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This is a Hard Saying

August 25, 2012 By 41 Comments

When some polls reveal that 45% of American Catholics don’t believe in transubstantiation, and prefer to believe that the bread and wine are symbols of Christ’s body and blood, we do well to remember this anecdote re-told in one of Flannery O’Connor’s letters:

I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, “A Charmed Life.”) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. . . . Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.

Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.

That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized 41 Comments
About Fr. Dwight Longenecker
  • Jamie

    I just don’t understand WHY Jesus would institute this Sacrament. The only reason I can think of is that He said He would not leave us orphans…but then why wouldn’t He just stay on earth with us? I believe, of course, but I have questions.

    • Danny

      One reason I think Jesus instituted the Eucharist was because He was preserving the Church with Himself. This was a pivotal concept for me when I converted to Catholicism. The meanings of symbols can and do change; people reinterpret the Bible to mean all sorts of things. If, I had reasoned in my pre-Catholic years, the whole Christian religion was based on the human interpretations of a book then what’s the point? In 2,000 years of Christianity, how do we know the true Gospel wasn’t lost because of human error? Basing a religion on the interpretation of a single book in my view meant that possibility would always exist.

      Founding a religion on a person, though, a living human, Who is with it to this day is a different story. You can’t change the meaning or interpretation of a person. Jesus is Who He is. And whatever flows from Him will remain constant as well. With God preserving the Church with Himself through the Blessed Sacrament, I think human error cannot interfere. It’s why I’m Catholic. Like Mr. O’Conner said, if the Eucharist isn’t Him, what’s the point? Where else can I go?

    • Parasum

      There are several possible answers.
      1. He instituted it as a sign of His Presence with His People.

      2. His Life does not end on earth. He came to earth to overcome death & hell & sin; & He did that, by dying, and rising from the dead. His Resurrection is the guarantee of ours, and is a stage in His Glorification. The Ascension takes His Glorification further; He is as highly exalted with His Father, as He was humiliated when humbled He humbled Himself to taste death for us all. And His Glorification includes His Return as Judge of all mankind.

      3. It would not have been “fitting” for Him to stay on earth in His own Person. His returning to the Father was necessary, if He was to send the Spirit. This is what life is like too – to receive one good, we often have to let go of an earlier one: to have both, is very often not possible. We have to let go what we have received already, & not grasp at it, if we are to have our hearts & hands open to receive something new. To receive the Spirit through Whom Jesus becomes present in all His Church, the disciples had to let go seeing Jesus Himself present in the body. The gift of the Spirit is better by far than the gift of seeing Jesus with the eyes of the body alone.

      4. One of the reasons for this Sacrament, is that in it Jesus is Present through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. And not only is He is Present, but, much more than that, He becomes our Food. He enters into us, in all our weakness & nothingness & sinfulness & neediness, so that we may become the One Whom we eat. We become “one body with Him”, in a union far closer than in any marriage – and a far more powerful union. So He does indeed “not leave us orphans” – for He is present with each of us, and with the Church as a People.

      5. He is our Clothing, Shield, Wisdom, Righteousness, Peace, Justification, Way, Truth, Life, Head, Leader, Lord, Teacher, King – and much more. He has kept back nothing from us, and shared everything with us: His Sonship, Father, Spirit, graces, Cross, Resurrection – even His human mother. He is, as Evangelicals say, all-sufficient. So much so, that He is our Food as well.

      Hope that is (1) not inaccurate (2) some use to you.

      • Joe

        I respectfully request you download scott hahn’s ‘lamb’s supper’ at lighhousecatholicmedia.org. It may very well help w your questions re eucharist.

  • suzy

    I became Catholic at great personal cost because I believe that the Eucharist is in fact the body and blood of Christ. If it’s not I created a terrible earthquake in my personal world for nothing. I don’t believe it’s for nothing, it’s what keeps me coming back week after week despite sometimes not great homilies, frequent discordant music, and the scandal caused by some in the hierarchy from time to time. What I can’t figure out is why anyone would stick around if they really believed it’s just a symbol. Being Episcopalian would be so much easier, and so much more politically correct.

    • William H

      I absolutely know what you mean, Suzy. If I did not believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation I would move on to a protestant group. I left the Anglican Church just for this very reason. When I was an Anglican, my young adult group was discussing the usage of Monstrance’s within our own tradition. We found that one Anglican priest was ok with the practice, two were uneasy, and one responded “Why would I want to adore a piece of bread?”.

      I could not leave the Church now because Jesus feeds me with himself (John 6). I would lose all of everything if I could not receive Christ.

  • zillionaire

    Father, as you know, Pope Benedict XVI has said that, “But this is not a statement of physics. It has never been asserted that, so to say, nature in a physical sense is being changed. The transformation reaches down to a more profound level. Tradition has it that this is a metaphysical process.” Certainly, the Eucharist is symbolic in some sense, which (for many of us) makes it more meaningful, not less meaningful, than a purely physical process that is not symbolic.

    • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

      It is both symbolic and sacramental.

  • Charles E Flynn

    Flannery O’Connor’s anecdote is likely to be retold until the last day.

  • Parasum

    “When some polls reveal that 45% of American Catholics don’t believe in transubstantiation….”

    ## I thought the %age was 70%.

    • Chris

      Catechesis is improving.

  • http://jameswheeler.blogspot.com/ james

    An interesting question about eucharist. I am evangelical but do not necessarily like to take a stand on transub or consub or whatever. I simply affirm that it is the body and blood of Christ plain and simple. I am not trying to be enlightened i just dont find the theological distinctions to be that helpful in the practice of receiving communion.

    • Dad Of Eight

      @ james: And I am not trying to be troubling – but I don’t understand what you have said. Do you or do you not take a stand? do you or do you not affirm He is present in the Body/Blood? If you believe you must literally eat Him (as John 6 says) then there is no other way to eat Him but in the Catholic tradition of communion. An evangelical pastor, even if he believes in the real presence, can not make Jesus present in his communion tradition and can not give Jesus out to others to eat in communion. Your believing He is present in your communion tradition does not make it so. I am sure you feel Jesus close to you and by your actions make Jesus close to you (which is a wonderful thing and more than most Catholics can attest to) but it is not eating Jesus (John 6 again). So receiving communion in any other non-Catholic tradition is just a symbol and not really eating Jesus. Right?

      • Dad Of Eight

        And I might add I love this John 6:60 quote, “this is a hard saying.” It is precisely at this point in John 6 where Jesus’s followers, all but the apostles, turn away and leave him. The disciples (not apostles) of course were referring to John 6: 53 when Jesus said “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Jesus run after them and say to them, “Oh, it is just a figure of speech – a symbol of what I really mean. So don’t leave. You misunderstood me.” Of course he meant it literally. But that is a hard saying – even for most Catholics.

      • Al Bergstrazer

        DoE, there are many that believe it is the words of instituion (which are the last will and testament of Christ) which make the sacrament what it is rather than the priest per se and the priest or pastor is the steward and guardian of the sacrament rather than the one who has power to make it so. The bread and wine are the means by which the Lord is present not the celebrant. That being said, you are correct in that there are people who are ‘receptionists’ i.e. it is the sacrament if we believe it is, but not all non Catholics think and believe this. Also; it were just a representation/symbol Paul also would not have warned against sinning against the sacrament, after all how can one sin against bread and wine?

    • Anil Wang

      @james,
      The distinction is important because it reflect the way you treat the Eucharist. When you approach the Eucharist do you actually treat it like the body of Christ, showing it some sign of respect or do you just munch it like you would the donuts and coffee you’d eat at fellowship? If some falls on the ground, do you pick it up immediately including all crumbs and either eat it or bury it honorably, or do you just leave it for people to step on and the cleaners to dispose of. If there are leftovers, do save them for the next communion or bury it honorably, or do you just throw it in the garbage or leave it for the birds?

      *That* is not a trivial difference, which is why it raised such passions in John 6. We can’t merely brush it aside as one of the non-essentials. We either have to stand with the people who think that the Eucharist as Catholics understand it is an idolatrous abomination or we have to stand with the people who treat the Eucharist with the love and respect they would Our Lord and never depart from any Church that did not have and love and respect the Eucharist. This is no middle ground. As in many things, Christ does not give us a choice.

  • Rusmeister

    From the American Orthodox Chestertonian living in Russia (We are rare birds indeed)..
    I get the jolly joy of being able to defend Catholic doctrine where it is also Orthodox doctrine; as long as it remains Catholic doctrine that will continue…
    Although we do not teach transubstantiation as such, we Orthodox certainly DO believe in a literal Body and Blood. And from Scripture, it is clear that the Jews listening to Christ understood exactly that, and Christ did not correct them. It’s why they left – they couldn’t take that literal understanding. They said, “this is a hard saying.”, not “this is an ethereal saying “. I think I can take “hard” in its other meaning of “solid”, just as the Eucharist is solid thing. It is a solid thing we take into our mouths, not a symbolic thing.
    If it is only a symbol, then it is less important – MUCH less so. If it is what Christ said it is, then it is eternal life. Mystical? Yes. Symbolic only? No. The ideas of mystical and symbolic are not the same.

  • http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com Todd Flowerday

    I’m a skeptic on the polls. Especially those conducted by non-Catholics. I suspect that the percentage today is higher than it was fifty to seventy years ago. But there’s no real data to support it.

  • http://platytera.blogspot.com/ Christian

    For Jesus to connect assorted literal food miracles to a mere symbolic action at the Last Supper would argue against his own divinity.

    • Al Bergstrazer

      Yes, well said, that is often the difficulty when discussing the relegating of a sacrament to mere symbolism. It is strange and incongruent to me for people to believe that God indeed did create the heavens and the earth in 6 days, that God did cleanse the earth in the flood of Noah that the second person of the Trinity was indeed born a man that He raised people from the dead, healed all manner of diseases, walked on water and stilled a storm with a command; fed 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish He died and rose again three days later but… BUT they cannot believe that God can present in the eucharist.

      • http://platytera.blogspot.com/ Christian

        Not to mention literal miracles associated with mere men, sinners such as Moses, Elisha and Elijah…

  • Qualis Rex

    I’m not 100% on the survey stats either, although woefully I do believe the numbers of Catholics who actually believe in the real presence is lower than it should be. There are many causes for this of course; poor catechesis (the primary culprit), liturgical abuse (i.e. creeping Protestantism/modernism), general apathy towards any organized religion etc. Even though Orthodox & Eastern Catholics do not have Eucharistic adoration, they have done a much better job at preserving the Eucharist than the Latin church. In fact, the Eastern prayer at consecration is “I will not reveal this mystery to your enemies, nor like Judas will I betray you with a kiss”. Contrast this with the free-for-all of everyone in any state of sin noisily chatting their way up the communion-line we have all seen on any given Sunday and it really does not boggle the mind as to why there would be doubt as to the real presence in our church.

    • http://platytera.blogspot.com/ Christian

      “poor catechesis (the primary culprit)”

      Uh-huh. Faith and Reason. BTW I encourage those of you who are well-catechized, either by the system or you own initiative, to get into the classroom and raise up a generation of knowledgeable Catholics.

      • Qualis Rex

        That’s a great idea. I would encourage the same. But as you don’t know me or how I spend my volunteer time, what makes you think I don’t do this?

        • http://platytera.blogspot.com/ Christian

          Sorry, that was not aimed at you in particular, but at knowledgeable Catholics as a group.

  • Joseph H. M. Ortiz

    I daresay the number of Catholics who don’t admit transubstantiation (Greek metousiōsis) would be less if it were preached and taught more accurately. Maybe because what our Lord has done for us in this sacrament is indeed wondrous, giving us His very Self in His humanity as well as in His divinity, expositors of the Eucharist sometimes poetically — but quite inaccurately — say that the sacramental bread and wine are changed into our Lord Himself. But since He, an infinite divine Person or Self, cannot Himself BE His sacred but finite body and blood, only if understood figuratively is the statement free from absurdity. The literal truth is, of course what the Church says it is: that in the Consecration the bread is changed into His body, and the wine into His blood, so that Jesus Himself is indeed really, truly, and substantially present in the Eucharist.

  • joanc57

    I’m with Flannery here. And of course I believe in the real presence; just as I am convinced I am wearing a turquoise dress, I know I encountered Jesus Christ this morning. I know after my conversion and first communion in April that Christ is with me. Before the Easter Vigil, I had no clue what it meant.

  • Eduardo

    When that little red candle next to the Tabernacle is lit, you may be assured He is there. I mean he is REALLY there. And this presence – His presence – is what makes every Catholic church unique. And when the Eucharaist is removed, like on every Good Friday when the Tabernacle is empted with its doors left wide open and the candle snuffed out, that Church seems utterly and completely dead. Which is the exact same vibe I pick up in all Protestant churches I have ever entered; nice places, and nice people but something (someone ) is missing…….and nothing can fill that emptiness but Him. Believe me, it took me – a lifelong Catholic – almost 40+ years to understand this. But once you realize He is present up on that alter, you will tremble……………………………………………….

  • DB

    However well written Flannery’s item may have been, her argument makes no sense. Indeed it barely qualifies as one. Something can be both a symbol, and significant enough to be the center of her existence. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Anyway, we’re not claiming that the bread and wine actually become body and blood in anything but a symbolic way are we?

    • Al Bergstrazer

      I don’t think she’s making an argument as much as it is a rudimentary confession of faith. As for your question, I’m not sure whom you mean by ‘we,’ so I leave that for Fr. Longenecker to answer.

      • DB

        If its simply a confession of faith, why is it being presented here as a response to Catholics who think its “merely” a symbol? A confession of faith is a confession of faith, not a counter-argument. That fact that she happened to believe something is not, in of itself, a reason for anyone else to believe the same thing. Anyway, do y’all believe that the wine physically turns into blood? And if so, why on earth would you drink it?

        • Al Bergstrazer

          Perhaps it is being misapplied here, point well taken. Then again, a confession of faith ought to be adequate for fellow Catholics if indeed that confession of faith is in agreement with Catholic docrine. I referred the question of transubstantiation to Fr. Longenecker because I am not a Roman Catholic, I am a Lutheran, and so no I don’t believe in transubstantion I believe in the real presence in and under the bread and wine. Our Lord said ‘this is’ not ‘this represents’ and he said ‘do this in remembrance of me.’ That is why, it is a command, and it is a last will and testament its purpose is the strengthening of our faith and the forgiveness of sins, in partaking of this sacrament we are one with Christ, in this sacrament we are as close to our Lord as we will ever be this side of heaven.

        • AnneG

          Why do we drink it? Because Jesus told us to. Just a symbol? No, definitely not. Transubustantiation. The elements BECOME the actual Body and Blood of Our Lord.

        • Bernard

          Jesus couldn’t have been more clear on this teaching. Only those ministers with Apostolic succession, Catholic priests, are able to enable the miracle of Transubstantiation. Eastern Orthodox priests also are able to do this. The Eucharist becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. The earliest church fathers believed and taught this.

          • flyingvic

            You’ve lost me. Where does Jesus talk about the Apostolic succession?

  • Rev Fred Saato

    In the Christan East the real vs. symbol controversy would leave many a person scratching their head. Is is a symbol or is ii real? The answer is “Yes”. A symbol is not the antithesis of what is real – a symbol is reality in another dimension. If it wasn’t “real” it couldn’t be a symbol. When the Byzantine Liturgy of St Basil speaks of the Eucharistic bread and wine it is as “the antitypes of the body and blood of Christ.” How can that be? That’s God’s business.

  • Bernard

    Flying Vic, He doesn’t, I was referring to Jesus’ clear teaching on His body and blood.

  • Ed

    The teachings of Jesus in the 6th chapter of St. John’s gospel are far and away the most shocking
    things ever stated. I believe.

  • M.V.

    http://www.amazon.com/Key-Doctrine-Eucharist-Abbot-Vonier/dp/0972598103

    This is a gem of a book and one that should be read by all who love the Eucharist or want to know more about it. Abbot Vonier goes step by step to give the reader/believer a better grasp on what a sacrament, indeed THE Sacrament truly is and what that means. Highly recommended.