As has already been mentioned above, the deacons were accustomed in the Early Church to take the Blessed Sacrament to those who were absent from Divine service, as well as to present the Chalice to the laity during the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries (cf. Now, Christ, according to the literal purport of His testament, has left us as a precious legacy, not mere bread and wine, but His Body and Blood. All that is beautiful, all that is true in the religions of nature, Christianity has appropriated to itself, and like a concave mirror has collected the dispersed and not unfrequently distorted rays of truth into their common focus and again sent them forth resplendently in perfect beams of light. Receiving the Eucharist is one of the most important things we can do as a catholic. WebThe most common names are: the Eucharist, Holy Mass, the Lords Supper, the Breaking of the Bread, the Eucharistic Celebration, the Memorial of the passion, death and Resurrection of the Lord, the Holy Sacrifice, the Holy and Divine Liturgy, the Sacred Mysteries, the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, and Holy Communion. Omissions? First of all, no intrinsic repugnance can be shown in the concept of multilocation. The first, the only mode of presence proper to bodies, is that by virtue of which an object is confined to a determinate portion of space in such wise that its various parts (atoms, molecules, electrons) also occupy their corresponding positions in that space. Whereas the early Christians were accustomed to receive at every celebration of the Liturgy, which probably was not celebrated daily in all places, or were in the habit of Communicating privately in their own homes every day of the week, a falling-off in the frequency of Communion is noticeable since the fourth century. Since Christ is present under the appearances of bread and wine in a sacramental way, the Blessed Eucharist is unquestionably a sacrament of the Church. Hence it was the intention of the council to condemn the second article, not merely as a conclusion of the first, but as a distinct and independent proposition; wherefore we may gather the Churchs teaching on the subject from the contradictory proposition: Accidentia panis manent sine subjecto, i.e. Funk, Der Kommunionritus in his Kirchengeschichtl. By the restrictive clause, separatione factae, the Council of Trent (Sess. i). xciii, ad Caesariam). As a result of such variations, the Eucharist has been a central issue in the discussions and deliberations of the ecumenical movement.
Eucharist in Greek means thanksgiving. This is because the church iii). There are two views regarding the sense in which this text is to be interpreted. WebEucharist (Gr. This, however, would be but one more marvel of Gods omnipotence. Nor does the modern theory of n-dimensions throw any light upon the subject; for the Body of Christ is not invisible or impalpable to us because it occupies the fourth dimension, but because it transcends and is wholly independent of space. The reason the physicality of the sacrament is important is because, in the action itself, we witness to our heart of faith. Whereas the priest is both by Divine and ecclesiastical right the ordinary dispenser (minister ordinarius) of the sacrament, the deacon is by virtue of his order the extraordinary minister (minister extraordinarius), yet he may not administer the sacrament except ex delegatione, i.e. Yet far from repudiating this construction as a gross misunderstanding, Christ repeated them in a most solemn manner, in the text quoted above (John, vi, 54 sqq.). The species undoubtedly belong to the essence of the sacrament, since it is by means of them, and not by means of the invisible Body of Christ, that the Eucharist possesses the outward sign of the sacrament. Finally, mention must be made of mixed multilocation, since Christ with His natural dimensions reigns in heaven, whence he does not depart, and at the same time dwells with His Sacramental Presence in numberless places throughout the world. In other words, the Body of Christ is present in the sacrament, not after the manner of quantity (per modum quantitatis), but of substance (per modum substantioe). Whether or not the Holy Eucharist is directly conducive to the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, is disputed by St. Thomas (ibid., a. WebThe Eucharist has always been one of the most important aspects of Christianity. Kimmel, Monum. xlvi, in Joan., 2 sqq. The precept of the yearly paschal Communion was solemnly reiterated by the Council of Trent (Sess. Yet, even prescinding from the fact that in the Aramaic tongue the copula est is usually omitted and that such an omission rather makes for its strict meaning of to be, Cardinal Wiseman (Home Syriaca., Rome, 1828, pp. Concerning the Adduction Theory of the Scotists and the Production Theory of the Thomists, see Pohle, Dogmatik (3rd ed., Paderborn, 1908), III, 237 sqq. However the Sacrament of Sacraments is the Holy The Eucharist is the source of grace in a number of ways. The pious custom of the faithful of offering their Communion for relations, friends, and the souls departed, is to be considered as possessing unquestionable value, in the first place, because an earnest prayer of petition in the presence of the Spouse of our souls will readily find a hearing, and then, because the fruits of Communion as a means of satisfaction for sin may be applied to a third person, and especially per modum suffragii to the souls in purgatory. Webmass of the holy chrism of the diocese of paranaque at the cathedral parish of st. andrew This is deduced partly from the rite of the Passover, which required the head of the family to pass around the cup of benediction (calix benedictionis) containing the wine of grapes, partly, and especially, from the express declaration of Christ, that henceforth He would not drink of the fruit of the vine (genimen vitis).
It brings salvation to the soul. Since Descartes (d. 1650) places the essence of corporeal substance in its actual extension and recognizes only modal accidents meta-physically united to their substance, it is clear, according to his theory, that together with the conversion of the substance of bread and wine, the accidents must also be converted and thereby made to disappear. To determine whether a speaker intends the second manner of expression, there are four criteria, whose joint concurrence alone will allow the verb to be to have the meaning of signify. Abhandlungen and Untersuchungen, Paderborn, 1897, I, pp. Since the Sacrament of Love is not satisfied with an increase of habitual love only, but tends especially to fan the flame of actual love to an intense ardor, the Holy Eucharist is specifically distinguished from the other sacraments, and hence it is precisely in this latter effect that Suarez recognizes the so-called grace of the sacrament, which otherwise is so hard to discern. Why is the Eucharist the most important sacrament? Trent, Sess. Descartes had already, in a letter to P. Mesland (ed. WebSolved by verified expert. Although St. Augustine left daily Communion to the free choice of the individual, his admonition, in force even at the present day, was: Sic vive, ut quotidie possis sumere (De dono persev., c. xiv), i.e. Furthermore, it was customary as early as the fourth century to celebrate the Mass of the Presanctified (cf. ii: manentibus dumtaxat speciebus panis et vini). The Church gathers to remember and to re-present the sacrifice of Christ in which we share through the action of the priest and the power of the Holy Spirit. Baptism, for instance, lasts only as long as the baptismal action or ablution with water, and is, therefore, a transitory sacrament; on the contrary, the Eucharist, and the Eucharist alone, constitutes a permanent sacrament (cf. Matt., xxvi, 27 sq. Against these errors the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) confirmed the ancient Catholic teaching, that no one but the priest [sacerdos], regularly ordained according to the keys of the Church, has the power of consecrating this sacrament. Ex., xxiv, 8; Heb., ix, 11 sqq.). It is true, that Pope Innocent III (De Sacro altaris myst., IV, vi) before his elevation to the pontificate did hold the opinion, which later theologians branded as temerarious, that Christ consecrated without words by means of the mere benediction. Communion is the anticipation of the coming glory of heaven. xcviii, n. 9). According to a well-known principle of Christology, the same worship of latria (cultus latrioe) as is due to the Triune God is due also to the Divine Word, the God-man Christ, and in fact, by reason of the hypostatic union, to the Humanity of Christ and its individual component parts, as, e.g., His Sacred Heart. Eccl., VI, xliv). Man is a rational being), whereas the second designates a thing according as it is used as a sign of something else (e.g. Corrections? These three mysteries constitute a wonderful triad, which causes the essential characteristic of Christianity, as a religion of mysteries far transcending the capabilities of reason, to shine forth in all its brilliance and splendor, and elevates Catholicism, the most faithful, guardian and keeper of our Christian heritage, far above all pagan and non-Christian religions. Nothing hinders our interpreting the first part [John, vi, 26-48 (51)] metaphorically and understanding by bread of heaven Christ Himself as the object of faith, to be received in a figurative sense as a spiritual food by the mouth of faith. We respect the Blessed Sacrament because we believe that Jesus is truly present there. Denzinger, Enchirid., Freiburg, 1908, no. This is my body, the Apostles received from the hand of the Lord His Sacred Body, which was already objectively present and did not first become so in the act of partaking. According to the eucharistic doctrine of Roman Catholicism, the elements of the consecrated bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ: their substance is converted into the substance of the body and blood, although the outward appearances of the elements, their accidents, remain. Church law obliges Roman Catholics to receive Holy Communion at least once a year (during the Lent-Easter season) but encourages them to take it at mass every Sunday, on feast days, and even every day. In spite of their striking unanimity as regards essentials, the Petrine account is simpler and clearer, whereas the Pauline is richer in additional details and more involved in its citation of the words that refer to the Chalice. All Christians would agree that it is a memorial action in which, by eating bread Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the Fathers and several ecumenical councils (Ephesus, 431; Nicaea, 787) adopted the literal sense of the words, though it was not dogmatically defined (cf. ii). The High Church Anglicans (especially since the Anglo-Catholic Oxford movement of the 19th century) and the Lutherans (who affirm the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine) adhere most closely to the traditions of Catholic eucharistic doctrine and practice. The seven sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, marriage and holy orders. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and this custom was still prevalent in the sixth century [cf. Some theologians of today would seek to come to an understanding with modern science, which bases all natural processes upon the very fruitful theory of energy, by trying with Leibniz to explain the Eucharistic accidentia sine subjecto according to the dynamism of natural philosophy. Hence the Council of Trent (Sess. The objection that the mere historical recitation of the words of Institution taken from the narrative of the Last Supper possesses no intrinsic consecratory force, would be well founded, did the priest of the Latin Church merely intend by means of them to narrate some historical event rather than pronounce them with the practical purpose of effecting the conversion, or if he pronounced them in his own name and person instead of the Person of Christ, whose minister and instrumental cause he is. 2. This general and fundamental principle, which entirely abstracts from the duality of the species, must, nevertheless, be extended to each of the species of bread and wine. XIII, cap. It is clear that the Church has always denied the laity the power to consecrate. All Christians would agree that it is a memorial action in which, by eating bread and drinking wine (or, for some Protestants, grape juice or water), the church recalls what Jesus Christ was, said, and did. iv; can. Christ: Holy Communion is a re-presentation of Gods love for the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The venerable antiquity of the Oriental Epiklesis, its peculiar position in the Canon of the Mass, and its interior spiritual unction, oblige the theologian to determine its dogmatic value and to account for its use. On the other hand, the synecdoche is plain in the case of the Chalice: This is my blood, i.e. In proceeding to verify the form, which is always made up of words, we may start from the indubitable fact, that Christ did not consecrate by the mere fiat of His omnipotence, which found no expression in articulate utterance, but by pronouncing the words of Institution: This is my body this is my blood, and that by the addition: Do this for a commemoration of me, He commanded the Apostles to follow His example.
Not many theologians, however, followed him in this regard, among the few being Ambrose Catharinus, Cheffontaines, and Hoppe, by far the greater number preferring to stand by the unanimous testimony of the Fathers. It is, therefore, one of the sacraments of the living. Did St. Paul brand the partaking of the Church and of the New Testament as a heinous offense committed against the Body and Blood of Christ? Supposing the truth of the Real Presence, this consideration might be open to discussion, inasmuch as the partaking of the Bread of Angels is really the foretaste of eternal beatitude and the anticipated transformation of earth into heaven. WebThey are the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist), the Sacraments of Healing (Penance and the Anointing of the Sick), and the Sacraments at the Service of Communion (Marriage and Holy Orders). The Eucharist isthe Real Presence of God, Jesus Christ, body and blood, under the appearance of bread and wine. The difficulty reaches its climax when we consider that there is no question here of the Soul or the Divinity of Christ, but of His Body, which, with its head, trunk, and members, has assumed a mode of existence spiritual and independent of space, a mode of existence, indeed, concerning which neither experience nor any system of philosophy can have the least inkling. Even in his time Cyril of Jerusalem insisted just as strongly as did Ambrose and Augustine on an attitude of adoration and homage during Holy Communion (cf. IV, xvii, 39). WebThe Eucharist, also known as Holy Communion, is a sacrament that commemorates the Last Supper. haer., IV, xviii, 4), and Tertullian (De resurr. First of all the notion of conversion is verified in the Eucharist, not only in general, but in all its essential details. External quantity, on the other hand (quantitas externa seu in actu secundo), is the same entity, but in so far as it follows its natural tendency to occupy space and actually extends itself in the three dimensions.
Council of Trent, Sess. Nor did Christ say: My flesh is spirit, i, e. to be understood in a figurative sense, but: My words are spirit and life. Such a numerical identity could well have been denied by Ratramnus, Rabanus Maurus, Ratherius, Lanfranc, and others, since even nowadays a true, though accidental, distinction between the sacramental and the natural condition of Christs Body must be rigorously maintained. ; Mark, xiv, 23). This again is a purely arbitrary explanation, an invention, unsupported by any objective foundation. 086 079 7114 [email protected]. the capability of being extended in tri-dimensional space. (a) The scientific development of the concept of Transubstantiation can hardly be said to be a product of the Greeks, who did not get beyond its more general notes; rather, it is the remarkable contribution of the Latin theologians, who were stimulated to work it out in complete logical form by the three Eucharistic controversies mentioned above. Concil., XXXI 106). During the Reformation, though the medieval doctrine was denied in varying ways by the reformers, it was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in 1551. The application of the foregoing to the Eucharist is an easy matter. (a) The first and principal effect of the Holy Eucharist is union with Christ by love (Decr. But in the original text corpus (body) and sanguis (blood) are followed by significant appositional additions, the Body being designated as given for you and the Blood as shed for you [many]; hence the Body given to the Apostles was the selfsame Body that was crucified on Good Friday, and the Chalice drunk by them, the selfsame Blood that was shed on the Cross for our sins. For the chief difficulty of the latter appears to be that the same Christ is present in two different parts, A and B, of the continuous Host, it being immaterial whether we consider the distant parts A and B joined by the continuous line AB or not. It is, indeed, one of those sublime mysteries, concerning which speculative theology attempts to offer various solutions [see below under (5)]. Whereas in mere changes one of the two extremes may be expressed negatively, as, e.g., in the change of day and night, conversion requires two positive extremes, which are related to each other as thing to thing, and must have, besides, such an intimate connection with each other, that the last extreme (terminus ad quem) begins to be only as the first (terminus a quo) ceases to be, as, e.g., in the conversion of water into wine at Cana. According to the teaching of the Roman Catechism, it is effected by the allaying of concupiscence, which is the chief source of deadly sin, particularly of impurity. 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Why is the Eucharist the most important sacrament? Trent, Sess. Descartes had already, in a letter to P. Mesland (ed. WebSolved by verified expert. Although St. Augustine left daily Communion to the free choice of the individual, his admonition, in force even at the present day, was: Sic vive, ut quotidie possis sumere (De dono persev., c. xiv), i.e. Furthermore, it was customary as early as the fourth century to celebrate the Mass of the Presanctified (cf. ii: manentibus dumtaxat speciebus panis et vini). The Church gathers to remember and to re-present the sacrifice of Christ in which we share through the action of the priest and the power of the Holy Spirit. Baptism, for instance, lasts only as long as the baptismal action or ablution with water, and is, therefore, a transitory sacrament; on the contrary, the Eucharist, and the Eucharist alone, constitutes a permanent sacrament (cf. Matt., xxvi, 27 sq. Against these errors the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) confirmed the ancient Catholic teaching, that no one but the priest [sacerdos], regularly ordained according to the keys of the Church, has the power of consecrating this sacrament. Ex., xxiv, 8; Heb., ix, 11 sqq.). It is true, that Pope Innocent III (De Sacro altaris myst., IV, vi) before his elevation to the pontificate did hold the opinion, which later theologians branded as temerarious, that Christ consecrated without words by means of the mere benediction. Communion is the anticipation of the coming glory of heaven. xcviii, n. 9). According to a well-known principle of Christology, the same worship of latria (cultus latrioe) as is due to the Triune God is due also to the Divine Word, the God-man Christ, and in fact, by reason of the hypostatic union, to the Humanity of Christ and its individual component parts, as, e.g., His Sacred Heart. Eccl., VI, xliv). Man is a rational being), whereas the second designates a thing according as it is used as a sign of something else (e.g. Corrections? These three mysteries constitute a wonderful triad, which causes the essential characteristic of Christianity, as a religion of mysteries far transcending the capabilities of reason, to shine forth in all its brilliance and splendor, and elevates Catholicism, the most faithful, guardian and keeper of our Christian heritage, far above all pagan and non-Christian religions. Nothing hinders our interpreting the first part [John, vi, 26-48 (51)] metaphorically and understanding by bread of heaven Christ Himself as the object of faith, to be received in a figurative sense as a spiritual food by the mouth of faith. We respect the Blessed Sacrament because we believe that Jesus is truly present there. Denzinger, Enchirid., Freiburg, 1908, no. This is my body, the Apostles received from the hand of the Lord His Sacred Body, which was already objectively present and did not first become so in the act of partaking. According to the eucharistic doctrine of Roman Catholicism, the elements of the consecrated bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ: their substance is converted into the substance of the body and blood, although the outward appearances of the elements, their accidents, remain. Church law obliges Roman Catholics to receive Holy Communion at least once a year (during the Lent-Easter season) but encourages them to take it at mass every Sunday, on feast days, and even every day. In spite of their striking unanimity as regards essentials, the Petrine account is simpler and clearer, whereas the Pauline is richer in additional details and more involved in its citation of the words that refer to the Chalice. All Christians would agree that it is a memorial action in which, by eating bread Under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the Fathers and several ecumenical councils (Ephesus, 431; Nicaea, 787) adopted the literal sense of the words, though it was not dogmatically defined (cf. ii). The High Church Anglicans (especially since the Anglo-Catholic Oxford movement of the 19th century) and the Lutherans (who affirm the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine) adhere most closely to the traditions of Catholic eucharistic doctrine and practice. The seven sacraments are baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, marriage and holy orders. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and this custom was still prevalent in the sixth century [cf. Some theologians of today would seek to come to an understanding with modern science, which bases all natural processes upon the very fruitful theory of energy, by trying with Leibniz to explain the Eucharistic accidentia sine subjecto according to the dynamism of natural philosophy. Hence the Council of Trent (Sess. The objection that the mere historical recitation of the words of Institution taken from the narrative of the Last Supper possesses no intrinsic consecratory force, would be well founded, did the priest of the Latin Church merely intend by means of them to narrate some historical event rather than pronounce them with the practical purpose of effecting the conversion, or if he pronounced them in his own name and person instead of the Person of Christ, whose minister and instrumental cause he is. 2. This general and fundamental principle, which entirely abstracts from the duality of the species, must, nevertheless, be extended to each of the species of bread and wine. XIII, cap. It is clear that the Church has always denied the laity the power to consecrate. All Christians would agree that it is a memorial action in which, by eating bread and drinking wine (or, for some Protestants, grape juice or water), the church recalls what Jesus Christ was, said, and did. iv; can. Christ: Holy Communion is a re-presentation of Gods love for the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The venerable antiquity of the Oriental Epiklesis, its peculiar position in the Canon of the Mass, and its interior spiritual unction, oblige the theologian to determine its dogmatic value and to account for its use. On the other hand, the synecdoche is plain in the case of the Chalice: This is my blood, i.e. In proceeding to verify the form, which is always made up of words, we may start from the indubitable fact, that Christ did not consecrate by the mere fiat of His omnipotence, which found no expression in articulate utterance, but by pronouncing the words of Institution: This is my body this is my blood, and that by the addition: Do this for a commemoration of me, He commanded the Apostles to follow His example.