The Love of Christ

In a recent conversation with one of the best friends who is an atheist, he described his aversion to the Church. Of course, his criticisms were mostly about threatening people if they sinned or rewarding them if they behaved, and other (what I would call) unfounded statements, but some were not. Nevertheless, did he know Christ's love, though? I would contend, no.

One can have a fundamental knowledge of every Church dogma and doctrine, expounding on the historical development and how the Church arrived at that particular teaching. This is a most honorable kind of knowledge, but, as Pope Benedict says, this knowledge is never a substitute for a personal encounter with the Lord.

In one's personal encounter with the Lord, formed in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and other prayers and devotions, the individual meets the Lord in ways that man is able to comprehend. Since man cannot comprehend the reality of the Lord in the earthly realm, God chose to reveal Himself through visible signs and symbols man could understand. Bread and wine, which take on the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ while retaining the appearance of bread and wine, is a common food and drink to most cultures throughout the world. The Lord allows Himself to be revealed in ways man is capable of understanding here on earth.

To develop a friendship, one needs to talk and have a great relationship with a friend. This is certainly true of friendship with the Lord. One cannot simply leave Mass and leave Jesus in the tabernacle. One must take that relationship with the Lord into the world and have a constant source of communication with Him. This is certainly true when Christians are the waters flowing from the Temple onto the world, inundating it with love and making those they come in contact with fertile. The Christians are the waters flowing from the Temple, flooding the world with Christ's love.

The world can only be transformed in, through, and with Christ if His followers know Him and have a personal relationship with Him.

Is Transubstantiation Defendable?

            Transubstantiation is defendable because it appeals to human reason while still keeping the double miracle of the Eucharist in tact. Thomas Aquinas, though he did not invent the term transubstantiation, is the one who greatly expounded on the virtues of this term and used Aristotelian philosophy to explain the changes that happen to the bread and wine and the changes that do not happen. This is further defendable because of the Incarnation. For centuries leading up to Aquinas, the Church used Platonism as its primary mode of explaining Church teachings philosophically. While Platonism does not reject the Incarnation, it is a philosophy that is more akin to explaining the visible world as an illusion. Aristotelian philosophy is different in this respect because it says the visible world is real. In this case, transubstantiation is seen as a fulfillment of the Incarnation on an even more tangible level.

            In the late eleventh century, there were several eucharistic controversies in the Western Church. Among the most famous, though, was Berengar of Tours’ formulation that the bread and wine at Mass did not become the Body and Blood of Christ, but was merely a “symbolic” change. After being reprimanded in 1159 and 1179, he finally capitulated and said he believed what the Church taught on this teaching. Though he was never excommunicated, only taking two oaths of fidelity, his writings on the Eucharist caused the Church to question its teachings and approach them in a more logical manner. This was indicative of the shift from a more symbolic (in the truest sense of the word) philosophy of religious teachings to the need for a more academic and logical explanation. In the mid-thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar and professor of theology at the University of Paris, began to speak of the Eucharist using, not Platonic philosophy, as was the norm, but Aristotelian philosophy.

            Aquinas used Aristotle’s ideas of accidents and substances. Accidents were the physical appearances of bread and wine, and substances, the invisible essence of the bread and wine. Aquinas claimed that through the words of Consecration pronounced by a priest with his proper intention, and bread and wine, the bread and wine were truly transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. The accidents, the appearance of bread and wine remained, while the substance of the bread and wine were changed into the Body and Blood. Until this time, there had not been any systematic or academic approach to the Eucharist that was satisfactory to all sides. Even though the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 used language similar to transubstantiation, it was Aquinas who opened up a new way of looking at the Eucharist that was never done before in the history of the Eucharist.

            This metaphysical explanation of the Sacrament appeals to the Church in the West most especially because of the importance placed on the Incarnation of Christ. While the Churches in the East do hold that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, they never felt the need to explain it in depth because of the mysterious nature of their religious ethos. This is partly due to their emphasis on the place of Easter in their liturgical rites. The West also believes in the Resurrection, obviously, but its liturgical life is centered on Christmas. This complementary dichotomy is an example of two worldviews: Platonism in the East and Aristotelian philosophy in the West. The East views the earth as a reflection of the real world of God, heaven. The liturgy in the East is more of a tearing apart of the veil between heaven and earth so that the priest can mediate the reality of heaven from God to the people, taking the people’s prayers to God. In the West, though this is not an alien concept, sees the liturgy more of a participation in Divine realities manifested through visible signs and symbols. Each liturgical ethos is non-contradictory and represents the two different strands of philosophy in the Church.

            Because of this, though, Aristotelian philosophy places more emphasis on the visible and real manifestation of Divine realities in our reality. Aristotle was a student of Plato for over twenty years, but rejected his teacher’s concepts of our visible reality participating, but not equaling, the eternal, divine realities of heaven. Plato’s use of the forms stipulates that man is a part of the earth, but merely participates in a diluted and therefore imperfect manifestation of the really real. For Aristotle, however, he believed that the earth in all its manifestations was the real world and therefore all creation was good because it was a direct participation in the divine. This reflects the Incarnation quite well because Christ became man and saved all creation, especially man, through His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven. Therefore all material of the earth can be seen as a full participation in the divine reality of the Holy Trinity, living in the love of the Trinity as it is manifested in nature.

            Transubstantiation is a defendable argument because of Aquinas’ use of Aristotelian philosophy to explain the double miracle of the Eucharist, the changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. The bread and wine, which man has received from the goodness of God, is offered back to God as a spotless victim. This spotless victim is Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Logos of the Father. The bread and wine are thus changed into Christ’s Body and Blood as a gift from God to man and man reciprocates by offering things of this earth where God can manifest Himself through the goodness of His creation. Transubstantiation makes sense because it explains how God is able to use any means to make Himself known to man. Even though the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ substantially, accidently the bread and wine remain to speak to the anthropological need to communicating with the Creator through means man is able to comprehend. It is then that transubstantiation is defendable because it elevates visible creation to the heights of God.

50th Anniversary of the Opening of Vatican II

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, as well as the opening of the Year of Faith. This is a most beautiful time for all Catholics throughout the world to join in a celebration of their faith, culture, and traditions, whatever they may be.

Here are some practical suggestions I offer to you for how to celebrate the Year of Faith:

1) Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Catechism is rich with scripture and beauty, extolling the virtues of our faith which we received from Christ Himself through the hands of the Apostles. I would recommend especially reading the sections on the Liturgy and the Sacraments, so as to become familiar again with how the Church pray and from Whom this prayer comes from.

2) Read the 16 documents that came out of Vatican II - This can be a great way to see where the council fathers were coming from when they composed these documents. Two suggestions: Firstly, read Sacrosanctum Concilium first, the document on the Sacred Liturgy, and the first document to be written. Secondly, for supplemental reading, I would suggest Fr. John O'Malley's What Happened at Vatican II.

3) Partake of the Sacraments! - If there's one thing Vatican II did, it was lay the groundwork for liturgical renewal. Go experience the fruits of these labors... and have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, the High Priest who acts through all the Sacraments and the Liturgical Life of the Church.

With these suggestions, I hope you come to know Christ more in your daily lives in this Year of Faith. Praised be Jesus Christ, both now and forever!

The Spirit as a Witness of God's Love

As some of you may know, I recently reentered the seminary. Before classes began, my brother seminarians and I had the chance to take part in a silent retreat. This was my first silent retreat, and there were a lot of good meditations I had. Among them, though, was one on the role of the Holy Spirit in our participation in the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity. I would like to share a short reflection I wrote during retreat.

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I thought of something after I prayed my Rosary this evening. I was reading Father Stinissen's book Into Your Hands, Father. On page 46, he says:

This is no shadow of conflict in the Holy Trinity. Each one consents to the will of the other. The Father is the source of life. He wants to give of himself and beget a Son who is like him. The Son is willing to reflect the Father's being. He wants to be the Word of the Father and nothing else. "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). The Spirit is witness to this mutual love and desires to be nothing else.

This intrigues me because it is the Spirit who descended on Mary, and by His power Jesus was born of Mary into the flesh. John 3:16 says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that those who believe in him might not perish, but may have eternal life." Though Christ is the Sacrament of God the Father, it is the Spirit who is the witness of the love the Father has for the Son and all of creation. When we surrender our wills to the Father, we become Christ, and the Spirit acts through us to give witness this love.

Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself... and God

          Loving your neighbor as Christ and not His Church is a fallacy. I am in the process of starting seminary in late August and, as such, I wanted to read my rector's book, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. Father Barron has a tremendous way of explaining things so that even a "doubting Thomas" will believe what the Church believes. But as we all know, not many people, even Catholics, believe in what the Church believes. To me, as a young Catholic and a seminarian who has many friends who are "recovering Catholics," I find this painful. God gives Himself to us through Christ and the Sacraments so we do not need to stray too far from from Him. The Sacraments are like a tether that allow us to go into the world and bring the love of God to it. The thing is, though, many people just care about loving their neighbor and claim to love Christ, but do not love the Church. This cannot be done, as I will show you. Many of my recovering Catholic friends, though, do not understand this. My goal in this post is to show people how loving your neighbor as yourself and not loving Christ and His Church is a logical fallacy. 

          It is a corporal work of mercy to bring the love of Christ to a world that is in desperate need of His love. Groups associated with social action, such as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (hereafter referred to as "LCWR) is a good example. Some of the work these religious women do is admirable, like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. This is a beautiful thing they are doing in the world and I commend them for it. But to love the poor and serve the hungry is simply not enough. Gerard Moore, a professor in Australia who has written widely on ecclesiology, says:

. . . . the church does not have a hierarchy, rather the church is a hierarchy. All members belong equally, no level can be understood apart from the other levels, all members have rights and duties one to the other within any levels and across any levels, and there can be no greater dignity or gift than Baptism [Gerard Moore, "Are We There Yet? Vatican II and the Renewal of the Liturgy: Reflections on the Fortieth Anniversary of the COnstitution of the Sacred Liturgy," Australian Catholic Record 81 (July 2004) 268.] 

The LCWR claims that the Church's hierarchy is attacking them because of their faithful call to reform. Whether or not their reform was faithful or fruitful is not the issue here. The issue is the LCWR is acting against the Church on many issues, namely: abortion, artificial birth control, women's ordination, and same-sex marriage. The members of the LCWR are placing the work with the hungry and poor ahead of their love for Christ, giving themselves totally to do His will. 

          How is this, though? How are the members of the LCWR placing the poor and hungry ahead of their love for Christ if they are serving the poor and hungry as if all of them are Christ? Simple: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart," and "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me," finally, "If anyone says, 'I love God', hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." Father Barron reminds us:

. . . . suffice it to say that the absolute love for God is not in competition with a radical commitment to love our fellow human beings, precisely because God is not one being among many, but the very ground of the existence of the finite world. Thomas Aquinas would state it this way: to love God is to love, necessarily, whatever participates in God, and this is to say the entire world (Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, New York: Image Books, 2011, 55). 

So it is impossible to hate one person and love God at the same time, because God is love and is personified in His creation. My issue with Catholics who claim that living a "moral" life and loving Christ and not loving His Mystical Body, the Church, is a logical fallacy. As Moore reminds us, the Church does not have a hierarchy, it is a hierarchy. If you are a Catholic that says, "I don't need the male-dominated hierarchy to tell me what to do," you are essentially saying, "Even though I'm a part of this hierarchy by virtue of my Baptism, I'll willingly reject it if it does not conform to my feelings." 

          But being a Christian is not about what you feel. I many respects, it is not about how you feel at all. What matters about being a Christian is surrendering yourself, your whole being to Christ. You cannot say, "I surrender myself to Christ... but not the Church." The Church is Christ! Christ is the Church! The Church is Christ's Mystical Body on earth, His Bride. Just as a man and woman cannot break the bonds of marriage because they become one flesh, so is the man and woman's marriage bond a reflection of Christ with His Church. Christ reminds us of this when he told His Apostles that He would never leave them. Christ is always with His Church because He is the Church.

          To love God and not to love the Bride of His Son is a logical fallacy. How can one love someone but hate them at the same time? Hate is not in the Christian's lexicon of acceptable words. To be a Catholic Christian means that you accept the teachings of the Church as she believes them because it is Christ who is teaching these beliefs to us through His Spouse, the Church.

          This may seem like theo-babel, but this is only because the west has lost that sense of ourselves. Nothing to can understood in our culture anymore unless it is in black and white, written in big letters, and tossed in our faces. God does not work in this way; indeed, God has never worked in this way. God always reveals Himself through ordinary means so that we can grasp His presence. This is most clear in 1 Samuel 3:1-18. Samuel hears a whisper, calling him to get up from his sleep. God does this three times and, with the help of Eli, Samuel finally realizes it is God Who is speaking to him. The same is true of Jesus with His parables. Jesus never directly says, "I am the messiah! Come, and if you follow me, I'll lead you to my Father." Sorry, folks, that is not how God works. With the help of men and women, God speaks through them is silent ways to lead us to do His will. This is testified to in the lives of the martyr's, who gave of their whole selves to do the will of God on earth and lead others to profess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

          To love Christ and not to love His Church is a logical fallacy. Then again, you cannot just love your neighbor as yourself. You must love your neighbor as yourself as God loves you. To put it another way, because you are God's child, you must love your neighbor as yourself because he, like you, is also God's child. And to love God, Christ, is to love His Church. The Church is Christ and when we clothe or feed a homeless person, we are feeding Christ... and His Church. One cannot love Christ and not love the one who carries His message of love and repentance to the world.

Our Transformation into the Suffering Christ

In the Letter to the Hebrews, Saint Paul says,


Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest that is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to grace for timely help (Hebrews 4:14-16).


Christ experienced pain and suffering on the Cross, our pain and suffering. When we are at Mass, we proclaim the Lord's death and resurrection until He comes again, and in this act of re-presenting the Sacrifice of Christ, we become Christ. We can understand the pain and sin that is in the world and bring this love to the world for which Christ died. In being transformed into Christ through our actual participation in the liturgical life of the Church, we can be Christ to the world and sympathize with people's suffering.

The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, or YOUCAT, says, “God gives himself to each one of us individually, and he wants to transform us through communion with him. Once we are transformed, we are supposed to transform the world” (YOUCAT, 217). There are times when some of us may think that God cannot save us because of our sins. Besides the fact that this is presuming God's mercy, it can also be incorrect. God wants us, He desires us. Just like the lost sheep that the Good Shepherd goes after, so does God go after us to lead us back to the assembly. God desires you so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be an expiation of all of our sins. Not only that, but every day throughout the world, Christ gives Himself freely to the Church through the Eucharist, His Body and Blood. Our participation in the Eucharistic Liturgy, the Mass, transforms us into Christ to be sent out into the world to proclaim His Good News. As the dismissal as Mass says, "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life." 


When we go out into the world as Christuli (little Christs), we not only bring the love of Christ to those who are downtrodden, but we also bring God's desire to redeem all of creation. This love for man that God has is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, who is 100% God and 100% man. Some may say they cannot be saved because they do not anyone can save them, but God can save them. The only thing the Lord asks, in the words of Saint Paul, "Make room for us" (2 Corinthians 7:2). When we accept the ones who were sent by God, we accept God as well. We accept God because He became flesh, Jesus Christ. We accept Christ because He knows the pain and the anguish we suffer on earth. He wants us to be united with Him, He desires for us to be one with Him. We can because the Father sent Him to save us. 


God desires us so much that He made Christ share in our trials as humans. Though Christ did not sin and did not know sin, He became sin so all of us, man, woman, child, old, young, etc. could be reconciled to the Father. For when we accept Christ, we accept the one who sent Him: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27).


God understands our suffering because Christ endured this on the Cross. We become Christ and can share in His Sacrifice for sin when we actually participate in the liturgical life of the Church. Once transformed through the Church's sacred liturgy, we have the confidence to go out into the world and bring Christ and His love to a world that is in desperate need of it. God desires you, He wants you; that is why He sent His only Son to share in our afflictions. 

The Ecclesiola

All quotes are taken from newadvent.org, unless otherwise indicated.
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Many Catholics today question why Church unity matters in light of recent cultural and political developments. Many people also say that the Church is against freedom of thought and and is inherently anti-intellectual. This post answers the question of why Church unity is important with respect to holding fast to timeless teachings as present to the local church community.

Modern historiography dictates that enforcement of Church beliefs began quite recently, around the 15th century. If the historians and historical theologians looked to the earliest writings of the Church, namely, the Church Fathers, they would see that Church unity was of grave concern even in the second century after Christ. Saint Cyprian of Carthage says in his Treatise on the Unity of the Church:

If any one consider and examine these things, there is no need for lengthened discussion and arguments. There is easy proof for faith in a short summary of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter, saying, I say unto you, that you are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And again to the same He says, after His resurrection, Feed my sheep. And although to all the apostles, after His resurrection, He gives an equal power, and says, As the Father has sent me, even so send I you: Receive the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins you remit, they shall be remitted unto him; and whose soever sins you retain, they shall be retained; John 20:21 yet, that He might set forth unity, He arranged by His authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one. Assuredly the rest of the apostles were also the same as was Peter, endowed with a like partnership both of honour and power; but the beginning proceeds from unity. Which one Church, also, the Holy Spirit in the Song of Songs designated in the person of our Lord, and says, My dove, my spotless one, is but one. She is the only one of her mother, elect of her that bare her. Song of Songs 6:9 Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against and resists the Church trust that he is in the Church, when moreover the blessed Apostle Paul teaches the same thing, and sets forth the sacrament of unity, saying, There is one body and one spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, onebaptism, one God?  Ephesians 4:4 


Saint Cyprian clearly indicates that there is but one Lord and one Faith. This one Lord is Jesus Christ, sacramentally present to man as the Church... the Catholic Church. Just as Christ had no body, and every body has functions that work together in unison, so the Church is one body that works together. The inner-workings of the Church are compromised when one member holds ideas or teachings that are contrary to the proper functioning of the body. If someone had cancer, that cancer must be eradicated from the body for the body to work properly. Therefore, heretical ideas that compromise the health of the Church must be eradicated in order for the Church to function properly. 


Even Saint Paul, though not a Church Father, extrapolates on this point when he says: "For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free" (1 Corinthians 12:13). The Church is made up of individual members who work toward the same goal, union with God by following Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Many Christians today believe that the Church Fathers (and Saint Paul) spoke of a very loose unity, one in core dogmas and doctrines: Belief in one God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, one "Church," more as a collection of individuals not bound to anything except the aforementioned. 


Saint Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote several letters to local churches while he was being lead to his martyrdom. He says:


Wherefore, as children of light and truth, flee from division and wicked doctrines; but where the shepherd is, there follow as sheep. For there are many wolves that appear worthy of credit, who, by means of a pernicious pleasure, carry captive2 Timothy 3:6 those that are running towards God; but in your unity they shall have no place. 


The Church is made up of several individual members, but these members are of one mind, heart, and, most of all, baptism. This unity is personified in the person of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. The Church expresses this unity par excellence in her supreme act of public worship: The Celebration of the Eucharist. 


The celebration of the Eucharist, or as it is commonly known as, the Mass, is re-presentation of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross. The Mass does not crucify Christ over and over again; rather, the Mass makes present again Christ's love for man as He hung upon the Cross. This is testified to by the Greek word anamesis, a making present again. When the local church assembles and becomes and unites itself to the larger Church, the local church is an ecclesiola, a little Church. The local Body of Christ resembles the whole Body of Christ. This is made present in Ignatius' words when he says:



Take heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever you do, you may do it according to [the will of] God.

Just as there is one body of Christ, so there is one Church with one set of teachings. Deviation from this one set of teachings mean the individual is separating himself from the larger Church, not just the ecclesiola. 

Not only is this teaching sacramentally present in the Church, but also in the Church's public worship. In the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, also known as the "Tridentine Rite," this was symbolized when the subdeacon took the paten, the vessel holding the Sacred Host, and kept it wrapped in his humeral veil during the Eucharistic Prayer, or Canon. The meaning behind this ritual was that the subdeacon carried the "fermentum," or particles of the Body of Christ, to the local churches in Rome. This carrying of the fermentum to the local churches showed forth in a concrete way the unity of the local churches with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. 

In our modern times, Pope Pius XII wrote in Mystici Corporis that:

That the Church is a body is frequently asserted in the Sacred Scriptures. "Christ," says the Apostle, "is the Head of the Body of the Church."If the Church is a body, it must be an unbroken unity, according to those words of Paul: "Though many we are one body in Christ." But it is not enough that the Body of the Church should be an unbroken unity; it must also be something definite and perceptible to the senses as Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Satis Cognitum asserts: "the Church is visible because she is a body. Hence they err in a matter of divine truth, who imagine the Church to be invisible, intangible, a something merely "pneumatological" as they say, by which many Christian communities, though they differ from each other in their profession of faith, are untied by an invisible bond.


The Church makes unity present by her very being. If the Church was a collection of loose-fitting members who did not share in the beliefs of the her Savior, then there would be no Church. Just as a body cannot function properly without a limb, so the Body of Christ, if fractured, cannot function properly.


The local church community, the parish, is a reflection of the diocesan church, united with her bishop. The diocesan church is a reflection of the whole Church. Therefore, the parish makes present the entire Church in her belief system, and most of all, in her Eucharistic celebration. Fracturing this unity means compromising, not only the unity of the local church, but also the unity of the entire Church. Fracturing the entire Church means breaking up the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, His Bride. Church unity means adhering to teachings that have been handed-down from the Apostles, to the Church Fathers, to the bishops of the modern day. Christ gave authority to Peter and the other Apostles and therefore gave them the power to safeguard Church teaching. As Catholic Christians, we believe that the Body of Christ cannot be fractured. Let us go back to the teachings of the early Church, as they are the teachings of the Church in modern times. Maybe then we can all be one in Christ Jesus.