Tag Archives: Code of Canon Law

The Bread of Life and the Resurrection

Eucharist, Redemption, Resurrection, Sacraments, , , ,

Each Easter season, the Liturgy carries us through the Bread of Life Discourse found in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.  We are all familiar with the setting, but this familiarity carries with it a danger of missing the point of  why the Church chooses these passages as part of her Easter celebration.  Of course, in a very real way, because the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our faith, it is always in season.  But it is the connection between the Eucharist and the Resurrection that the Church wishes to highlight. Our Lord repeatedly issues the command to eat His body and drink His blood and for apologetical reasons that can grab our attention.  But each time He does, He attaches it to the promise of the future resurrection.  This creates an intrinsic link between the Eucharist and the resurrection of the dead that is worth further examination.

To grasp why this is so, we can turn to St. Augustine.  In the Confessions, Augustine recounts the time that he heard the voice of Christ saying “I am the food of strong men; grow and you shall feed on me; nor shall you change me, like the food of your flesh into yourself, but you shall be changed into my likeness” (Book VII, Ch. X).  St. Thomas interprets this passage as referring to the spiritual nature of the food that is the Eucharist.  Bodily food is changed into the substance of the person nourished and supports life as such.  Spiritual food changes the man into Itself and supports the spiritual life as such.

The Sacrament of the Passion

The Eucharist as both the Sacrament of the Passion and “true food indeed” transforms us into Christ  according to which “a man is made perfect in union with Christ Who suffered” (ST III, q.73, art.3, ad. 3).  It is Christ Who is really present in the Eucharist and it is Him Whom we receive, but we receive Him with particular reference to His Passion.  This reception allows us to not just “spiritually” unite ourselves to Him in His Passion, but so that we truly participate in it.  And it is from this that its fruits are truly available to us; or we should say one fruit in particular—a share in the bodily resurrection.  In short the Eucharist conforms us to Christ in His Passion so that we might share in His resurrection.  The Eucharist is then ordered towards the Resurrection, but only by sacramentally passing through the Passion of Christ.

By highlighting the end of the Eucharist, it helps us to understand two further aspects of this “hard teaching”.  First, when Our Lord says that it is the spirit that gives life and not the flesh He does not mean that we should take what He says symbolically and unite to Him spiritually.  Instead He means that it was, as St. Thomas says, “the Cross [that] made His flesh adapted for eating” (ST III, q.3, art.3, ad.1).  It is His resurrected, impassible body that gives life, not the passible, mortal body that they see.  In other words, the Eucharist, because it is the Sacrament of the Passion, would not have achieved its full meaning until “Christ our Passover had been sacrificed.”  This is why Pope Innocent III said the disciples at the Last Supper “received His body such as it was ” (De Sacr. Alt. Myst. iv), that is, mortal and passible. It was not until after the Resurrection that they would have received His immortal and impassible body.

Why It is Necessary

The second point has to do with Christ’s insistence that, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you” (Jn 6:54).  It is difficult not to read this as imposing some sort of necessity that links the Eucharist to salvation.  But this is an often-misunderstood teaching because it requires a bit of explanation.  In fact, this is one of the doctrines that the Calvinists attacked when they broke away from the Church, saying that the Eucharist was not necessary for salvation.

The Council of Trent made a series of distinctions to help throw this teaching into relief.  First, as Scripture testifies, Baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation (c.f. Mk 16:16).  The necessity of the Eucharist is of a different kind—what the Church calls the necessity of precept.  This is a teaching that “is hard” but must be accepted, meaning that the believer must do as Our Lord commanded.  This is why the Church withholds it until one reaches the age of reason.  It is also why there is no absolute necessity like Baptism.  Young children do not need the Eucharist in order to be saved.

This distinction arises because Baptism, the Sacrament by which we are made to be “in Christ” and incorporated into His Mystical Body, deputizes the believer for divine worship, which means the offering of sacrifice to God.    This includes the offering of the Church’s sacrifice of the Eucharist.  So Baptism, like all the Sacraments, is ordered toward the Eucharist.  It essentially completes Baptism.

The moral necessity of receiving the Eucharist then is abundantly clear, but it is not clear how often one should do so.  In order to fulfill the precept, the Church obliges the faithful to receive it at least once a year during the Easter season (Canon 920).  But it is doubtful that one who only receives once a year will be able to preserve himself in a state of grace for very long.  The Eucharist is meant to provide supernatural nourishment for the soul so that when it is deliberately avoided for a long period of time, the person will almost necessarily begin to fill up on the junk food that the world has to offer.

This moral necessity absolves young children prior to reaching the age of reason from receiving the Eucharist.  It also absolves those who are so mentally handicapped that they cannot make a simple act of faith in the Real Presence.  But what about non-Catholic Christians?  Are they all pretty much like the disciples who walked away from Jesus over this hard saying?

Recall that we are bound by necessity of precept.  That implies that we are aware of the precept and understand it.  The person must not be culpably ignorant, although what that actually looks like is up to God.  What we can say for sure is that it will be a miracle if someone is saved without receiving the Eucharist regularly.  The natural means by which God grants the supernatural gift of perseverance is through the Eucharist.  God can circumvent those natural means via a miracle, but how often or even if that happens we cannot know.  That is why the man who does not regularly receive the Bread of Life but knows that He should is, in essence, testing God by demanding a miracle.

The Word of God Made Flesh rarely repeated Himself.  The Bread of Life Discourse is a notable exception as He commanded His disciples four times to eat His body and drink His blood.  This repetition wasn’t directed towards those disciples who “returned to their former way of life,” (Jn 6:66) but to those who continued to follow Him.  We should be constantly aware of just how dependent we are upon the Bread of Life and approach Him as such.

On the Heresy of Marriage

Culture, Eucharist, Grace, marriage, Sacraments, , , , ,

In a previous post, the logical and theological necessity of the Development of Doctrine was discussed.  One of the points made was that corruption of doctrine, normally what we label as heresy, always leads to a dead end and ends up destroying the very doctrine it was trying to explain.  But there is a sense in which heresy also can be an impetus for the development of authentic doctrine by “forcing” the Church to elaborate more fully on the doctrine in question.  History is replete with examples, but we are faced with a prime example today in the attack within the Church on the Sacrament of Marriage.

We do not need to go into the details of the attack specifically other than to say the widescale acceptance of contraception, remarriage, and even gay marriage within the Church all signal an attack on the Sacrament itself.  Part of the reason why the response has been so slow is that there is still a lack of clarity within the theology of the Sacrament of Marriage.  St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body was a beginning, but it remains just that—a beginning.  His teaching is so dense that there remains much work to be done to clarify and expound on what he hoped to accomplish.  This essay is an attempt to move the discussion forward by clearing up some common misconceptions.

Natural Marriage vs Sacramental Marriage

The first distinction is between natural and Sacramental marriage.  Marriage by its very nature is something sacred because it is ordered towards the co-creative action of procreation.  Even in its natural state it acts as a sacrament (note the small s) pointing to God’s covenant with mankind.  But this natural state of marriage is different not just in degree but in kind from Sacramenta Marriage.  So often people see the Sacrament as something added on to natural marriage but in truth it is a different reality.  It is a different reality because it has a different end.  Natural marriage is for the propagation of the species, Sacramental marriage is for the propagation of the Church.  Natural marriage is for the mutual help of the spouses, Sacramental marriage is for the mutual sanctity of the spouses.

Because natural marriage and Sacramental Marriage (for ease we will call it Matrimony moving forward) are distinct realities we must resist the temptation to lump them together.  It would be akin to not seeing bread and wine as essentially different from the Eucharist.  They may look the same from the outside, but the interior reality makes all the difference in the world.  Matrimony is not just a Catholic way of getting married, but instead its interior life becomes a cause of grace in the souls of the spouses.  In other words, its sacramentality is a direct participation in the mystery of Redemption.   

The Fruits of the Sacrament

Failing to grasp this and thinking that something like divorce is possible is not just to disobey a commandment of Christ.  Instead it is a denial of the Sacrament and threatens the entire Sacramental structure.  Matrimony, like all Sacraments has specific fruits.  The first fruit is the unity of the spouses.  Rather than trying to “hold it together”, Matrimony is a cause of their unity.  They are bound together as Christ is bound to the Church and their union continually approaches this ideal.  And in so doing, it brings about the thing it signifies by uniting them closer to Christ as members of His Church. 

Secondly, the Sacrament also bears the fruit of indissolubility.  As St. John Paul II puts it in Familiaris Consortio, “the indissolubility of marriage finds its ultimate truth in the plan that God has manifested in His revelation: He wills and He communicates the indissolubility of marriage as a fruit, a sign and a requirement of the absolutely faithful love that God has for man and that the Lord Jesus has for the Church” (FC, 20).

The Church uses the term fruit very purposefully.  For fruit comes about when a tree is matured and it is always sweet once it is ripe.  The fruits of Matrimony are felt more deeply as the marriage matures.  Lacking this maturity, the fruit often tastes bitter.  In other words, the gifts of unity and indissolubility do not guarantee that things will be easy, even if they guarantee they will be possible.  Before the fruits are matured the couple will have to have their faith purified.  His commands—“you shall not divorce and remarry another”—are not made in a vacuum, but instead ought to be read as promises—“because of the power of the Cross you shall not divorce and remarry another.”  As an they grow in faith in God, their faithfulness to each other increases likewise.  The fruit day by day matures until it becomes sweet.

Even tolerating divorce and remarriage is not just a practical issue but has theological consequences as a denial of the power of the Sacrament.  It says that the Sacrament really doesn’t do anything and ultimately Matrimony is no different than natural marriage.  To deny this ultimately is to deny the power of the Cross to save.  And this is ultimately why we are facing a heretical crisis.  Marriage in all appearance is impossible.  Matrimony however is not because “nothing is impossible for God.”  It is, as JPII put it, “permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross” (FC, 13).  The Church is facing a great modern heresy about the Theology of Marriage and the Faithful must respond in both their living and understanding of Matrimony as a Sign of Contradiction.

On Finding Wayward Shepherds

Bible, Church, Church Authority, Magisterium, Mercy, Pope Francis, , , ,

In the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul details his encounter with the first pope upon his visit to Antioch.  The Apostle to the Gentiles called St. Peter to task for withdrawing from the Gentiles and eating only with the Jews out of fear of offending the latter.  Knowing that their faith was weak, St. Peter did not want to scandalize them and so, out of a misguided sense of charity, he pretended to agree with them.  St. Paul was, of course, right.  St. Peter failed pastorally to shepherd his entire flock.  The truth can never be a source of scandal and it is no act of charity to water down the faith.

This event is favorite for non-Catholic apologists for arguing against the primacy of Peter.  After all, they reason, if Peter is the infallible head of the Church then how could Paul question him and find in him in error?  Therefore, the Apostles were all equals and the Catholic doctrines surrounding the papacy are false.  Of course, they read far beyond what happened.  Nowhere does St. Paul challenge St. Peter’s authority to rule, only his exercise of that authority.

Putting aside its apologetical value, this particular passage serves as a guiding light for Church management, especially in times when error is being propagated by those in authority.  One can see the great wisdom of the Holy Spirit in inspiring St. Paul to recount this event because it serves as an example for both prelates and their subjects.  From the perspective of the prelate, we are given an example of humility so as not to disdain correction from those who are “lower” than them.  From the perspective of the lay faithful it provides an example of both zeal and courage to correct those in the hierarchy.

What is Scandal?

First, a word about scandal.  In English this word tends to be understood as referring to an action that leads to public disgrace.  But in the theological sense the word has a more precise meaning.  The word comes from the Greek skándalon which means “a stumbling block.”  Specifically it refers to some action that creates a moral stumbling block for another person.  St. Thomas defines it as “something less rightly done or said, that occasions another’s spiritual downfall.”  The Angelic Doctor goes on to categorize scandal into two types: active and passive.  Active scandal, that which has as its reward a millstone, is “when a man either intends, by his evil word or deed, to lead another man into sin, or, if he does not so intend, when his deed is of such a nature as to lead another into sin: for instance, when a man publicly commits a sin or does something that has an appearance of sin.”  Passive scandal is when “one man’s word or deed is the accidental cause of another’s sin, when he neither intends to lead him into sin, nor does what is of a nature to lead him into sin, and yet this other one, through being ill-disposed, is led into sin” (ST II-II, q.43, a.1).

In short, scandal always pertains to an act that is in some way public in the sense that many people know about it.  One should never make public what was strictly done in private as the accuser would then be the cause of scandal rather than the perpetrator.  What happens in private should both remain and be corrected in private.  But in either case it is an obligation of charity to issue a correction.

The Obligation to Correct

Why is there an obligation?  By way of analogy, St. Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church helps to illuminate why this is:

“As it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he assaulted a man’s person, so it is lawful to resist him, if he assaulted souls, or troubled the state, and much more if he strove to destroy the Church.  It is lawful, I say, to resist him, by not doing what he commands, and hindering the execution of his will.”

While the saint mentions the Pope specifically, what he says applies to Bishops, Priests and Deacons.  If you saw a prelate beating a man physically you would stop it and you should do likewise if he is beating him spiritually.  St. Thomas Aquinas goes a step further saying that it is an act of charity not just towards the rest of the sheep but also towards the prelate as well because the scandalous behavior puts the prelate’s soul in great danger.  He, who has been given much, will have to answer for much.

St. Thomas says that “like all virtues, this act of fraternal charity is moderated by due circumstances.”  What he means by this is that we must not only be aware of our obligation, but also the manner in which we exercise that obligation.  While criticizing a prelate does not make you “more Catholic than the Pope” the manner in which you do it should make you just as Catholic as the Pope.  That is we should never forget that the operative word is charity.  This means that there are certain rules that ought to govern our interactions.

The Code of Canon Law (Canon 212) says that the faithful may legitimately criticize their pastors but that it must always be done “with reverence toward their pastors.”  This means that the criticism should first of all be done in private so that the pastor has an opportunity to correct himself.  This maintains the dignity of both their office and their person.

There are times however when the pastor does not correct himself or that meeting with him in private is not possible (not everyone can get a papal audience for example).  It may also be that the act or word poses such a danger to the faithful that a public rebuke is necessary.  In other words, it may be necessary like St. Paul to “withstand him to his face.”  St. Thomas says that if the faith were endangered a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly on account of the eminent danger of scandal (ST II-II q. 43 a. 1 obj.2).  This is why it is important to understand what constitutes scandal and what does not.  In any regard it may be necessary to “correct” the pastor in public out of, not just fraternal charity, but justice because the faithful have a right to the content of the faith in a clear and undiluted manner.  But still it must be done with gentleness and reverence for his office.

Before closing a word about the response of pastors.  Augustine says that Peter “gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects.”  Very often pastors think themselves above criticism from mere lay persons regardless of how qualified those lay persons are.  They remove the emphasis away from the truth as spoken onto the one speaking the truth.  Unfortunately the fraternal charity is not likewise met with pastoral humility.  It is this spirit that causes many lay people to remain quiet not confident enough that they could defend the Church’s position, especially when they are likely to be met with hostility.

In Loss and Gain, Blessed John Henry Newman’s fictional account of the conversion of a man from Anglicanism to the Roman Catholic Church, the protagonist Redding was drawn to the Church by its consistency.   While he could ask ten Anglican Priests to explain a particular dogma and  get ten different answers, he would get the same answer from ten Catholic pastors.  Those days of consistency are no longer among us, a phenomenon that can only be corrected when the entire Church, lay and clergy, take ownership of the Faith and fear not to correct wayward Shepherds.