Pollution in our Sunday Bulletin

[fix]

Receiving Communion had little to do with any kind of relationship with the rest of the people in the church. Communion was seen as something between “Jesus and me.” When we returned from Communion, we made this abundantly clear by burying our faces in our hands, to exclude from this exquisite moment all else, including the rest of the congregation.

This type of pejorative writing alone is enough for me to discount the rest of his piece.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Richiejm3,

First, welcome to the forums!

Second, I sympathize with your misgivings over this article. I took the time to read it closely, and I think it was wise that you were cautious about it.

This is the problem as I see it. William Shannon, the author, like so many of his contemporaries writing today create a kind of rhetorical soup in which we find a mixture of both good and bad things – of both statements that are orthodox and statements that are unorthodox, or at least suspicious.

And I do mean “suspicious”. I think some of these modern “commentators on the Church” are very careful not to tip their hand, and so they write in what I would deem a subversive (but not overtly subversive) manner.

Furthermore, when I look into some of the other writings of Mr. Shannon, I perceive him to be almost “scoffing” at some of the early Chruch practices.

Another indicator, at least to me, of something amiss with Mr. Shannon, are the other writers and theologians he collaborates with or cites. Richard Rohr, comes immediately to mind. You can’t always tell a person from the company they keep (He eats with tax collectors and sinners!) but you often can tell a person by who he holds up as an example.

So, I was intrigued enough to delve a little deeper into this.

I read through all the rest of Mr. Shannon’s articles on the St. Anthony Messenger Press site (which in and of itself causes one to pause, since SAMP has become increasingly dissident).

Again, I find this curious admixture of GOOD POINTS and NOT SO GOOD POINTS.

Examples:

The Resurrection:How We Know It’s True

GOOD: Look around, you can find some.
NOT SO GOOD:

Recall the Easter Sunday night meeting of Jesus with his disciples, when he appeared to them in the upper room. Suppose that a member of the Sanhedrin or an officer in Pilate’s court had been able to sneak into the room unobserved.

Jesus appears. Would they have seen him? Reflect a moment. What do you think? I think they would not have seen Jesus. That is clearly—to my mind at least—the meaning of Peter’s words: He appeared not to all the people, but only to us who had been chosen to be witnesses.

What? Does he mean they wouldn’t recognize Him? Or does he mean He would be invisible? The disciples on the road didn’t recognize him at first, but they saw him because He really rose from the dead.

NOT SO GOOD:

The point which I am trying to lead up to is the realization that seeing the risen Jesus was not an experience of empirical data; it was an experience of faith. For the very best that empirical experience might have achieved was an experience of resuscitation, not resurrection. Think of Lazarus in John’s Gospel (Jn 11:1-45). He was mortal and he died. He was resuscitated and therefore was living again, but even after his resuscitation he was still mortal. Hence people could see him before and after because in both cases he was mortal. Lazarus was as much a subject of empirical data after his resuscitation as before his death.

See what I mean? The Ressurected Christ couldn’t be sensed empirically? What would St. Thomas say about that?

 

[fix]

Verbum Caro:

contemporaries writing today create a kind of rhetorical soup in which we find a mixture of both good and bad things – of both statements that are orthodox and statements that are unorthodox, or at least suspicious.

You mean like mixing truth with a little error while never publicly rejecting truth? It is easier to swallow cups of milk with a tiny bit of poison over time, then to get one to gulp down a gallon of rat poison.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

From The Liturgy ofthe Eucharist

GOOD:
The action of the Holy Spirit empowers the words of Christ, spoken by the priest, to effect the real presence, under the appearances of bread and wine, of the Body and Blood of Christ.
NOT SO GOOD:
Following the “Lamb of God” prayer asking for God’s mercy, we receive the Body and Blood of the Lord. It is important to remember that it is the whole Christ (Christ and the members of his Body) that we receive. Communion, therefore, is not a solitary experience in which we shut out all others except Christ. Our “Amen” to the eucharistic ministers’ “The Body of Christ” is our “yes” to Christ and to all who are joined to him.

St. Augustine expresses well the living tradition of the Church when he says: “It is your sacrament that is placed on the table of the Lord; it is your sacrament that you receive…You hear the words, ‘the Body of Christ,’ and respond ‘Amen.’ Be then a member of the Body of Christ that your Amen may be true.” Thus, in the Communion we affirm a unity that already exists. We become the community we really are, but don’t always realize because it exists at a level of perception we do not always achieve.

Eh? Aquinas points out that when we receive the Whole Christ in the Eucharist we also receive His members. . . but he wasn’t talking about US (the members of the mystical body) . A bit of equivocation, I think, by Mr. Shannon. Augustine doesn’t say that we are receiving us as members, but that we are being incorporated into Christ as members of the mystical body.

I don’t want to go through the rest of the articles but here are the links:

The Future of the Papacy (not so good)
How the Spirit Guides the Church (subversive?)
Communion of Saints: Key to the Eucharist (don’t miss the snarky comment about how the medieval Church viewed the saints.)

Anyway, I think that Mr. Shannon, whatever his motives and intentions are, provides “aid and support” to the voice of dissent in the Church.

Catholic Culture has a review of the site American Catholic Online, and among other examples of the sites lack of fidelity are “Books by Richard Rohr, William H. Shannon, Anthony T. Padovano, Raymond Brown, and Arthur Baranowski “

Also, I love Fr. Neuhaus’s critique in First Things of Mr. Shannon’s introduction to Merton’s Seven Story Mountain.

Shannon , however, seems downright embarrassed by Merton’s conversion

, and perhaps by the very idea of conversion, as though one form of religion might be more “true” than others. Shannon writes: “The pre-Vatican II Church into which Merton was baptized was a Church still reacting—even three centuries later—to the Protestant Reformation. Characterized by a siege mentality, wagons circled around doctrinal and moral absolutes, it clung to its past with great tenacity. . . . its aim is to prove Catholics were right and all others were wrong.” Oh dear. Merton went so far as to think he was being received into the “one true Church” (in sneer quotes).

God Bless,
VC

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Some more reactions to Mr. Shannon:

An article from Catholics United For the Faith (CUF):
[ROCHESTER DISSENTER NOW UNDERMINES CHRIST’s RESURRECTION](ROCHESTER DISSENTER NOW UNDERMINES CHRIST’s RESURRECTION)

Another insightful critique:
Catholicism, “Updated”

Is the jury still out on this one, or is this case closed?:tiphat:

God Bless,
VC

 

[Tibbar]

Eucharist; Understanding Christs body is an article put into our Sunday bulletin. My wife will usually read through the bulletin while I’m driving home from Mass. Well she read this article and it made me furrious that our priest would allow this to pollute the people of his parish. I feel that I should talk to him about it but mabe I’m just over reacting. Please click on the link above and read the article and let me know what you think.

Thanks for posting this. It only serves to confirm what I have come to believe regarding the “Eucharist,” that it is a developed Catholic doctrine. The Eucharist in the early Christian church was people, not a “transubstantiated” wafer and some wine.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Tibbar,

If you wish to elaborate on the reasons why you hold this (certainly, Mr. Shannon’s article is not reliable evidence?!), please start a thread on that topic. I am sure that there are a number of members who would be willing to discuss this.

God Bless,
VC

 

[rwoehmke]

Brendan:

Please tell me a time in the Church when this statement would have been true Unless all the faithfull were unconscience during the liturgy, they were all acting participants of will.Can you think of a time when Mass was regularly said to flocks of unconscience faithful, for that would be the only time this statement would be true.

There are still Churches around that have a bunch of side altars lining the aisles where priests in a large group, like on the campus of a Catholic College. Priests often celebrated Mass alone at these altars with not even passive participation by a member of the laity. There were no unconscience faithful present and no alert ones either. In the Middle Ages Royalty sometimes had Chapels on site and a priest or priests on site to say many masses per unit time for the deceasd Royal persons. Any one reading the above article would be easily misled unless they had a pretty fair grounding in the history of the Mass and the Eucharist. It is not a very clear easy to understand article.

 

[JimG]

I think the author made too much of a dichotomy between the Mass as “a human experience of community in Christ” and “a divine reality that called for a priest to act in the name of Christ.”

From the very earliest times, the Mass has always been both. Even St. Paul, in his comments to the Corinthians made a very big deal of recognizing the body of Christ in the Eucharist. It wasn’t just a community experience to him.

 

[Coder]

JimG:

Even St. Paul, in his comments to the Corinthians made a very big deal of recognizing the body of Christ in the Eucharist. It wasn’t just a community experience to him.

I agree. That is a good point.

 

[otm]

Coder:

I read some of the article. The article seems to paint a picture that we may “fear” Communion too much or are too timid about Communion instead of viewing it as a community sharing. I really don’t think that is a problem. Is it possible to revere Holy Communion too much? I think not.

As far as the communal aspect, I think the Spirit of Jesus is the foundation of our Communion. Focusing on Jesus during Communion seems perfectly appropriate. We can share this fellowship in a social environment after mass, at a gathering for coffee for example.

I will say that we Catholics in the world today may have lost some aspects of living communally. However, I don’t think it is right to relate this to reverence for Jesus during Communion if that’s what the author is doing.

I think the author’s comment about fear had more to do with several centuries ago. Theological emphasis moves in swings of the pendulum, as it were, and at any given time, there is a general emphasis on certain aspects. At one point there was much emphasis on sin and retribution, and one could say that it was perhaps an unbalanced emphasis. Over the last 40 years, one could also say that there has been an unbalanced emphsasis on mercy (as opposed to justice), and almost no emphasis on sin and its consequences.

Jansenism, while a heresy of several centuries ago, was long lasting and caused a tremendous number of people to avoid the Eucharist; Pope Pius 10th was still fighting the lingering aspects of it.

 

[otm]

richiejm3:

The article draws the reader away from the fact that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist as the ccc states

I would disagree that the article draws one away from the fact that Christ is truly present; he references that in paragrpahs 3, 4, 28, 30, & 31. But the purpose of the article is not a treatise on Transubstantiation, but a historical look at how people respond to the Eucharist. although the author refers to Tansubstantiation, he presupposes the reader already understands that issue.
richiejim:

First the author makes it seem like the Church has changed its veiws many times on the Eucharist when he writes things like “there have been many changes in the way our Church has understood the Eucharist.” and " In the Middle Ages—roughly between 800 and 1000—something happened to the Eucharist. It became something quite different from what it had been in the beginning. From being the action of people, it became an act of God coming down among God’s people to be adored."

you need to understand that there are differentl levels, or types, i\or issues, of understanding. To begin with, there is the issue of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist; while the early Church accepted that reality, the term Transubstantiation wasn’t used for a number of centuries. The philosophical/theological explanation only developed over time.

Second, there are other levels of understanding - understanding of Eucharist as a communal celebration; understanding Eucharist as an act which makes the Eternal, through the Son, physically present (and interrealted with that, to be adored); the understanding of the Eucharist as the continuing scrifice of the Son to the Father in heaven made present on earth; the understanding of the Eucharist as sacred meal, none of which deny Christ’s true presence, but rather relect on how we respond to His presence.
richiejim:

Then he makes you think that mabe the church wasn’t always firm on it’s belief of transubstantiation by saying “For the first seven or eight centuries of the Church’s life, the Eucharist had been the people’s Eucharist. The Eucharist was people gathering in community (often in house-churches) to express their praise and thanks to God.” and " Christians, gathered together for Eucharist, were conscious all the while that the risen Jesus was in their midst as they did so. They never even bothered to ask when Christ became present. It was enough to know that he was with them

Factually, he is correct. It wasn’t undtil the middle ages and the rise of Scholastic/Thomistic/Aristotelian philosophy that people began to think in those categories.

Perhaps a poor example, but you don’t find the word “Trinity” in the Bible; it was not undtil after Christ ascended into heaven, and some time later, through refelction on the truths (and Truth) that Christ left us, that the Word Trinity was used. Prior to its use, the Church was not denying the Trinity, but it took time and relfection to state it in such a manner. So too, with the Eucharist.
RICHIEJIM:

and then finaly he says " Jesus calls us to eat his flesh and drink his blood. We must avoid an overly literalistic understanding of these words. We do not literally eat flesh or drink blood.that too is a correct statement. We do not eat the flesh and blood of the man who was on eath 2000 years ago; we eat the flesh and blood of the Risen Savior sacramentally present in the Eucharist, present in a change of substance but not accidents (or form; the accidents or form of bread and wine are present still, but the substance has changed).
richiejim:

But the ccc says What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit,"229 preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum.

.His statement is not a denial of the Catechism. We are there to be fed; and we are fed so we can go out an do what Christ commanded: to wit, to bring Christ to the world.
richiejim:

The Eucharist is not what it is because we are the Church, we are the Church because of what the Eucharist is. The article says the opposite though.

I would disagree; Read the first two of the last four paragraphs. Again, he is writing about our response to the Eucharist.

 

[otm]

Brendan:

Please tell me a time in the Church when this statement would have been true

The statement you are referring to , which I said is not false is:

“The Mass had drifted from a human experience of community in Christ, which called for people’s participation, to a divine reality that called for a priest to act in the name of Christ to bring him down from heaven. The priest became the only one to be acting in the eucharistic celebration.”

The timing of that change was in the middle ages. Any good history of understanding of sacraments (aka sacramental theology) will tell you that.

Unless all the faithfull were unconscience during the liturgy, they were all acting participants of will.And your point is? I don’t think I ever denied an act of the will. If you want to presume that full participation in the Liturgy is accomplished by physical presence and nothing else, you are welcome to that. There are a whole lot of bishops, priests, and tehologians, not to mention several popes, who would say that participation in the Liturgy should be something more than the mere act of the will exhibited by physical presence.

Can you think of a time when Mass was regularly said to flocks of unconscience faithful, for that would be the only time this statement would be true.Hving been at a great number of Masses where people had no knowlege of the language spoken, did not use a Missal, took their devotional prayer books or Rosaries and read or said them diring the Mass, I would say that they had no consicous awareness of what was going on; in fact, their conscious awareness was brough about by the use of bells; they would observe, then go back to their devotions.

When I go to someone else’s house to visit, I am physically present; I have made an act of will to be there. If I do not interact with them, but sit and read one of their magazines, I would suspect they might not feel that I was actively participating, even though I was there by an act of the will.

and if that doesn’t explain it to you, then I dont know what will.

 

[otm]

fix:

What is his point?

His point is that the Mass is more than just the Consecration, or the Consecration and the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel.

 

[otm]

fix:

This type of pejorative writing alone is enough for me to discount the rest of his piece.

I don’t find anything perjorative in that statement at all. It seems fairly factual.

 

[otm]

Richiejm3,

What? Does he mean they wouldn’t recognize Him? Or does he mean He would be invisible? The disciples on the road didn’t recognize him at first, but they saw him because He really rose from the dead.

They saw Him because He made Himself, in His resurected body, present to them. There is no statement how He joined them; it could easily be presumed that He came into their presence almost unnoticed; and then at the end of the Breaking of Bread, hHe dissapeared. Christ appeared to whom He chose, when and where He chose, for as long as He chose; passing through locked doors, if necessary. It is obvious to any close reading of the Resurrection experiences that they met, saw, and experienced Christ who ws both the same as before, and not the same as before; that is, they saw the Resurrected Christ. He walsked into the room with gaping wounds, but not bleeding to death. He invited Thomas to stick a hand in; He ate fish; and it would seem He appeared to people in different locations at or near the same time (in what appeared to be bi-location). And the dsiciples who had spent a long period of time with Him didn’t “recognize” Him until He Broke Bread.
Verbum Caro:

See what I mean? The Ressurected Christ couldn’t be sensed empirically? What would St. Thomas say about that?

If your examples are supposed to show the writer is not in line with the Magisterium, you have not shown me anything in referencing the Resurrection statements. The earliest Church had an experience that they wrote about, and the Church today is still meditating on it. And the only people I have met who profess to have a solid handle on it and can explain it always end up showing me that they haven’t read very carefully.

I donpt think the author was making any statement that Christ could not be experienced empirically; I think he was saying that the writings we have of the post Resurrection appearances of Christ show Him only appearing to believers; that doesn’t say He was not experienced empirically.

But let me ask you: have you ever experienced anyone who could simply disappear from your presence? Empirically or otherwise…

 

[BayCityRickL]

I would like to weigh in with the Bible, particularly the gospels.

The definitive Mass was the so-called Last Supper (a term which does not appear in the Bible). As the Catechism points out, it was the definitive Passover celebration of all time.

The Mass or the Divine Liturgy as I seem to think the Mass is called in the Eastern Rites is a replay, in some form, of the “last supper.” The quintessential participation of the laity is in the reception of the Eucharist. Nothing else, theologically, compares to that, in my view.

Why has the Church been so antsy so as to revise the celebration over the centuries? We know that there must have been singing at the Passover meal. We know that there was a recitation of scripture at the Passover meal. It seems the article under discussion here tries to create a sense of urgency and a claim to insight that we all can compare to scripture itself.

Viz, re-read the long article (ho hum) and visualize the Passover meal with Jesus. I challenge anybody, anytime, anywhere to come up with a more meaningful participation than in the celebration of the Eucharist. The author of the article simply fails as any mortal would, with attempting to describe the mysteries. Certainly even the apostles at Christ’s Passover Meal (a term I suggest as more descriptive and accurate than “last supper”) were not fully participative. And, that is because we encounter the infinite through our eyes of faith. As great as it is, it is a foretaste of the eternal banquet.

The quintessential essence of our participation is with all that we individually commit to the celebration, particularly our mind and our will. Scripture also gives us the definitive example of Judas who participated with grave reservation. As scripture says, we are all different parts but we are one body. We need each other in our uniqueness to join in that celebration, in one place, and by extension to the eternal celebration for the glory of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The only fault in the article is the suggestion that we moderns have missed the point somehow. You just don’t hear Catholics saying enough, “stay close to the Bible.” Think about it.

 

[fix]

In the Middle Ages—roughly between 800 and 1000—something happened to the Eucharist. It became something quite different from what it had been in the beginning.

This is the type of writing that makes some uneasy. The writer has a slant it seems. He reads Church history, then relates in a tone that would lead one to conclude the Church went off track and finally is correcting Herself today.

IMO, it is typical of the left.

 

[fix]

The Eucharist was understood in similar fashion. The matter was bread and wine; the form, “the words of consecration” said by the priest over the bread and wine. The priest was the celebrant. He really did not need the people to have a Eucharist as it was understood. All he needed was bread and wine and the words of consecration that he spoke. The people were there largely as spectators, watching an action being performed on their behalf. They were especially attentive when the priest pronounced “the words of consecration.” The rest of the time they were, by and large, occupied with saying their prayers.

If a priest celebrates mass with no other present, is Christ not present in the sacrament?

 

[JimG]

fix:

If a priest celebrates mass with no other present, is Christ not present in the sacrament?

Good question. Of course Christ becomes sacramentally present even if the Mass is celebrated by the priest alone. For good pastoral reasons, however, the Mass should be celebrated with a congregation. But the congregation has no effect on the validity of the consecration.