COLUMN

THE RICHES OF OUR POVERTY

by Laura Garcia

Surveys of church-going Catholics tell us that we are losing our faith in the real presence of Christ in the host at Mass. This signals an enormous failure in our catechetical programs within the Church. More seriously still, it is a cause for profound sorrow, since it means that many Catholics have lost sight of the most central and most wonderful truth of the faith: Christ gives us himself in Holy Communion. He is not content simply to send us a message or a reminder, even a love letter, wonderful as that might be. He gives himself, body and blood, soul and divinity, under the appearances of bread and wine.

Much could be said about the glories of this truth for what it reveals about God - his love, his humility, his generosity. But there is also great consolation in what it reveals about us, and the astonishing possibilities it places in our hands. Participating in the sacrifice of the Mass gives to us who are poor, who have nothing of our own, the resources with which to offer God our Father a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that is worthy of him. We have a gift of infinite value to bring to the altar of God, because Christ gives us himself.

It would be a tragedy of monumental proportions for Catholics to slide into a more Protestant view of the sacraments and their meaning. Attempts to "naturalize" the Eucharist by turning it into a mere sign of Christ's Passion are at least as old as the thirteenth century, since St. Thomas in the Summa vigorously attacks this error and reminds us that the sacrifice of the New Law instituted by Christ contains "Christ himself crucified, not merely in signification or figure, but also in very truth" (ST 111, 75, i). Theologian that he is, St. Thomas argues first from the logic of the New Covenant and its fulfillment of the sacrificial types found in the Old Law, but as a master of the interior life he adds to this the argument from Christ's love. "Because it is the special feature of friendship to live together with friends, as the Philosopher [Aristotle] says, he promises us his bodily presence as a reward... Hence this sacrament is the sign of supreme charity, and the uplifter of our hope, from such familiar union of Christ with us."

Protestant theology and piety specialize in reminding us of the greatness of what God has done for us and in us, compared with the negligible contribution we can make either to our salvation or to our sanctity. Such considerations should in principle lead one to the very heights of thanksgiving and praise, but in practice they often fail to produce this effect. The constant focus on our nothingness apart from Christ convinces us of the utter unworthiness of anything we might offer to God, and so can prevent us from making serious efforts along these lines. Here the doctrine of the Real Presence comes to our aid, since our Lord gives us not only his grace but himself in Holy Communion, so that we may offer a worthy tribute to our God and King.

No one writes more eloquently on this subject than Father Frederick Faber, himself a convert from the Protestant (Anglican) ministry, and a close friend and collaborator of John Henry Cardinal Newman. In the Eucharist, says Faber, Jesus places himself in our hands, as he placed himself in Mary's hands at the presentation in the temple, and tells us, "Offer Me! I am equal to My Father! I am a gift, not worthy only but of the selfsame price and value, infinite, unutterable as himself!" (All for Jesus [Rockford, IL: Tan, 1991], p. 102). It is God who comes to the aid of our love, who because of our very poverty gives us what we need in order to praise and thank him as we ought and as we desire. It is the love of the Father for his children, of the Bridegroom in the Song of Songs for his bride: "Your cheeks lovely in pendants, your neck in jewels. We will make pendants of gold for you, and silver ornaments." (1:10, 11)

Further still, anyone who possesses Christ possesses all that is his, as St. Paul tells the Corinthians, "Everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God" (1 Cor. 3:21, 22). Christ has purchased all things for us by his blood, and we can offer them in turn to him, because they are truly our own. Faber provides a glimpse of what this means:

For these are our treasures, which he has given us, having won them for us with his Blood: his own Sacred Humanity, Body and Soul, his Childhood, Hidden Life, Ministry, Passion, Blessed Sacrament, and Session at the Father's right hand; his Mother, all she is or has; his countless angels beautiful and strong; all the good works and penances of earth; all the Masses that are said; and the countless sufferings of those in Purgatory; the graces which the lost had and did not correspond to; the sanctity of the Saints, Joseph, the Baptist, the Apostles and the rest; all the praise of birds and beasts and the orderly elements; all that possible creatures could do; God's past mercies, through the Old Testament history downward; and the love which the Three Divine Persons bear to each other, and the incommunicable love wherewith God loves himself eternally.

We often fail to act upon this truth, because it is a depth of humility in the heart of God that we can scarcely comprehend; the Creator and Lord of all things placing himself at our disposal so that we may intercede for others, offering along with our prayers his own treasures, which are ours as well.

This mingling of merits and gifts, which often scandalizes our separated brethren, only makes sense if the sacraments achieve that intimate union of Christ with us of which St. Thomas speaks. It is a union in which each member retains his individual identity, and yet is so close that the actions and joys and sufferings of each can be attributed to the others. In a state of grace, the Church teaches, we are in Christ and he is in us, in a way that resembles the life of the Holy Trinity. A further effect of this union is that each one of our actions and prayers and trials freely accepted can acquire an infinite value by being united with the actions and prayers and sufferings of Christ. A mere intention on our part to offer our actions to the Father out of love is enough to turn them into jewels of almost infinite value.

"This devotion of saying Mass, as it were, with our actions all day long is peculiarly Catholic," says Faber. Indeed, even injunctions to "offer up" one's sorrows or difficulties strike many a Protestant ear as strange in the extreme. It is only if the Mass really is Christ's union with us that our actions can be done in union with him, and so be raised from their native insignificance to rival the songs of the angels in heaven. Surely many who have lost faith in Christ's presence in the Eucharist have little idea of what they have lost. But we parents and teachers and pastors will answer for those entrusted to our care, who are longing for the love, and the power to love, that only Christ can give.

Laura Garcia is professor of philosophy at Rutgers University.