When a man and woman marry each other in the Church, they are not joined sacramentally until the marriage is consummated, that is, until they partake of sexual intercourse. Most people think of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony as only being administered once. I believe they are mistaken. The sacrament is enacted every time a married couple makes love. A husband's seed is given to his wife, in whom it might "take root" and grow into another human being, another member of the domestic church.
Christ is the bridegroom of the Church. The marriage was not consummated until Christ died on the cross for our sins. Some people think that this sacrifice was manifested only once. I believe they are mistaken. The sacrifice is enacted every time a member of the Church receives the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. God's seed, grace, is given to members of the Church, in whom it might take root and grow into faith, a faith that enables us to go and make new disciples, new members of the Universal Church.
Funky Dung
Comments 14
Change "the sacrifice is enacted" to reenacted and you got it right in my book…
Our rituals encapsulate meaningful religious experiences they do not cause them in and of themselves.
Ultimately, the grace of God is not bound to the specific rituals of any institutional church, nor the manner in which the eucharist is received.
At least, that's the way I've come to see things…
dlw
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Posted 16 Oct 2005 at 5:42 am ¶Christ's sacrifice occured once for all. Everytime Catholics receive the Eucharist, they mystically participate in Christ's one sacrifice. Thus, we do participate in the Lord's consumation with his bride, the Church. But that doesn't mean that Christ continually offers himself on the Cross as we celebrate Mass after Mass. No, we are caught up in his paschal mystery over and over again–his one sacrifice for all of us in all time.
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Posted 16 Oct 2005 at 2:28 pm ¶"Our rituals encapsulate meaningful religious experiences they do not cause them in and of themselves."
What do you mean by religious experiences? The thing is, I think that you assume that grace is something that is, necessarily, tied to "religious experiences" (I may be wrong, though). The thing is, divine grace isn't perceptible. Simply because you "didn't feel it" doesn't mean that grace didn't happen.
"Ultimately, the grace of God is not bound to the specific rituals of any institutional church, nor the manner in which the eucharist is received."
Why not?
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Posted 17 Oct 2005 at 3:04 am ¶feelings of closeness to God that the weight of our sins has been lifted/forgiven…
Because, the grace of God is ultimately dependent on our turning away from our sinful lives and toward God, like as was done by the thief on the cross to whom Jesus promised that they would be in eternity together.
In that case, there was no time for ritual, just repentance.
dlw
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Posted 17 Oct 2005 at 3:08 am ¶DLW: "the grace of God is ultimately dependent on our turning away from our sinful lives and toward God"
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is [broken] for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself." - 1 Corinthians 11:23-29 (ESV)
If the Eucharist is merely about turning away from our sinful lives, how is it possible to profane it? If it is merely a symbolic sacrifice, there's nothing to profane.
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Posted 17 Oct 2005 at 2:15 pm ¶"Because, the grace of God is ultimately dependent on our turning away from our sinful lives and toward God"
I think you have it backwards. Grace causes us to turn away from sin — not the other way around. If it were the other way around, what would the point of grace be? I think that your position may rightly be called Pelagian.
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Posted 18 Oct 2005 at 7:29 pm ¶One can profane the Eucharist by forgetting its ultimate referent and how our sins were only paid for by Jesus's sacrifice.
It can become just a ritual to make us feel less guilty about our sinful lives.
The difference here is in that the Protestant perspective holds that that what makes the Eucharist sacred and to be done only with contemplation and reverence is its ultimate referent, which was present and about to be sacrificed during the first communion.
Whether or not a literal miracle takes place when one takes communion is of, at best, secondary importance.
dlw
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Posted 21 Oct 2005 at 10:59 pm ¶Tom:I think you have it backwards. Grace causes us to turn away from sin — not the other way around. If it were the other way around, what would the point of grace be? I think that your position may rightly be called Pelagian.
No Grace makes it possible for us to turn away from sin and be forgiven despite our lack of merit. It is our inability to merit salvation of our own accord that necessitates Grace. This is the standard position held by Arminians and I believe held by many Catholics, many of whom tend to be Arminian, holding to the free-will defence.
dlw
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Posted 21 Oct 2005 at 11:02 pm ¶"Whether or not a literal miracle takes place when one takes communion is of, at best, secondary importance."
Really? Wouldn't you say that Christ's physical presence is a tad more important than what we think about during communion? If you were in the court of a king to pay him homage, what's more important: paying him homage or thinking about him? The correct answer, I think, is that, while they're both important, the acknowledgement of his presence must take the first place.
"No Grace makes it possible for us to turn away from sin and be forgiven despite our lack of merit."
I partly agree. I am undecided on the matter of whether or not grace is resistable.
"It is our inability to merit salvation of our own accord that necessitates Grace."
I (and Catholicism) agree.
"This is the standard position held by Arminians and I believe held by many Catholics, many of whom tend to be Arminian, holding to the free-will defence."
I disagree that Catholics tend toward Arminianism, if for no other reason than that Arminius was reacting against Calvin, who takes his cues from two Catholics: SS. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The Thomistic school, the most influential theological school of the past 700 or so years, typically believe in single predestination (Calvin believed in double) and a very damaging Fall (like Calvin) and a fairly irresistable grace (like Calvin). Catholic theology has always operated independently of Protestant theology, which is why Protestants who try to put Catholic soteriology and theology of grace into Protestant terms usually fail. Catholic belief on the matter falls under a few different schools, the Thomists and the Molinists being the two most influential. Molinism was developed in order to address the seeming free-will problem within Thomistic theology of grace and soteriology. However, this is actually the area of Catholicism I know least about, so, if you're interested, the Catholic Encyclopedia is probably a better source than I.
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Posted 22 Oct 2005 at 4:59 am ¶"One can profane the Eucharist by forgetting its ultimate referent and how our sins were only paid for by Jesus's sacrifice."
That would be profaning the second Person of the Trinity, not the Eucharist. The passage talks about the profanation of the Eucharist, not the profanation of the referent of the Eucharist in your model, Christ. Also, wouldn't the passage have said something like "guilty of profaning the name of the Lord," rather than "the body and blood of the Lord?"
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Posted 22 Oct 2005 at 5:05 am ¶It's always a pleasure dialoguing with you tom.
Me:"Whether or not a literal miracle takes place when one takes communion is of, at best, secondary importance."
Tom:Really? Wouldn't you say that Christ's physical presence is a tad more important than what we think about during communion? If you were in the court of a king to pay him homage, what's more important: paying him homage or thinking about him? The correct answer, I think, is that, while they're both important, the acknowledgement of his presence must take the first place.
God is always present, that's because God is omnipresent ;). What varies is our awareness of God's presence. As such, it doesn't matter if God is literally present, with the same dna structure that Jesus had some 2000 years ago, when we take communion. We need to be reminded of God's presence in our lives and God's sacrifice on our behalf so as to reconcile us with God.
Me:"No Grace makes it possible for us to turn away from sin and be forgiven despite our lack of merit."
Tom:I partly agree. I am undecided on the matter of whether or not grace is resistable.
I hope you can figure that one out for the rest of us…
Me:"It is our inability to merit salvation of our own accord that necessitates Grace."
Tom:I (and Catholicism) agree.
Hallelujah! And that has nothing to do with grace being irresistible or what-not…
Me:"This is the standard position held by Arminians and I believe held by many Catholics, many of whom tend to be Arminian, holding to the free-will defence."
Tom:I disagree that Catholics tend toward Arminianism, if for no other reason than that Arminius was reacting against Calvin, who takes his cues from two Catholics: SS. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The Thomistic school, the most influential theological school of the past 700 or so years, typically believe in single predestination (Calvin believed in double) and a very damaging Fall (like Calvin) and a fairly irresistable grace (like Calvin).
Remind me again the diff between single and double predestination?
How is grace fairly irresistible? Prob(Salvation)=.995?
As I understand it, predestination almost alway refers to the elect, who in biblical times would have been more likely to be understood as another word for the remnant faithful, ie, there will always be those who continue to seek a covenantal relationship with Yahweh. But this need not be a specific group of specific individuals as postulated in hyper-calvinism, but rather just a group of individuals.
Catholic theology has always operated independently of Protestant theology, which is why Protestants who try to put Catholic soteriology and theology of grace into Protestant terms usually fail. Catholic belief on the matter falls under a few different schools, the Thomists and the Molinists being the two most influential. Molinism was developed in order to address the seeming free-will problem within Thomistic theology of grace and soteriology. However, this is actually the area of Catholicism I know least about, so, if you're interested, the Catholic Encyclopedia is probably a better source than I.
I've had friends share with me a bit of Molinism and some of the differences between Thomist/ Augustinina approach with Calvinism. I agree they are different, but there are "parallels" or family resemblances. Concepts do have lives apart from the language and traditions within which we understand them. That's how I've found that I can see parallels between aspects of muslim belief and Christian belief.
Me:"One can profane the Eucharist by forgetting its ultimate referent and how our sins were only paid for by Jesus's sacrifice."
Tom:That would be profaning the second Person of the Trinity, not the Eucharist. The passage talks about the profanation of the Eucharist, not the profanation of the referent of the Eucharist in your model, Christ.
Last I read it, the direct command was for us to do communion in remembrance of Jesus and so the one we would be profaning is Jesus. Also, since the cause of the profaning is "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord." The next verse describes some of what it means for us to take communion in an unworth manner. It has all the world to do with our self-examination and nothing to do with whether we acknowledge whether transubstantiation takes place.
Also, wouldn't the passage have said something like "guilty of profaning the name of the Lord," rather than "the body and blood of the Lord?"
Once again the point is that God did become flesh and did die on behalf of our sins and so the referent need not be to an immediate change in the physical composition of the communion.
And, once more, for me I don't really care about the locution, precise referent of Jesus's words, but rather the illocution intent of us remembering and following him in discipleship. Too much bitter division has existed between committed believers in the past on account of the locution. And so on one level realism demands that either the physical change takes place or it doesn't, but on another level, some folks put far too much significance in the answer to that question and so it might be better just not to answer it.
dlw
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Posted 22 Oct 2005 at 10:21 pm ¶"And, once more, for me I don't really care about the locution, precise referent of Jesus's words, but rather the illocution intent of us remembering and following him in discipleship."
The probelm with this view of the words of institution is that the Greek word for "remembrance", "anamnesis", means more than just remembering or recalling. It means something akin to "make present again". Furthermore, the "this" Christ refers to is the breaking of bread and sharing of the cup in the manner he demonstrated. The actions he took were a marked departure from the rituals of a traditional Passover meal.
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Posted 23 Oct 2005 at 12:45 am ¶I don't know what it was like for you before your Catholic days, but since I was a child I have always concentrated intently at time of communion on both the object of communion and the words of Jesus and God has become immanent in my experience through the reenactment.
dlw
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Posted 23 Oct 2005 at 7:04 pm ¶"God is always present, that's because God is omnipresent. What varies is our awareness of God's presence."
I have to take issue with your characterization of God's omnipresence. (And I just like to talk about the metaphysics of God and theology.) Not to pound Thomism too much, but I like Aquinas' view on the matter; that is, that God is omnipresent, but does not dwell within the substance of matter (as pantheists would argue). That is why we cannot worship rocks and clouds and trees. God's substance allows matter to exist within it; in a sense, God isn't everywhere so much as everything is within God. This view is known as panentheism. How is this relevant? In the Eucharist, God makes himself present in another way than the typical omnipresence which supports matter. God's substance remains in the background, but also takes up residence under the species of bread and wine, replacing the substances of the bread and wine. This is why we say that God is not only physically, but locally, present in the Eucharist, and why the Eucharistic elements may legitimately be worshipped with latria.
"Remind me again the diff between single and double predestination?"
Double predestination comes from Calvin's very hard reading of Augustine, which results in a predestination of both the elect and the reprobate. Catholic theologians typically believe in single predestination (that of the elect), with varying interpretations of what happens to the non-predestined.
"How is grace fairly irresistible? Prob(Salvation)=.995?"
My mistake for obfuscating this one. What I meant by the phrase was that Aquinas and the Thomists have a fairly Augustinian view of grace, which tends more towards irresistability than resistability.
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Posted 27 Oct 2005 at 5:30 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
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