The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life“, the Vatican II council tells us (Lumen Gentium). If the Catholic Church, in a particular place, does not sufficiently educate the laity and clergy about what the Eucharist is, then not only is Christianity coming from the wrong way, they are going in the wrong direction.

That’s why it surprises me, to hear Catholics in parish or diocesan positions, and even clergy, expound errors about the Eucharist. The one that seems most common is the belief that following the consecration of the bread and the wine, that the substance of the bread and wine remains alongside the presence of Jesus. That is a belief called consubstantiation.

The Catholic position is one called Transubstantiation, where the whole substance of the bread and of the wine is changed into the substance of the body and blood and soul and divinity of Jesus. Yes, the accidental appearances remain that of bread and wine, but it is, in fact, no longer bread and wine.

My parish priest quoted a survey done in the U.S. where about 30% of Mass going Catholics believed in Consubstantiation. You might think this is great news. But it isn’t, because 60% of them believed that the presence was merely symbolic! Only 10% of the surveyed Catholics believed in Transubstantiation. I don’t think it is too much of a jump to think a similar situation exists here in New Zealand, and that it is the result of confusion and poor catechesis.

“These and similar opinions do great harm to the faith and devotion to the Divine Eucharist. And therefore, so that the hope aroused by the Council, that a flourishing of eucharistic piety which is now pervading the whole Church, be not frustrated by this spread of false opinions”

-Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI

One of the things that doesn’t help are people who say that since Vatican II, we now recognise that Christ’s presence in other ways is just as real as that in the Eucharist. They claim that we are hypocrites for honouring the Eucharist, but not bowing before the presences of Christ in a gathering of Christians. They claim that we shouldn’t adore the Eucharist when we don’t make similar acts of the Word proclaimed. Or they claim that because God is present in his Creation, present everywhere, so why should we spend time in front of the Eucharist? In almost all cases, this attitude doesn’t lead to raising the worship of God present in these things to the level of the Eucharist, but in the abolition of worship of God in the Eucharist altogether.

While it is true that they Church recognises God is present in the Scriptures read aloud, in the sacraments, in the Christian congregation gathered together, in the needy that are helped and in his works of creation…

“These various ways in which Christ is present fill the mind with astonishment and offer the Church a mystery for her contemplation. But there is another way in which Christ is present in His Church, a way that surpasses all the others….This presence is called “real” not to exclude the idea that the others are “real” too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because it is substantial and through it Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man. (41) And so it would be wrong for anyone to try to explain this manner of presence by dreaming up a so-called “pneumatic” nature of the glorious body of Christ that would be present everywhere; or for anyone to limit it to symbolism, as if this most sacred Sacrament were to consist in nothing more than an efficacious sign “of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union with the faithful, the members of His Mystical Body.”

-Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI

Maybe it would help if someone would put into concepts how Christ is present in each of these ways.  I’m no theologian, but I’ll try to explain what I mean.

For example, in the Word, the presence lasts as long as the Scripture is proclaimed, and is not substantial, and the words and phenomenon of them being spoken exist alongside any presence. So we would have a transitory, non-substantial, contextual*, “con-verbal”**. Similarly the presence in the congregation, is transitory, non-substantial, “con-collective” (The gathering of Christians remains as a reality, along side the presence of God signified in it).

*(suppose there is a languages in which the words from another language that form a passage of Scripture e.g. “Jesus wept” mean something else like “How are you?”, there would not be a presence of God in the Word everytime the people of that nation asked how their friend was, so clearly this kind of presence is contextual).

**(The actual words etc… exist alongside the Logos, rather than the words becoming the Logos).

Okay, that’s just my quick attempt at it, not very exact, nor complete. But basically we need to be defending the Eucharistic presence, teaching it, and making distinctions that people can learn to grasp about the other presences of God so that we all understand properly. In this way we will be coming from the right source, and going to the right summit.

Work is seen by many people as almost a punishment, a toil, perhaps imposed on man by sin (Genesis 3:17). However, if we look further back, we can see that work is an initial part of human life (Genesis 1:28 and 2:19-20). The feast day of St Joseph the Worker, which passed on Tuesday earlier this week, is a reminder of this forgotten dignity of work.

If done intelligently and lovingly, work gives us the opportunity to develop intellectual and practical virtues. We come to recognise and admire ‘the other’, that which is outside of ourselves; the reality that we act on and the people that we work for, with, and for those the sake of which we carry out work. It gives us an opportunity to provide for our material needs, those of our families, and our neighbours in need. Work, when it is truly human, it ennobles the worker, it increases the worker’s autonomy, self esteem and security.

All too often, the ideologies of today (Marxism and capitalistic economic liberalism, in particular) forget about man as man, and consider him a tool, and only for his efficiency. While a human should be dominant over creation, if they are considered as a tool or only for their efficiency, then they are treated as secondary, subdued by matter. Over time, many workers would feel degraded, frustrated and stifled. Sometimes I wonder if the increase in mental illness in Western countries is not a symptom of our distorted views about work.

Fr Marie-Dominique Philippe poses the following questions to ponder on in relation to work:

To what extent does contemporary technical work still bring about the cooperation of man with matter? Is it tyrannical exploitation of matter? Is man rendering the world more inhabitable? Or is he, on the contrary, in the process of making it uninhabitable? Does this work permit man to blossom in a vital milieu that is increasingly human? Or is it in the process of destroying man’s vital milieu? We must also ask whether work in which man is totally relative to an instrument is not degrading.

 

I started thinking about my line of work recently, especially because I was feeling pretty downtrodden. As a scientist, I have to spend a lot of time working with imaginary and abstracted things; models, theories, laws, quantities and equations. Much of the time is spent performing repetitive tasks, or being a technical operator for a complex piece of equipment.

I’ve started trying to spend time focusing on recognising and admiring the different aspects of reality in the chemicals and organisms that I work with and the design of the equipment. I’ve tried to see my co-workers as people to be known and loved. At this time in my life, I don’t really have people in my life to work for the sake of; it’s a bit hard to work for self-glorification when you really want to be working for others. In order to balance out my work life, my voluntary work should be focussed on working with and for people. In this way I was able to blossom in my work life and really feel like my work has value.

Have you had work that really fulfilled or degraded you? What drives or drove you in your efforts at work?

St Joseph, pray for us.

For many people today, a common complaint is that “I’m too busy to pray”. I know, I think it all the time!

For people, who are living in time, and who are worshiping God, who is beyond time, “wasting  time” by prayer, contemplation and adoration is a fitting burnt offering to Immortal God, and simultaneously recognises our status as mortal creatures before this God.

“Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer a day, except when we are busy

-then we need a whole hour”

-St. Francis de Sales

As well as encouraging you to spend time in prayer, I want to talk about the different ways in which we can consecrate time to God. By the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection taking place within history, Christ has sanctified time, but more importantly has indicated that time has existed in order that it be consecrated to God.

We can do this in each of four different ways, of which, I will only touch briefly on the first one this week:

1.  The cycle of the day
2.  The cycle of the week
3.  The cycle of the year
4.  The linear direction towards the End

Part One. The Day.

“Through Him [Jesus] let us offer to God an unceasing sacrifice of praise”

(Heb 15:15).

The cycle of the day, with it’s natural periods of darkness and light, symbolises the death (sleep) and resurrection (awakening) everyday. The Church has since ancient times taken up the practice of regular pray during the day in the Liturgical Hours of the Day.

At dawn we thank God for bringing us through another night safely, while expressing confidence that one day He will bring us safely through death.*

During the various hours of the day we praise God.**

As night approaches, we reflect on the day, repent of our sins, offer our good works and we ask God to protect us while we sleep from terrors and temptations, and to raise us with Christ, both in the new morning and at the Final Resurrection.

*At this point we can consecrate the day to Him, easily done with a traditional Morning Offering.

** At midday, recitation of the Angelus recognises that dramatic moment which changed history forever.

I have particularly mentioned the Liturgy of the Hours, particularly because Popes and Councils of recent times have been so forceful in expressing their wish that Catholic lay people take up this form of prayer, while simultaneously asking clergy to re-invigorate their own observance of the Liturgy of the Hours. At a time in the Church’s History when citing a supposed shortage of priests, people are inventing priestless “paraliturgies” to take their place, it seems telling that the Church asks us to look to; an already existing, very beautiful, ancient, and highly esteemed (after the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours is the next most preferred prayer, even ahead of the Rosary!) prayer, that can be celebrated alone, or as a community.

Pope John Paul II:

“…perhaps it is more thinkable that we usually presume for the average day of a Christian community to combine the many forms of… witness in the world with the celebration of the Eucharist and the recitation of Lauds and Vespers.”

-Novo millenio ineunte

“By tradition going back to early Christian times, the divine office is devised so that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praises of God.”

Sacrosanctum Concilium, 84 (See the rest of Chapter IV on The Divine Office [Liturgy of the Hours])

Pope Benedict XVI:

“ I would like to renew my call to everyone to pray the Psalms, to become accustomed to using the Liturgy of the Hours, Lauds, Vespers, and Compline. Our relationship with God can only be enriched by our journeying towards Him day after day”

Too hard you say? Well, as well as making things busier, technology now offers the modern Catholic new ways in which to get the texts of the Liturgy of the Hours. You can get it on your smartphone, or iPad or whatever new fandangled things you kids are using these days, or you can view it online. Try http://divineoffice.org/ , http://www.ebreviary.com/ and http://www.universalis.com/ . If you are one of those Extraordinary Form kids you might like to try http://divinumofficium.com/, or the apps from the FSSP and the Franciscans of the Immaculate, to keep in rhythm with the liturgical year of that Form.

There is an aspect of Holy Thursday which presents itself as the Heavenly banquet. Last Holy Thursday, our Holy Father pointed out that Christ talks about banquets several times, and we immediately notice that he points out shortcomings regarding the guests, both those attending and those invited. There is the parable in which many invited guests are absent at the great banquet, their seats are bare. These could be thought to be: people who have not taken up the Christian message preached to them. There are people refuse to be as close to God as they should, who refuse to know Jesus as well as they should.
Or, it could be thought of from the other end, the people who have not really ever heard the Gospel because of:
Shortcomings in the people who were meant to invite them.
Shortcomings in the manner of invitation which these people gave.
The Pope also points out that Christ knows full well that there are people who arrive expectantly at the banquet. But due to their lack of preparation, they who are not robed in wedding garments, are turned away. Some Fathers of the Church said that this wedding garment was the Holy Spirit. St Gregory the Great said it was love, and that faith brings us to accept the invitation, however, without the wedding garment, we will not be permitted to take part.
Another aspect of the heavenly banquet, that Christ knew we are always at risk of falling short of, is unity. Perhaps that is why Christ made such pains to pray that his disciples would be one, which is most clear in the account of the Last Supper according to John. Yet it is in Luke’s account we find that Christ directs himself towards Peter specifically in his prayer for unity (Lk 22:31-32). Unity must be had, in order for this to really be the Eucharist that Christ has established, but it cannot be an empty unity, it must be unity with Peter and his successors, or else Satan will have already indulged his wish to sift us like wheat.
This is a hard thing for us to do. The Pope comments: “We too, all of us, need to learn again to accept God and Jesus Christ as he is, and not the way we want him to be. We too find it hard to accept that he bound himself to the limitations of his Church and her ministers. We too do not want to accept that he is powerless in this world. We too find excuses when being his disciples starts becoming too costly, too dangerous. All of us need the conversion which enables us to accept Jesus in his reality as God and man. We need the humility of the disciple who follows the will of his Master. Tonight we want to ask Jesus to look to us, as with kindly eyes he looked to Peter when the time was right, and to convert us.
After Peter was converted, he was called to strengthen his brethren. It is not irrelevant that this task was entrusted to him in the Upper Room. The ministry of unity has its visible place in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Dear friends, it is a great consolation for the Pope to know that at each Eucharistic celebration everyone prays for him, and that our prayer is joined to the Lord’s prayer for Peter. Only by the prayer of the Lord and of the Church can the Pope fulfil his task of strengthening his brethren – of feeding the flock of Christ and of becoming the guarantor of that unity which becomes a visible witness to the mission which Jesus received from the Father.”

I think there are some good resolutions to take out of these reflections:

1) Earnestly attempting to hurry to accept the invitation to the banquet, both in its Eucharistic and heavenly modes…
2) Taking the care to make sure that there are no “empty seats” on our account…
3) Coming to the banquet (again both Eucharistic and heavenly) suitably prepared…
4) Uniting ourselves fully to the Pope, and working to unite the bishops and those outside the visible Church into the kind of unity that the Eucharist, and heaven, will demand.