Have we taken it too far?
To give you a less flippant response⌠A common desire, particularly among apologetics boards, is to give a pat âproof-textâ response. âShow me where in early traditionâ etc etc. This is a bit of an irrelevant question, since the Church is the One Body whether now or in the past. One should nt expect to find everything believed in the infancy of the Church exactly as it is today: a clear understanding of a pope, the Assumption of Mary, infallibility, etc. This is not to say that they are any less true, but it seems a massive error to assume that the Gospel was delivered much as the protestant Bible; in one neat package. The mustard seed was planted by Christ, and over the centuries the Holy Spirit has guided Christâs body in truth as the implications of our spiritual seeds have been pondered upon.
Would Eucharistic adoration have been done in the early centuries? Quite possibly. But to demand the proof of such betrays a somewhat simplistic view of the definition of Dogma. The Eucharist is Christ, and yet the particulars of who exactly Christ was were still being worked out. Should we expect to see the cart before the horse? Should we demand proof of Eucharistic adoration prior to the definition of Christ? We of course know, now, that Jesus is God, and many protestants claim to see it clearly in Scripture, and yet this is a fallacy, it was not always so. We do see the hints; the seeds if you will, of Jesus and the claims He made, such as references the Son of Man, Lord of the Sabbath, etc, and the Church was guided in the truth of declaring such dogmas as the hypostatic union and the Trinity. In the same way, one can see hints, as it were, of Eucharistic adoration in both Scripture and the Fathers, though perhaps not as explicitly as some would like.
For instance, the manna was to be reserved in a jar in Exodus 16. Not so that the Israelites might eat it, but so that they might âsee the bread.â The epistle to the Hebrews points out that this Holy Manna was placed inside a golden urn inside the ark itself, which for a Catholic brings itâs own parallels, particularly when exegetically it can be demonstrated that Christ is the new Manna.
The Bread of the Presence has even more striking parallels. For instance, in Exodus 25 God tells Moses to build the table of the âbread of the presenceâ immediately after the heavenly banquet he took part in with the elders on top of the mountain in Exodus 24, where they âbeheld God, and ate and drank.â Interestingly, this bread of the âpresenceâ when translated more literally, amounts to bread of the âface.â So it became apparent that this bread was supposed to be something of a memorial banquet reminiscent of beholding the âfaceâ of God. Also on the table of the presence were flagons for sacrificial drink offerings of wine.Note, in the tabernacle per Leviticus 24:1-4, that a menorah was to always be burning with the bread; it was to be perpetual as the bread was to be a perpetual offering. As a Catholic, the parallels of a candle burning by the host should be immediately apparent.
During the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, Jewish tradition in both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds states something remarkeable:
âThey [the priests] used to lift it [the Golden Table] up and exhibit the Bread of the Presence on it to those who came up for the festivals, saying to them âBehold, Godâs love for you!ââ Babylonian Talmud, Menahoth 29A.
It appears that they showed the Bread of the âPresence/Faceâ so that they would be honoring Exodus 34, where three times a year each male must see the face of the Lord God. Keeping in mind all these parallels, not to mention that St Cyril explicitly makes this connection of the Eucharist with the Bread of the Presence as well, it is hard not to see the foreshadowings of Eucharistic adoration. Tertullian and St Cyril speak of keeping the host in reserve, which would naturally be the forerunner to such a concept as Adoration. It is said of St Basil of the early 4th century that after giving the Host to himself and the monks, he placed the remainder in a golden dove over the altar. The eastern churches developed the practice sooner than the western churches, most likely due to the fact that they kept the host in reserve in the monasteries, out of which the practice came.
St Augustine states: âHe walked here in the same flesh, and gave us the same flesh to be eaten unto salvation. But no one eats that flesh unless he first adores it; and thus it is discovered how such a footstool of the Lordâs feet is adored; and not only do we not sin by adoring, we do sin by not adoring.â âCommentary on Psalms 98:9
So what happens if we donât consume? Should we not still adore?
He never said to sit and look at it and worship it.
Him. Not âit.â
At the end of the day, Eucharistic Adoration is needed now more than ever, because nothing else forces the believer to so clearly articulate to himself what or who he believes the Eucharist to be. Itâs the quickest way to separate a Catholic from an Anglican. If you have a problem with adoration, then the problem may be with what you actually believe about the Eucharist, otherwise idolatry is not an issue. If the Eucharist is God, then we worship properly. If it is not, then we are idolaters. It may be time for some self-reflection on your end.