Tradition Archives - Held By His Pierced Hands

3 Reasons: The Marks of the Church

That title might seem a little off–everyone knows that there are four Marks of the Church. But I’m linking up with Micaela again and she makes the rules: three reasons I love Catholicism. So we’re just going to say that the first mark, the mark of unity, of being “One,” manifests itself beautifully in the other three. That way I can have all four marks and still play the three reasons game. Okay? Good.

1. The Church is Holy.

Now before you get all cranky, I know that Catholics aren’t necessarily holy. In fact, Catholics are often among the worst sinners out there, all the worse because we claim to have standards for our behavior. So when I say that the Church is holy, I don’t mean that everything her members does is good–or even that everything she does as an institution is good.¹ But really, how much sense does it make to condemn an institution which teaches dogmatically that people are sinners when her members prove her right? Certainly, we ought to be better than that. But our Church is a saint factory, not a saints club.

Note that this wasn’t Pope Paul VI–it was Gandhi. (Source)

No, what I love about the holiness of our Church is her doctrines. Leave it to the Catholic Church to teach what is true–what she has always taught to be true–even when it’s awkward and inconvenient. When the Church of England first allowed contraception in 1930, every other mainstream Protestant denomination soon followed suit, leaving the Catholic Church alone holding the position that was held by all Christians and pretty much everyone else–including Gandhi–until the 20th century.

I love that our Church refuses to conform to secular models of liberal and conservative but runs instead after what is true, good, and beautiful. Find me a church that does as much good for the poor. Find me a church that defends all life–even that of the criminal and the immigrant and the handicapped–at whatever cost. Find me a church that works as hard for justice. This Church does all three and more.

A few months back, I was at a Catholic retreat with 800 teens. On the last day, they had us sing Happy Birthday to a few people who were celebrating that day. A few hours later, they announced that somebody else would be celebrating a birthday in a few weeks and asked us to sing to him, too. We all started off, quiet and rather confused because who cares if his birthday is coming up eventually? So is everybody’s.

At the end of the song, a young man with Down Syndrome climbed up onto the stage and stood grinning at us as we sang to him. The auditorium erupted with cheers, teenagers screaming and shouting because they saw his need and loved him for it. I don’t know that I’ve ever been prouder to be a Catholic. We say we’re pro-life, and apparently we really mean it–before birth, after birth, for the handicapped and sinful and unwanted and alone and refugee and just everyone. And our kids know it.

And you know what? This isn’t just true in some Catholic churches–it’s true across the board. Some of us are better at it than others, but our holy teachings bind us together even when we reject them. When you say, “I’m Catholic, but I believe in…” you’re proclaiming the one, holy teaching of the Church–and your refusal to consent. And yet, despite your best efforts, it remains the teaching of the Church. Even the disunity among our members can’t break the unity of our Church. What she teaches in Denver she teaches in Dubai and Delhi and Dover and everywhere, even when she’s ridiculed or marginalized or persecuted. Praise the Lord for our One, Holy Church.

2. The Church is Catholic .

This picture is from a church in Texas and I’m in Colorado but they have the same name and I forgot to take a picture so…deal with it.

Okay, this is the reason I’m thinking about the Marks of the Church today. Because we belong to a Church that is truly universal. Yesterday I went to Mass in Vietnamese. And I understood the whole thing. No, I don’t speak a lick of Vietnamese–but I speak Mass. And so I whispered all the prayers in English as the congregation responded in Vietnamese. I even beat my breast at the same time as them! I understood when the priest was saying Phillip and James, I understood which form of the penitential rite was being used–aside from the homily and the propers of the Mass, I got it all. And after Mass, when the celebrants and congregation turned to face a statue of the Holy Family and began to chant, I realized that it was the Magnificat.² Even the parts that weren’t liturgical, I understood because it’s a universal Church.

I’ve been to Mass in ten different languages³ and it’s always the same. If I kind of understand the language, I completely understand the Mass. If I don’t know a word, I can still pray right along with it. And even when I go to Eastern Rite churches, there’s a marvelous universality to the fact that I can join with people of any nationality and worship this one God in His Church.

The many rites in our Church show our unity in diversity and the Saints back it up. I’ve heard it claimed that Christianity is an inherently Western religion. Well, riddle me this: there are 11 American Catholic Saints. There are at least 120 Chinese Catholic Saints, at least 103 Korean Catholic Saints. The Blessed Mother has appeared in North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe⁴ and every time she’s taken on the race of the people she’s speaking to. This is a universal Church.

All across this world, I know that if I find a church with a picture of the Pope in it, I’m home. In every country in the world, I have a church. Find me another Church that can make that claim. Whatever divides me from tribal Catholics in a remote village or persecuted Catholics in a totalitarian regime, we are united by our One, Catholic Church.

3. The Church is Apostolic.

And this Church which is universal in space is universal in time, too. Since the Resurrection, there has always been a Catholic Church.⁵ There aren’t a lot of churches out there that can claim an unbroken line back to the Apostles. Aside from Catholics (as far as I know) only the Orthodox and the Church of England even try. And while the former absolutely are and the latter can make a claim, there’s more to being apostolic than being descended from the Apostles.⁶

Not that I’m saying Jesus used a paten and chalice, but the doctrine of the real presence was just as clear then as it is now–maybe more so.

When I’m looking for the church that is most truly apostolic, my first question isn’t even apostolic succession. My first question is, “Would the Apostles recognize it?” This isn’t an issue of chant vs. drum kits. I don’t think anybody’s claiming that the Novus Ordo or even the Extraordinary Form would look entirely familiar to one of the Twelve. But would it feel right? I’m fairly certain that whatever the words of the Mass, the Apostles would recognize the use of Scripture in the prayers and the offertory and the many Jewish undertones of the liturgy. But most of all, they would recognize the Catholic reverence for Christ truly present in the Eucharist. The men who heard him say, “This is my body” the day before he was killed would be appalled–outraged, even–to hear churches say, “No, it is not.” I’d stake my life on it. As it happens, I already have.

To be an apostolic Church is to embrace apostolic doctrines: the real presence (John 6), the power of confession (Jn 20:21-23), the primacy of Peter (Mt 16:18-19). Catholics get accused of being unbiblical, of exalting human doctrines above the truth of God. Well, I’ve read the Bible 11 times and (even ignoring the fact that there is no Bible without the Church) I just don’t see it. And the minute you read the Church Fathers, the disciples of the Apostles, you begin to see that the early Church was, in fact, the Catholic Church. St. Edmund Campion famously asked an Anglican priest who was an expert on the Church Fathers how he could read the Fathers and not become a Catholic. “If I believed them as well as read them, you would have good reason to ask,” came the response, and Campion, who was trying his best to stay Protestant, was lost to the Church of England forever.

This is the Didache, an apostolic document that supports any number of the Church's doctrines. Note that it's a lot older than the 95 theses. — This is the Didache, an apostolic document that supports any number of the Church’s doctrines. Note that it’s a lot older than the 95 theses.

This Church that is descended from the Apostles, that honors the Apostles, that finds its guidance in the successors of the Apostles–this Church also teaches the one truth handed down by the Apostles. The Church’s stance against abortion and open communion, her commitment to Sunday as sabbath and the confession of sins,⁷ these unite us even when they upset us. They come to us from the writings of the Apostles and their disciples and from the guidance of the Holy Spirit through their successors. It is those teachings and those bishops that make us One, Apostolic Church.

So there you have it, friends–my fangirl love for the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Click over to Micaela’s to see why else people love our Church–or post yourself!

The Catechism tells us that the Church is “at once holy and always in need of purification”–CCC 1428. [↩]
I heard the word Abraham at the end, it was an evening Mass, they were facing Mary, and they bowed for the last stanza–the Glory Be, I assume. I suppose I could be wrong, but it sure sounds like the Magnificat to me. [↩]
English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Arabic, Croatian, Polish, Korean, and Vietnamese. [↩]
Australia and Antarctica need to get with the program. [↩]
Okay, they weren’t called “Catholic” until 107 by St. Ignatius of Antioch, but it’s clearly the same Church that it was. And it continues, the same Church in 100 as in 500 as in 1500 as today. The Orthodox could say the same thing. No Protestant denomination could. [↩]
The Orthodox would assert that their Church also has much of what I’m about to list and they’re right. My point is to say what is apostolic here, not what makes only us the apostolic Church. [↩]
All four from the first century Didache, the earliest Church constitution written by the companions of the Apostles. [↩]

There’s Nothing New About Infallibility

Shoot, friends, it’s been a while. I’ve been speaking up a storm in Michigan (chastity) and Toledo (true manhood) and Cleveland (prayer) and the idea of blogging was just too exhausting. You can basically go to my whole retreat on prayer via YouTube, though–does that make up for it?

If nothing else, you gotta be impressed that we know all their names in an unbroken line back to St. Peter. Unless you think the Masons made them up or it can all be traced back to a murderous albino, in which case you’ve got other issues.

But before I got distracted by the 2 week snowstorm with a total accumulation of practically nothing, I promised y’all some info on the papacy. When last we met, we realized that Peter’s authority was totally Biblical. But does that necessarily tell us anything about Linus, Anacletus, Clement, Evaristus…Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and his successor? Not to mention their 254 confreres?

As always, it’s important to remember that the Bible is not a catechism–it’s not trying to be exhaustive, nor do any Christians actually believe that all truth is explicit in Scripture. Take, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity. While Scripture supports it, it wasn’t until the Council of Nicaea in 325 that anyone really knew for sure that our God is one God in three persons, distinct but not separate.¹ And I’d bet my life that nobody who was completely unacquainted with Christianity, no matter how intelligent, could sit down with a Bible and discern that doctrine. For that reason and for so many others (notably the fact that there is no Bible without the Church), theologians have always looked to Scripture and Tradition. Forget the claim to an infallible Magisterium²–it just stands to reason that “primitive” Christians would have a better idea of what Jesus intended than believers who are 2,000 years removed from him.

In fact, the recovery of early Christian doctrine is just what the Reformers were going for. So when I bring up early Christian writers, bear in mind that these aren’t just Catholic guys saying Catholic things. These are the leaders of the Church, often just a few generations removed from the Apostles, telling us what was handed down to them. These are the same guys that Luther and Calvin were reading when trying to reconstruct Bible Christianity.

So whether you’re Catholic or Protestant, it matters what these old dudes think. Two or three comments praising the bishop of Rome over the course of centuries might not mean much. But if we start to hear about the primacy of Rome from all sides…well, we’ve got to wonder why everybody in the early Church recognized the pope’s authority when even Catholics these days tend not to. Without further ado:³

St. Irenaeus was the disciple of Polycarp who was the disciple of John (the Beloved Apostle), which makes him three degrees from Jesus. Already in the second century, he’s talking about Peter handing on his office to the second pope.

But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition (Against Heresies 3:3:2 [inter A.D. 180-190]).

In case you didn’t want to read that whole block of text, he’s telling us that the Church finds unity and sure doctrine under the church of Rome.

St. Cyprian of Carthage was a third century North African bishop, sovereign over his diocese in a time when there was little communication with Rome, especially for Christians. Cyprian could easily have set himself up as the ultimate authority, particularly as people were questioning the ligitimacy of a newly-elected pope.

“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever things you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed also in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]). … On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were also what Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all [the apostles] are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?” (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).

“Cyprian to Antonian, his brother. Greeting … You wrote … that I should forward a copy of the same letter to our colleague [Pope] Cornelius, so that, laying aside all anxiety, he might at once know that you held communion with him, that is, with the Catholic Church” (Letters, 55[52]:1 [A.D. 253]).

“Would heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter, whence apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come?” (Letters, 59 (55), 14, [256 A.D.]).

When he’s talking about the chair of Peter, that’s the authority of Peter’s successor.⁴ Then, of course, he tells us that the pope is, in essence, the Church and that anyone who rejects him rejects the Church. Remember that at the time there was only one Church, so to Cyprian’s mind, rejecting the Pope is rejecting Christ. And then there’s that little matter of infallibility in the last line….

St. Ambrose of Milan: “It is to Peter that he says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’ [Matt. 16:18]. Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church is, no death is there, but life eternal” (Commentary on Twelve Psalms of David 40:30 [A.D. 389]).
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I don’t need to explain that, do I?

St Jerome was a lot smarter than pretty much everyone and also rather cantankerous. The story goes that he studied in Israel so as to learn Hebrew. While he was there, he discovered that the Jews used only 39 books in the Bible. “Jesus was a Jew,” he thought, “so he must have used the same canon.” He translated those 39 and not the deuterocanonical books that were widely accepted by Christians. Pope St. Damasus I, who can’t possibly have known more about Scripture than Jerome, essentially says, “Thanks very much for your opinion. Translate the other seven, too.” Cranky, brilliant, proud Jerome writes this a few years later:

“I follow no leader but Christ and join in communion with none but your blessedness [Pope Damasus I], that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that this is the rock on which the Church has been built. Whoever eats the Lamb outside this house is profane. Anyone who is not in the ark of Noah will perish when the flood prevails” (Letters 15:2 [A.D. 396]).

By all rights, he should have told the pope what for. Instead he submits, telling us that the Pope is the successor of Peter and the one with whom we must be in communion.

Then there’s St. Augustine: “Roma locuta est, causa finita est. Rome has spoken. Case closed.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Of course, there are more. But these are some big names, some writing before the doctrine of the Trinity was solidified and all before the hypostatic union became a household phrase.⁵ For these men, the primacy of the bishop of Rome and even his infallibility, to some degree, are a given. By the time Francis de Sales talks about it in 1596, the whole thing’s old hat.

When he teaches the whole Church as shepherd, in general matters of faith and morals, then there is nothing but doctrine and truth. And in fact everything a king says is not a law or an edict, but that only which a king says as king and as a legislator. So everything the Pope says is not canon law or of legal obligation; he must mean to define and to lay down the law for the sheep, and he must keep the due order and form .

We must not think that in everything and everywhere his judgment is infallible, but then only when he gives judgment on a matter of faith in questions necessary to the whole Church; for in particular cases which depend on human fact he can err, there is no doubt, though it is not for us to control him in these cases save with all reverence, submission, and discretion. Theologians have said, in a word, that he can err in questions of fact, not in questions of right; that he can err extra cathedram, outside the chair of Peter. that is, as a private individual, by writings and bad example.

But he cannot err when he is in cathedra, that is, when he intends to make an instruction and decree for the guidance of the whole Church, when he means to confirm his brethren as supreme pastor, and to conduct them into the pastures of the faith. For then it is not so much man who determines, resolves, and defines as it is the Blessed Holy Spirit by man, which Spirit, according to the promise made by Our Lord to the Apostles, teaches all truth to the Church.

Even if the man who replaces them is a total lout–which is not at all impossible–he will still be the Vicar of Christ, as the bishop of Rome has been for nearly 2,000 years.

It seems, then, that Scripture supports the idea of Petrine primacy and infallibility. The testimony of history is that those closest to Jesus understood that this charism was not limited to Peter but was passed down to his successors. That the pope’s infallibility was absolute and yet strictly limited was clear long before it was officially defined at the First Vatican Council in 1870. Indeed, it seems that a Church without such a leader would be destined for failure, or at least for fracture and falsehood. But that, my friends, is a post for another day. Keep praying for the conclave and the future Holy Father!

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If you want to keep up with where I’m going and where I’ve been, check out this page. And if you’re anywhere west of the continental divide and you want me to come speak, let me know! I’m heading out that way starting in April and have literally nothing planned for May and June. Help me keep busy!

Since I know you always want to know what’s going on with my fingernails, here’s the scoop: I wanted to paint them black because I kind of feel like the Interregnum is a time of mourning, even though the Holy Father didn’t die. But then I painted them black and felt like I was goth and it was 1998 and I couldn’t handle it. So I threw in some purple for Lent (using ideas from my best friend Pinterest) and now I feel like a rock star from the 80s but it took so long that I just can’t bring myself to take it off. It’s a conversation piece, though, and you know I always have trouble coming up with ways to talk about Jesus….

While you’re wasting time on the internet, would you take 30 seconds to vote for my friends at Old Dominion University to win some money for their campus ministry? I had the privilege of speaking to them in the fall and they were engaged and earnest and welcoming–let’s win this thing for them!

Also, my dear friend Ute is hosting a Bible verse photography linkup–click over there to see the verse for March!

I recited this formula to a Jehovah’s Witness a while back. He said, “Well, that’s new!” No, actually. Pretty much nothing the Church says is new. Your whole religion, on the other hand…. [↩]
Teaching body of the Church–the bishops united under the pope. [↩]
Oh, and I probably got all of these from www.catholic.com forever ago. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I first composed this section in a Facebook message to the Protestant student I mentioned in the superpowers post. [↩]
We know this because it doesn’t make any sense to hold fast to a chair of a dead guy. [↩]
What? You don’t mention that daily? [↩]

Everybody’s Doing It: Church Tradition on the Eucharist

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?).

Lembas — 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.