|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: (Why) Does God answer the Eucharistic Prayer?
|
Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
|
Posted
Prayer has been discussed quite a lot on the Ship, and it always seems to involve a good measure of "not all prayers are answered" or "God's answers may not be the ones we are expecting" or "prayer is about being close to God not about getting things" or a variety of other ways to explain that an understanding of prayer as "ask God for things, he will give them to you" often doesn't seem to describe what happens when we pray.
On the other hand, it had a been a tenet of my previous understanding of the sacraments to believe that God always acts in the Eucharist. But why do people believe that the Eucharistic prayer is always efficacious, when God so demonstrably doesn't always act in such straightline words-to-action ways in response to other prayers?
--------------------
Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
I always understood it to be because of Christ's institution of the Eucharist, and isn't about God answering the Eucharistic prayer?
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chas of the Dicker
Apprentice
# 12769
|
Posted
The Eucharistic Prayer is a request for God's effective presence with his people.
God is never absent but the effectivenees can be marred or nullified by the unfaithfulness of our prayer, our actions and our lives.
--------------------
Chas of Blacklands
If you know exactly what you are going to do, why do it? (Picasso)
Posts: 35 | From: Hastings, East Sussex, UK | Registered: Jun 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
|
Posted
The words are not a magic spell that make something happen.
--------------------
Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
But why do people believe that the Eucharistic prayer is always efficacious, when God so demonstrably doesn't always act in such straightline words-to-action ways in response to other prayers?
Because the sacraments are promised channels of grace, and God always keeps His promises.
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The words are not a magic spell that make something happen.
They basically are. The difference to "magic" is in who has the power to make things happens, namely not the "spell caster" in the case of the sacraments. But otherwise sacraments follow the basic principle of "magic", or for that matter of technology, that if you do the right things the wished for effect will follow invariably ("ex opere operato").
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
|
Posted
[IngoB, I wrote this whole reply and see that you have just posted as I come to post this. I'll reflect on what you've added and post again later.]
Is it OK if I put several replies in one post?
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I always understood it to be because of Christ's institution of the Eucharist, and isn't about God answering the Eucharistic prayer?
Pomona, I don't quite understand what you're trying to say? Is there perhaps a word missing, for example is this what you're saying:
quote:
Alternative version of Pomona's post:
I always understood it to be because of Christ's institution of the Eucharist, and it isn't about God answering the Eucharistic prayer?
If that's the same as what you meant to say, then is this a fair restatement: we celebrate the Eucharist with the words of institution because that's what Jesus told us to do? Are you also saying that nothing happens because of the words we say, except that we've fulfilled what Christ told us to do? or perhaps that if anything happens, it's because we obeyed Christ, rather than because of the words that were said?
quote:
Originally posted by Chas of the Dicker:
The Eucharistic Prayer is a request for God's effective presence with his people.
God is never absent but the effectivenees can be marred or nullified by the unfaithfulness of our prayer, our actions and our lives.
Chas of the Dicker, does the Eucharistic prayer always result in God's effective presence being restored? Or does it depend on if the congregation as a whole is faithful enough in their prayer/actions/lives? Or maybe the result of the Eucharistic prayer is different for different people, depending on how faithful they are in their prayer/actions/lives?
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The words are not a magic spell that make something happen.
OK, I know I'm not supposed to think that prayers and ritual are magic spells. And I don't think I do; or, if I'm coming across as believing that, it's because the full force of everything I've ever experienced in the church makes me talk that way (so have I been exceptionally stupid my whole life and completely missed the point?)
But agreeing that they're not magic spells, what are they, then? In the Episcopal Church they are held as very important, not to be varied in certain essentials. And I had always believed: we have carried out the Eucharistic prayers and actions, therefore the elements are transformed in some way, and when I take communion I am close to God. I have experienced being closer to God at the communion rail than anywhere else. But that depended on thinking that it made a difference that we'd carried out the Eucharistic prayers and actions. Are those prayers and actions just random then? Does it matter if we have Eucharist? If it does matter if we have Eucharist, then why does it matter, if nothing particular happens as a result of saying the words and doing the actions?
--------------------
Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The words are not a magic spell that make something happen.
They basically are. The difference to "magic" is in who has the power to make things happens, namely not the "spell caster" in the case of the sacraments.
Not all magical traditions function like that. Many explain the magical mechanism as the actions of spirits or magical entities which serve the magician/sorceror through trickery or intimidation or as part of a deal or for any of a number of other reasons. A lot of European theories on witchcraft functioned in this way, positing the witch not as someone who had power in her own right but because she had made a pact with demonic entities to gain it. The eucharist spell probably fits best into this interpretation of magic.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
[IngoB, I wrote this whole reply and see that you have just posted as I come to post this. I'll reflect on what you've added and post again later.]
Is it OK if I put several replies in one post?
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I always understood it to be because of Christ's institution of the Eucharist, and isn't about God answering the Eucharistic prayer?
Pomona, I don't quite understand what you're trying to say? Is there perhaps a word missing, for example is this what you're saying:
quote:
Alternative version of Pomona's post:
I always understood it to be because of Christ's institution of the Eucharist, and it isn't about God answering the Eucharistic prayer?
If that's the same as what you meant to say, then is this a fair restatement: we celebrate the Eucharist with the words of institution because that's what Jesus told us to do? Are you also saying that nothing happens because of the words we say, except that we've fulfilled what Christ told us to do? or perhaps that if anything happens, it's because we obeyed Christ, rather than because of the words that were said?
quote:
Originally posted by Chas of the Dicker:
The Eucharistic Prayer is a request for God's effective presence with his people.
God is never absent but the effectivenees can be marred or nullified by the unfaithfulness of our prayer, our actions and our lives.
Chas of the Dicker, does the Eucharistic prayer always result in God's effective presence being restored? Or does it depend on if the congregation as a whole is faithful enough in their prayer/actions/lives? Or maybe the result of the Eucharistic prayer is different for different people, depending on how faithful they are in their prayer/actions/lives?
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The words are not a magic spell that make something happen.
OK, I know I'm not supposed to think that prayers and ritual are magic spells. And I don't think I do; or, if I'm coming across as believing that, it's because the full force of everything I've ever experienced in the church makes me talk that way (so have I been exceptionally stupid my whole life and completely missed the point?)
But agreeing that they're not magic spells, what are they, then? In the Episcopal Church they are held as very important, not to be varied in certain essentials. And I had always believed: we have carried out the Eucharistic prayers and actions, therefore the elements are transformed in some way, and when I take communion I am close to God. I have experienced being closer to God at the communion rail than anywhere else. But that depended on thinking that it made a difference that we'd carried out the Eucharistic prayers and actions. Are those prayers and actions just random then? Does it matter if we have Eucharist? If it does matter if we have Eucharist, then why does it matter, if nothing particular happens as a result of saying the words and doing the actions?
Yes sorry, I meant 'it isn't about God answering the Eucharistic prayer'. By that I mean that God is present in the Eucharist because Jesus said this would be the case, and we pray the Eucharistic prayer out of obedience and not to make something happen that Jesus said would happen anyway.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
As Lutherans, we believe God is keeping his promise, not answering a prayer. If there were no such prayer (I don't think we use one, just the words of institution) he would still keep his promise, because that's the way he is.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Not all magical traditions function like that. Many explain the magical mechanism as the actions of spirits or magical entities which serve the magician/sorceror through trickery or intimidation or as part of a deal or for any of a number of other reasons. A lot of European theories on witchcraft functioned in this way, positing the witch not as someone who had power in her own right but because she had made a pact with demonic entities to gain it. The eucharist spell probably fits best into this interpretation of magic.
Fine with me. I don't share the usual allergic reaction to the word "magic". In the end though, there is this simple difference: magic clearly doesn't work, but whether the sacraments work or not is not so easily shown. And that has to do with what magic is about, and with what the sacraments are about. The aim of a sacrament is not something that is easily evaluated in an objective manner.
The words of power that a priest speak are in the end different from the words of power a magician is trying to speak. It is not the same kind of change that they are supposed to work in the world. Even the Eucharist, which is as close to magic as priestcraft gets, provides us only with a veiled result (carefully defined to be indistinguishable from nothing happening by all experimental means), the significance of which truly only comes to life in the believer. Sacraments, even though "embodied", are really changing minds and hearts rather than material matters. For the non-believer, the priest is dealing more in psychological trickery, the realm of the placebo, than in the physical trickery of the pretend magician.
Whether you believe or not, while "magic" and sacraments are really very similar in a performance sense - perhaps even indistinguishable in that aspect - they are nevertheless quite different in the typical application. From the perspective of somebody who actually believes in the efficacy of the sacraments, "magic" is a bit like a good tool applied wrongly, even absurdly. It's as if someone tried to eat their breakfast with a hammer. There's nothing wrong with the hammer or with eating breakfast, it's just not sensible to use one for the other... Likewise, if you want to get shit done in the physical world, you use science and tech, not "magic". Where "magic" can work, perhaps even wonders, is precisely in the spiritual realm. And one kind, in my eyes the proper kind, of that sort of "magic" are the sacraments.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
And I had always believed: we have carried out the Eucharistic prayers and actions, therefore the elements are transformed in some way, and when I take communion I am close to God. I have experienced being closer to God at the communion rail than anywhere else.
Why not stop right there? What are you questioning here, and for what purpose, if that is your experience? It seems to me that the Eucharist has achieved for you what it is supposed to achieve. What more do you want, exactly? Why not simply trust yourself in this?
We can play these mind games endlessly. Yes, sometimes it is important to question your assumptions. Yadda yadda. Fact is though, when I do science I do not constantly question the evidence of my eyes just because theoretically it is possible that I'm mistaken about everything and anything I am seeing. I have to assume that for the most part what I'm seeing is real, or I just won't get anywhere with my investigations. Likewise, I see no mileage in questioning yourself overly concerning spiritual experience. If you feel close to God, then you probably are. One has to have the strength of one's convictions.
I'm not advocating blind faith here. But I am advocating faith. One cannot timidly pussyfoot around what one is spiritually receiving. If I am wrong, I will slam into that soon enough. But one has to step forward boldly.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
|
Posted
I say I had always believed that about the Eucharist.
For a very long time individual prayer by me has seemed useless. And I would read all these explanations about how I was expecting the wrong thing from prayer; that prayer isn't about asking God to do things and in any case he's very likely not going to do things in the way we were asking.
So some months ago (while the Prayer Eighth Day board was running, because I was reading a lot of the same kinds of "prayer isn't so we can receive what we asked for" explanations there) this question occurred to me about why we expect that the Eucharistic Prayer's request for God to do something is answered in any obvious way that matches the plain statements of what we ask for. Why does that prayer reliably get answered in an obvious way, when so many other prayers don't?
It shattered my experience of the Eucharist.
Tomorrow I'll post the Episcopal Church's Eucharistic Prayer so as to be able to point out why it seems to include asking God to do something that is essential to the Eucharist.
I'd be interested to look also at the Roman Catholic Eucharistic Prayer(s) to see if they're the same on this point, or if they're different.
Granted, the answers to my question may be different in traditions that don't pray similar kinds of prayers -- for example Lamb Chopped's example of what Lutherans during the Communion service.
--------------------
Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
|
Posted
I'm sorry, that must have been terrible for you. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
For what it's worth, we pray all the time for things that we know God is going to do whether we pray or not--"Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come," etc. Luther's catechism starts off the explanation to each of these petitions by saying "What does this mean? God's kingdom does indeed come without our asking for it; but in this petition, we ask that it come to us also" (or similar wording; it's been a long time since I taught confirmation). "Come, Lord Jesus!" at the end of Revelation is another such "needless" prayer; he's coming whether we ask for it or not.
As I understand it, the point of praying for such things (that are guaranteed already) is to a) acknowledge thankfully that they are in fact good gifts of God, and not something the universe produces automatically of itself; and b) to strengthen the habit of looking to God for what we need.
A parallel from ordinary human life would be my son asking me for daily lunch money. The money is certainly going to be provided whether he asks or not, even if I have to chase him down the street to the bus stop because he's walked off absent-mindedly without it; but the asking is a rather nice little ritual, as it subtly reminds him that lunch money doesn't just magically appear (i.e. someone's worked for it, so use it wisely and thankfully) plus it provides another point of contact between parent and child in our busy mornings. If I simply left it in a bowl by the front door he'd get fed, all right; but we'd miss out on the intangible benefits.
--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Chas of the Dicker
Apprentice
# 12769
|
Posted
Surely prayers asking for things, intercession, is a small, though important, subset of the great range of prayer. My personal definition of prayer is that which keeps God in the loop ao that our consciousness is not a closed and egocentric experience. The eucharistic prayer dos have (usually) an aspect that requests God to send the Holy spirit in a transfrmative action through the eucharist, but the context is a great prayer of thanksgiving. It is in being thankful to God, counting our blessings, that we becoem more open to God's transforming presence in / under / through the symbols of bread and wine. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
--------------------
Chas of Blacklands
If you know exactly what you are going to do, why do it? (Picasso)
Posts: 35 | From: Hastings, East Sussex, UK | Registered: Jun 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
magic clearly doesn't work, but whether the sacraments work or not is not so easily shown.
My Pagan friends would certainly dispute the former claim, and my atheist friends the latter.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
Neither magic nor prayer "work" in the sense of the words as many use them. Whilst I can see the value if believing that a special form of words said in a special place does sonething special, I think any measured or observed effects are lies, wishful thinking or placebo.
Believing that one can do anything as a ritualistic activity and have some special connection or influence over the deity is an anathema to the Christ of the gospels, I believe.
At best liturgical prayer is uplifting, satisfying and addictive. At worst it is abusive.
There is nothing about it that makes it divine per say, even when experiences spiritual bliss.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
It shattered my experience of the Eucharist.
Observe the order of what happened there though. It was your questioning that shattered the experience, it was not problems in the experience that led to the questioning. It's not that the Eucharist collapsed for you, you flattened it.
Without the eyes of faith, sacraments are just empty rituals. Discussing at length what emptied them for you will not fill them again.
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
magic clearly doesn't work, but whether the sacraments work or not is not so easily shown.
My Pagan friends would certainly dispute the former claim, and my atheist friends the latter.
They can dispute all they like. If your pagan friends propose some magic that reliable produces physical effects, then I can experimentally test (and I bet falsify) their claims. If your atheist friends thinks they can show that the Eucharist does not do what it claims to do, let them propose the experiments that will prove so.
These matters can be decided unequivocally. People that talk the talk can walk the walk here. That they refuse to walk shows that their talk is empty.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
My point is that they would dissemble and re-define what "work" means in much the same way you would, and about as convincingly for those who don't already agree with you.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
|
Posted
Not quite sure how this works out in detail in Catholicism, but I have an inkling that Christ is both priest and sacrifice; the ordained priest is the obedient celebrant.
Therefore it is Christ who makes the offering efficacious in accordance with the prayer.
If I am right, or close to right, what we pray for and accept by faith is Christ's offering of Himself. I've head it said for example that protestants and catholics have spent centuries arguing whether the offering is a remembering or a re-membering.
My experience, as a nonconformist protestant, is that communion is a lot more than a remembering. It is a participation. And not to be entered into unworthily.
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Of course, many religious rituals 'work' in some sense. For example, my limited experience of Sufi song and dance, Buddhist meditation, and shamanistic practices show that 'something happens'. I suppose after that, various groups argue that theirs is the genuine article, well, one guess is as good as another.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If your atheist friends thinks they can show that the Eucharist does not do what it claims to do, let them propose the experiments that will prove so.
These matters can be decided unequivocally.
My word, can they really. Nobody has ever tried testing the physical claims of the Eucharist, I am so glad you made that suggestion.
Please list for the absence of all doubt the physical and measurable effects you claim are being delivered uniquely by the Eucharist and I am sure we can arrange a double-blind trial.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
My point is that they would dissemble and re-define what "work" means in much the same way you would, and about as convincingly for those who don't already agree with you.
My definition of "work" simply distinguishes "physical" from "spiritual" effects. I'm saying that typical "magic" claims to have "physical" effects, and hence can be tested and falsified by physical experiment. Whereas sacraments very carefully do not claim any "physical" effects, but only "spiritual" ones. ("Physical" as in modern physics, not as in Aristotelian metaphysics...) Thus it is very difficult indeed, likely impossible, to test and falsify them by physical experiment.
People can redefine and dissemble all they want, this distinction "works" and is practically speaking the reason why the sacraments can survive the onslaught of modern science and technology, whereas typical "magic" cannot. If people maintain belief in magic, then there are three possibilities: 1. They found some stuff that actually works, in a physical sense. Please share your insights ASAP, I want to be a wizard, too. 2. They are bullshitting themselves, or perhaps they are badly educated and/or stupid. 3. Their "magic" is explicitly restricted to a "spiritual" domain likely outside the grasp of modern scientific investigation, similar to the sacraments. In general, I would bet my money on the second option.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
|
Posted
The Eucharist is what it is. When we pray to God to send down His Spirit on the gifts to make them holy, that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we're praying for something to happen to *ourselves*. The bread and wine will - must - be transformed, but the extent to which our individual reception of the Eucharist leads to our individual hearts being transformed surely is linked to our prayers in the Mass, among other things.
--------------------
And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
My word, can they really. Nobody has ever tried testing the physical claims of the Eucharist, I am so glad you made that suggestion. Please list for the absence of all doubt the physical and measurable effects you claim are being delivered uniquely by the Eucharist and I am sure we can arrange a double-blind trial.
Please upgrade your reading comprehension.
My point has been that claims about the Eucharist carefully avoid "physical and measurable effects" in the modern scientific sense, and that this is a key point of distinction to most claims about "magic" - even if there are great similarities in the "performance" aspect.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
I see. So the Pagans believe in magic that can be disproved whereas the Eucharist is untestable. How convenient.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I see. So the Pagans believe in magic that can be disproved whereas the Eucharist is untestable. How convenient.
Well, for all I know modern pagans have been smart enough to remove their "magic" from the realm of scientific testability as well. After all, most of them are post-Christians, so they might realise the danger. But you really have to give the Christians credit here. Their thinking about sacraments was settled many centuries before the emergence of modern science. If you think this was some cunning evasive manoeuvre, then it was due to some super-smart thinking ahead...
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
|
Posted
Depends what one means by settled. Debates about whether certain bottles really contain saint's blood have only been settled with modern science.
--------------------
arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
There's a balance. The hocus pocus aspects of channelling God into the elements (hoc est corpus) is far less important that the possibility that it may move someone toward something positive and a sense of connection with the divine. It doesn't matter what exactly is going on with the elements. It doesn't matter than some people think their version of doing it is better. It's also not important that anyone has faith that the church or anyone else is doing the magic. Only that it moves people toward something divine or sense of something more than self.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Depends what one means by settled. Debates about whether certain bottles really contain saint's blood have only been settled with modern science.
There are seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Confession, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders. Bottles of saint's blood play no role in any of them.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
Pieces of dead people, like their hearts, and their entire bodies are frequently found in some churches, like the heart of Brother André in St Joseph's Oratory in Montréal. If you pray enough it will beat for you. You might also get to hang up your crutches. Meh. I have heard of vials of blood from some dead person or other which are supposed to start flowing with the right circumstances in other places.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
I assume the reference was to the liquefaction of Januarius' blood, a supposed miracle occurring regularly in Naples. (There exists no official statement of the Church concerning this, by the way.) We can certainly discuss the role of miracles, past and present, in Christian belief, including whether some of them have been disproven successfully by science. But I did not make any claim about miracles. I said "Their thinking about sacraments was settled many centuries before the emergence of modern science." And this is simply true. The Christian conception of the sacraments was pretty much done and dusted in the middle ages, and arguably long before that (the middle ages formalised prior belief in philosophical terms, they didn't really invent this). Sacramental theology simply is not a response to the threat of modern science.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
|
Posted
How is the belief that the bread and wine change undetectably into sacred substances different from a collective decision to treat and regard them as if they had become sacred?
If God, rather than being out there, intervening to perform the sacramental miracle was understood to be within the faithful community, could the attitude of the faithful be seen as the action of God? In other words, if we consider the bread and wine after prayer to be really really special, and if God is among us, does that amount to consecration?
--------------------
My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
|
Posted
Well the strict Calvinist answer
Because it is not that prayer that counts. The prayer is symbolic action which unites what is happening with the last supper and the heavenly feast. The action therefore that counts is Jesus' taking of bread and wine at the last supper.
Yes I am playing with Calvin's understanding of the Eucharist. Not sure I accept it but it does explain somethings about the tradition.
Jengie.
--------------------
"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
|
Posted
Going back to the OP, I think the simple answer is this. Jesus said 'this do'. He delegated to the disciples authority to celebrate the Eucharist. They have passed this authority down through the generations to us. So the consecration prayer isn't like intercession, which God may answer in different ways. Whatever your belief about the nature of the Eucharist, the prayer causes the bread and wine to be consecrated, and that's it.
So we don't have to worry about whether God is going to answer the consecration prayer today or next Sunday or whenever, or that sometime he might answer it and sometimes not. It just happens.
In like manner, a priest or a registrar carrying out a wedding causes the people to emerge from the ceremony married, irrespective of their state of mind. Virtually the only exceptions to that are if the person carrying out the wedding isn't validly appointed, one of the couple is under age, or one of them is already married to someone else.
Does that reassure you?
--------------------
Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
