seed?   John 6:53–68 tells us definitively NO. 
⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵ for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹ He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
⁶⁰ When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” ⁶¹ But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³ It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴ But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵ And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
⁶⁶ Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷ So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. "

Jesus, when the crowds turned away because what He said was INCREDIBLE, did not rush after them and say "NO NO NO!  I was just telling a parable!  It was just a metaphor!".  No.  He let them go, and then turned to the twelve, and invited THEM to leave Him too.  "Does this offend you?"  He asks.  Why would a metaphor offend them?  Why would a parable, or a symbol offend them?  The truly OFFENSIVE thing was that He was NOT speaking metaphorically.  He was asking them to EAT HIS FLESH AND DRINK HIS BLOOD.  How do we wrap our minds around THAT? And yet we today, like the Apostles, can only answer "Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life." 

The Early Christians were not put to death because they were accused of worshipping Mary .  They were put to death on charges of CANNIBALISM.  Honestly.  Because it was so widely known that they believed in the True Presence in the Eucharist.  And yet - consumption of the Eucharist is not in any remote way cannibalism.  Here are what some of the Early Church Father's say about the Real Presence....

"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible" (St. Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).

"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (St. Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

 

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (Justin Martyr First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

There is much, much more in the literature of the early Church, but for brevity's sake, I won't go into it here.  Suffice it to say that there can be NO DOUBT that what the Christian Church taught from the MOMENT OF THE LAST SUPPER, when Christ instituted the Eucharist... is that Christ was truly present - body, blood, soul and divinity - in these unimpressive earthly elements of consecrated bread and wine.  Today, those who would claim it is a "symbol" only - they are those who, like the crowd at the synagogue in Capernum, find the truth too hard a concept to accept.  

So... HOW does it happen?   How does bread and wine become Christ's flesh and blood?  THAT is what transubstantiation is.  It is different than annihilism, and consubstantiation - two other dogmas that still teach the True Presence in the Eucharist, but differ in the "how".    Annihilism teaches that once the bread and wine become Christ, the bread and wine no longer exist - they are annihilated.  Consubstantiation teaches that Christ comes to be in the bread and wine, but the bread and wine don't go away - they reside side by side with Christ - a dual nature.

I have never had to defend my Catholic faith against annihilism - and I honestly don't know if any Christian sect adheres to this concept as did heretics in early times (it smacks of Gnosticism, really).  But consubstantiation is alive and well, and, being married to a Lutheran - it's a topic of discussion that has come up in my very home.  Historically, I've always taken a somewhat "agnostic" approach to the "HOW", saying "I don't know HOW Christ comes to be in to the Eucharist, but He DOES.  I was commanded by Christ to 'take and eat', not 'take and understand'."  I can rely on faith that God works through the words of consecration and performs a miracle each and every Sunday, without having to understand how that whole process works. 

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that my understanding of "HOW" does matter - not on a microscopic, molecular level; but rather in how I treat the Eucharist, how I orient myself to it in my day to day life.

SO, what of consubstantiation versus transubstantiation?  I look at the bread and wine, and I SEE the bread and wine.  It certainly doesn't look like a man from 1st century Palestine standing there. Consubstantiation, then, would be - at least to me - a very "easy" pill to swallow.  Bread's still there, because that's what I perceive - it's just that Christ spiritually becomes present next to it.  I can wrap my dull little brain around that - it seems more "logical" to me.  Put the bread under a microscope, run some tests, and conclude definitively - YUP.  Still bread.  I can then treat the Eucharist as bread, because that's what it is.  It's SPECIAL bread.  But it's still BREAD.  It doesn't need pomp and circumstance.  I treat it with respect, but what's important is that spiritual side... and that only has an effect once it's inside a person, once it's consumed.   Logical - not too weird.  I can wrap my head around that. I'm not offended by that in any way.

Contrast that to how the Eucharist is treated from the stand point of transubstantiation.   Case in point: today, on the feast of Corpus Christi, I will take my children to mass, where we will kneel in front of the Eucharist, which is housed in a tabernacle of gold.  We will go to adoration, where we will kneel and pray in front of the species, as it is displayed in a golden monstrance, and then we will process - hundreds of us, singing and praying - led by the Eucharist, from one church to the next, to celebrate that JESUS IS HERE, with us HERE in this bread... .PHYSICALLY.  That's a whole lotta pomp and circumstance for a piece of bread.  But it demonstrates the ultimate truth of Christendom.  IT'S NOT JUST BREAD.  We're acknowledging that CHRIST IS PRESENT - truly present - and celebrating as such.

So, what are we to believe?  How are we to treat the Eucharist?  Like JESUS HIMSELF is physically visiting us?  Or like a very special piece of bread that has a spiritual effect once it's consumed?  The Church, from it's inception, has taught one thing, and one thing only in that regard, but  I am a stubborn human being, and I've got to be able to understand for myself  (although I think I'd be a much stronger Christian if I could just believe what I'm taught without having to question everything).  So I've been pondering this, and God has been presenting me with these little "awakenings" at just the right times, as He always seems to do.  And, just as always seems to happen - what He teaches me and presents to me, when I go back and look what the Church teaches - is already there.  Has been there for 2,000 years.  I am not discovering one iota of anything new or novel.   What He presents  to me as this enlightenment, this satori "AHA!" moment, upon further investigation is just what has always been taught in orthodox Christendom.  Which is as it should be.  Because He already fully revealed Himself in Christ, and established His Church. 

So, what I've been slowly realizing, in my overly-wordy way, is how Christ's grace works in US.  Through baptism, through sanctification.  We are told in the Bible that through baptism, we are "reborn" - our old natures are thrown off, and we become a new creature in Christ.  We don't "coincide" with Christ.  He TRANSFORMS us, to something wholly new.  Of course, anyone on the outside can see that we're still here - knocking around inside our same ol' bodies.  We don't look any different on the outside.  Our physical nature remains unchanged.  But our substance has FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED.  We have taken on a divine nature - CHRIST'S nature, through baptism.  God has taken the physical, and changed the spiritual.   We've shed our old self, even though on the outside - nothing looks even remotely different, beside that we're now a little wet.   And it occurs to me that this is what Christ does through the Eucharist as well.  The FORM of the bread and wine does not change -  our senses still perceive bread and wine.  But the SUBSTANCE - that which is essential - has changed dramatically.  It's no longer bread and wine.  It has taken on the nature of Christ - His body.  His blood.  So that we might be just as "transubstantiated" as a piece of bread and a cup of wine was.  So that WE might take on His nature, so that WE might have His life in us. So that He may "abide in us".    To prepare our very beings for the sight of God one day. 

There is such a beautiful UNIVERSALITY in the Church, the depths of which are so deep - after 40 years I have only begun to scratch the surface.  The more I study, the more I pray, the more I UNDERSTAND - the more I see how God works. I see the gifts He has given us, I see His mercy, and His love.  His plan.  Begun, actuated, and completed by Christ.

Viva La Christos!