I wrote a PhD dissertation on transubstantiation and I think it's clear that even very bright people who study original texts carefully and write about them "may not fully understand..." (in fact they typically have grave misunderstandings). Aristotle said something about bats, you may recall. We human beings are fitted out with intellec…
I wrote a PhD dissertation on transubstantiation and I think it's clear that even very bright people who study original texts carefully and write about them "may not fully understand..." (in fact they typically have grave misunderstandings). Aristotle said something about bats, you may recall. We human beings are fitted out with intellects that can't help but be blinded by too much light. On the decline in belief in or respect for the Real Presence, it seems standard to point to communion in the hand. I think that practice should be repudiated, but what about other sociologically banalizing aspects of the reception of communion, namely, the "line 'em up pew by pew, everybody let's go" approach, and closely connected with that, the presumption in favor of 'frequent' (i.e., weekly, or every time you go to mass) communion? Did the loss of faith and reverence perhaps really start more with the reforms of Pius X, and communion in the hand is just the (or one) culmination of that movement towards banalization?
Personally, I rather like seeing people in line to go to Communion, as it makes me think how the Lord cares for so many, but only this line if it ends with kneeling together at the altar rail, because then others are mostly out of sight, and it’s just the lay altar and the high altar, the tabernacle and the Lord.
You are absolutely correct. People always trot out the old bogey 'Communion in the hand' as the cause of all evil in the world (hyperbole to make a point), but there is WAY more to it than just that. Communion in the hand was simply, as you point out, the last in a long series of disasters. And you're right as well the usher brigade standing at the end of every pew essentially forcing (again hyperbole, but not much) people to go to Communion at every Mass does not help either.
I personally have benefited greatly from the opportunity to receive Communion daily at various points in my life but now I can also see it as a sort of trap. Witness the whole Covid shutdown. Trads who had been complaining for decades by that point about how offended God must have been at all of the sacrilegious Communions taking place at the Novus Ordo since the 1970s should have been falling on their face in thanksgiving that all of that had been stopped for a time and if they had to sacrifice a bit then so be it - yet they didn't. Instead they whined about how they couldn't get their Communion fix.
This whole question of frequent communion is of course one that roiled whole continents of Catholics back when people truly believed the Holy Eucharist was almighty God and that you could kill or harm yourself spiritually by receiving badly. I would agree that the emphasis on frequent communion since Pius X's time has ironically resulted in a lessening of appreciation for this immense gift. There is nevertheless a balance here, because the Jansenists too were wrong to present God as an angry judge and believers as such wretched sinners that they should not dare to receive regularly. As in everything, there is some kind of balance that needs to be maintained, or better, a middle section of the range between extremes.
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." I'm personally rather attached to the notion of "Dies irae, dies illa..." and the loss of that particular theological gem in the liturgical life of the Church seems to me a grave one. Jansenists were wrong, but certainly not entirely (no one is). Were they wrong to think that God is an angry judge? People now be like, "Jesus is my/your/everybody's best friend!" Jesus be like, "On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord...' And I will say to them, 'I never knew you, depart from me...'"
Thanks for the link. The quote from Gemma Galgani sounds a bit 'Jansenist' (or 'Calvinist') to me (although I don't much like such theologically loose and lazy accusations/attributions). She says: "It [Communion] is a question of uniting two extremes: God Who is everything and the creature who is nothing; God Who is light and the creature who is darkness; God Who is holiness and the creature who is sin." That's obviously not exactly a theologically careful treatment of the matter. For one, the Eucharist is a sacrament of the living, not of the dead (i.e., of the sinner qua sinner). Anyway, I'm not interested in condemning a little devotional hyperbole, but is there not a risk/possibility that such a constant longing to receive communion all the time is grounded in superstition and merely human willfulness, not true devotion to the will of God? I just run up against the question, "Why?" Apart from some special (and inherently dubious) appeal to the supposed will of God, it seems a hard question to answer.
Of course. I know this well. And so did the Church, because, as you remind us, she combined the hard sayings with the comforting ones. They were always BOTH there. The new rite keeps *some* hard sayings from the Scriptures, but (a) the bloated lectionary means most of what's read won't stick, since it's not repeated often enough, and (b) the rest of the liturgy has largely been purged of the "dies irae"-type elements. One need only contrast a traditional Requiem with the modern funeral "celebration of life." So, yes, we could use a pendulum swing in the opposite direction.
But if you read devotional literature across the centuries it seems to accentuate intimacy with God. Yes, at the price of prayer and penance and following His law, but still, He *is* the one nearest to us at every moment, and the one to whom we should confidently go, as we see sinners in the Gospels confidently going to Christ.
Devotional literature, including devotional hyperbole, is fine, as I noted above, but I'm interested in a properly theological (faith seeking understanding) treatment of the problem. I would also suggest that devotional literature is more for the personal inspiration of devout people and may not serve well as a sound basis for general policy (as Bonaventure has it, as Pius X apparently understood, but maybe not fully, and as (some of) his successors seem certainly not to understand or be the least bit concerned about).
I would balance the pious rhetoric of Gemma Galgani and Josemaria Escriva (and the general emotive-theological Zeitgeist) with some sober consideration of the facts. From the comments in PK's article at NLM, "Tensions...":
"Two local priests told me that for decades they have been giving the Eucharist to daily communicants and they have not seen any increase in virtue. That should give us pause."
Right. I have observed the same thing. That does give me pause. "I'm no saint, but at least I'm stagnant -- and I could be worse!" doesn't seem like a great rationale for frequent reception.
I wrote a PhD dissertation on transubstantiation and I think it's clear that even very bright people who study original texts carefully and write about them "may not fully understand..." (in fact they typically have grave misunderstandings). Aristotle said something about bats, you may recall. We human beings are fitted out with intellects that can't help but be blinded by too much light. On the decline in belief in or respect for the Real Presence, it seems standard to point to communion in the hand. I think that practice should be repudiated, but what about other sociologically banalizing aspects of the reception of communion, namely, the "line 'em up pew by pew, everybody let's go" approach, and closely connected with that, the presumption in favor of 'frequent' (i.e., weekly, or every time you go to mass) communion? Did the loss of faith and reverence perhaps really start more with the reforms of Pius X, and communion in the hand is just the (or one) culmination of that movement towards banalization?
Personally, I rather like seeing people in line to go to Communion, as it makes me think how the Lord cares for so many, but only this line if it ends with kneeling together at the altar rail, because then others are mostly out of sight, and it’s just the lay altar and the high altar, the tabernacle and the Lord.
You are absolutely correct. People always trot out the old bogey 'Communion in the hand' as the cause of all evil in the world (hyperbole to make a point), but there is WAY more to it than just that. Communion in the hand was simply, as you point out, the last in a long series of disasters. And you're right as well the usher brigade standing at the end of every pew essentially forcing (again hyperbole, but not much) people to go to Communion at every Mass does not help either.
I personally have benefited greatly from the opportunity to receive Communion daily at various points in my life but now I can also see it as a sort of trap. Witness the whole Covid shutdown. Trads who had been complaining for decades by that point about how offended God must have been at all of the sacrilegious Communions taking place at the Novus Ordo since the 1970s should have been falling on their face in thanksgiving that all of that had been stopped for a time and if they had to sacrifice a bit then so be it - yet they didn't. Instead they whined about how they couldn't get their Communion fix.
This whole question of frequent communion is of course one that roiled whole continents of Catholics back when people truly believed the Holy Eucharist was almighty God and that you could kill or harm yourself spiritually by receiving badly. I would agree that the emphasis on frequent communion since Pius X's time has ironically resulted in a lessening of appreciation for this immense gift. There is nevertheless a balance here, because the Jansenists too were wrong to present God as an angry judge and believers as such wretched sinners that they should not dare to receive regularly. As in everything, there is some kind of balance that needs to be maintained, or better, a middle section of the range between extremes.
I wrote about this more here:
https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2022/09/tensions-in-catholic-tradition-on.html
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." I'm personally rather attached to the notion of "Dies irae, dies illa..." and the loss of that particular theological gem in the liturgical life of the Church seems to me a grave one. Jansenists were wrong, but certainly not entirely (no one is). Were they wrong to think that God is an angry judge? People now be like, "Jesus is my/your/everybody's best friend!" Jesus be like, "On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord...' And I will say to them, 'I never knew you, depart from me...'"
Thanks for the link. The quote from Gemma Galgani sounds a bit 'Jansenist' (or 'Calvinist') to me (although I don't much like such theologically loose and lazy accusations/attributions). She says: "It [Communion] is a question of uniting two extremes: God Who is everything and the creature who is nothing; God Who is light and the creature who is darkness; God Who is holiness and the creature who is sin." That's obviously not exactly a theologically careful treatment of the matter. For one, the Eucharist is a sacrament of the living, not of the dead (i.e., of the sinner qua sinner). Anyway, I'm not interested in condemning a little devotional hyperbole, but is there not a risk/possibility that such a constant longing to receive communion all the time is grounded in superstition and merely human willfulness, not true devotion to the will of God? I just run up against the question, "Why?" Apart from some special (and inherently dubious) appeal to the supposed will of God, it seems a hard question to answer.
Of course. I know this well. And so did the Church, because, as you remind us, she combined the hard sayings with the comforting ones. They were always BOTH there. The new rite keeps *some* hard sayings from the Scriptures, but (a) the bloated lectionary means most of what's read won't stick, since it's not repeated often enough, and (b) the rest of the liturgy has largely been purged of the "dies irae"-type elements. One need only contrast a traditional Requiem with the modern funeral "celebration of life." So, yes, we could use a pendulum swing in the opposite direction.
But if you read devotional literature across the centuries it seems to accentuate intimacy with God. Yes, at the price of prayer and penance and following His law, but still, He *is* the one nearest to us at every moment, and the one to whom we should confidently go, as we see sinners in the Gospels confidently going to Christ.
Devotional literature, including devotional hyperbole, is fine, as I noted above, but I'm interested in a properly theological (faith seeking understanding) treatment of the problem. I would also suggest that devotional literature is more for the personal inspiration of devout people and may not serve well as a sound basis for general policy (as Bonaventure has it, as Pius X apparently understood, but maybe not fully, and as (some of) his successors seem certainly not to understand or be the least bit concerned about).
I would balance the pious rhetoric of Gemma Galgani and Josemaria Escriva (and the general emotive-theological Zeitgeist) with some sober consideration of the facts. From the comments in PK's article at NLM, "Tensions...":
"Two local priests told me that for decades they have been giving the Eucharist to daily communicants and they have not seen any increase in virtue. That should give us pause."
Right. I have observed the same thing. That does give me pause. "I'm no saint, but at least I'm stagnant -- and I could be worse!" doesn't seem like a great rationale for frequent reception.