Dear Friends -- October 6, 2019

For these recent fall weekend bulletin covers, I’ve chosen to reflect on the theme of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist because there is a need for a deeper understanding of this important element of our Catholic faith. Let me be so bold as to say that this is the pivotal element that defines us as Catholics. When other Christians gather for worship, they have wonderful preaching. Many have far more technologically advanced media and sound presentations on a Sunday morning. Many have elements of charity and outreach that are, by and large, outstanding in their welcoming and care for the poor. Many will also have a “holy communion” as part of their Sunday worship. But only the Catholic Church (along with the Eastern Orthodox Churches) has at the heart of worship the Real Presence of Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity.

Last week I began by reflecting on what we mean by the word real. If we believe in the Real Presence of Jesus, I think it’s legitimate to ask what specifically makes something real. (I believe it is this very idea that causes confusion doubt and misunderstanding about what we as Catholics believe today).  
In the ancient and medieval worlds (the world of Jesus and most of western history up until the 16 ^th century) one’s very word made things real. There was no reliance on a separate domain of science (which, by the way, simply means “knowledge” in its Latin root). So, if someone said something, it was, in fact, real. There was no need for a burden of proof to determine if this or that was real. No one needed to do a test on an object to determine its validity. Seeing and hearing was believing.  For the ancients and medieval believers, signs were efficacious. This is what St. Thomas Aquinas taught. What he meant was that some signs and symbols actually bring about, or cause the reality they signify to exist. They bring about a change in what we consider to be the real world.

Let me illustrate the difference by taking the modern STOP sign as an example. This piece of octagonal metal with letters printed in white on a red background cannot stop your car, can it? Of course not. It merely points to the possibility of danger at an intersection. It’s just a sign or a symbol without any power at all.

However, there are a whole host of other signs and symbols that do cause a new reality to exist. The closest parallel we have for that in our modern world is marriage. Consider: When are two people actually (or really) married?  When do two people go from unmarried to married? It’s when they verbally pronounce their vows. (Note the word verbally.) Yes, a man and a woman are, in most instances in the modern world, actually (or really) married when they say, speak, recite the words of their vows. When they do this in the presence of at least two witnesses, voila, they are married. No minister is needed to pronounce them married. In fact, in the Catholic Church, you’ll never hear a priest or a Deacon use that phrase (except on TV, I know). Why? Because we believe that when a couple speaks the words of commitment to love and honor each other as man and wife until death do them part—Remember, words are signs—these very words—really—tie the knot.

In short, the word or sign creates the reality. Our sacraments are all efficacious signs. Signs and symbols are used—and voila—a new reality is brought into existence. This is why we see the signs of bread and wine as well as the words used by Jesus to bring about a new reality that we call the Eucharist. Next week: What happened to our modern world so that we no longer trust symbols to be efficacious? This is, in my humble opinion, the root of many people’s difficulty with our Catholic understanding of the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ Jesus.