Ratzinger's Faith and Reason | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

Ratzinger's Faith and Reason | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | In Appreciation of Tracey Rowland's Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI

"Benedict believes that the Mass is a Holy Sacrifice, offered ritually as worship, not a fellowship meal, that those who attend do so for the purpose of Divine Worship, that music which is based on most contemporary popular musical forms is completely unworthy, and that everything that is related to the Mass and other liturgies of the Church should be marked by beauty. Beauty is not an optional extra or something contrary to a preferential option for the poor. It is not a scandal to clothe sacred words in silken garments. Catholics are not tone deaf philistines who will be intellectually challenged by the use of a liturgical language or put off by changeless ritual forms." — Tracey Rowland, Ratzinger's Faith

"From the beginning, Christianity has understood itself as the religion of the 'Logos', as the religion according to reason. In the first place, it has not identified its precursors in the other religions, but in the philosophical enlightenment which has cleared the path of tradition to turn to the search of the truth and towards the good, toward the one God who is above all gods." — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "The Subiaco Address"

I.

The reading of what is billed as a "theology" book on a pope, of all things, will not seem to be what this book surely is to read, namely, a distinct pleasure. Aristotle warned us that if we do not take proper delight in all things, especially in the things   of the mind, we will not know the highest pleasures that are in store for us when we seek to use that given faculty we call intellect. Well, that is not an exact citation from Aristotle, but pretty close. Clearly the highest pleasures follow from our knowing the highest truths and the reality in which they are founded. The central point of this book is this: "What is the Christian understanding of God?" And what is the relation of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the God of the Philosophers? No doubt our best current guide to the answer to these fundamental questions lies in the work and pontificate of Benedict XVI.

This slim volume by Tracey Rowland is introduced by George Cardinal Pell. He remarks, "It is a sign of the times and a portent of the future that this excellent volume was written by a young, married woman" well on her way to "becoming Australia's leading theologian" (x). Tracey Rowland is from the Brisbane area, currently the head of the John Paul Institute in Melbourne, where her husband Stuart is a lawyer. She earned a Master's Degree in political philosophy at the University of Melbourne and her doctorate at Cambridge University in England.

Read the entire essay...

Comments

[Todd]

You lose us at the first sentence.

"Benedict believes that the Mass is a Holy Sacrifice, offered ritually as worship, not a fellowship meal ..."

Yet Pope Benedict XVI intervened at the synod on the Eucharist when this point threatened to bring contention and said the Eucharist is both meal and sacrifice. If we can readily and solemnly accept Christ as true God and true man, it's not much of a leap of faith to accept the Mass as a communal meal for the nourishment of the faithful as we accept it as a sacrifice.

[Augustine II]

No, he loses YOU at the first sentence.

Warning: This Todd is the same man who recently published this nonsense:

http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3536&Itemid=48

His rank Modernism is also displayed in the Combox here:

http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2008/05/glory-and-praise-revisionism.html

[Carl Olson]

Yet Pope Benedict XVI intervened at the synod on the Eucharist when this point threatened to bring contention and said the Eucharist is both meal and sacrifice.

I'm not sure about that; in fact, I seriously doubt that is the case, especially if by "meal" you mean some sort of "fellowship meal" (more on that at the bottom of this comment, where I quote Cardinal Ratzinger as completely dismissing the notion of the Mass as a "fellowship meal"). I do know that Sacramentum Caritatis, the post-synodal apostolic exhortation penned by Pope Benedict XVI, makes one reference to "the paschal meal" (par 8), and just four other references to "meal," all them having to do with the Passover meal, including this important section from paragraph 11:

11. Jesus thus brings his own radical novum to the ancient Hebrew sacrificial meal. For us Christians, that meal no longer need be repeated. As the Church Fathers rightly say, figura transit in veritatem: the foreshadowing has given way to the truth itself. The ancient rite has been brought to fulfilment and definitively surpassed by the loving gift of the incarnate Son of God. The food of truth, Christ sacrificed for our sake, dat figuris terminum. (20) By his command to "do this in remembrance of me" (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:25), he asks us to respond to his gift and to make it sacramentally present. In these words the Lord expresses, as it were, his expectation that the Church, born of his sacrifice, will receive this gift, developing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the liturgical form of the sacrament. The remembrance of his perfect gift consists not in the mere repetition of the Last Supper, but in the Eucharist itself, that is, in the radical newness of Christian worship. In this way, Jesus left us the task of entering into his "hour." "The Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving." (21) Jesus "draws us into himself." (22) The substantial conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of "nuclear fission," to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28).

In addition, the document contains 48 references to "sacrifice" and "sacrificial," including five references to the "eucharistic sacrifice."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains seventeen references to the "eucharistic sacrifice," and many more mentions of "sacrifice" in relation to the Mass and the Eucharist. The word meal appears fifteen times, nearly always in reference to the Passover Meal celebrated by Jesus and the disciples, not to some sort of "fellowship meal." And the Catechism, in talking about the Eucharist, emphasizes these aspects:

1357 We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.

1358 We must therefore consider the Eucharist as:
- thanksgiving and praise to the Father;
- the sacrificial memorial of Christ and his Body;
- the presence of Christ by the power of his word and of his Spirit.

And then there is a significant passage from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life (Ignatius, 2003), to which, I suspect, Dr. Rowland was referring to in the quote above. Having discussed a bit how some liturgists have claimed that the Church needs to return to "a simple meal of fellowship" (p 57), Ratzinger writes:

And now the first question: Jesus did not, it is said [by the afore-mentioned liturgists], call for any kind of cult or liturgy, but just an everyday meal of fellowship, when he said, "Do this!" Plausible though this objection may seem, as soon as we listen more carefully to Holy Scripture and refuse to be satisfied with superficialities, it becomes clear to us that it is untrue. For Jesus did not command his disciples to repeat the Last Supper as such and as a whole; this would in any case not have been possible, as it was a Passover meal. (p 58)

And a bit later:

Yet even the second line of inquiry to which we referred--supposing that the Eucharist was built upon the daily fellowship meals Jesus held with his disciples--is unconvincing, since we know that in the first place the Eucharist was celebrated every Sunday; so that it was in fact something apart from ordinary everyday life and thus apart from everyday table fellowship. It was the Resurrection that offered the the actual starting point for the Christian shaping of the legacy of Jesus. (pp 60-1)

I do recommend reading the entire passage in God Is Near Us, as it is puts to rest the notion of the Mass being a "fellowship meal."

[Todd]

Thanks for the quotes, Carl, but the language of the Eucharistic Prayers themselves shed insight on the Church's mind. They speak not only of sacrifice, but also post-consecration of the elements as bread and wine (or cup). Practically every anaphora actively interchanges the language of sacrifice and meal.

I hear a lot about an over-emphasis on "meal," but I see very few quotes from liturgical theologians who have gone too far over the edge.

It would be my contention that a mainstream Catholic approach would emphasize both aspects in a balanced way. Getting past the quibbling over adjectives--I think it's enough to just say sacrifice and meal--I find Rowland's statement to be unbalanced. My criticisms stand.

[Carl Olson]

Getting past the quibbling over adjectives--I think it's enough to just say sacrifice and meal--I find Rowland's statement to be unbalanced. My criticisms stand.

Rowland's statement is, as I've shown, an accurate summary of what Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has written (and which you ignore in your comment). With all due respect, Todd, I'll go with him on this one.

[Carl Olson]

Thanks for the quotes, Carl, but the language of the Eucharistic Prayers themselves shed insight on the Church's mind. They speak not only of sacrifice, but also post-consecration of the elements as bread and wine (or cup). Practically every anaphora actively interchanges the language of sacrifice and meal.

By the way, this is very misleading. Of course the Eucharistic prayers speak of bread and wine—they are the elements that will become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Tellingly, these are closely associated with sacrifice:

CCC 1350 The presentation of the offerings (the Offertory). Then, sometimes in procession, the bread and wine are brought to the altar; they will be offered by the priest in the name of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice in which they will become his body and blood. It is the very action of Christ at the Last Supper - "taking the bread and a cup." "The Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator, when she offers what comes forth from his creation with thanksgiving." The presentation of the offerings at the altar takes up the gesture of Melchizedek and commits the Creator's gifts into the hands of Christ who, in his sacrifice, brings to perfection all human attempts to offer sacrifices.

Also, the Eucharistic prayers mention "sacrifice" eleven times and "meal" zero times. So appealing to them simply begs the question all the more.

Getting past the quibbling over adjectives--I think it's enough to just say sacrifice and meal--I find Rowland's statement to be unbalanced.

Not to belabor what should be an obvious point, but since you are the one who reacted to the quote about "fellowship meal," it is hardly "quibbling" to talk about "fellowship meal" and to specifically address your initial comment about it. Otherwise you are simply putting up a moving target. Which, considering the weakness of your criticism, is rather understandable.

[Rich Leonardi]

Here we go again. (Or, more precisely, here he goes again.)

Redemptionis Sacramentum, a document issued to clarify misunderstandings about the liturgy, calls the Eucharist "preeminently a sacrifice" (38.)

Here is the text, which is largely taken from Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia:

The constant teaching of the Church on the nature of the Eucharist not only as a meal, but also and pre-eminently as a Sacrifice, is therefore rightly understood to be one of the principal keys to the full participation of all the faithful in so great a Sacrament.[97] For when “stripped of its sacrificial meaning, the mystery is understood as if its meaning and importance were simply that of a fraternal banquet.”

[Deacon Harold]

Great points, Carl!

I would also appeal to Scripture to show that the Mass is indeed first and foremost a sacrifice and not a "fellowship meal." St. Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians:

“When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:20-26, RSV)

St. Paul is describing liturgical abuse. The Corinthians are supposed to be gathering to celebrate the Eucharistic Liturgy (cf. St. Justin Martyr: "On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place" CCC 1345) but St. Paul points out this is not the case, and names the abuse: some people are eating and drinking, i.e. having a “fellowship meal.” Paul strongly rebukes them ("Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God . . .? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not"). He then reminds the faithful in Corinth Who it is they are receiving and why they are there: to celebrate “the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the cross is perpetuated” and partake in “the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood” (CCC 1382).

Coffee and donuts come after Mass.

[Todd]

Let's be clear this contention seems to focus on what seems to be sacrifice-primarily versus a both-meal-and-sacrifice approach. To see the Church's mind on what the Mass is, one has to go deeper than proof-texting any single theologian to find what supports one's arguments.

The language of sacrifice in the Eucharistic Prayers is strong, as is the language of the Pesach ritual meal that Jesus used as a point of transformation in religious belief and liturgical practice.

The Mass is not in any way lessened by the reality it is a ritual meal. In fact the second purpose of the liturgy as described in Sacrosanctum Concilium 7, the sanctification of the faithful, works very well with the notion that God nourishes believers through the liturgy.

After the consecration, this is what the Church prays:

"the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation" (Roman Canon)

"life-giving bread, this saving cup" (EP II)

"Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ." (EP III)

"gather all who share this one bread and one cup into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise." (EP IV)

"Send the Holy Spirit to all of us who share in this meal." (EP Children II)

"Through this sacred meal give us strength to please you more and more." (EP Children III)

"we offer you the bread of life and the cup of eternal blessing." (EP various needs)

There is no misunderstanding on my part: I have no problem with the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, that it was established in so close a connection with Christ's Passion and Death.

But the salvific action of Christ also involves engaging the body of Believers, the Body of Christ, to a level that expects and encourages their own participation in this sacrifice. How is that accomplished? The Church teaches it happens through Christ's presence and nourishment of the Christian. The meal metaphor works well as a complement to the notion of sacrifice.

"I'm not sure about that; in fact, I seriously doubt that is the case, especially if by 'meal' you mean some sort of 'fellowship meal'"

I'm quite sure about it. And I think my original comment was clear that I don't need or use a qualifier on the term, "meal."

The Church also teaches that the "fellowship" portion of the Mass is presumed to be in place as the liturgy begins. Community as a quality is a part of the liturgy on many levels, not only in either meal or sacrifice.

To argue against any excess on the side of "meal," my friends, I think you need to come up with someone's quote, and not some vague, "I think some wackos are confused about the liturgy." If you have a reference, let's look at it. If you see something in any of my statements, let's tackle it.

I continue to stand by my assertion that Rowland's first statement is a bit self-serving and lacking a sound reference point.

[Rick]

The Mass is not in any way lessened by the reality it is a ritual meal. In fact the second purpose of the liturgy as described in Sacrosanctum Concilium 7, the sanctification of the faithful, works very well with the notion that God nourishes believers through the liturgy.

That is a rather loose reading of SC 7, especially because it deals with the various ways that Christ is present in the Church, liturgy, priest, people, etc. The word "sacrifice" appears in the document 9 times, there is no reference at all to the word "meal", to give them the same theological weight is ludicrous. The Mass is lessened if the terms are used as if they are univocal, and there is no sanctification without the sacrificial elements of the Paschal Mystery.

[Todd]

Rick, I have no quibble with you. I don't read anybody here denying sacrifice or saying the meal aspect is univocal. It seems to me the objection is centered on any image of the Eucharist as meal. If so, I fear those who promote that are on the fringes of Catholicism, not I.

[Carl Olson]

It seems to me the objection is centered on any image of the Eucharist as meal. If so, I fear those who promote that are on the fringes of Catholicism, not I.

Moving target, moving target! Sigh...

[Rich Leonardi]

Let's be clear this contention seems to focus on what seems to be sacrifice-primarily versus a both-meal-and-sacrifice approach. To see the Church's mind on what the Mass is, one has to go deeper than proof-texting any single theologian to find what supports one's arguments.

So is the Holy Father a mere "single theologian"? The question at hand was answered definitively in favor of "sacrifice-primarily" by the CDW and signed-off by Pope John Paul II in Redemptionis Sacramentum. And can there be any worse proof-texting than cherry-picking one's way through the children's liturgy?

[Todd]

Carl, I think my first post clarifies my view well within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy. Don't moan about a moving target; your commentariat is fairly deft at providing something of an ADD-style approach here.

I didn't use the term "fellowship meal," though I think it's clear there are elements of both community and meal within the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist.

The "fellowship meal" term strikes me as more Protestant, and if Pope Benedict is teaching to put some distance between Catholic/Orthodox and Reformed understandings of the Eucharist, that strikes me as sound.

If, however, there are theologians within the Catholic orbit trying to minimize non-sacrificial elements of the Mass, I don't think that's within the bounds of tradition. I haven't read where you or any of the others in your commentariat are conceding the Eucharist is indeed a meal. Holy Thursday is indeed a vital part of the Paschal Mystery. It has been joined to the Triduum (and not Lent) because of that intimate association with Christ's death and resurrection.

"And can there be any worse proof-texting than cherry-picking one's way through the children's liturgy?"

Reading comprehension, Rich. I'm arguing to show the integration of the Eucharist as meal within our understanding of Catholic liturgy. I'm arguing an entirely different kind of point than Carl is. All I needed to do is show that seven of the West's ten EP's use the terminology. That's more than cherry-picking: that's a dominant Eucharistic theme. C'mon, Rich; argue some serious theology and don't let your temper get in the way.

[Carl Olson]

Carl, I think my first post clarifies my view well within the bounds of Catholic orthodoxy. Don't moan about a moving target; your commentariat is fairly deft at providing something of an ADD-style approach here.

Please cease the nonsense, Todd. The quote that "lost" you specifically referred to "fellowship meal." You then turned it into an issue of "meal" only, and then, in short order, sniffed about "quibbling over adjectives." And when I pointed you to some of Ratzinger's comments, you made a snide remark about "proof-texting any single theologian"—despite the fact that the single theologian in question was the one I was quoting! Give me a break.

Finally, for those interested in reading further on Ratzinger's views about this topic, check out the chapter titled, "Form and Content in The Eucharistic Celebration," found in his book, Feast of Faith (pp 33-60; 1986; first ed.).