The Mass Debate, 1999

The Late Development of Eucharistic Materiality

Now, toward the end of the first millennium, one finds such notables as Gottschalk and Retramnus opposing the concept of the literal materiality of the elements of the Eucharist. When Paschasius Radbertus, though not using the later scholastic terminology of transubstantiation, presented very much the same concept, the debate was joined, demonstrating that surely such a concept was not the ancient and constant faith of the Church.

The renowned historian Philip Schaaf notes, quote,. In both cases, the conflict was between a materialistic and a spiritualistic conception of the sacrament and its effect. The one was based on a literal, the other a figurative interpretation of the words of institution and of the mysterious discourse in the sixth chapter of St.

John.

But remember, folks, Council of Trent said this has always been the faith of the Church. How indeed could two viewpoints exist side by side and result in such controversy if Trent is correct, that it has ever been a firm belief in the Church of God?

In the debates that took place toward the end of the first millennium and the beginning of the second, those who defended a symbolic understanding of the Eucharist were able to quote on their side the testimony of Augustine.

It is ironic to note that in regard to two dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church, transubstantiation and the concept of the immaculate conception, the testimony of Augustine had to be overcome, and that with great difficulty.

The word transubstantiation seems to have first been used by Hildebert of Tours in about 1134. Others mention other differing candidates for the first people to use it, but it was a long time after the apostles, before that term, came into use.

The Rise of Host Worship and the Council of Trent

I'd like to introduce to you a key issue. If one believes in transubstantiation, then one will worship the consecrated host as God. The Council of Trent says that we're to do so. Yet history records that the elevation and adoration of the host is not an ancient practice.

And as the New Catholic Encyclopedia notes, such items as the tabernacle, pick, ciborium, et cetera, begin to appear only at the same time as the use of the term transubstantiation. While the ancient church carried the host to the sick, the idea of reserving the host in a tabernacle for worship came about at this later time.

As Schaff notes, quote, the elevation and adoration of the host were practiced in the Latin Church as early as the 12th century. Honorius III in 1217 made obligatory the ringing of a bell at the moment the words of institution were uttered and the worshipers might fall on their knees and adore the host.

The Lambeth Synod of 1281 ordered the church bells to be rung at the moment of consecration so that the laboring man on the field and the woman engaged in her domestic work might bow down and worship.

Synods prescribed that the picks, the receptacle, for the host be made of gold, silver, ivory, or at least polished copper. A light was kept burning before it perpetually. In case a crumb of the bread or a drop of the wine fell upon the cloth of the priest's garments, the part was to be cut out and burnt and the ashes thrown in the saccharine.

If a drop happened to fall on a stone or a piece of wood or hard earth, the priest or some pious person was to lick it up. The festival of the Eucharist, Corpus Christi, celebrated the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, had its origin in the vision of Juliana, a nun of Liege who saw the full moon representing the church year with one spot on its surface.

This spot indicated the church's neglect to properly honor the real presence. She made her vision known to the Bishop of Liege and the Archdeacon James Pantaleon. A celebration was appointed for the diocese and when James became Pope under the name of Urban IV, he prescribed in 1264 the general observance of the festival.

John XXII inaugurated the process wherein on Corpus Christi Day, the host was carried about the streets with great solemnities. He also says that the denial of the cup to the laity became common in the 13th century.

It was at first due to the fear of profanation by spilling the consecrated blood of Christ. Now let me ask you a question. Why did it take more than a thousand years before anyone was concerned about spilling the consecrated wine?

And why did the miraculous stories about consecrated hosts literally explode in number only after the beginning of the second millennium? Just as an example, I again cite from Schaaf. Another case related by Etienne of Bourbon is of a farmer who, wanting to be rich, followed the advice of a friend and placed the host in one of his beehives.

The bees, with great reverence, made a miniature church containing an altar on which they placed the sacred morsel. All the bees from the neighborhood were attracted and sang beautiful melodies. The rustic went out, expecting to find the hives overflowing with honey, but to his amazement found them all empty except the one in which the host had been deposited.

The bees attacked him fiercely. He repaired to the priest who, after consulting with the bishop, went in procession to the hive and found the miniature church with the altar and carried it back to the village church while the bees' singing songs flew away.

Schaaf says these stories, which might be greatly multiplied, and he provides a number in his history, attest the profound veneration which the host was held and the crude superstitions which grew up around it in the convent and among the people.

And here's Schaaf's comment. The simple and edifying communion meal of the New Testament was set aside by medieval theology and practice for an unreasonable ecclesiastical prodigy. Why don't you have those stories in the third century and in the fourth century if transubstantiation is actually the historic faith of the church?