Transubstantiation Pt. 3

Previously I said I wanted to take an in depth look from the totality of the Bible as to how Transubstantiation is definitively supported with the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. As I mentioned Hiram Diaz seems to find no single verse of scripture from which to see a defense of the Catholic position.

Strange, because the totality of scriptures seem to me to be loaded with them. The first reference to a blessing of bread and wine comes in Genesis 14:18 when Abram meets Melchizedek. Abram is returning from battle when the priest (Melchizedek) comes out and blesses the bread and wine and gives it to him.

Fine you might say it's bread and wine. That doesn't support Transubstantiation on its own, but it helps build the house. We see in Hebrews 7 that Melchizedek is a type of Christ. He offered bread and wine to Abram, which is the same thing Christ offers to the Twelve that night in the Upper Room.

While they were held as slaves in Egypt the Israelites found someone who would lead them to freedom, Moses. God told the Israelites to celebrate a special feast, Passover. He would go through the land slaughtering the firstborn sons of Egypt, but the Jewish people would be spared because of blood from a freshly slaughtered Lamb on their doors.

The Passover feast had some special rules. Each family was to take a spotless firstborn male lamb from their flock, slaughter it and roast it. They were also told that the entire lamb had to be consumed, nothing could be left overnight. They were also to throw out all the leaven and eat only unleavened bread.

Interestingly enough especially later on anyone desiring to take part in the Passover feast had to be a Jew. It was a closed feast, that will come back up later.

I mentioned previously that Hiram Diaz refused to answer my question regarding whether the lamb was to be eaten. I think he knew where I would take him if he answered me. Revelation that great and terrible book that closes scripture. In between all of the frightful bits of prophesy Revelation is actually a great Passover liturgy.

Interestingly in chapter 5 we see Christ referred to as the lion of Judah and the root of David. However when St. John looks he sees a lamb appearing as though it has been slain Rev. 5:5-8. Why is the victorious Christ, vanquisher of death, crusher of sin, seen in His heavenly glory sitting on His throne as a newly slain lamb? Because as we learn in Hebrews 13:8 Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Since time began He has been the lamb slain for the remission of sin.

That being said, if even in his heavenly glory Christ is the newly slain lamb of the Passover. He must even during the Incarnation have still existed outside of time as humans know it, thus for Him the Law has always been fulfilled. Thus rendering any attempt to turn Transubstantiation into some sort of sin against the Law moot.

Let's go back to that Upper Room, Christ having "eagerly desired" to celebrate one last Passover with His apostles reclines at table with the Twelve Lk. 22:12.Christ then takes the bread and wine blessing them and sharing them with the apostles: Cf. Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; 1 Corinthians 11:21-25.

Curiously the institution narrative is absent in John's Gospel. However in John 6 we see the famous Bread of Life discourse in which Christ explains that for His disciples to have eternal life they must eat His flesh and drink His blood.

Some of you out there might now be saying sure but none of this says that a priest can say some words over a wafer of bread and a cup of wine and make it truly the Body of Christ or the Blood of Christ. Indeed that is never directly taught. However it is clear that Christ intends for the Apostles to be the beginning of a new ministerial priesthood. As such He implores them to repeat the blessing over the bread and wine "Do this in memory of Me."

The New Testament ministerial priesthood is perfectly foretold in the Old Testament as Malachi 1:11 shows. The prophet describes a time when God's name would be great even among the Gentiles and a "perfect offering" would be made to Him, from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Pretty sure you will find a Catholic Mass being offered somewhere in the world every hour of every day of every year. Save for Good Friday, no Mass that day, no sacraments at all in fact, except in cases of dire need.

So Communion for a Catholic is all about receiving the Lord whole and entire: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity with every reception of the sacrament. It is a closed feast like the OT Passover after all we have to protect the solemnity and dignity of such a great mystery.

The actual mechanics of what happens to transform the bread and wine are just that a mystery, part of the great exercise of faith.

For me the faith stands or falls on this one thing, that is why I go to such lengths to defend it. It's also why I get so angry about people who are so derisive about it, especially without a sound attempt at a refutation.

Transubstantiation and Invincible Ignorance

So Saturday night I just couldn't sleep, stupid Daylight Savings Time messes me up every time. I started to cruise around some old internet faves, including Hiram Diaz's blog. I know I shouldn't go looking for a fight, but sometimes it's irresistible.

Mr. Diaz was at it again back in January attempting to refute Transubstantiation one more time. According to himself he has done it up real nice. However he still falls into the same logical pits he always has. First off stating in his post that there was in fact no scriptural basis for the most central of Catholic beliefs.

Well of course I had to respond. Citing John 6: 53-58 I reminded him that Christ in fact issued the command His own self. Five times in five verses in fact, Christ says just that. I knew what would be coming and sure enough his initial reply was a no reply. I was "question begging," sure I said I am begging you to answer to my questions.

Bottom line I still haven't gotten an answer as to how one should interpret those verses seeing as they entail a direct command from Christ. Just a lot of dancing around about how my position entails a logical contradiction, or how it violates the Levitical laws.

I'm even willing to stipulate it does violate the Levitical law, however Christ fulfilled the law. Which is another sticking point for us because we differ as to when and how the law was fulfilled.

Largely Diaz lashes about wildly kicking at a wall in a house built on rock and saying there I knocked your whole house down. Well the big bad wolf routine is amusing but ineffective.

Perhaps he fails to realize that Catholic dogmas all build and layer into one another; thus refuting Transubstantiation requires a little more than throwing around the idea that it violates the Law. It requires more than his pet theory regarding the state of Christ's body and whether the Real Presence is Christ's mortal or Resurrected body.

I have largely decided that Diaz is perhaps one of the invincibly ignorant. I thought they were a myth, like Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster.

I even attempted to reframe the question asking about whether Old Testament Jews were required to eat the Passover Lamb. He flatly refused to answer the question, I feel he probably knew (thus maybe his ignorance is a choice and not invincible) that I would lead him from the OT to the New showing how Jesus as the new lamb of the Passover had to be eaten.

It's an interesting look through the lens of salvation history one I will go even further in depth on tomorrow.

Tying Up Some Loose Ends....

In recent posts I wrote a defense of  Transubstantiation and showed some writings from Ignatius of Antioch. It occurred to me today that the two dovetail nicely into a third topic. That topic being the idea that one of Catholicism's bedrock claims for Transubstantiation relies on John 6. Ignatius was a student of John's and he was so blatantly Eucharistic in his thinking so clearly a defender of the Real Presence that that should speak volumes to us about the topic.


Now if John was the last living apostle (tradition says he was), and one of his students teaching from one of his texts says that we are to take Christ literally in the account of the Bread of Life Discourse (Jn. 6:48-70); wouldn't he (John) have done something (written something against Ignatius, counseled others that he (Ignatius) was "off the reservation", something, anything).

It stands to reason it's not like the early church was free of disagreement or that the Church Father's didn't know how to call someone out for teaching what they thought was heresy. I mean I realize this was a couple hundred years later but just look at how St. Jerome hands Rufinus his ass:

"I have learned not only from your letter but from those of many others that cavils are raised against me in the school of Tyrannus, "by the tongue of my dogs from the enemies by himself" because I have translated the books Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν into Latin. What unprecedented shamelessness is this! They accuse the physician for detecting the poison: and this in order to protect their vendor of drugs, not in obtaining the reward of innocence but in his partnership with the criminal; as if the number of the offenders diminished the crime, or as if the accusation depended on our personal feelings not on the facts. Pamphlets are written against me; they are forced on every one's attention; and yet they are not openly published, so that the hearts of the simple are disturbed, and no opportunity is given me of answering."

So clearly church fathers knew how to disagree. Now returning to the topic at hand, men of goodwill can and have disagreed mightily about the Lord's words in John's Gospel as well as other passages Catholics proclaim as teaching the Real Presence; however if a student of the last living apostle was already that far afield how can any of us proclaim the Truth, unless of course that was Truth.

After all John was (to borrow from the six degrees of separation idea) one degree from Christ; ergo Ignatius was only two. Now if someone two degrees from Christ was preaching, teaching and expounding on the idea that He was fully, truly present in the Eucharist. If that wasn't the catholic view, then when did such heresy began and take such root to be the Catholic view.

After all if Christ couldn't maintain His promise to lead us into all truth (Jn. 16:13) or that the Gates of Hades wouldn't prevail against His church (Matt. 16:18). Then He also failed to be with us always even unto the end of the age (Mt. 28:20).

After all Ignatius was as I said living mere decades after Christ and he taught a Real Presence. If that was false then, it would still be false today. However as we see in John 6:55. Christ promises to raise us up on the last day if we "eat His flesh and drink His blood."

ChurchFathers.org has a great selection of quotes from the Early Fathers discussing the Eucharist and the Real Presence. Some of which have been mentioned in this space before.

And if you missed Joe's recent post at Shameless Popery about the Early Church remaining silent in the face of this "heresy" check it out.

Another great post of recent vintage is this one from Brantley over at Young, Evangelical and Catholic.

So if this is such a grave heresy, where is the evidence? Has that big, evil, monolithic Catholic church merely destroyed it all in order to maintain power? Is it hidden in some wing of the Vatican Archives, or could it maybe, just maybe be that Catholics have held the same view for lo, these 2,000 years because the Apostles handed that view on and succeeding generations maintained it as part of the Deposit of Faith.

Thoughts on Ignatius of Antioch

Today is the feast day of St. Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius studied under the Apostle John and became a bishop in Antioch, one of the main hubs of early Christianity. Ignatius also wrote letters so Catholic in their theological bent that John Calvin denounced them as forgeries. That's my kind of Church Father.

Here is an example of the venom Calvin laid out against Ignatius:

"With regard to what they pretend as to Ignatius, if they would have it to be of the least importance, let them prove that the apostles enacted laws concerning Lent, and other corruptions. Nothing can be more nauseating, than the absurdities which have been published under the name of Ignatius; and therefore, the conduct of those who provide themselves with such masks for deception is the less entitled to toleration."

Emphasis added

That's right Ignatius was nauseating to Calvin; let's have a gander at why that might be:

Ignatius on the Eucharist: 

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils.

Epistle to the Smyrnaeans Chp. 7

Ignatius on the Authority of Bishops/The Church:

Now the more any one sees the bishop keeping silence, the more ought he to revere him. For we ought to receive every one whom the Master of the house sends to be over His household, (Matthew 24:25) as we would do Him that sent him. It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself. And indeed Onesimus himself greatly commends your good order in God, that you all live according to the truth, and that no sect has any dwelling-place among you. Nor, indeed, do you hearken to any one rather than to Jesus Christ speaking in truth.

Epistle to the Ephesians Chp. 6

Now it becomes you also not to treat your bishop too familiarly on account of his youth, but to yield him all reverence, having respect to the power of God the Father, as I have known even holy presbyters do, not judging rashly, from the manifest youthful appearance [of their bishop], but as being themselves prudent in God, submitting to him, or rather not to him, but to the Father of Jesus Christ, the bishop of us all. It is therefore fitting that you should, after no hypocritical fashion, obey [your bishop], in honour of Him who has willed us [so to do], since he that does not so deceives not [by such conduct] the bishop that is visible, but seeks to mock Him that is invisible. And all such conduct has reference not to man, but to God, who knows all secrets.

Epistle to the Magnesians Chp. 3

As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do anything without the bishop and presbyters. Neither endeavour that anything appear reasonable and proper to yourselves apart; but being come together into the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent. Therefore run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one.

Magnesians Chp. 7

In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrim [sic] of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church. Concerning all this, I am persuaded that you are of the same opinion. For I have received the manifestation of your love, and still have it with me, in your bishop, whose very appearance is highly instructive, and his meekness of itself a power; whom I imagine even the ungodly must reverence, seeing they are also pleased that I do not spare myself. But shall I, when permitted to write on this point, reach such a height of self-esteem, that though being a condemned man, I should issue commands to you as if I were an apostle?

To the Trallians Chp. 3

Wherefore, as children of light and truth, flee from division and wicked doctrines; but where the shepherd is, there follow as sheep. For there are many wolves that appear worthy of credit, who, by means of a pernicious pleasure, carry captive (2 Timothy 3:6) those that are running towards God; but in your unity they shall have no place.

To the Philadelphians Chp. 2

See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.

To the Smyrnaeans Chp. 8

No wonder Calvin didn't like this guy, he is almost obnoxiously Catholic. What with all that Real Presence talk and submitting to the authority of the Church. Perhaps we should all strive to be a little more like him.

And if you want to see true faith in action read his Epistle to the Romans, dealing with his impending martyrdom.

All quotations from New Advent's section on the Church Fathers available here.

A Defense of Transubstantiation

Buckle up everyone as we are about to take a tour through perhaps the oldest doctrine of Roman Catholicism. In our tour I will define, explain, defend and prove that the idea of Transubstantiation is not only biblical, historical and necessary, but also truth itself.

Let's start with definition of a few key terms:

• Transubstantiation: The belief held by Catholics (and all Christians until the Protestant Era) that during the words of consecration the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper become truly His Body and Blood, in a real and sacramental way. 
• Real Presence: The belief that Christ is really and substantially present in both species of the Eucharist. 
• Consubstantiation: Martin Luther's teaching that the bread and Christ are both present in the Host. Rejected by Catholics and later "Reformers" alike. Those reformers after Luther maintained a strictly symbolic view of the Eucharist.

I have mentioned in this space an ongoing debate I was having on Facebook. My opponent quit the debate but posted his refutation of the doctrine at his blog here. 

So in many ways this shall serve as my answer to him as well as just a good chance to examine a core Catholic belief.

The crux of the whole argument comes down to a few key passages from Scripture.

For starters John 6: 48-70 is a passage known as the Bread of Life discourse. It is one of Jesus' longest teachings in John's Gospel. In the course of that teaching Jesus instructs his followers that if they desire eternal life they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Jesus counterweighs this radical, and obviously scandalous new teaching by discussing the manna in the desert. We know from Scripture that the manna was considered among the holiest of holy things as the Jewish people kept a jar of it in the Ark (Heb 9:4).

In Psalm 78: 24-25 we see the manna called the bread of Heaven; the bread of the angels. This was indeed special bread. Reading from a strict typological perspective the New Testament bread from Heaven must be even more spectacular. Indeed Christ tells us He is the new bread of life, the new Manna from Heaven.

Now some raise the point that Levitical law prohibited the drinking of blood. Indeed it did, however Christ as the fulfillment of the old law abrogates that, as He commands the people that if they wish to be raised on the last day they must eat My flesh and drink my blood. Christ clears this up at the end of the discourse after many people "drew away and no longer walked with Him... (John 6:67)." Christ looks to the Twelve; asking them will you also go away? St. Peter answers Him in the negative. The apostles have heard and don't quite understand but again they know that Christ is the "Son of God."

There is a similar passage in Matthew 5:21-35. Wherein Jesus abrogates or in some cases strengthens portions of the Mosaic law.

With those points out of the way let's investigate some claims made against the doctrine by my opponent. He cites Luke 24:38-39 as somehow proof that Christ had no blood in His resurrected body. An interesting claim, but one without an exegetical basis. For in Genesis 2:23 Adam refers to Eve as flesh and bone...does that mean she has not blood within her? After all this is before the fall she is immaculately created, so her body should in fact be every bit identical (save basic gender differences) to Christ's resurrected body.

Further St. Ambrose of Milan uses those very verses (Lk. 24:39) to defend Transubstantiation:

123. If, then, there has neither been a time when the Life of the Son took a commencement, nor any power to which it has been subjected, let us consider what His meaning was when He said: Even as the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father? Let us expound His meaning as best we can; nay, rather let Him expound it Himself.

124. Take notice, then, what He said in an earlier part of His discourse. Verily, verily, I say unto you. He first teaches you how you ought to listen. Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall have no life in you. John 6:54 He first premised that He was speaking as Son of Man; do you then think that what He has said, as Son of Man, concerning His Flesh and His Blood, is to be applied to His Godhead?

125. Then He added: For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink [indeed]. John 6:56 You hear Him speak of His Flesh and of His Blood, you perceive the sacred pledges, [conveying to us the merits and power] of the Lord's death, John 6:52 and you dishonour His Godhead. Hear His own words: A spirit has not flesh and bones. Luke 24:39 Now we, as often as we receive the Sacramental Elements, which by the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed into the Flesh and the Blood, do show the Lord's Death.

When I pointed this passage out to my opponent I was accused of proof-texting. Right, because I need to pull one quote by one father to support my view. He also submits that there is a "disagreement" on what Ambrose meant, I submit it is no disagreement it is merely Protestant academics attempting to cast shadows to support their theologically novel doctrines. Ambrose is evidently being targeted now as they failed to do the same with Augustine.

Further to dispel his biggest argument, hardly merits discussion other than to quickly correct his false explanation. Reminds me of what Abp. Sheen once said "There are not even 100 people in this country who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they think the Catholic Church to be." I think the late Archbishop even expanded on that frequent remark adding that even Catholics would hate the church if it was what it was purported to be.

Now Catholics as I say do believe in the Real Presence of Christ. However while that Presence is Real it is a Sacramental presence. Meaning that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ is contained in that consecrated bread and wine. In other words He is not physically present, but that Presence is still literal.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

1333 At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood...the Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.¹⁵³

1336 The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the announcement of the Passion scandalized them: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"¹⁵⁸ The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. "Will you also go away?":¹⁵⁹ The Lord's question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has "the words of eternal life"¹⁶⁰ and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.

...

1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend."¹⁹⁹ In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained."²⁰⁰ "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."²⁰¹

1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. the Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion.

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that 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."²⁰⁴

My opponent also claims that this doctrine cannot be true because Christ or the Apostles did not teach it. This is a rather weak case of arguing from silence and I believe he knows that to be true in his heart. For if they did not teach this doctrine where was the outrage when certain of the father's taught it to be true. Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr. Ignatius is especially damning of his argument since he learned from the Apostle John. Yet he proclaimed the truth of the Real Presence. If someone who learned from an Apostle held and taught this to be true and there were no cries of heresy from the other bishops or fathers to be heard than in fact that must have been the universal teaching of Holy Mother Church.

Edited to Add: For another thing if  the Apostles didn't teach a Real Presence/Transubstantiation view, then St. Paul's warning to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:27) is ridiculously overblown. To in essence be called guilty of murder for unworthy consumption of  a symbol is a bit much.

As to the supposed moral dilemma presented by my opponent:

"The Lord tells His people that He does not change;[3] therefore, the command to literally eat literal flesh and literally drink literal blood cannot be a command from God. For the Lord expressly forbids the eating of meat with blood still in it, as well as the drinking of blood; both of these practices were pagan abominations which the Lord strictly commanded Israel to not engage in."

Has he ever eaten a piece of meat cooked short of being charcoal? For that would be a sin as he points out. He is trying to have it both ways. Either we are still under the Mosaic law or we are under the New Covenant. We can't be both. Further, if God cannot change then the Mosaic law still applies, period. As to his opinion that the Jerusalem Council kept the Mosaic law for the new Gentile converts that seems to stretch the text to an unusual degree.

Some scholars think that this apostolic decree suggested by James, the immediate leader of the Jerusalem community, derives from another historical occasion than the meeting in question. This seems to be the case if the meeting is the same as the one related in Gal 2:1–10. According to that account, nothing was imposed upon Gentile Christians in respect to Mosaic law; whereas the decree instructs Gentile Christians of mixed communities to abstain from meats sacrificed to idols and from blood-meats, and to avoid marriage within forbidden degrees of consanguinity and affinity.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/15/

However regarding one other point here it is crucial to note that while Christ instituted the Eucharist while He was still in his incarnated flesh, it was not celebrated by the Apostles until after the Resurrection. Thus the law had been fulfilled. Moreover this view doesn't in any way preclude the institution at the Last Supper from being identical to the Sacrament celebrated to this day, confected by the successors of the Apostles, the bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church.

After all Christ doesn't tell His Apostles after my Resurrection this will be my body. And as St. Augustine pointed out the Psalms speak to this moment:

" 'And was carried in His Own Hands:' how 'carried in His Own Hands'? Because when He commended His Own Body and Blood, He took into His Hands that which the faithful know; and in a manner carried Himself, when He said, 'This is My Body.' "

As I mentioned even Martin Luther maintained a belief in some sort of Real Presence. He merely taught a heretical, theologically novel position on it. However certain other "Reformers" chief among them Huldrich Zwingli taught that the lesson in John 6 was intended merely as a symbol. Zwingli to prove his case pulled a single verse, Jn 6:63 and declared that Christ's teaching that the flesh was of no avail clearly intended a symbolic reading of all the preceding text.

This is absurdly false for several reasons; not the least of which is that Christ didn't say His flesh was of no avail. For we know it avails much, after all it was Christ's flesh through which it was prophesied "By His stripes we are healed. (Is 53:5)" It is also false because it presupposes the word spirit to mean symbolic. If that is the case then Jesus tells us God is merely a symbol in Jn. 4:24.

Finally perhaps a poetic defense is in order. The Angelic Doctor Thomas Aquinas wrote numerous poems and hymns about the topic, which even his own massive intellect couldn't rationally explain. My favorite happens to be the Adoro Te Devote:

 Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth Himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.

On the cross Thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here Thy very manhood steals from human ken:
 Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what Thy bosom ran
Blood whereof a single drop has power to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with Thy glory's sight. Amen.

The Blessed Sacrament

Something to read before you read my post today. Shameful...

I (and many others) have said before that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the faith. For a Catholic to be at Mass and watch the priest raise the Host as he says the words of consecration, you feel awed that those words call forth the great continuing miracle of the faith. Those words cause simple unleavened bread and wine to become the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Risen Lord.

Get ready because there's a soap box coming. I can only speak of the Catholics in America because it is all I know, but far too many; deny the Real Presence, disrespect the sacrament and just generally abuse in so many small ways the greatest gift they have. Now that 70% number that gets thrown around a lot concerning lack of belief in the Real Presence is artificial, but no less telling. We as American Catholics have gotten squishy and soft we tout our faith only when we seem to perceive it as beneficial. Or we flat out ignore the parts we don't like. The bottom line is my generation was poorly catechized because our parents were dealing with their reactions to Vatican II, and other things so we got a mishmash of poor catechesis, and it is our loss. But this really is another column.

What I want to talk about today, relates right back to the theft I pointed out in the link above. I guarantee that those consecrated Hosts weren't stolen by some starving homeless person, or misguided fundamentalist.

They were stolen with the intention of using them in a Black Mass. It seems telling to me that most Protestant denominations view Communion as symbolic, but the Satanists love to get hold of consecrated Hosts.

Now this isn't an issue where dispensing the indult against Communion in the Hand would have preserved these Hosts, if someone is determined enough they will get their hands on the Sacrament. It does however cause me to look again at Redemptionis Sacramentum: "If there is a risk of profanation, then Holy Communion should not be given in the hand to the faithful” (Redemptionis Sacramentum, 92).

If you ask me ever since the indult concerning receiving on the hand was granted that was the beginning of the end of reverence to the Sacrament. I grew up receiving on the hand, but once I did research and found out that it was an indulted practice and not the norm, I stopped. I haven't received in hand in more than a year. Receiving on the tongue is no big deal and has certainly helped me to find some of my lost reverence toward the Mass as a whole and particularly the Eucharist.

Ultimately, as I said I think it is an interesting note that Satanists seem to give a lot of credence to the idea that there is something special that happens to the bread and wine at Mass. While most Protestants deny that Communion or The Lord's Supper is anything more than a symbolic memorial.