Dear Friends -- October 20, 2019

Why do so many Catholics have such a difficult time believing in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist? It pains me when I hear that “former” Catholics are either not going to Mass (except for Christmas, funerals, and weddings) or that they are now finding a home at another wonderful, yet non-Eucharistic Christian Church. If we as Catholics believe that (a) the Mass is truly the sacrifice of Jesus and that (b) we can actually celebrate and receive this real presence of Christ (who sacrificed himself for you and me), how could we not want to sit first in awe and wonder of this great gift? How could we not want to participate in this sacrificial meal where we’re invited to “taste and see” the goodness of the Lord?

I think it began to happen in the 16 ^th-17 ^th century. This was the period of the Renaissance—a new way of thinking often called the Enlightenment. Prior to this period, throughout the ancient and medieval worlds, people truly believed that symbols and signs guaranteed the reality that they signified. (Read or re-read about this in my first two bulletin articles about the Real Presence on our websites where I talk more in-depth about this). Let me return to the metaphor of a wedding–one of the only contemporary remnants of this notion: The actual vows (which are words, or symbols), when spoken by a man and a woman actually (or real-ly) cause them to be really married. The reality of marriage is effected (or caused) by the words pronounced.

Back to the Enlightenment. This period saw tremendous changes in philosophy, literature, art, and science. Let me use Rene Descartes, the famous philosopher and mathematician, as an example. When reflecting on what is actually real, Descartes said that you could doubt that this or that was actually real. (Maybe we’re all dreaming and we only “think” we’re awake?) Descartes was not all that wrong. Just because I think something is real doesn’t make it real, does it? No, obviously not. But what Descartes ultimately said was that while I can doubt the reality of most things around me, what I cannot doubt is that there must be an “I” (a “me”) that’s doing the doubting! (In Latin, he said cogito ergo sum). And voila, this enlightened philosophy acted like a knife, driving a wedge between symbols and signs as conduits of what is really real. Now, “reality” was configured by what I thought! How could a sign, like “bread” and the ancient words of Jesus become a “body”? This was simply “not real.” Such a philosophy gave humankind permission to doubt the ancient signs and symbols of the Church, most especially the Eucharistic Lord!
What Descartes did to rational philosophy, the Reformers did to Christian Eucharistic theology. As this Enlightened spirit of individual autonomy spread to Germany and Switzerland, some Christian thinkers hailed liberation from Popes and Bishops (i.e, the church). People did not need hierarchs lecturing from pulpits! People could believe (or not believe) what they wished. Signs became just signs and words were just mere words. (Good words, of course--because preaching became the hallmark of Christian worship as the Eucharist faded further into the background).  Luther, who did, in fact, maintain a belief in the Real Presence, rejected the ancient notion of the Mass as a sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus. John Calvin believed that Jesus was present at Eucharist, but when the worship was ended, the bread was just ordinary bread again. And finally, Ulrich Zwingli, preaching in Zurich, maintained that the bread and wine were merely symbols, to begin with. Their sole purpose was to remind us of the ancient words of Jesus. The sole purpose of worship was so that we (those worshipping) could have a “holy communion” ourselves as we recalled the words of Jesus. How could the words spoken at Mass over bread and wine become the Real Presence of Jesus? And thus the 1,500-year-old belief of the Church was challenged again and again by many “reforming” Christians. Word and Reality had become severed, Christians (well-meaning, of course) had become divided. Symbols no longer guaranteed (or effected) what they symbolized.

Next week: Why do so many Catholics today hold such Protestant ideas about the Eucharist? Stay tuned.