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DL82
Guest
This just struck me the other day. The biggest difference between Protestant ideas of the symbolism of the Eucharist/ consubstantiation and the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is surely about the loving abandon with which Christ comes to us through the Eucharist.
Let me take an analogy, two identical scenarios:
A young woman goes up to a rough looking homeless man on the street, she talks to him, helps him stand up, helps him into a cafe and shares some food, then gives him the number of a shelter nearby.
Another young woman goes up to a rough looking homeless man on the street, she talks to him, helps him stand up, helps him into a cafe and shares some food, then gives him the number of a shelter nearby.
The outward signs are the same, there’s only one difference. In the second scenario, the young woman has a gun in her handbag!
In the first scenario, there is a self-giving love that sees and knows the risks, and takes them anyway. In the second scenario, there is love, but the love is mixed with power - the same kind words and the same gifts are given, but control is not given away.
The only time you see the difference is when the two scenarios go badly. In the first scenario it’s the young woman who gets hurt, in the second, it’s the man who tries to hurt her who gets shot.
Coming back to communion, it’s impossible to commit sacrilege in the protestant churches - the moment anyone so much as thinks of doing something profane to the Eucharist, it ceases to be/represent Christ, He returns to Heaven, to His seat of power. In the Catholic Church, Christ in the Eucharist, as with Christ in His incarnation, presents Himself to us whole, meek, exposed. He knows He can be hurt, and He loves us all the same. As He did not withdraw from the cross, so He doesn’t withdraw from us, even in our sin and sacrilege, He comes to us in true meekness. Sure, He could leave, He could strike us down, but just as He stayed His mighty arm on the cross, so it is with the Eucharist.
In the Catholic Church, Christ willingly binds Himself to all kinds of human beings, institutions and created objects. He does this with the kind of abandon that a lover gives to his true beloved. You can choose to view this as foolishness and weakness if you like, but then all that’s left is a kind of condescending contractual love, which doesn’t seem to me to have much in common with the indescribable love and self-giving of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Love from behind an impenetrable shield is not the kind of love God offers us, and it’s not the kind of love any of us would honestly want, whether from God or one another.
(hmm, talking of impenetrable shields, I could go on to bring in a link between Protestant/Catholic Eucharistic theology and Protestant/Catholic views on contraception, but maybe that’s for another thread.)
Anyway, it’s just a thought, I’m just putting it out there for discussion.
Let me take an analogy, two identical scenarios:
A young woman goes up to a rough looking homeless man on the street, she talks to him, helps him stand up, helps him into a cafe and shares some food, then gives him the number of a shelter nearby.
Another young woman goes up to a rough looking homeless man on the street, she talks to him, helps him stand up, helps him into a cafe and shares some food, then gives him the number of a shelter nearby.
The outward signs are the same, there’s only one difference. In the second scenario, the young woman has a gun in her handbag!
In the first scenario, there is a self-giving love that sees and knows the risks, and takes them anyway. In the second scenario, there is love, but the love is mixed with power - the same kind words and the same gifts are given, but control is not given away.
The only time you see the difference is when the two scenarios go badly. In the first scenario it’s the young woman who gets hurt, in the second, it’s the man who tries to hurt her who gets shot.
Coming back to communion, it’s impossible to commit sacrilege in the protestant churches - the moment anyone so much as thinks of doing something profane to the Eucharist, it ceases to be/represent Christ, He returns to Heaven, to His seat of power. In the Catholic Church, Christ in the Eucharist, as with Christ in His incarnation, presents Himself to us whole, meek, exposed. He knows He can be hurt, and He loves us all the same. As He did not withdraw from the cross, so He doesn’t withdraw from us, even in our sin and sacrilege, He comes to us in true meekness. Sure, He could leave, He could strike us down, but just as He stayed His mighty arm on the cross, so it is with the Eucharist.
In the Catholic Church, Christ willingly binds Himself to all kinds of human beings, institutions and created objects. He does this with the kind of abandon that a lover gives to his true beloved. You can choose to view this as foolishness and weakness if you like, but then all that’s left is a kind of condescending contractual love, which doesn’t seem to me to have much in common with the indescribable love and self-giving of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Love from behind an impenetrable shield is not the kind of love God offers us, and it’s not the kind of love any of us would honestly want, whether from God or one another.
(hmm, talking of impenetrable shields, I could go on to bring in a link between Protestant/Catholic Eucharistic theology and Protestant/Catholic views on contraception, but maybe that’s for another thread.)
Anyway, it’s just a thought, I’m just putting it out there for discussion.