AND The need for A EUCHARISTIC RENEWAL IN PRIESTLY FORMATION
The teachings of the Second Vatican
Council sublimely developed Eucharistic theology, and they sought to reinforce
Eucharistic devotion. In practice however, since Vatican II, false Eucharistic
theologies have proliferated, along with a decline in the practice of Eucharistic
Adoration.[1]
In this regards, in 2003, referring to what we might call the
Eucharistic-crisis, Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia
de Eucharista writes:
In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of the Church abuses have occurred, leading to confusion with regard to sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet.[2]
This ‘confusion’ and
‘reductive understanding’ to which John Paul II refers; is demonstrated by a
contemporary priest and theologian, who goes so far as to assert concerning
Eucharistic Adoration: it is “a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step
backward, not forward”[3].
On another occasion he writes it is a
Step back into the Middle Ages…It erodes the communal aspect, and it erodes the fact that the Eucharist is a meal. Holy Communion is something to be eaten, not to be adored… [it is a practice that ought to be] tolerated but not encouraged.[4]
This is of course antithetical
to Church Teaching and Tradition. Since it is erroneous to assert that ‘to eat’
and ‘to adore’ the Eucharistic are conflicting
practices; for as St. Augustine writes concerning the Eucharist: “No one
eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore
it.”[5] Furthermore “the
Church, even from the beginning, adored the body of Christ under the appearance
of bread”.[6]
Thereby it is a practice which stems from the early Church and not merely from
the Middle Ages. According to Church Teaching, Eucharistic Adoration is not a
devotional practice which should be merely tolerated but encouraged. Pope
Benedict XVI affirms the relevance of Eucharistic Adoration even today, in his
Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis:
Besides encouraging individual believers to make time for personal prayer before the Sacrament of the Altar, I feel obliged to urge parishes and other church groups to set aside times for collective adoration.[7]
In further testament to the Eucharistic-crisis,
firmly associated with the crisis of faith within the Church; Cardinal Joseph Bernardin
stated: that “according to a Gallup poll only thirty percent of our [American] faithful
believe what the Church teaches on the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.”[8]
One reason behind this “confusion
with regard to [the] sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning” the
Eucharist, is priests and institutionally catechised teachers, who have been
infected with false Eucharistic theologies. Such false Eucharistic theologies often
reduce the Eucharist to its horizontal communal dimensions; or to a maligned
understanding of the Real Presence. An example of such false Eucharistic
theologies include theologies that reduce the Real Presence to the conceptions
of ‘transfinalization’ and ‘transignification’.[9],[10] Though proponents
of these theories such as Schillebeeckx and Rahner respectively, employ the
term Real Presence, they reduce it to a type of ‘personal presence’ without the
reality of the ‘spatial presence’, a reality which requires this ‘personal presence’
to be ontological or substantial. In other words, the Real Presence is deemed
as a non-ontic personal presence that is mediated through the bread and wine;
as opposed to the bread and wine becoming the ontic-personal presence of
Christ; the latter of which is the true understanding of the Real Presence through
transubstantiation. Pope Paul V I condemns these teachings in Mysterium Fidei under the heading:
‘False and Disturbing Teachings’. In this encyclical he refers to the role that
the propagation of these teaching have in distorting true Eucharistic devotion
and belief.
It is not permissible…to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than "transignification," or "transfinalization" as they call it…Everyone can see that the spread of these and similar opinions does great harm to belief in and devotion to the Eucharist.[11]
Furthermore Cardinal “Ratzinger is careful to point out
that the species do not only receive a
new meaning, as the term “transignification” might suggest, or a new function,
as the term “transfinalization” might suggest.”[12] However those who espouse
or defend the notions of transfinalization
and transignification as acceptable teachings that are only false if the
Real Presence is reduced to these understandings, promote a theology that
collapses, even if they assert otherwise, the ontological reality of the Real
Presence.[13]
Since these teachings are inherently reductionist. Here is a quotation from Rahner which demonstrates
this,[14] by the twisting of the true
definition of transubstantiation as
the changing of the ontological substance of the bread and wine into the ontological
substance of Christ; into a mere change in meaning:
The words of institution indicate a change. But [do] not give any guiding line for the interpretation of the actual process. As regarding transubstantiation it may be said, the substance, essence, meaning and purpose of the bread are identical but the meaning of a thing can be changed without changing the matter. The meaning of the bread has been changed through the consecration something which served profane use now becomes the dwelling place and the symbol of Christ who is present and gives Himself to His own.[15]
Another reason such an understanding is erroneous is
because it states that through the Eucharistic consecration the bread “becomes
the dwelling place…of Christ”, which suggests the bread retains its ontological
substance, as opposed to being transubstantiated into the ontological substance
of Christ. Either Rahner with this view of transignification
is suggesting that Christ ontologically dwells with or in the substance of
the bread, and therefore falls into the heresy of of Consubstatiation; or he is
suggesting that the substance of the bread remain after the consecration and
Christ becomes present, but not present ontologically, but in some other manner
(i.e. in meaning or purpose). Whichever position Rahner’s notion of transigification does imply, such a
Eucharistic theology remains false; and therefore the propagation of this view,
in unison with other erroneous teachings, have led to the “to confusion with
regard to sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning”[16] the Eucharist. Such a
false Eucharistic understandings that assault the doctrine of the Real Presence
and degrade Eucharistic devotion have permeated entire nations.[17]
The reality
of the Eucharistic-crisis as inferred through the evidence enlisted above,
highlights the need for a reform of priestly formation in true and authentic Eucharistic
theology and in true and intensified Eucharistic devotion. To address the issue
the crisis of faith involving the contemporary Eucharistic-crisis in the
Catholic Church, is to address the crisis of intimacy failure within the clergy
(and even as suffered by the laity); because the Eucharist is Divine Intimacy
itself, and it therefore a “healing remedy”[18]
to the brokenness of intimacy failure. Such a Eucharistic renewal ought not to
be reduced to a renewal in priestly formation, since the entire Church from laity,
religious and clergy; to parishes, schools and religious congregations; is in
need of such a renewal. However perfecting priestly formation through a
Eucharistic renewal, is an essential corner stone to this movement known as the
New Evangelisation. For a healthy flock is the fruit of a good shepherd. Yet a
shepherd can only become good if he becomes koinonia
(intimate companions) with Christ the Good Shepherd; wherefore he shall be
transfigured into His Likeness. One meets this Good Shepherd on the summit of
Mount Tabor. That summit which is the Holy Eucharist.
[1] Francis X. Rocca, “Vatican Tries
to Revive Eucharistic Adoration,” The
Christian Century, June 15, 2011,
http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2011-06/vatican-tries-revive-eucharistic-adoration.
[2] op.cit., John Paul II, ‘Ecclesia
De Eucharistia,’ 10.
[3] Richard McBrien, “Perpetual
Eucharistic Adoration,“ National Catholic
Reporter, September 8, 2009,
http://ncronline.org/blogs/essays-theology/perpetual-eucharistic-adoration.
[4] op.cit., Francis X. Rocca,
“Vatican Tries to Revive Eucharistic Adoration.”
[5] Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98,9.
[6] Pius XII, ‘Mediator Dei:
Encyclical on the Sacred Liturgy,’ Vatican:
the Holy See, 1947. Vatican Website: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 129.
[8] Regis Scalon, Modern Misconceptions about the Eucharist,
http://www.ewtn.com /library/DOCTRINE/MOD MISC.TXT.
[9] “We might say that
transfinalization is another name for transignification. In both cases the
substance of bread and wine, I repeat and I wish to emphasize, remain. There is
no change in their being bread and wine – merely take on a new meaning.
Transignification, or new purpose, transfinalization.” Fr. John A. Hardon.
[10]
Paul VI, ‘Mysterium Fidei:
Encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the Holy Eucharist,’ Vatican: the Holy See,
Vatican Website: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 1965, 11.
[12] Emerey de Gaal, The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI: The
Christocentric Shift, (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2010), 262.
[13] As seems to be the case in Teresa
Whalen, The Authentic Doctrine of the
Eucharist, 73-80.
[15] John A. Hardon, Crisis of Faith and the Eucharist, http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Faith/Faith_006.
htm.
[16] op.cit., John Paul II, ‘Ecclesia
De Eucharistia,’ 10.
[17] op.cit., John. A. Hardon, Crisis of Faith and the Eucharist.
[18] Said by the priest at the
breaking of the bread in the Eucharistic liturgy.
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