In Search of the Sacred



Dear Theophilus,

“Is nothing sacred anymore?”

I seem to be hearing this question a lot more these days. The funny thing is that it usually has to do with the secular world.

No hockey this year! Is nothing sacred anymore?

Texting at the dinner table! Is nothing sacred anymore?

The mall is closed for a holiday! Is nothing sacred anymore?

I find it interesting, though, that none of these are truly sacred in the real sense of the word.

As Catholics we are lucky to come into weekly contact with the sacred through the Eucharist. But even with this it can, at times, seem difficult to find the sacred in the Mass.

Last week at my parish celebration of our patron saint, St. Leo the Great, I was fortunate enough to rediscover a sense of the sacred in the Eucharistic liturgy. With a Knights of Columbus honour guard, incense and holy water sprinkling, the congregation was wholly engaged for the sacredness of the Eucharist to come.

This isn’t to say that the usual celebration of the Eucharist without these elements is any less sacred than when they are present. We cannot, and should not, sustain such a high level of expectation when we meet Christ in the Eucharist. We need to recall that Christ’s own Passover meal was a simple affair. As Catholics we are called to understand that there is nothing more sacred in our faith than the Eucharist (CCC #1324). When it comes to the sacred in the Eucharistic liturgy the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) states:

It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that the celebration of the Mass or the Lord’s Supper be so ordered that the sacred ministers and the faithful taking part in it, according to the state proper to each, may draw from it more abundantly those fruits, to obtain which, Christ the Lord instituted the  Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood and entrusted it as the memorial of his Passion and Resurrection to the Church, his beloved Bride. (GIRM #17)

This is a logical progression from Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium:

Nevertheless the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper. (Sacrosanctum Concilium #10)

All of this pondering on the sacred in the liturgy of the Eucharist reminded me of an article I read a few years ago in Adoremus Bulletin. I had been looking for a quote for a staff meeting reflection when I stumbled upon the following from Alvin Kimel Jr.:

The re-enchantment’ of the Catholic Liturgy”, declares Father Aidan Nichols, “is the single most urgent ecclesial need of our time”. I like the use of the word enchant to describe the Divine Liturgy of the Church.

I still vividly remember my first visit in June 1975 to St. Paul’s Church, K Street, in Washington, DC. I had just finished college. Earlier that year I had become a believing Christian. Upon returning to Washington, an old high school friend invited me to join him one Sunday at St. Paul’s. Solemn High Mass, with a visiting African bishop to administer Confirmation; solemn procession, with two thurifers; chanting, crossings, bowings, genuflections, incense -- all of this was completely new for me.

My only prior experience with the Lord’s Supper was as an addendum to the Methodist preaching service, with cubes of bread and shot-glasses of grape juice. Here was something utterly different. I was taken up into a sacred world. On that day I discovered the Eucharistic Christ. I was enchanted.
I found it possible to believe the Eucharistic promises of Christ because of the enchanting beauty and power of the Divine Liturgy that I experienced that first summer at St. Paul’s. I was enchanted into faith. I experienced the glories of heaven and thus came to know the truth of the Eucharist. I will always believe that the consecrated elements are truly the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. And it is the liturgy that has sustained and generated my faith for the past thirty years.

You can read the entire article here.

Keeping all of this in mind, I’ll ask you the same question I asked my colleagues 7 years ago: “Where do you find a sense of the sacred in practicing your Catholic faith?”

A Substantial Matter

Dear Theophilus,

Just the other day I had a discussion with a friend over the term consubstantial. He had difficulty with its inclusion in the new English translation of the Nicene Creed. His bone of contention was the Church’s inclusion of a word that many laypeople would have a hard time understanding. We both agreed that a better education of the laity was needed (both from the ecclesial hierarchy and from the laity taking responsibility for themselves), and I passed along a booklet on the New Translation of the Roman Missal.

What piqued my interest further about the term consubstantial was that I came across two similar terms in the following days in Fr. Robert Barron’s book simply entitled Eucharist: transsubtantial and supersubstantial.

To understand all three terms properly, we need to understand their root word: substance. When defining these three terms, Church fathers used the Aristotelian definition of substance – the invisible part of a being that defines what that being is; its essence. In other words, a being’s substance (what it is) can be quite different from a being’s accidents (what it looks like). To use Fr. Barron’s example, we know that a horse is a horse because of the essence which has formed the animal; however, we recognize it as an individual horse by its accidents of height, colour and temperament.

Giving the term substance the synonym of essence, we can now tackle the three substantial words of consubstantial, transsubtantial and supersubstantial by looking at their individual prefixes.

The prefix con means with. Thus, in the Nicene Creed when we say that the Lord Jesus Christ is “consubstantial with the Father,” we are reiterating our belief in the Holy Trinity. With the word consubstantial we recognize that there is only one God in divine essence, but that his accidents are changed depending on how He interacts with His creation. This is God the Father Creator. There is God the Son who came to save us from our sins. There is also God the Holy Spirit who guides us in our faith development.

The prefix trans means to change, and when used in the context of transsubtantial, it refers to the changing of the essence of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. In the case of the Eucharist, when the priest recites the words of consecration, the essence of the sacrificial gifts on the altar change, even if the accidental properties of bread and wine remain. What we need to remember is that the priest offers the sacrifice of the Mass in persona Christi – in the person of Christ – so it is no longer the human priest who is saying the words of consecration, but rather Christ himself, descended upon the priest through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The final prefix super means above or greater than. Thus, for something to be considered supersubstantial is to mean that its essence is above or greater than the physical realm of creation. We’re not in the habit of using the term supersubstantial in Christianity, but it is a term we invoke each time we say the Lord’s Prayer. The verse Give us this day our daily bread is written ton arton ton epiousion in the original Gospel Greek. A more precise translation can thus be seen as a request of the Lord to give us what we need for our daily sustenance. Since Jesus is the bread of life, of which if we eat we will not hunger, then the Eucharist can thus be referred to as supersubstantial, a substance that exists on a higher plane than our physical realm. A substance whose essence if far greater than anything we can understand.

The New Translation of the Roman Missal

Dear Theophilus,

This coming Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, will mark a momentous change in the Mass for the English-speaking world. The English translation of the Roman Missal is changing, and along with it, many of the responses and prayers that most English-speaking Catholics have grown up with.

Change is difficult to deal with at the best of times, even if we are well prepared, and it will probably take a while for the new wording of the Roman Missal to sink in. Some of my fellow Catholics are so disconcerted, I’ve heard them referring to the change as Vatican III or as a reactionary move from a conservative Pope Benedict XVI. I’ve found the following short video from Life Teen to be really good in helping explain the why’s and wherefore’s of the new translation.

If you are looking for a more in-depth commentary on the new translation of the Roman Missal, Fr. Robert Barron offers some excellent insight.

A notion that I find best suits the reason for the new translation is that of its linguistic register – the language we use to dialogue with Christ the King through the Mass. A great example of linguistic register that I’ve come across is that of Shakespeare. If you take Shakespeare out of the original Elizabethan English and put it into contemporary language, although the meaning remains the same, the whole feel or spirit of his work is lost. Imagine Juliet’s pining of “Romeo, O Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” being read as “Hey Romeo! Where are ya?” Both ask the same question, but the language of one evokes so much more emotion that the other.

I know that I’ll be one of many stumbling over my words this Sunday, but I also look forward to the heightened prayerfulness that the new translation of the Roman Missal promises.