I was trying to write about women’s ordination per my promise of this weekend, I really was. But I kept having to parenthetically define my terms, so I figured I’ll sketch out a quick theology of the priesthood today so we’re all on the same page. Expect the argument against women’s ordination soon.
I think much of the rhetoric surrounding women’s ordination comes from a misunderstanding of the priesthood. We tend to equate Catholic priests with Protestant ministers. They often serve similar functions, but they’re not the same–not at all. You see, Protestant ministers are ministers because of what they do: preach, pray, lead. Catholic priests are priests because of who they are. At ordination, they receive an indelible mark, a mark that can’t be removed.1 This mark makes them alter Christus, another Christ. Their souls are changed. Even if they never preach, pray, or lead a day in their lives, they’re still “priests forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps 110:4, Heb 7:17).
Because of this special character imprinted on their souls, priests act in persona Christi, in the person of Christ, when they function as priests. It’s Christ who blesses you through the priest, Christ who consecrates, Christ who absolves. In Mt 10:1 (and parallels), Jesus commissions his apostles (the first priests, although they’re not ordained until later) to heal and exorcise, exactly what he’s doing. After the resurrection (Mt 28:20), he tells them to teach as well. So Jesus himself sends the first priests out to fulfill his role in the world.
But they’re not just doing the same work as Jesus–they’re doing his work. In Lk 10:16, he tells them that those who hear them hear him. He’s giving them his authority and sending them into the world as he was sent.
Why don’t I ever get to confess in a field?
It’s most clear in Jn 20:21-23, a passage where Jesus gives the apostles the power to absolve sins. He says to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” These men aren’t just reminders of Jesus, they’re his presence in the world. And when he gives them the power to absolve (“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them”), we can’t help but remember the line “Who but God alone can forgive sins?” (Lk 5:21) Indeed, only God can forgive sins. Which must mean that when priests absolve, they do it by Christ’s power, not their own.
Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Holy Orders on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper. In John 17:17, he prays, “Consecrate them, Father, in the truth” and goes on to say “As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” As Christ is the Father’s presence in the world (not the same as the Father but acting on his behalf with his authority), so priests are Christ’s presence in the world (not the same as Christ but acting on his behalf with his authority). At the moment of this prayer, the apostles became priests.
A Franciscan priest prays with a man about to be executed.
Throughout the early Church (Acts 6:6, 13:3, 14:23; 1 Tim 4:14), the office of priesthood is passed down through the laying on of hands. In this way, the priests who follow the Apostles share in their priestly character just as Judas’ successor, St. Matthias, enjoyed the same apostolic privileges that Judas had thrown away (Acts 1:26). This apostolic succession is a top priority in the early Church for one reason: it is absolutely necessary that the Church have priests, not merely ministers. Preaching and praying and leading are wonderful, but anybody can do that. To be a priest, one must be ordained by a successor of the apostles in order to be alter Christus.
So when priests function as priests, they have that priestly power not by their own merit but because they share in the one high priesthood of Christ.
I was at Mass with a 3-year-old one day. Afterward, she saw the priest who had celebrated the Mass walking around in street clothes. She tugged on my shirt. “Meg, that man looks like God.”
“No, honey, that’s not God,” I said. “That’s the priest.”
“I know,” she insisted, “but he looks like God.”
“No, sweetie, he looks like the priest because he is the priest. He’s not God.”
“I know,” she said, exasperated that I would think she was so dumb as to imagine that we could see God outside of Mass. “But he looks like that green God what was at the front of the church.” (It was Ordinary Time—green vestments.) I realized that she, in her youthful credulity, understood in persona Christi better than I ever had. In Mass, the priest is God. Outside Mass, of course, he’s not God, he’s just some guy (well, still alter Christus, but functioning as a regular person). Wow.
A missionary priest anoints a dying woman.
This doesn’t mean that individual priests are infallible or impeccable or even particularly nice. It means that they act as Christ when they say Mass or hear confessions or anoint the sick or give blessings. They might be jerks sometimes, but their character as another Christ remains.
Because they are in persona Christi, priests are married to the Church. Ephesians 5 famously tells us that Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride; all of Revelation echoes this. The cross is Christ’s marriage bed where he gives himself completely to us forever. This marital covenant with his bride the Church is renewed on the altar at each Mass, where Christ renewedly offers us his very self in the Eucharist. This is what it means to be a priest: to stand in the place of Christ doing for the Bride what only her Groom can do. This image of Christ’s marital love for his Church is inherent to the priesthood.
With this understanding of priests as being ordained in the upper room, consecrated to be in persona Christi, and the bridegrooms of the Church, we’ll finally be able to explore why women aren’t capable of Holy Orders. Soon, I promise.
If you’re reading this before 8:15 am (Eastern) on Thursday, tune in to KWKY to hear me talk about discernment. That’s 8 hours from now. If you’re up and reading now, I sure hope you’re not up again then.
I know you know a “former priest.” He’s still a priest (can still absolve sins if the penitent is in danger of death), he’s just not permitted to function as a priest and is released from his obligation of celibacy. For all intents and purposes, he’s a lay man. But technically, still a priest. [↩]
One of the coolest churches I went to in Europe was this itty bitty (by Roman standards), dark thing covered with scaffolding. A few blocks from St. John Lateran, Santa Croce is a monument to the work of St. Helena, mother of Constantine and patron Saint of archaeologists. She actually carted back a few shiploads of dirt from her time in the Holy Land so that this church could be built on holy ground.
The interior is rather lackluster, but around a corner and through to the back is a display of relics unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere–including the Holy Land itself.1 There’s marble from Bethlehem, Calvary, and the tomb; the cross beam of the good thief’s cross; a nail; a thorn from the crown of thorns; pretty awesome, all.
On the left. I remember it grosser than this.
But the clincher for me was this: St. Thomas’ finger.
EW!
Okay, yeah, but if you’ve been Catholic in Europe for any time at all, you’ve gotten used to the veneration (never worship) of shriveled body parts. This isn’t just a finger, though. This is “put your finger in the holes in my hands.” This is the finger that probed the wounds of the risen Christ, the finger that proved the Resurrection.
Or maybe it’s just some old nasty finger. The point here isn’t the authenticity of the relic but the truth of the Gospel.
Because prophecies and miracles and centuries of conversions aside, it really all comes down to this: the pierced hands. The pierced hands tell us that this man was truly crucified. And the living flesh that surrounds the holes declares that he rose again.
If Jesus claimed to be God2 and he rose from the dead, he’s God. The resurrection is the ultimate proof of Christianity, as Jesus himself told us (Mt 12:38-42). So when Thomas touches the holes in Jesus’ hands and side, he knows with certainty that Jesus rose from the dead. And if he rose from the dead, he can’t just be some great moral teacher, as C.S. Lewis so brilliantly explains in Mere Christianity:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” ((Among my favorite things ever written, if you’re keeping track.))
So when Thomas sticks his hands in the side of Christ, he doesn’t just know that this man was crucified and verified dead. He doesn’t just know that this crucified man is walking around happily 2 days later, teleporting between Jerusalem and Emmaus and walking through doors. (And I’m not talking alohomora throught the door, I’m talking Casper the Friendly Ghostthrough the door.) No, Thomas doesn’t just know that this Jesus guy is something special. In that moment, with that intimate gesture of love and proof, Thomas knows that Jesus is God. Creator of the universe, ground of all being, our origin and destination. No big deal.
Whatever they may not have understood before the Passion, the Apostles knew at this point that Jesus’ claims were radical, so radical they were revolutionary, for good or for ill. There was no going back to regular everyday Judaism if this Jesus was for real, and he was. This was no ghost, no impressive con artist “Walking” on “water” and “healing” the “blind.” This guy was d-e-a-d dead. And now he’s fine. There’s was no going back to life as they knew it.
Not that they didn’t try. Thomas doubts so seriously that he needs physical proof. I’ve met more than one Thomas in my day, claiming that he’ll believe in God if God shows himself. “Blessed are those who have not seen but have believed.”
Peter believes, he just doesn’t know what to do about it. So after the Resurrection, Peter goes fishing. Jesus rose from the dead, but for Peter it’s just another day at the office. How many of us have been there, moved by the Spirit one moment and then back to gossiping and lying the minute the retreat is over?
Both of these men are called out, Thomas by being reprimanded for his unbelief, Peter by being reminded that his mission is far greater than fishing. But there’s something so sweet about their correction. Jesus could easily have ignored Thomas, saying that if he wasn’t ready to believe, that was his problem. He could have let Peter be a mess and chosen the much holier John instead. But God doesn’t cut his losses when it comes to souls. He does whatever it takes.
Caravaggio–dude knew his stuff.
I’ve often wondered if Thomas wasn’t the whole reason Jesus rose with holes. His glorified body was healed of the signs of his scourging, but the holes in his hands and side remained. What if the God of the universe chose to spend eternity in a “damaged” body simply because that’s what Thomas needed? What if that line in the Gospel is really there only for you? What if the Holy Spirit inspired that composer centuries ago just so that you’d hear that song today? What if God created lilacs just so the smell of them would remind you of his love? It’s not impossible.
See, we serve an infinite God who manages to dwell in the human heart. Somehow, he’s able to be for everyone and for each one all at the same time. For Peter, he built a charcoal fire.3 For Thomas, he rose with holes. What are the pierced hands he holds out to you to prove his love? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
As an aside, some people have been asking where to find my official facebook page. It should be in the top right corner of your screen, but if you’re having trouble finding it, click here. Follow me on Pinterest and Twitter, too!
For those who aren’t familiar with the concept, a relic is an item associated with Christ or a Saint–a body part, more famously, or a prayer book or item of clothing. They’re not magic, but God often uses them as means to help us identify with a Saint and grow in holiness. He sometimes even uses them as channels of miraculous grace. This is Biblical: see Acts 19:12. [↩]
While he never said the words outright, it’s hard to read Jn 8:58, Jn 14:6, or Jn 17:5–among many others–any other way. [↩]
A charcoal fire only shows up twice in the Gospel: Jn 19:15-18 and Jn 21. Peter’s denial and his reconciliation. Coincidence? HA! [↩]
Yesterday’s post (I hope) made it pretty clear that Scripture supports the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. In all things, though, we need to look to Church Tradition as well. 1 Thes 2:13 and 2 Thes 2:15–among many other verses–tell us that we need both Scripture and the inspired Tradition of the Church in order to come to a fuller understanding of our faith. But that’s an argument for another day.
Church Fathers
Suffice it to say that whether or not you believe in the Church’s ability to speak infallibly, it’s hard to argue with the unanimous tradition of the early Church Fathers. After all, these guys were only a few generations removed from Jesus–early in the game of telephone, if you will. It stands to reason that their understanding of the faith has been less corrupted than what it might have become centuries later.
This was the clear understanding of the reformers. Facing an ornate, bureaucratic Church weighed down by what appeared to be the accumulated “traditions of men” (Mark 7:8), Luther and his colleagues sought to go “ad fontes,” to the sources. Their theory was that a Christianity 1500 years removed from Christ couldn’t possibly know what Christ taught unless it looked to the early Christian Church. Now, Luther tended to look at Scripture alone, but his theory seems to indicate that the earliest Christians were almost as reliable.
So when we’re talking about the Eucharist, let’s start with the earliest Christians. If we’ve got a consensus in Scripture and a consensus in the early Church, I don’t think there’s much left to argue.
The Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead. -St. Ignatius of Antioch, around 100 AD
As Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. -St. Justin Martyr, around 150 AD
Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature. -St. Ambrose of Milan, 4th century
Since Christ himself has declared the bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite categorically, “This is my blood,” who would dare to question it and say that it is not his blood? -St. Cyril of Jerusalem, late 4th century
Cyril asks the exact question here: who, John Calvin, are you to say that Jesus didn’t mean what he said? It seems that Cyril was just making a point, though, not addressing anyone in particular; history tells us of absolutely no mainstream Christian denying the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist during his time.
Actually, we have no record of anything of the kind for more than 1000 years after the time of Christ. Berengarius of Tours in 1088 is the first Christian on record as denying that the Eucharist is the true body and blood of Jesus. This idea of a “symbolic” or “spiritual” presence of Jesus was so foreign to the early Church that nobody even considered it for a thousand years and when someone did they branded him a heretic and ran him out of town.
You want to tell me that 1000 years of Christians were all completely wrong on this central mystery of their faith? Doesn’t sound ad fontes to me.
Saints Throughout History
The Saints’ obsession with the Eucharist didn’t stop in the early Church, though. Love of the Blessed Sacrament is a hallmark of sanctity, found in the lives of every Saint we have adequate information on. Here are some highlights:
Material food first changes into the one who eats it, and then, as a consequence, restores to him lost strength and increases his vitality. Spiritual food, on the other hand, changes the person who eats it into itself. Thus the effect proper to this Sacrament is the conversion of a man into Christ, so that he may no longer live, but Christ lives in him; consequently, it has the double effect of restoring the spiritual strength he had lost by his sins and defects, and of increasing the strength of his virtues. -St. Thomas Aquinas, 13th century
I don’t know how many of you are aware of how desperately Catholic Tolkien was, but I hope you see the connection between Aquinas’ understanding of the Eucharist and Tolkien’s description of elven lembas (waybread–viaticum, anyone?).
Can you believe this is just what popped up when I googled lembas?
The lembas had a virtue without which they would long ago have lain down to die. It did not satisfy desire, and at times Sam’s mind was filled with the memories of food, and the longing for simple bread and meats. And yet, this way bread of the Elves had potency that increased as travelers relied upon it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind. -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (For more on lembas, check this out.)
I know, right? Here’s St. Francis of Assisi, “the most Christlike man since Christ”:
And just as He appeared before the holy Apostles in true flesh, so now He has us see Him in the Sacred Bread. Looking at Him with the eyes of their flesh, they saw only His Flesh, but regarding Him with the eyes of the spirit, they believed that He was God. In like manner, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, let us see and believe firmly that it is His Most Holy Body and Blood, True and Living. (12th century)
Let’s listen to the Little Flower:
Do you realize that Jesus is there in the tabernacle expressly for you–for you alone? He burns with the desire to come into your heart. -St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 19th century
Or her namesake, Mother Teresa of Calcutta:
When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.
You can find tons of these all over the internet because the Saints agree with Christ: this is his body.
Regular Folk
I just couldn’t leave this smorgasbord of quotations on the Eucharist without my very favorites, from regular people (okay, geniuses, but not Saints).
Blaise Pascal, famous for being a philosopher and a mathematician and one of the greatest minds of all time, sums it up quite nicely:
How I hate such foolishness as not believing in the Eucharist! If the Gospel is true, if Jesus Christ is God, where is the difficulty?
Tolkien didn’t stop at allusion when discussing his love of the Eucharist. In a letter to his son, he explained what the love of his life was:
Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament…..There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that.
Twenty years later, his feelings were much the same:
I fell in love with the Blessed Sacrament from the beginning – and by the mercy of God never have fallen out again: but alas! I indeed did not live up to it…Out of wickedness and sloth I almost ceased to practice my religion – especially at Leeds, and at 22 Northmoor Road. Not for me the Hound of Heaven, but the never-ceasing silent appeal of Tabernacle, and the sense of starving hunger.
This, friends–this is what it means to be a Catholic. To hunger for the Eucharist, to be enamored of Christ’s body and blood, here present to us at all times, sinners that we are.
I leave you with the words of Flannery O’Connor, an American Catholic author from the early 20th century. She says what we, perhaps, would say: I can’t explain it, but I believe it with everything that I am.
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.
All the rest of life is expendable.
Tomorrow: Source and Summit and Everything in Between: Why the Eucharist.
A while back, I got up early for Mass one Sunday so that I could join a friend at her church afterwards. Sitting in a run-down old auditorium, I enjoyed some lovely music, some decent preaching and some interesting theology. And then came communion. The worship leader approached a table laden with bread. She began to speak.
“On the night before he suffered, our Lord took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you.'” Then she lifted the bread up for all to see.
Despite the fact that it was a woman in jeans on an auditorium stage, the ceremony was eerily familiar. After she blessed the grape juice, communion ministers distributed bread and wine to those who came forward, saying, “The body of Christ” and “The blood of Christ.”
I sat there stunned–how could they use those words when they didn’t believe them? How could they say “This is my body” when they thought it was a symbol? How could they say “The body of Christ” about something that wasn’t?
And then I realized. They’re just quoting the Bible. And the Bible says it’s his body.
Now, there are a lot of things that Catholics and Protestants disagree on. And while I can use Scripture to defend the Catholic position on every one, I respect that there are generally verses in Scripture to support the Protestant opinion as well. I mean, you can’t read James 2 and come out saying sola fide, but Romans 3 and Romans 10 sure do seem to suggest it. But I really don’t see how anyone could possibly read the Bible and end up with a symbolic understanding of the Eucharist.
I mentioned the Eucharist one time in a class discussion of different Protestant denominations. “Now Shayna’s Pentecostal,” I said, “so she doesn’t believe in the real presence.”
“Yes, I do,” she called out.
“You do?” I asked, confused. “But I thought you were Pentecostal.”
“I am,” she confirmed. “I don’t know what my church says, but in the Bible, Jesus says it’s his true flesh. I’m gonna go with that.”
Exactly.
Typology
God lays the groundwork for the Bread of Life in the Old Testament. Melchizedek (the archetypal priest, traditionally viewed by Jews as being without beginning or end–see Hebrews 7:3) offers a sacrifice of bread and wine in Genesis 14. The Jews are told to eat unleavened bread at the time of the Passover; in subsequent years, it was called matzoh and began to look like this:
When I was little, I used to lick matzoh, pour salt on it, and eat it like a Saltine the size of my face. I've always been quite the gourmand.
From what I can tell, the holes are there to make sure there aren’t large air bubbles that cause the bread to “rise.” Notice that the unleavened bread here is pierced and striped–now look up Isaiah 53:5…I know, right?
And then, of course, the manna in the desert–the bread from heaven that saves God’s people–that Jesus himself associates with the Eucharist in John 6.
John 6
What’s that you say? John 6? Don’t mind if I do.
If you’ve got a Bible handy, do us both a favor and flip to John 6. If not, try this.
Now, John tends to group events intentionally (or, I suppose you could say, Jesus tends to group events intentionally. It’s certainly more evident in John’s Gospel), so we’ll start at the beginning of the chapter: the multiplication of the loaves. Here, Jesus works a miracle with bread in order to feed the hungry. Then, the walking on water, where he works a miracle with his body and is miraculously present where he wasn’t expected to be. Bread miracle, then body miracle. Following me?
Then we’ve got what the New American Bible calls “The Bread of Life Discourse,” possibly because Jesus uses that phrase so much you almost start to wonder if it’s the secret word on Pee-wee’s Playhouse (AAAAAAHHH). This huge lecture explains the Eucharist, a bread=body miracle. See what I did there?
Jesus starts off by pointing out that they’re looking for him because they ate the loaves (v. 26), a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, the source of our faith. Then, in true Johannine irony, they ask him if he can do a miracle just like Moses used to do with bread. Seriously, people? I just did a huge bread miracle yesterday! Don’t any of you pay attention around here?
But Jesus is more patient than I and decided to explain the Eucharist anyway.
“I am the bread of life” (v. 35). Then he says a bunch of other stuff but apparently none of them listen because they’re still stuck on the first line (see v. 41). Apparently, he wasn’t clear enough for them, so he repeats himself:
I am the bread of life. (v. 48)
And again:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. (v. 51)
So his followers started to ask each other:
How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (v. 52)
Apparently, they were thinking it sounded a little crazy, that he must be speaking symbolically, because he repeats himself again:
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever. (v. 53-58)
I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t sound symbolic to me. I mean, maybe “I am the bread of life” one time could be like “I am the vine” and “I am the gate.” But over and over? It doesn’t sound symbolic to me; but let’s imagine that it were. When do we see that symbolic language used by Jews? Psalm 27:2 and Micah 3:2-3. Both times, the symbolic “eat my flesh” means “attack me.” So if Jesus is speaking figuratively here, he’s telling his followers that in order to inherit eternal life, they personally have to beat him. Not just “I have to die for you” but “unless you beat me you have no life within you.” That’s terrible theology.
And starting in verse 54, Jesus stops using the human word for eat and starts using the more graphic word used for animals; it’s really more like gnaw. He tells them over and over to gnaw on his flesh.
So here, he says to them, “I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life. No, really, I am the bread of life. Eat my flesh, drink my blood. For real, my flesh is really food. No joke. Eat my flesh, drink my blood, eat my flesh, drink my blood, gnaw on my flesh, slurp my blood, take a bite.”
But he totally meant it symbolically.
"Calm down, Bella. 'I want to suck your blood' is just a line I use."
Some years ago, a friend of mine was at Mass, kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer. If she’s anything like me, she was probably counting the number of states with more vowels than consonants or planning what she would eat for the next 17 meals–anything but focusing on the holy sacrifice. Fortunately, the little boy behind her was paying very close attention.
“Take this, all of you, and eat it,” the priest prayed. “This is my body–”
“Ew, Mom, gross! Let’s get out of here!!” shouted the observant child.
The parishioners, I’m sure, chuckled at the silly boy and went back to making their grocery lists or trying to remember their first grade teachers’ names. Or maybe that’s just me.
But what happened here was huge. This little boy listened for the first time and heard, for the first time, the very same words that the disciples heard so many years ago. The same sentiment that elicited the same response in John 6. In verse 60, they say exactly what that little boy did: ew. Jesus had made it abundantly clear that he was speaking literally here. From what they could tell, he was commanding them to be cannibals. And when they were grossed out, he didn’t explain. He didn’t say, “No, guys, hang on. I meant eat crackers and think about me! I didn’t mean for real eat my body–that’d be nasty!” Instead, he challenges them:
Does this shock you? (v. 61)
In modern terms, “Come at me, bro.”
And, just like the little boy, they can’t handle it. And they leave (v. 66).
Now, if Jesus hadn’t been for real, if he hadn’t actually meant that the Eucharist would be his body and blood, he would have been morally obligated to stop them, right? They’re leaving because they think he wants them to eat his flesh. If he doesn’t, he has to stop them, to explain the symbolism. What does he do?
He. Just. Lets. Them. Leave.
And then he turns to the Twelve. He doesn’t explain further. He just asks them (v. 67), “Are you going, too?” Because he can’t compromise on this. He’s not willing to give up his real presence here with us. He’d rather start over from scratch than give up on this. This is no symbol.
So here, one year before the Passion, at the time of Passover (v. 4), Jesus tells his followers to eat his flesh in the form of bread.
The Last Supper
The following year, Jesus institutes the Eucharist at the Last Supper, described in all three Synoptic Gospels. Each time the story is told, we see that Jesus makes a special point of gathering for a meal with his Apostles. You’d think he’d focus on his Passion or on their future mission, as he does in John. But no. The last time he’s going to be with them before he dies and he wants to talk about bread.
“So I’m about to die, y’all. I’ve got, like, 2 hours left. I’m just wondering–what’s your favorite kind of bread? I like bagels. You know what I hate? Pumpernickel! I always think it’s chocolate and then EWWWW bitter surprise.”
Sure.
He’s having a Passover meal with them. If he was going for analogy or a symbol, it would have made perfect sense to talk about the lamb that had been sacrificed (or would be sacrificed if you’re following John’s chronology). The unblemished lamb slain to save them–that’s a perfect analogy. But he doesn’t make an analogy. He doesn’t say “This is like my body” or “This represents my body” or “This corresponds to my body” or “My body can be likened to,” the way he does in a dozen parables. There are any number of ways he could have expressed symbolism. Instead, he uses the word “is.” He defines it. In fact, he transubstantiates it. In that moment, he changes it from bread to his body.
This IS my body.
Some argue that “in remembrance of me” means it was symbolic. Honestly, I just don’t see it. Let’s say we always went to Chick Fil-A on Tuesdays and I was moving away to some awful place without Chick Fil-A. If I asked you to get chicken nuggets every Tuesday “in remembrance of me,” would I mean that you should think about chicken in my honor? No! I’d mean you should actually go get the nuggets. (You’re welcome for that, by the way. Those things are delicious.)
1 Corinthians
In case all four Gospels weren’t enough, St. Paul’s got our back on this one, too. Now, remember, Paul wasn’t around for Jesus’ public ministry. So he tends to paraphrase Jesus instead of quoting him exactly. In fact, if you’ve got red letters in your Bible, they show up exactly twice in Paul’s 13 epistles. Once, Paul’s telling about a revelation he had (2 Cor 12:9-10). The other is in 1 Corinthians 11:
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also 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.” (v. 23-25)
What does this unique instance tell us?
Unlike with every single other thing Jesus said, it’s not just the meaning of Jesus’ teaching that matters; the words themselves are essential. Which means they can’t just be a description of an analogy; they must actually do something.
Paul knows not just the significance of Jesus’ words but the exact words themselves, most likely because he was hearing them recited over and over again at Mass.
Paul goes on to say that anyone who receives unworthily (in a state of sin or disbelief) will be condemned.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. [also translated “to his own condemnation”]
Now if this bread and cup weren’t really Jesus, if the Eucharist were just a reminder of Jesus or a vessel for his spiritual presence, how could misusing it get you damned to hell?
An amazing student once gave me this souvenir from her travels:
Best toy ever.
It’s not really Jesus. Let’s be honest, he’s not even spiritually present here. It’s just a symbol. When I shine it in people’s eyes and shout: “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD,” do I mess around to my own condemnation? Of course not.
What about the Bible–it’s not really Jesus, but he’s spiritually present there. When you read the Bible for a lit class and not out of faith, do you analyze to your own condemnation? No, because it’s not the real presence of Christ. We respect it, honor it, revere it, but we don’t worship it.
The Eucharist, though, is the real presence of Christ, not just the symbolic or the spiritual presence. If we receive the Eucharist for the wrong reasons or while in the improper state, we eat and drink to our own condemnation.
Paul wouldn’t damn you for misusing a symbol or a temporary vessel of God’s presence. He only gets that real when it gets that real.
I’ve read the entire Bible 10 times and the Gospels at least 20. I’ve never–not once–encountered a single passage that in any way suggests that the Eucharist is not in fact the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. Scripture is clear unless you want to pull a Clinton and start redefining words. You cannot read John 6 and come away with anything but the real presence–not unless you’re deceiving yourself. If you don’t believe me, turn to the word of God. Read what it says, read what Christ says. Then tell me it’s not his flesh and blood.
“Jesus Christ said over the consecrated elements, “This is my body” you say “No. It is not his body!” Who then am I to believe? I prefer to believe Jesus Christ.”-Bl. Dominic Barberi
Up next: Everybody’s Doing It: Church Tradition on the Eucharist
“John Paul!” I whispered to my 2-year-old nephew as we knelt in the pew after going up to communion (okay, I knelt. He slowly turned in circles saying, “Body! Chwist! Body! Chwist!”) “You should talk to Jesus now. Jesus is in Aunt Sister’s tummy!”
He looked at me variously. “Aunt Sistew,” he said with certainty, “is not pwegnant.”
For a little boy whose mom is pregnant (and whose aunt is pregnant and whose friend’s mom is pregnant and whose mom’s friend is pregnant), the idea that Jesus could be in anybody’s tummy but Mary’s is very strange. (The other day, I asked him if he knew anybody who had a baby in her tummy. “Mawwy!” he cried, ignoring his poor morning-sick mom.)
Now, this little boy understands the Eucharist better than most people I know. “Jesus is in the tabewnacle! You awe going to weceive the body of Chwist! The pwiest is ewevating the chawice!!” He’ssomething else.
But even for him, well-versed as he is in sacramental theology, it’s just a little bizarre to accept that Aunt Sister might actually be eating God. After all, Jesus is a sweet baby in a manger or a bloody man on a cross. But he’s not really in that cracker, right? I mean, not really really?
Really really.
With Corpus Christi coming up on Sunday (or Thursday, if you’re lucky), I figured I had to get eucharistic with y’all. Then I realized that one post on the Eucharist would be prohibitively long. So I’m going to split it up. To start with, I mostly want to define terms.
According to Catholic theology (and the Bible and every single Christian until 1088 and the vast majority since), the Eucharist is actually Jesus. Not a symbol. Not a reminder. It’s not bread, not wine. Jesus. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. So don’t ask me about the wine I drank at Mass. Unless I tackled the priest and started chugging from the cruet before the consecration, I didn’t drink any wine.
This is the part where intelligent non-Catholics (and, to be honest, many intelligent Catholics as well) start looking at me patronisingly. “Oh, sweetheart,” their superior eyes seem to say. “Well, that’s just not reasonable. I mean, if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, feels like a duck, and its well-rendered fat just melts in your mouth, it’s a duck.”
Then I get all defensive about my IQ and start using ridiculous words like Aristotelian so that everyone knows I’m smarter than them.
Really, though, Aristotle is where it’s at. According to Aquinas, anyway, and that dude actually is a lot smarter than me.
Apparently so smart it made his face hurt.
In Aristotle’s understanding of the nature of things, all physical objects have substance and accidents. Substance is what a thing is, its essence. Accidents are the characteristics of a thing. For example:
If I had had this getup as a child, I would absolutely have worn the wrist braces to school as a fashion statement.
Accidents of the skates: pink, plastic, small, wheeled; substance: accident waiting to happen (apparently the manufacturer agrees–look at all the protective gear she’s wearing!)
Accidents sometimes fake you out, too. Seeing isn’t always believing, as they say. For example:
Accidents: green, spiky, delicious; substance: CAKE!! No kidding, click the picture to check it out.
Now we’re used to the idea of a transformation–where the accidents change but the substance remains the same. Think pretty much any 90s teen movie. You know, where the cool guy gets dared to go out with the pretty “nerd” with glasses and frizzy hair and she takes off her glasses and straightens her hair and we’re all supposed to be like “Oh my gosh, she was, like, totally pretty all along but nobody knew it because glasses made her so ugly!” And then she learns how she can be pretty and still be herself because her substance hasn’t changed, just her accidents. Aquinas in the guise of Rachael Leigh Cook.
Or how about Bob the Caterpillar:
Accidents: green, spotted, tubular, many-legged; substance: Bob
So Bob’s done the caterpillar thing and he’s starting to feel the urge to move on to bigger and better things. He spins himself a cocoon, metamorphoses for a while, and comes out a beautiful butterfly:
If I ever saw a butterfly like this, I think I would probably die of joy. On a related note, the other day a butterfly landed directly in my path and died. Good thing I don’t believe in omens….
Accidents: pink, sparkly, amazing, probably able to turn into a unicorn; substance: Bob (poor Bob)
In a transformation, the accidents change, but the substance remains the same.
The Catholic understanding of transubstantiation is exactly the opposite: the substance changes but the accidents remain the same. Like in Freaky Friday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wKt7z3iWwc
Here they are after the switch:
On the left, we have the accidents of old, tall, short hair, wrinkles.* But her substance is Anna. On the right, we have Anna’s accidents: short, slim, stringy hair, purple nail polish. But her substance is Mom. Their substances have changed, but their accidents have remained the same. The woman on the right looks like Anna, sounds like Anna, smells like Anna, feels like Anna (remember the butt grab?), tastes like Anna…. But she’s not Anna–she’s mom.
Now, I use this example and people tend to resume the condescension they were heaping on me before I started talking Aristotle. Look, I get that the “transubstantiation” in this movie is magic. I am aware that nothing like this happens in nature. Absolutely: transubstantiation is a miracle. When we claim that this takes place at every Mass, we’re not denying that it’s impossible. We’re just saying that God does the impossible. Like, you know, creating ex nihilo, impregnating a virgin, becoming man, rising from the dead. Pretending to be a cracker? NBD.
Little kids understand this better than anyone. Most of them won’t understand substance and accidents, so when I explain it to them, I tell them it’s magic. They nod, wide-eyed, and kneel to worship while adults debate whether a thing’s characteristics are integral to its essence. In a lot of ways, it seems, “magic” is the best explanation we can give. It acknowledges that it’s real, that it’s beyond our power to understand, and that it’s a gift.
Here, in this religion that doesn’t claim to be governed solely by natural laws, it’s absolutely reasonable to accept Jesus at his word even when it sounds a little crazy. That “duck” my imaginary supercilious friends brought up? What if it’s a really sophisticated robot? Or some non-anatine** alien life form? Or a hologram capable of communicating with your brain to convince it that it’s feeling and tasting and smelling?
Okay, fine. But here’s what I’m saying: we’re not ignoring the fact of the accidents. The host still looks, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds like a cracker. It can still trigger a gluten sensitivity. You can get drunk off the precious blood. We know this.
We also know that Jesus said, “This is my body. This is my blood. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” When the most powerful magician since the dawn of time tells you he’s going to work some magic, you go with it. In the light of everything else he’s done, it just doesn’t seem that far-fetched. And when the greatest minds since the dawn of time think it’s logical, you breathe a sigh of relief that you’re not pushing 30 and basing your life around some unfounded belief in magic.
When it comes down to it, I just think I’d rather rejoice in the wonder of it all, like a child in awe of the magic of transubstantiation who kneels before you to worship the God you’ve received, than smile skeptically at the folly of these credulous believers. I’ve been on both sides–it’s better over here.
Up next: The Eucharist in Scripture (or: It Depends on Your Definition of the Word “Is”)
*I always feel so bad for Jamie Lee Curtis when I do this. The woman looks better at 60 than I ever have!
I was once, when I was about 21, at an Episcopalian picnic. I’m not exactly sure how these things happen to me. But I popped my collar and played croquet and sat around smiling politely and keeping my mouth shut on religion and politics for almost the whole day.
Then some guy asked me, “Do you know why I love being Episcopalian?”
And again, I kept my mouth shut. Decades off of purgatory for that one.
“Because Episcopalians can believe whatever they want,” he said. Like that was a good thing!
Don’t say anything, I said to myself. It is RUDE to talk about religion at a party, I said to myself. It’s not fair to start arguing with this poor man, I said to myself. He doesn’t have any idea what he’s getting himself into, I said to myself. Bite your tongue!!
But I was young and self-righteous and so very educated and, much as I tried, I just couldn’t let that one slide.
“Well, there are some things you have to believe, right?” I said sweetly. My plan, of course, was to point out that in order to be a Christian one had to believe in the divinity of Christ. Then I would establish the principle of non-contradiction,1 point out that either the Eucharist is God or not God, expose the inherent flaws in Episcopalianism, and BAM! make a new convert. Because I am that good. And it’s all about me.
“Like what?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Well, either Jesus is God or he’s not, right? He can’t be both.”
“Why does it have to be so black and white? Why can’t it just be gray?” When I tell this story, he starts sounding like a stoner right about here.
“WHAT?” I shouted, genuinely shocked that anyone would say something that illogical.
“Well, he’s God now,” he continued. “But he wasn’t always God.”
“Oh! Well you’re not a Christian at all,” I said with a smile, glad we had figured that out. Of course, with claim like the one he’d just made he was an Arian or an Adoptionist or maybe a Mormon, but certainly not a Trinitarian Christian.
Turns out people take offense at that kind of statement.
The conversation (if it merits the title) continued for two hours, with me pulling out Scripture and ancient prayers and him repeatedly dropping a beer can, making some point about truth being demonstrable, I think. It’s funny if I tell it in person. Here, I think, not so much. Suffice it to say that the difference we couldn’t get past, like many people in the first three centuries, was a disagreement over the nature of God.
Whether or not you’re a Christian comes down to this: the Trinity.
It’s hard to care about the Trinity–the doctrine, anyway. We come up with long arguments to explain the Eucharist and buy t-shirts to proclaim our commitment to chastity, but the central mystery of our faith gets little press. Sure, it begins and ends all our prayers (“In the name of the Father…”), but beyond that, nothing. I’d guess that many Catholics can’t even name the three persons of the Trinity. I’ve definitely heard some guess Mary.
Why? Because mystery is awkward. And maybe, for some of us, because it doesn’t make any sense. So we ignore it and hope it’ll go away.
The Trinity is our life’s destiny and greatest longing. -JPII
Our life’s destiny and our greatest longing–and we skim over it, dedicate one Sunday to it, and move on! Or we mutter “One person in three gods…or in three persons…something about how one equals three…well, it’s a mystery, so you’ll never understand it anyway.” I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pathetic.
The Trinitarian Shield
Well, that clears everything up, doesn’t it?
When we use the word Trinity,2 we mean one God in three persons, distinct but not separate. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all possess the one divine nature, each possessing it fully. Yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father.
We’re not saying 1 = 3. We’re saying label your terms. 1 yard = 3 feet. 1 nature = 3 persons. This is not illogical. Supra-logical, perhaps. Beyond our reason but not contrary to it.
Think of it this way: God is like H2O (bear with me here).
But H2O exists in three phases: solid (ice), liquid (water), and gas (steam). Ice is fully H2O, water is fully H2O, and steam is fully H2O. But ice is not water and water is not steam and–okay, you get it.
Or, for those who are more musical than scientific, try this on for size:
Ignore the fact that middle C is doubled. Or pretend it has something to do with the hypostatic union.
Each of these notes is C–ask any musician. Gentlemen, sing a low C to a child and he will echo the note a few octaves up. They’re the same. And yet they’re not. High C has a frequency of 512 hz, middle C 256 hz, and low C 128 hz.3 Distinct but not separate.
Or we could pull a St. Patrick and use the shamrock. One plant, three leaves. (As an aside, a shamrock is St. Patrick’s 3-leaved explanation of the Trinity; a four-leaf clover is a pagan symbol of luck. You’re welcome to tattoo either on your butt, just make sure you pick the one that matches your convictions.)
I’m pretty sure St. Patrick looked a lot like this but with a miter instead of that funny hat. And clearly this picture was taken during Ordinary Time.
I could go on all day, but I think we’d do better to look at the nature of God.
God is love (1 Jn 4:16). But in order to be love, God must have a beloved. He could not be defined as love from all time if he were alone. If that were the case, he would have created us out of need, the need to have an object for his nature. But it is a fundamental truth believed by all monotheists that God does not need us. Peter Kreeft puts it simply: “If God is not Trinity, God is not love.” Because if he is not one God in three persons, he is either an egomaniac, eternally enamored of himself, or pathetically needy, creating an entire universe in order to fulfill the purpose of his being. None of those mesh with the testimony of Scripture.
The Fathers understood it this way: the Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the Love between them. They are eternally caught up in loving one another, eternally pouring themselves out as gift for the others.
What this means for us is that God doesn’t just choose to love us–he is love, which means that by his very nature he has to love us. He can’t stop loving us, no matter what we do.
It also means that God himself is community. The fact that we need each other is a manifestation of the fact that we are made in the image and likeness of God.
I think the doctrine of the Trinity is most important, though, because we don’t need to know it. We could be saved just knowing that Jesus came to save us, even if we didn’t understand how he relates eternally to the Father. God chose to reveal himself to us in his depths as Trinity not because he had to but because he wanted to.
Frank Sheed says (and really, just go read the whole chapter–it’s brilliant):
The revelation of the Trinity was in one sense an even more certain proof than Calvary that God loves mankind. To accept it politely and think no more of it is an insensitiveness beyond comprehension….
It seems natural that a God who is love would go to any lengths to save us (Rom 8:32), even dying for us. But to love us enough to reveal his inner workings–that’s extreme. I’d throw myself in front of a bus for a lot of people, but I’m much more hesitant to share my heart.
When we talk about the Trinity, we don’t mean some dry theology, drawing artificial distinctions between “person” and “nature” and calling everyone a heretic. We mean that God himself loved you so much that he wanted to reveal himself to you, a gesture so intimate it’s generally reserved for the marital embrace (in a perfect world). He wanted to be known by you–fully known and embraced.
Yes, it’s a mystery. Gentlemen, on the night you are married, your wife will reveal herself to you. And you will know her more fully and be enraptured by that knowledge. The next morning, she will still be a mystery. Each day of your life, God willing, you will understand her better. But she will never cease to be a mystery. And this mystery isn’t awkward, it’s fascinating, enticing! In our personal lives, we find this alluring. Let’s look at God the same way.
The mystery of the Trinity is an invitation to unveil the beauty of One who loves you unconditionally. Why do you shy away?
A thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time, or X is not equal to not X. That is to say, murder can’t be wrong for you because you think it’s wrong but not wrong for me, because I don’t. Or a doughnut doesn’t become God just because you believe it is. No joke–someone actually made that argument to me once. [↩]
Which, by the way, is nowhere in the Bible and comes to us solely from the Church’s authority, via the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (think Nicene Creed) in 325. What’s that you say about sola scriptura? Oops, turns out you can’t be a Christian without Tradition. [↩]
According to a million places on the internet. [↩]
I struggled with the idea of the Blessed Virgin Mary for a long time. I wasn’t raised with her and it’s hard to see how all that weird Catholic stuff with songs and statues and candles and parades isn’t worship. I figured early on that I could just ignore it and be okay, but, as it turns out, you can’t really be Catholic if you’re not at least trying to be into Mary. So I tried.
I started praying a rosary every day, I went to Medjugorje, and I even did St. Louis de Montfort’s total consecration to Mary. But I still didn’t get it.
And then I found the key somewhere surprising–the Old Testament. For pretty much everything I understand about Mary, I’m eternally (literally) in the debt of Scott Hahn, specifically his work in Hail, Holy Queen. When I read that book, I started to see that Mary is literally all over the Bible–the ancients were just subtler than I wanted them to be.
Marian theology’s too much for one post, obviously. Here I want to focus on Old Testament typology (foreshadowing) and Mary as the Ark of the Covenant. I’ll share the experiences in prayer that led me to a deeper understanding of Mary some other time. For now, let’s talk Scripture.
The Ark of the Covenant is an ancient artifact stolen by the Nazis that will consume you with lightning if you–oh, wait. Not so much.
George Lucas didn’t get everything right.
The Ark was the center of God’s presence for the Israelites. In Exodus 25, it is described in detail as acacia wood plated with gold.* According to Exodus, the tablets of the ten commandments were placed inside (Ex 25:21). Numbers 17:25 suggests that Aaron’s staff may have been placed there as well, but it’s unclear until Hebrews 9:4:
…the ark of the covenant entirely covered with gold. In it were the gold jar containing the manna, the staff of Aaron that had sprouted, and the tablets of the covenant.
So the Ark of the Covenant held the presence of God and contained the life-giving bread, the high priest’s staff, and the word of God.
See where I’m going with this?
The Ark was treated with reverence, not because it was God but because it contained God (in a sense). It led the Israelites and was given a place of highest honor.
This is all on my mind because of the Feast of the Visitation yesterday, in which we celebrate Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. We’re used to these words because we’ve heard the story so much: the infant leaped, how does it happen that the mother of my Lord should come to me. But those Jews who read Luke’s Gospel would have been familiar with them, too, because the same words are used in reference to the Ark in 2 Samuel 6, where King David was bring the Ark of the Covenant into the hill country (Lk 1:39). Check it out:
Then David came dancing before the LORD with abandon, girt with a linen ephod. (2 Sam 6:14)
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb. (Lk 1:41)
Now, I’m no Greek scholar, but I did manage to ascertain that the Greek word for dancing in the Septuagint (Greek version of the Old Testament) is the same as the word for leaping in the New Testament.
David said, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?” (2 Sam 6:9)
Elizabeth said, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43)
Again, we’re seeing the same language here, only replacing Ark with Mother.
The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months. (2 Sam 6:11)
Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. (Lk 1:56)
So Luke’s definitely feeling this Ark of the Covenant business, but John makes it even clearer in Revelation. Turn to Revelation 11:19 (right before Revelation 12, which we hear read from on pretty much every Marian feast day).
Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm.
Wow. That’s pretty intense. To give you some context, the Ark of the Covenant, which was the center of Israelite worship, had been lost for centuries. According to 2 Maccabees 2, Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave right before the Babylonian Captivity (around 587 BC). So for 600 years, the most important thing in the world was lost. And John saw it! It was such a huge deal that there was lightning, thunder, hail, and an earthquake. This thing is for real!
And then the chapter ends and John moves on. “I saw the Ark! It was epic!
“Then this other time I saw a lady.”
That’s how it reads to us, with a big, bold “Chapter 12” separating his proclamation that he saw the Ark from his description of the Ark. But remember, John didn’t write in chapters. He said, “I saw the Ark! It was epic! A lady in the sky with a crown of 12 stars…. She was the mother of all Christians” (Rev 11:19; 12:1, 17; paraphrased).
John is explaining here that Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant. Just as the old Ark contained the life-giving bread, Mary contains Jesus, the Bread of Life (John 6). Just as the old Ark contained the high priest’s staff, Mary contains our Great High Priest (Heb 4:14). Just as the old ark contained the word of God, Mary contains the Word of God made flesh (Jn 1:1-3, 14).
“Okay, so Mary’s like some box,” says the voice in my head. “So what?”
So what?? So everything!!
Seriously, understanding this is a huge step towards understanding pretty much everything the Church teaches about Mary.
The Immaculate Conception
(This is when Mary was conceived without Original Sin, not when she conceived Jesus. Think embryonic Mary. More on this topic another time.)
The Ark of the Covenant was specially prepared to house God’s presence (see Ex 25 again). It was pure and holy, made specifically for a divine purpose. If Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant, she, too, must have been prepared from her creation for this purpose. She must have been pure, not by her own power but by the power of Him who created purity. They wouldn’t have used a random box for the Ark; God wouldn’t have used a random sinner for the Mother of God.
The Perpetual Virginity of Mary
(Mary remained a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Christ. Again, more on this later.)
The Ark of the Covenant was created for a sacred purpose and was made sacred by what it contained. If one were to empty the Ark of its holy contents, one would not then use it as a jewelry box or a stepstool. It was consecrated to one divine purpose; to use it for a worldly purpose would defile it. Now sex is holy and beautiful (see this beautiful reflection by Elizabeth Hanna Pham for proof), but sex must be open to life. And every baby besides Mary and Jesus is conceived with Original Sin. For Mary’s sanctified womb to nurture fallen life would defile it, just as using the Ark for a good but profane** purpose would be wrong.
The Assumption
(Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven by the power of God. She never suffered death, the separation of body and soul, as it’s a consequence of Original Sin.)
The Ark of the Covenant, as I said above, was made sacred by what it bore. Middle Eastern culture has a strong sense of sanctity (and profanity) being contagious, if you will. See pretty much the whole book of Leviticus for proof.
Having been made sacred, even if it had been emptied, it would have been honored. It wouldn’t have been left in the desert to rot (can things rot in the desert?) and it wouldn’t have been broken up and tossed. If Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant, she, too, must be revered even after she no longer contains the presence of God. An empty Ark wouldn’t have been tossed; Mary’s body wouldn’t have been left to decay. Since the options seem to be death (nope), immortality (I think we’d know if she was 2000 years old), or eternal life in the body (the Assumption), I think the logical answer is clear.
Reverence for Mary
No, the Bible doesn’t tell us to have parades and sing songs to Mary (although Luke 1:48 sure seems to suggest it), but that’s how Israel handled the Ark. Luke and John both make it clear to the discerning reader that the Ark is a type of Mary. So we honor her, we respect her, we pray through her, not because of who she is but because of whose she is and who he made her to be.
*These are the kinds of passages that make me want to skim.
**Profane, in this sense, does not mean evil but secular, non-sacred.
As a high school teacher, I’m supposed to be opposed to be peer pressure. “Don’t worry about what other people think,” I’m supposed to say. “Be true to yourself. Follow your heart!”
Sometimes your peers are less stupid than you, though. Sure, it would be better to follow the Saints or wise adults or pretty much anybody over the age of 30, but peer pressure isn’t always bad. In fact, everything good in my life is a result of peer pressure.
You see, if no one’s paying special attention, it’s pretty easy for a Catholic kid growing up in America to make it from First Reconciliation through Confirmation without making a second reconciliation. It’s an unfortunate truth, all the more so when the kid in question lied in her first confession. Yup—I told him I broke a cup and blamed it on my sister. Not true. She broke the cup. What a pathetic way to enter into mortal sin.1
That’s me in the front strangling that kid. In my defense, he seems to be enjoying it.
Once I found myself in mortal sin, I just kept digging myself in deeper. I had a field day with lying, cheating, stealing, and cursing. I didn’t pray, and if you had asked me, I would have told you I didn’t believe in God. I distinctly remember answering “I don’t know” while the rest of the congregation chorused “I do” during the renewal of baptismal promises at Easter. Before I knew it, I was confirmed, having no idea if there was a God and not particularly caring. I was actually late to my own confirmation because I was shopping. Definitely ready to be a soldier of Christ.
That March was our confirmation retreat. After confirmation. Whatever. Despite my penchant for breaking rules, I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I went. On Saturday night, we were split into small groups, and as we discussed the great woes of our adolescent lives, the other girls went to confession, one by one. Now, I didn’t much care what this theoretical God thought of me, but I cared very much what the other girls thought of me. As I watched them go, I became convinced that if I didn’t go to confession, none of them would be friends with me.
There is no worse threat you can issue to a thirteen-year-old girl.
And so, unprepared as I was, I got up when it was my turn and walked to the cabin that was doubling as a confessional. Fr. Mark Moretti was the patient priest who heard what was functionally my first confession and turned my world upside down. That day, I was returned to a state of grace and was introduced to Jesus Christ, the love of my life. Despite ongoing struggles with sin,2 I gave my life to Christ that day and haven’t looked back since. The life I would gladly have tossed away on Friday afternoon became a joy on Saturday night, and has been ever since. I owe my joy, my career, and my life to the grace that flooded my soul that chilly March evening.
Kind of like this only I was probably wearing a flannel shirt and Umbros. Oh, and no mohawk.
God Said So
“I’m sure that was very nice for you,” some of you are thinking right now. “But I don’t enjoy confession. Why should I go?”
The simple answer? God said so.
Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them. Whose sins you retain are retained.” (Jn 20:21-23)
The first part of this commissioning sets up an analogy. In a throwback to SAT prep, we could say that the Apostles (today’s priests) are to Jesus as Jesus is to the Father. Jesus was sent into the world with the Father’s power of reconciling man to God; the Apostles, too, were sent into the world with Jesus’ power of reconciling man to God. They are being sent, one might say, in persona Christi—that is, in the person of Christ.
Now, Jesus didn’t do much after the Resurrection. He hung out with some disciples, ate some fish, walked through some walls—all seemingly unimportant events with great theological importance. So it’s important here that we look at what he said and at what he did. Here, Jesus doesn’t just give the Apostles a job. He breathes on them. The only other time in Scripture that we see God breathing on someone is in Genesis: “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being” (Gen 2:7). Adam was clay, lifeless, until God breathed on him. The breath of God made him more like God; it made him a man—something totally different from what he had been. Jesus’ breath has the same effect on the Apostles: it makes them more like God. It changes them into something different. Here, they become priests, able to forgive sins with the power of Christ’s forgiveness.
When Jesus gives the Apostles the power to forgive sins, he isn’t just encouraging them to be forgiving, as he is in the Sermon on the Mount. He’s telling them that the forgiveness they offer actually does something. And it’s pretty clear that the Apostles are being told not just to offer forgiveness but actually to hear confessions in some form—how can they refuse forgiveness without knowing the sin and its circumstances?
The Epistle of St. James makes that even clearer: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful indeed” (Jas 5:16). James tells us that we can’t just ask God for forgiveness; we have to confess our sins to one another—to priests, if we’re reading it together with the Gospel of John. From these two verses, we can see that Jesus has sent priests with a ministry of reconciliation, receiving penitents and forgiving them in Jesus’ name, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And the Apostles clearly understood this role because the early Church gets it, too. Hippolytus of Rome prays at ordinations that priests may “have the authority to forgive sins, in accord with your command.” That was in 215 a.d. In 248, Origen tells us: “[A final method of forgiveness], albeit hard and laborious [is] the remission of sins through penance, when the sinner . . . does not shrink from declaring his sin to a priest of the Lord.”
Sure, in the early Church it looked different from what we’re used to—they actually had to confess in front of the whole church and then do a penance that could take years. (Makes you wonder why you complain about whispering to a priest who can’t even see you….) But the basics of the Sacrament—the form, matter and minister—haven’t changed since the time of Christ.
It’s for Your Own Good
Our God isn’t arbitrary, though, and He doesn’t enjoy watching us suffer. The Sacrament of Reconciliation exists for a number of purposes, all closely tied to human nature.
If you’re going to shape up, you really have to regret your past. I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot sorrier for my sins when I have to say them out loud. It’s all well and good to tell God you’re sorry about something—He already knows about it. You have to be really sorry to be willing to accuse yourself of it to somebody else, though. And since sin is rooted in pride, the humility required in the confessional is the antidote. Besides, how many of us have withstood temptation simply because we couldn’t bear the idea of confessing it?
For those of us who have habitual sins to overcome, the process of examination of conscience and confession can be invaluable. I had my conversion in the eighth grade, but I still cursed like a sailor—until I realized that I confessed cursing every time I went to confession. Maybe a year after my conversion, I came to a sudden realization that confessing cursing meant I actually had to stop. (There’s a funny story there about how I decided to quit cold turkey without asking for God’s help and ended up missing the bus twice and ripping my pants open at school. Another time, maybe.) Something about saying the same thing every time makes you desperate to change, in a way that I don’t think I would have been without that monthly reminder.
If nothing else (and this is true of all Sacraments), we need something physical to feed our senses, since we are physical and spiritual creatures. My friend Katy and I were hanging out one night in high school after listening to a chastity speaker. She said, “I’ve confessed my sins to God, so I know I’ve been forgiven, but every time I go to one of these speakers, I feel guilty and confess all over again.” I didn’t know how to react to this—my sins are gone! They’re not my own any more. The experience of hearing the words “I absolve you” makes it impossible to deny that you are forgiven, loved, and made new in Christ. Now, knowing this and believing it can be very different things, but when it comes down to it, a believing Catholic can give an exact moment at which her sins were forgiven. However she feels about her past, she knows God, who gave us this Sacrament so we could experience the joy of certain absolution, has forgiven her.
There are any number of reasons that God gave us this Sacrament, and there are any number of reasons to take advantage of it. Go because you can’t live with what you’ve done. Go because you know there’s something missing in your life. Go because you want to be at peace with the Lord. Go because it would make your grandmother proud. God is so desperate to forgive you, He’ll accept you for any reason—even adolescent vanity. You have nothing to lose but your sin. You have everything to gain.
“Jesus said to the woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, do not sin any more.” (Jn 8:11)
Fast Facts about Confession:
Catholics are required to confess all mortal sins (serious sins that you willingly committed, knowing they were wrong) at least once a year.
-Even if you’re not in a state of mortal sin, this is a good minimum
-It’s a better idea to go every Advent and Lent—better yet to go once a month!
You’re only required to confess mortal sins (being specific about the sin and the approximate number of times you committed it), but you’re encouraged to confess venial sins
If you forget to confess a sin, you’ve got nothing to worry about—it’s covered. If you leave one out on purpose, your confession is invalid and you’ve added the sin of making a bad confession to your list.
Your sins are forgiven at the moment of absolution (“I absolve you of your sins….”) if you are intending to do your penance.
To be forgiven, you have to want to avoid those sins in the future. You do not have to be certain that you will never sin again. That would be ridiculous.
I know, I was 7. Believe me–I knew what I was doing. [↩]
have I mentioned I’m kind of a jerk sometimes? Yeah, that was here [↩]
