Dear Friends -- October 27, 2019

As you’ll recall from last week’s bulletin cover, in the ancient and medieval worlds, signs and symbols were able to bring about the creation of entirely new realities. Words (because they are ultimately signs) were effective. People believed them because there was a unity between word and reality. One of the only remnants of this can be found in the marriage vows: The words, “I take you to be my husband/wife” actually cause the two people to move from not being married (before the vows) to being married after they use these special words. The ancient and medieval worlds were highly sacramental worlds. A sacrament is (some of us are old enough to remember from our Baltimore Catechism) an outward sign given by Christ to give grace! The very word sacrament has its root in the ancient Roman oath that a soldier took when entering the Roman army. This oath effected a new “bond” (a new reality) between the soldier and the Emperor. Soldiers remained utterly loyal to the Emperor because of this new “bond,” this sacramentum that they pledged (which explains why after the death of Nero most all the remaining Roman Emperors arose from among the military leaders). In a highly charged sacramental world, signs (words and actions) didn’t “just point” to something else, they actually CAUSED a new reality to come into being!

From last week’s bulletin, you’ll recall how I suggested that such a “sacramental view” of the universe was shattered with the advent of (for lack of a better term) science and technology. Gutenberg was the founder of what today we now call social media. The printing press (16 ^th century social media) was the Protestant Reformer’s weapon of choice to dismantle fifteen hundred years of sacramentality within the Church. Philosophers (like Descartes, mentioned last week) and others overturned the table on the link between sign and reality. The Mass couldn’t be the sacrifice of Jesus because he died once hundreds of years before! The Eucharist couldn’t be the body of Jesus because we were the body (the eyes and ears) of Jesus in our world. All of those ancient signs (read: sacraments) were just merely signs lacking any real effective conduit into a new way of being. In the new Enlightenment’s search for rational proof (read: scientific, verifiable knowledge), ancient Church sacraments were seen as unnecessary remnants of a bygone age. The hallmark of the Protestant Reformation was this new-fangled social media (called “printing” and “preaching”). To this very day, many of our wonderful fellow Christian Churches highlight their Sunday worship with the same trend toward “social media” (lengthy sermons, and really wonderful technology with screens and music, etc.), with little (or no) emphasis on sacraments at all.

If the 16 ^th and 17 ^th centuries ushered in the “modern” world (where science and technology rose to center stage) over and against a sacramental world of signs and wonders, then the 20 ^th century ushered in a “post-modern” world (where science is reduced, not to words, but to numbers--the few ones and zeros of the digital age). Words today are almost meaningless. Like Alice in the Looking Glass, they mean whatever I (thank you René Descartes) want them to mean. Is it no wonder that so many wonderful (dare I say, very post-modern) Catholics have a real problem understanding the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? We just don’t believe in the efficacy of words anymore (unless they come packaged as the numbers 1 or 0).

Next week: OK, so what can we do? Stay tuned.