Source and Summit

From David Bonagura at The Catholic Thing:

BOWING LOW, THE PRIEST takes the host with the thumb and forefinger of each hand as he prays the words of consecration: “Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you.” The priest genuflects, then elevates the host. The elevation is surrounded by the ringing of bells or silence. Taking the chalice, the priest repeats the action: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.” Another elevation follows, again enveloped by bells or silence.

In the course of this most solemn ritual, nothing visible has changed: it appears that the same bread and chalice lifted off the altar by the priest were replaced after a brief ceremonial. Empirically, one cannot prove that anything has happened. Our faith in the Eucharist comes instead from an even greater source: the authority of Jesus Christ, entrusted and passed on through his Church. St. Thomas Aquinas agreed: “Not to sight, or taste, or touch be credit, hearing only do we trust secure; I believe, for God the Son has said it.”

Today, lodged in the bleakness of postmodernity, we have difficulty trusting our own senses, to say nothing of the words of God the Son. We have been conditioned to believe that there is no truth, no beauty, no good; all judgments are also conditioned – by our environment and subjective emotions, so we can know nothing for certain..MORE>>