Sorry to get theological, but this news prompted me.
If it's really holy water, then how come it gets infected? (a point made here)
Reflecting on the recent child abuse scandal in the Irish Roman Catholic made me wonder about communion too. Official Catholic theology is that Jesus is really present in the bread and the wine. If that's true, then how come it makes no difference? Some of the people committing the abuse had imbibed their own bodyweight in Jesus during the course of their lives, and yet they went ahead and did evil anyway.
Transubstantiation always seemed a bit iffy to me, and I just wonder how Catholic theologians interpret what's supposed to happen at Communion and what clearly fails to happen to the people who recieve it?
A colleague tells the story of a high church vicar who was distraught that somehow a dog had managed to gobble up a consecrated wafer that had fallen on the floor. He rang a senior clergyman for advice and was told "If God was clever enough to get in there in the first place, then he's probably clever enough to have got out again before the dog ate him."
anyway, back to that holy water, everybody sing along now...
I go down to speakers corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus one of them must be wrong
Theres a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
"they wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to stop us buying japanese
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease
Theyre pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you rule brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in espana and sunday striptease"
Meanwhile the first Jesus says "I'd cure it soon
Abolish monday mornings and friday afternoons"
The other ones on a hunger strike he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets industrial disease?
"Official Catholic theology is that Jesus is really present in the bread and the wine. If that's true, then how come it makes no difference? Some of the people committing the abuse had imbibed their own bodyweight in Jesus during the course of their lives, and yet they went ahead and did evil anyway."
ReplyDeleteShow me where it is written that Catholics believe that 'imbibing' God makes you perfect? As far as I know, all Christian denominations believe that in Baptism you are given the Holy Spirit, a part of that trinity that is God, and it doesn't stop Anglican Vicars committing child abuse. What ill-thought-out commentary.
It's also clear that the Holy Spirit can be resisted, and that Christians have a choice about whether to 'keep in step with the Spirit' (in Pauls words) or to grieve him. Sadly, many Christians have done the latter.
ReplyDeleteClearly 'imbibing' God doesn't make you perfect, but if communion really is the flesh and blood of Jesus, then how is it possible to recieve it and not be changed? People in the Bible are healed by a word or a touch of Jesus clothes, such is his power and grace. I'm just struggling to understand how, if what is claimed to take place at communion really happens, it fails to make a radical difference to those who recieve it.
Sounds like a job for Article 29 (out of 39). And, in fairness to our RC friends, I have to say that the whole point of Transubstantiation in the late middle ages was to apply an Aristotelean understanding of the word "is" to the matter of Communion, explaining not only how the substance actually changed, but also to underline the fact that the "accident" surely did not. If you forget the second bit, the whole thing becomes incoherent. To a Nominalist/idealist it's crazy — to a Realist it's the only way things could be. Will now rremove philosophical anorak, go off, pour myself a drink with the wife and get a life.
ReplyDeleteHoly water's still physically water. It's not been made un-water. And as to the issue of the effects of communion bread and wine - why only think of child abuse? Why are people who receive God's body and blood still lazy, stupid, prone to anger, gossipy, spiteful and occasionally fraudulent? Because we're still only human. It's not a panacea for all moral ills - it's a sign of God's grace and humility. We are changed - we're just not all made perfect. Yet.
ReplyDeleteThe holy water thing is slightly tongue-in-cheek, as I'm still not entirely sure what happens to the water I bless at baptisms, or scatter around at house blessings!
ReplyDeleteThe communion issue was one which came to mind a few weeks ago when the horrific events in Ireland came to light, but yes there are plenty of other examples out there. Communion as a sign and symbol of God's grace is probably my core understanding of it, it's just that the more is claimed of what happens the bread and wine, the less easy it gets to square that with what communicants go on and do once they're off their knees.
In that case, sounds like the similar claims for baptism in the holy spirit... Still the good news is that according to the hymn "I'm happy all the day"!
ReplyDelete