According to a survey led by a sociologist at Catholic University
and published in The National
Catholic Reporter, forty
percent of 1,442 American Catholic adults said "you can be a good Catholic
without believing that in Mass, the bread and wine really become the body and
blood of Christ—a core doctrine of Catholicism.” A reporter opines that
this “could reflect the decline in Mass attendance. The survey finds it’s
fallen from 44% attending at least once a week in 1987 to 31% in 2011, while
those who attend less than monthly rose from 26% to 47%. When asked why they
don’t go to Mass more often, 40% say they are simply not very religious.”[1] What does it mean to
say that someone is or is not religious?
Looking back at the history of religion, a neutral party might half-joke that
the adjective refers to the proclivity to spar over puerile theological
distinctions as if Creation itself hung in the balance. In this essay, I
illustrate how such a distinction bearing on the Eucharist (i.e., Holy
Communion) can be diffused of its alleged historical significance as warranting
Christian division under the taskmaster of (cognitive) uniformity as a
placeholder for unity.
The Catholic doctrine of Christ’s real presence in
the Eucharist is called transubstantiation. It is the belief that the
substance, or essence, of the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of
Christ. The term “substance” can be misleading. It does not refer to what we
moderns understand as chemical or physical material or matter; rather, the
notion of substance here is that of Aristotle, who distinguishes it from
accidents, or the qualities/attributes of something. The accidents include
something’s physical or chemical material as well as other qualities. The real presence in
transubstantiation is the Aristotelian notion of “substance” (or essence)
applied theologically
rather than metaphysically. The body and blood having a real
(theologically!) presence in the Eucharist are of Christ’s post-ascension,
resurrected body.
Lest one object that Jesus resurrected asks for a fish and thus
has a physical dimension, it is the post-ascension resurrected body and applied theologically. In other words, the real presence is real theologically.
We tend to think of “real” metaphysically as in terms of reality, and this in
turn in terms of real substance as matter. We have almost lost the ability to
think in terms of theological essence. I contend that the theological essence
from applying the Aristotelian notion of substance (or essence) theologically
to the Eucharist as real presence is virtually the same as the
Reformed spiritual presence.
The Lutheran consubstantiation—that
the Aristotelian substance or essence applied theologically is real presence coheres
with the “substance” or essence of bread and wine remaining. My point is that
all three views contain a spiritual (or “real” theologically) presence, in contrast to Zwingli’s view of
communion as a symbol.
To grasp Aristotle’s notion of substance and how it may apply to
theological concepts, consider the following analogy. For a person to say that
the house (or apartment) he or she grew up in was his or her home is
to say that the “substance” or essence of the house changed to,
or included, being home. It makes no sense to say that the presence of home is
a material substance even though home is really present as
felt. Materially, the house may be made of wood and/or brick, but this is
almost beside the point. At some point after a couple moves into a physical
house, it becomes home.
The “substance” or essence changes (or is added to)—the difference with
respect to whether the essence changes or is added to doesn’t really
matter if one’s focus is on home.
So what it is also still a house? My point is that home has
its own sort of real presence,
and it doesn’t make any sense to speak of it in terms of other domains, such as
materials science. This doesn’t mean that the presence of home is
any less real.
Anyone who has had one's house or apartment broken into and trashed knows that
the "substance/essence" or real presence of home can
be wiped out in a day. The difference between the house being one's home and
being the house in which one lives is unmistakeable and thus the distinction is
taken as real in a certain,
non-metaphysical sense. So too, the presence of the body and blood of Christ
is taken as real in a spiritual or religious
sense.
I suspect that real presence and spiritual presence refer essentially to the same thing,
given that Christ is present “bodily” in a distinctly religious or
theological sense, rather than in a metaphysical or empirical sense. The bottom
line may be that for a disciple of Jesus, home is really (i.e., religious
sense) present at the table. In other words, the essence is
that of being home,
just as Jesus feels at home going alone to pray on a mountain. Being a child of
God is to be home where God is felt to be.
Religious, or transcendent, experience is really present for such a person. Ultimately,
I think the real presence at the Eucharist is precisely
such an experience. In it, the Kingdom of God within is experienced as truly present. One is part of the body of Christ. In other
words, the body that is ingested is distinctly (and
delimited as) theological in nature, and thus spiritually present—and no less real (in
a religious rather than metaphysical sense). Ultimately, home is
felt as really present as a matter of the heart, rather than being a place or
material substance that could be bottled.
If I am on the right track in tracing the distinctly spiritual real presence of
the body of Christ to its roots in a distinctly religious experience, then at
least some of the arguments or fighting between the Reformed, Catholic and
Lutheran sects historically was based on mere misunderstandings. Take, as
another example, the doctrine of justification by faith (solo fides).
The Catholic position does not deny this, or interlard works or the efficacy of
the sacraments as additional requirements for justification. Rather, taking communion is
part of the process of sanctification, which follows justification.
Also, the Catholic position does not maintain that the sacrifice
of the Mass substitutes for Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, as one Reformed
historical document claims. Indeed, Catholic priests say that their ordination
enables them to share in Christ’s sacrifice, rather than
substitute for it. After centuries of misunderstanding rolling over the
division from generation to generation without any thought or reflection,
perhaps we can finally step back and marvel: So much for the vanity that presumes
human disagreements to have any real significance!
Perhaps most unfortunate of all, the sheer intransigence of
apparent historical differences can block perceptual opportunities. For
example, given their doctrine of spiritual presence,
which at the very least is a presence in a religious sense, Reformed churches
could conceivably have provide the spiritual presence of Christ in chapels to
be adored under the specie of consecrated bread. The assumed spiritual presence
could serve as an anchor making possible a sustained presence of intense
religious or transcendent experience isolated as though a precipitate of
ongoing practice. Out of such practice naturally comes a distinctly spiritual
sensitivity, which in relation to other people we feel as compassion. In the
context of such a religious core, theological disagreement itself is naturally
relegated or sidelined as extraneous just as one does not pay so much attention
to the materials of one’s house if it is also one’s home.
Who would willingly go from the warmth of a hearth into a cold
room unless to pick a fight? And what does it matter anyway what the fight is
about to the persons staying near the hearth? I suspect that the Catholics who
view themselves as “not very religious” have simply not been shown to the
hearth, even in Church; to them, it is a cold room guarded by too many
control-freaks (who themselves know not the hearth). Who could blame people for
resisting the cold—yet if they are given a taste of warmth would they want it?
I think this depends on the person. Perhaps a church is in essence (or ought to
be in practice) delimited by experiencing a distinctive warmth.
1. Cathy L.
Grossman, “Survey: U.S. Catholics’
Religious Identity Slips,” USA Today, October 25, 2011.
