Words of consecration.

[Daniel_J]

Question:

How does the pronoun “it” find relevance in the phrase,

** “Take this all of you and eat it: this is my body”**

Dan

 

[bpbasilphx]

I think it’s an awkward rendering, myself.

FWIW, in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, it’s simply, “Take, eat. [Lavete, fagete]. This is My Body which is given for you and for many for the remission of sins.”

There are no pronouns with the transitive verbs.

I’m not too sure what the Latin words are in the Roman rite.

 

[japhy]

How does the pronoun “it” find relevance in the phrase, ** “Take this all of you and eat it: this is my body”**

The “it” refers to the “this” which all of them were to “take”, and which “is [his] body”. Perhaps it is redundant.

The Latin text is ACCÍPITE ET MANDUCÁTE EX HOC OMNES. Accipite and manducate are second-personal plural imperatives for “accept” and “eat”; they are also both transitive verbs, which require a subject (you) and an object (it). The future official translation will be “Take this, all of you, and eat of it.”

 

[Daniel_J]

My problem is I cannot see Christ holding His own Sacramental self (keyword here, “self”) in His hands and referring to “this” as “it”.

Original Text, in essence 'What Jesus said" is appropriate, namely,
** Take this all of you and eat, (pause) …this is my body"**
(My rendering, like if I were the liturgist)

The “it” was an addition.

japhy, quote

The Latin text is ACCÍPITE ET MANDUCÁTE EX HOC OMNES. Accipite and manducate are second-personal plural imperatives for “accept” and “eat”; they are also both transitive verbs, which require a subject (you) and an object (it). The future official translation will be “Take this, all of you, and eat of it.”
Today 8:52 am

WHOA! You mean that there is a revision coming ? (So, it is possible for the church to move to better articulation.)

Now are you saying that it is better for the grammar to follow requirements than it is for the actual Theology to be forwarded ?

Now one last comment. One can ask the question: ‘On what word does the actual consecration happen?’

If we look to the standard phrase this question becomes problematic because the Lord did not call Himself “it” so we might think that the consecration happens at “This is my body” but the timing is wrong because Christ already commanded that they should eat “it” previous to Him saying “This is my body”.

If we take my rendering then all of the words blend to become a perfectly unified flowing whole as to the moment of consecration.

dj

 

[japhy]

My problem is I cannot see Christ holding His own Sacramental self (keyword here, “self”) in His hands and referring to “this” as “it”.

Well, as basil pointed out, in the Greek, there is no pronoun; I don’t know if there would have been in the Aramaic we expect he spoke.

** Take this all of you and eat, (pause) …this is my body"** (My rendering, like if I were the liturgist)

But in the Latin Rite, translations are based on the normative Latin text of the Missal, not the Latin Bible nor its underlying Greek or Hebrew.

WHOA! You mean that there is a revision coming ? (So, it is possible for the church to move to better articulation.)

Yes: PDF.

Now are you saying that it is better for the grammar to follow requirements than it is for the actual Theology to be forwarded?

Translations of the Latin Rite follow the Latin text. I disagree that there is a detriment to the theology of transubstantiation by translating manducate ex hoc as “eat of it”.

… we might think that the consecration happens at “This is my body” but the timing is wrong because Christ already commanded that they should eat “it” previous to Him saying “This is my body”.

But he wasn’t finished speaking until he said “This is my body”; until he said that, there was no reason for them to take note of (and eat) what appeared to them to be bread.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I asked someplace how one should refer to the host exposed in Adoration. I was told that IT is the proper pronoun. I suspect that the same applies here.

Sorry, I can’t remember where I asked, but it was someplace that I regarded as authoritative.

 

[PacoG]

The 1962 Missal of John XXIII translates the Latin as follows:

Who, the day before He suffered, took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and having raised His eyes to heaven to you, God, His Almighty Father, giving thanks to You, He blessed, + it broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: TAKE AND EAT OF THIS, ALL OF YOU, FOR THIS IS MY BODY.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

I think it’s perfectly proper for Jesus to refer to his body as ‘it’.

I could say of my body, " I try to change my body by dieting but it (meaning my body) never seems to get any smaller."

Of course when we receive his body, it is his risen body and we are receiving the whole person of Jesus (his body, blood, soul, and divinity). So we can both refer to his body as ‘it’ or to his person as ‘him’. I think both are grammatically and theologically correct.

 

[DixitDominus]

The “HOC” in “ACCÍPITE ET MANDUCÁTE EX HOC OMNES” is an ablative neuter demonstrative pronoun meaning “THIS”; its gender agreeing with “CORPUS,” a nominative third declension word meaning “BODY”.

The “EO” in “ACCÍPITE ET BÍBITE EX EO OMNES” is similar. “EO” is an ablative masculine personal pronoun which would translate into English as “IT” since in our language the gender of the Chalice (to which the gender of the pronoun is made to agree) is neuter, rather than masculine as it is in Latin.

So in short, grammatically the “THIS” in “TAKE AND EAT OF THIS, ALL” is referring to “BODY”; the “IT” in “TAKE AND DRINK OF IT, ALL” is referring to “CHALICE”.

 

[muffinmojo]

Am I wrong in looking to the line above the consecration in the Eucharistic prayer?

'On the night when He was given unto death, He took bread in His sacred hands and said;

TAKE THIS ALL OF YOU AND EAT OF IT: THIS IS MY BODY WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU’

‘It’ refers to the thing Christ is holding, which was bread seconds ago and is now His Body.

At least…that seems to be much simpler to me…

And yes this is the 2002/Novus Ordo Missae I’m referring to, not the 1962.

 

[Daniel_J]

Problem is timing.

When the Word of God commands that we eat of “it” , -----is “it” still bread at this point ?

Did Christ order the disciples to eat bread first, then go on to effect the consecration afterwards? You see the timing becomes problematic because this is the Word of God that is speaking here in the most important words ever spoken in History and if we omit the “it” (which Christ never said) then the words of consecration become a holistic unity.

The second problem is the term “it” which is usually used to refer to in-animate objects which could be said to be referring to body and blood but then disregards the soul and divinity present.

“It” refers to ‘Sacrament’, ‘Passion’, ‘Death’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘Ascension’; all which are present. The “this” refers to the person of Jesus.

Also, we can look to Scripture and see two things, namely;

#1.) The words of consecration come from tradition and not from Scripture. St. Paul tells us this in 1Cor.11:23

#2.) Jesus himself referred to his “body” as “it” in Jn.2:19.

dj