NOT SO IN THE LATIN RITE'S ICONOCLASTIC VERSION OF THE LITURY--CONSECRATED CRUMBS DON'T MATTER, NO MATTER HOW LARGE DUE TO HOMEMADE BREAD OR EVEN CRUSTY FRENCH BREAD CONSECRATED TO PROMOTE THE BELIEF IN THE REAL PRESENCE OF BREAD, TO BELEIVE THAT THE BREAD IS ACTURALLY BREAD!
Ingredients
ENRICHED BLEACHED FLOUR (BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF THE FOLLOWING: YEAST, SALT, DEXTROSE, WHEAT FLOUR, SOYBEAN OIL.
CONTAINS WHEAT. MAY CONTIAN EGG, SOY.
I was thoroughly indoctrinated by the theologian Bernard Cooke in the seminary in the late 1970's. His book on Sacraments and Sacramentality was a text book in our sacrament's class. He along with other "spirit of Vatican II" liturgical/sacramental scholars singlehandedly led the iconoclastic movement away from signs, which are a veil and not an end unto themselves, to signs being worshipped and redesigned and re-imagined. It is a form of idolatry which seems to be recovered by young more hip clergy who love the 70's who only recently have rediscovered this discredited book by those of us who know better. But of course the charge is led by bishops and priests my age and way, way older (octogenarians) like Cardinal Kasper who are leading us backwards to their glory days of academia and simply being young a relevant.Cooke and his colleagues wanted the Church's liturgy to show forth bombastic signs, big signs of what we are doing at Mass--there was no noble simplicity in this regard and no sobriety which for centuries upon centuries characterized the Latin Rite of the Church.
So the priest had to have big gestures with his arms greeting people and in the oran's position. He had to have a grin on his face, establish eye contact and draw people in--the human is the biggest sign of the Mass, not just the priest but all the ministers, primary among them the congregation that became known as the assembly circled around the altar all as celebrants exercising their priesthood on one level or not. The only priesthood diminished by this was the ordained priesthood which the "recovery" of signs seem to make him purely a President, presided or animator of the big sign of all gathered and the other signs too.
For example the unleavened bread of the Latin Rite was disparaged as being harder to believe it was bread than becoming the Body of Christ. Exactly! So be it! We are receiving bread but Bread which is a symbol for Jesus and His real presence, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. If we have to convince anyone that bread is bread or the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus, as for me and my household it will be the convincing people the the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus our Risen Lord!
Don't get me wrong, the humble, sober use of unleavened bread and wine surely points to Jesus who is the Bread of Life and does for us in terms of the salivation of our body and soul what ordinary bread merely does for the human body in the digestive process. It obviously helps to keep us from starvation and death--which is what Jesus the sacrificial Lamb of God does for us in the Blessed Sacrament in terms of saving us unto life everlasting in heaven!
But we don't sacrifice a Lamb and say that the lamb is the real presence of Christ--the bread is a symbol of that but we don't make the bread look like a lamb, a large life size lamb by the mold that we use to cook the bread. We might impress a lamb symbol on the bread though in a sober way.
When I was in the seminary the bread we baked ourselves had leaven in it like salt and sugar and it tasted very sweet so much so when I received it (and today I think that "it" meaning bread is all I received since the bread was so corrupted by other ingredients, that the Mass wan't valid except through and perhaps the codicil of the "Church supplies" for those who believe it is valid) I only thought about how great it would be with a cup of coffee as a part of my breakfast--so much for devotion and Catholic spirituality.
Bernard Cooke that another blogger and a 1970's mentality blog just discovered and is enamoured with, is not someone that we should resurrect but keep buried in the bowels of the earth!
14 comments:
Sometimes I wonder what world these liturgists live in. I have never had trouble accepting that the hosts used at Mass were real bread and have never heard anyone complain about this. Just because it's a little different from the bread I use in daily life does not mean that I cannot make the connection. Do they honestly think that average people are incapable of making the connection between the bread consecrated and the bread used as regular food unless they are beaten over the head with it?
They also don't seem to realize how this could backfire. Since, no matter how much they try to make the consecrated bread be everyday bread, they drive home the message of how that is impossible given the conditions of validity. Whenever I received holy communion with "substantial bread" it always tasted weird and not like what I would expect bread to taste. But then that's the thing with symbols, they can always be interpreted in different and unexpected ways.
How does their levened bread jibe to their fellow liturgists who think the Mass is a reenactment of a Jewish feast with unleavened bread?
One of our seminary classmates, who came to seminary after teaching second grade in a Catholic school for 7 years, said that, in his experience, it was harder for the children to believe that the host was bread than to believe it was Jesus.
The use of unleavened, i.e. unadulterated wheat, represents the humility and sinlessness of Christ as the perfect, unblemished Sacrifice. At Mass, once the priest utters the Holy words,The Second Person of God takes displaces and takes possession of what was the bread, which while it retains its appearance, is no longer so.
When we are watching a live event on an electronic device, what we see is a projection from the device and not the actual event,since we are not present at it. The event is the underlying reality of what is projected unto our senses. At Mass, when transubstantiation occurs,what was bread is now Christ. We see the bread but the underlying reality, the actuality is the Second Person of the Trinity, and this is so because God has the power to make it so.
Father Kavanaugh,
That particular claim has been circulating for years. Modernized women religious with advanced degrees in liturgical theology are especially fond of saying it.
It is snarky, irreverent and a poor attempt at humor and manipulation in the face of those who preferred the traditional host. It goes back to the early 70's as the liturgical iconoclast derided all things traditional to re-imagine all things liturgical.
It's my understanding that in the Byzantine tradition the use of leavened bread symbolizes the Resurrection. However, from what I have been told (by a canonist) the use of leavened bread in the Latin Church is invalid (not just illicit) material.
I have never heard George's explanation of unleavened bread but will be using it go-forward. :-)
I'm perfectly happy to use "traditional" (the most over-used and wrongly-used word on this blog) host.
There's nothing irreverent (another over-used Southern Orders Blog word) about stating the obvious - that "traditional" hosts bear very little resemblance to any bread a 6 or 7 year old is likely to encounter.
The seminarian I quote is not Fr. Terry Fisher of the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend. Take it up with him.
Seems to me not important whether the child (or anyone else) believes the consecrated Host is really bread, only that he believe it's really the living Body of Christ.
I had no problem understanding it was bread. I don't recall anyone ever having a problem with it. Even so and disregarding my limited anecdotes wouldn't it be a good circumstance to broaden the little tykes mind as well as a teaching point about bread extending to culture and catechisis? Otherwise it is little more than the little 'communion kits' used by Protestants with a cracker and grape juice.
This also speaks to the appeal of the Traditionalist Parishes. They earnestly adore the consecrated Host and are respectful of the Presence in that humble state. Jokes about the bread border on mockery. People who have access to this bread and are nurturing a relationship with Christ shoud be mindful of allowing casual attitudes to creep in not just for themselves but for how it appears to others. It inadvertently validates Luther.
Without the accidents bread, there is no Jesus in the consecrated host.
Jokes about the bread used in communion are not approaching mockery. They are jokes about bread, not about Jesus, not about transubstantiation, not about doctrine, dogma, or the difference between fallible and infallible teaching.
And, yes, the "rose" (pink) vestments are joked about widely, by laity and clergy. And no, these do not approach mockery.
Father I think I know the blog that inspired your post. A priest in the comments waxes nostalgic about how in seminary they used honey in the bread but then they were forced to stop by what he terms the "temple police".
This perfectly illustrates the attitudes of these liturgists: they come up with something novel that goes against what the entire church has takes for granted. Disparage what people have come to associate with the sacred up to this point by referring to hosts as "tiny plastic discs." Then they compare those who protest their novelty to those people in the Gospel who wanted to arrest Jesus.
You would think that if these liturgists sincerely loved the liturgy, that they would introduce novelties with great caution and fear and trembling, and also wanting to constantly reevaluate whether or not the introduction of a novelty was a good thing. Instead they come off as treating the liturgy as their plaything and complaining like spoiled children about "pre-consecrated factory hosts from the tabernacle".
Apparently someone's medication was due at 10:30.
During the Mass, Christ's sacrificial act, His Passion and Death on the Cross, is made manifest and present to us in our own time and place. This does not exclude us also giving homage in our liturgy to Christ in His Resurrection. The same Christ crucified is the same Christ risen. Because of Christ's Divine nature was His sacrificial act the full and effective means for our salvation. By the act of His rising from the dead, was His Divinity made manifest as testimony for, and assurance of, our belief and conviction in Him as the surety of Eternal life for those ever faithful to His Holy teachings.
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