Category: Dominicana
God at Rock Bottom
Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote that “few people will sincerely try to practice the A.A. program unless they have hit bottom.” He found that utter desolation—rock bottom, as we call it—often incited alcoholics to admit their helplessness and surrender to a higher power.
So, then, is rock bottom a good or a bad thing? Without downplaying the awfulness of suffering and how horrific the lowest low may be, I propose that the very idiom hitting rock bottom indicates a hopeful reality.
Hitting rock bottom is not an experience known only to addicts, and it looks different from one situation to another. The cause could be the loss of a loved one, a severe illness, financial ruin, depression, or one of a hundred other calamities. In every case, however, the term rock bottom evokes the image of a dark and immensely deep hole in the ground. The afflicted person is at its floor; he is wounded, seemingly alone, and certainly unable to climb out on his own.
At the same time—and this is the hopeful part—the man at rock bottom is unable to go any further down. He has struck solid, immovable rock. The image is apt because when it seems like all the good things we hold dear have been dug out from beneath our feet (whether by ourselves or not), there is always at the bottom one foundational reality that cannot be disturbed or extracted: God, the very ground of our existence.
The Bible is replete with accounts of rock bottom, and the message is always the same: God is still God no matter what happens. Consider this passage from the Book of Habakkuk:
For though the fig tree blossom not
nor fruit be on the vines,
though the yield of the olive fail
and the terraces produce no nourishment,
though the flocks disappear from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet will I rejoice in the Lord
and exult in my saving God (Hab 3:17-18).
You may lose your house, reputation, savings, good looks, hair, health, and even your loved ones, but you cannot lose God. Even if “the mountains fall into the depths of the sea” (Ps 46:2), you can take refuge in the eternal, unchanging Creator. While everything else does not have to exist, God simply is. He always has been and always will be; he made you and all the good things you may have lost. He is the reliable adamantine rock on which everything stands, and, in fact, he is the only support you need.
Some holy men and women endure a kind of spiritual rock bottom. Though in the state of grace and indeed very near to God, they feel utterly empty, especially when they try to pray. Like the Crucified Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, they may even cry, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46), and yet they also know in their bones that God is at their side, holding them in being. Thus, someone like St. Therese of Lisieux could write in her autobiography, “Spiritual aridity was my daily bread and, deprived of all consolation, I was still the happiest of creatures.” The saints know that God is near even in the darkness.
Someone at rock bottom likely may say, “It cannot get any worse.” Interpreted in one way, this is a bleak declaration of despair; in another, it is a sound confession of faith: As awful as things are now, I know they cannot get worse because “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39).
With faith, rock bottom is a sign of hope. When we fall into the depths—when our lives are at their worst—we do not descend forever into a black hole of meaninglessness. Instead, we meet God, who loves us and upholds us.
I love you, Lord, my strength, my rock, my fortress, my savior. My God is the rock where I take refuge; my shield, my mighty help, my stronghold (Ps 18:2-3).
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John Macallan Swan, The Prodigal Son
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
Everything Pertains to Love
The word “love” is cheap. Rather, it has been made cheap by a confused world that struggles to acknowledge the true desire of our hearts. In one moment, people declare love for their spouse or children, and in the very next moment express love for something like food, clothes, and the passing pleasures of this world. When everything seems to be worthy of love, love becomes less valuable.
While many have a confused sense of love, today the Church celebrates a great defender of true love: Saint Francis de Sales. Last December marked the 400th anniversary of his death, the day Pope Francis published an apostolic letter to commemorate the occasion.
Francis de Sales was a vastly influential figure in the history of Christian spirituality. His teaching can be summarized in his own words: “Everything pertains to love” (Treatise on the Love of God). He illustrates how everything in our lives involves love, for God is our everything, the same God who is love itself (1 John 4:7–21). He who numbered the vast sea of stars is also attentive to even the smallest hairs on our heads. What else could move the infinite God to care for such finite creatures except his infinite love? This God who has loved us so much, therefore, claims for himself the whole of our love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut 6:5).
Francis de Sales’s emphasis on the love of God offers an invaluable lesson for a world that fails to understand it. Admittedly, there are some differences between him and the Dominicans concerning some theological topics. We don’t need to go into detail about these differences, but our shared zeal for the salvation of souls should lead us to defend this Doctor of the Church and his teaching on the love of God. After all, the love that Francis de Sales emphasizes is none other than a share in the very life of God, he who is our beginning and end, who moves and orders all things, the desire of our hearts and object of our study, the one whom we proclaim in our preaching.
We can even acknowledge similarities between Francis de Sales and another Doctor of the Church who resonates with the Dominican mind and heart: our brother Saint Thomas Aquinas. Touching upon Aquinas’s teaching on the created order, to say with Francis de Sales that “everything pertains to love” means that everything in our lives is an opportunity to see God’s loving and gentle presence around us and within us. Through a beautiful manifestation of God’s providential care in creation, the life of love enables men and women—created in his image and likeness, and made sharers in the divine nature by grace—to be that same gentle presence of God to the world.
Francis de Sales, like Thomas Aquinas, also has an optimistic view of the human person, encouraging people to live the life God has laid before them out of love for them. Growth in virtue requires a dedication to truth, including the truth of who we are before God and the world. Yet, we can still be transformed in this life by grace. Rather than being reduced to a wretch, the soul is elevated by nothing other than God’s love.
Despite our weakness and sin, God has sent his Son out of love for us. This speaks to the Christ-centered character of the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Francis de Sales. Christ brings us to the Father to share in divine love. He is our model and teacher in the life of sanctity, while also being the very cause of this new life through his death on the cross. As one hymn puts it: “Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be” (Samuel Crossman, “My Song is Love Unknown,” 1664). Christ’s love on the cross shows that we are both loveable and are in fact loved. God continues to manifest this truth through the sacraments and the gift that is his Church.
The Dominican soul proclaims, without compromise, that our life and beatitude begin and end with God, and he is at work in everything in-between. Saint Francis de Sales proclaims a similar truth by saying that everything pertains to love. For if God is love, then our life and beatitude begin and end with love, and love is at work in everything in-between.
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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
Remedy For a Common Evil
Abortion remains the most contentious moral debate of our time, yet the logic against abortion is astonishingly simple. It is always wrong to kill an innocent human being. Abortion kills an innocent human being. Therefore, abortion is always wrong.
Justice demands that abortion be abolished. Jesus longs for justice, and so Christians have long opposed abortion to defend unborn life and to help those tempted to this injustice. As Christians, we must fight the evil of abortion and we must do so wisely. Proclaiming hard truths requires us to grasp why anyone would deny such truth. We can learn a great deal from the way abortion’s proponents discuss the act. When purportedly giving instruction about abortion, the first thing that several organizations supporting abortion mention is that “abortion is common.” They do not begin by disputing pro-life arguments, justifying abortion ethically, or even describing what abortion is. They simply affirm the fact that abortion is common. Why?
Abortion’s commonality garners support for the procedure. Since abortion is common, everyone knows women who have had abortions. Everyone knows men who have fathered children with utter disregard for the responsibility it brings. These women and men do not glow red or grow horns. So many people who have been involved in an abortion are funny and friendly and contribute to society in admirable ways. To say that abortion is gravely wrong is to say that all those involved in abortion—including many whom we like and respect—have contributed to grave evil. It is hard to believe that a friend could be at all involved in killing. Yet so many are. Murder can be as nonchalant as swallowing a pill or a few minutes with suction implements. As it turns out, murder is common.
This is a very heavy truth. It is a truth that indicts and implicates our society, not only in regard to abortion itself, but also in the circumstances surrounding it. If abortion is wrong, justice demands that we come to terms with the fact that so much of the developed world has legally permitted the killing of tens of millions of unborn babies since the 1970s. If abortion is wrong, justice demands that we reject our culture of casual sex and learn the often-mocked virtue of chastity. If abortion is wrong, justice demands that we learn to see that so many things that are common—including habits that may be deeply ingrained in us—are evil. These consequences are not easy to accept, so it is no wonder that so few accept them. Many well-intentioned people consider abortion as morally legitimate simply because recognizing the truth would make the world look bleak and friends and neighbors seem evil.
Yet just as emotions can make us deny that abortion is evil, they can also mistakenly lead us to conclude that evil actions make ourselves or others irredeemably evil. In truth, no one is completely corrupt. Everyone can change, and everyone can become righteous. All sins, including abortion, are forgivable. “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). Jesus did not come because we were already good. He came to make us good. After the resurrection, our Savior gave the apostles the power to forgive sins sacramentally so that all who confess their sins could be restored to justice (John 20:19-23).
Confident in this truth, we can recognize that abortion, while common, is wicked. When face-to-face with those who have had or been involved in abortion, we know that that act does not define them and that God longs to show them his mercy. Recognizing the truth about abortion stings—not with the sting of a weapon but with that of a remedy. Like an antiseptic it kills the infection of falsehood. The truth alone heals our illness. The truth alone offers redemption and re-establishes justice.
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Image: Giuseppe Mazzolini, Watching the Baby
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
Now That’s What I Call Advent
Do you hear what I hear? The streets outside permit no escape from this sound. Any refuge at home is invaded by a TV ad. Even the inner confines of your mind find no protection from that same string of notes playing over and over again. Of course, I speak of the four horsemen of Christmas: Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Michael Bublé, and Mariah Carey.
Love it or hate it, Christmas music is perennially around. When we hear these songs (voluntarily or not), we get a sense of what the world thinks this season is about: Snow, Santa, Romance, Romance with Santa. There generally is nothing wrong with enjoying these songs (this author happens to be a big fan of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”). But occasionally something strange echoes from the Walmart loudspeakers: a song in Latin—about Jesus Christ! Gloria in Excelsis Deo! This “ghost of Christmas past” transcends the kitsch and reminds us of the true “chart toppers” of Christmas and Advent: the sacred music of the Church.
Enter the O Antiphons. These seven phrases, each calling upon a different name of the prophesied Messiah, solemnize Vespers (the Church’s evening prayer) each night in the week preceding Christmas. Appropriate for the season of Advent, these antiphons do not anticipate Christmas Day with chestnuts and Jack Frost, but with contemplation of him who is coming into the world: “O Emmanuel, our King and Giver of Law: come to save us, Lord our God!” Their ornate and haunting melodies and rich theological meaning make them a group of “classics” that cloistered religious look forward to every year. The O Antiphons’ yearly appearance makes them much like our favorite Christmas hits, but, unlike the sleighride songs, they have been popular for at least a millennium.
The question may arise: why celebrate Christ’s coming with such solemnity, if he has already come into the world? Religious life, the cradle of liturgical chant, can help us find an answer. Saint Thomas writes that the contemplative life “bestows on us a certain inchoate beatitude, which begins now and will be continued in the life to come” (ST II-II, q. 180, a. 4). Like an honored family tradition that brightens Christmas cheer each season, the O Antiphons beckon the religious to grow closer to the Lord. They help us to contemplate the king “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev 1:8) and remind us to ask for the grace to be prepared to meet him face to face.
Not all of us wear a habit or are in the habit of praying Vespers in a choral setting. But every year, our most secular of cultures offers us a unique opportunity to contemplate the greatest of mysteries. As strange as it is to hear “Christ the Savior is born” as you try to find the best (or cheapest) candle at TJ Maxx for your nephew, it can turn into an example of God’s inescapable grace. Take to heart those words that faintly sound through the store, and ask for that grace to be prepared to meet him when he comes. Who knows, you may even hear the O Antiphons hidden away on that playlist.
O King of all nations and keystone of the Church: come and save man, whom you formed from the dust!
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Photo by Mario Mendez on Unsplash; Image: Antiphonaire dominicain, O Clavis
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
When Johnny Comes Marching Home
They are almost all gone: the boys who stormed the beaches of Normandy, the boys who saw hell rained down on them at Midway, the living remnant. With each Veterans Day parade, we see fewer and fewer of our veterans of the Second World War. Before they are all gone, let us not fail to honor them—let us give thanks to God for them and all our veterans and the lessons they have taught us.
“We have heard, O God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us,
The work, thou hast wrought in their days, and in the days of old” (Ps 43:2).
When they were boys, they watched parades, too. Veterans of Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, and the Argonne Forest told them stories of suffering and valor. When their own hour came, they answered the call. Battles, catastrophes, great campaigns, wars that shaped our country—they really happened, and these men experienced them firsthand. Their memories and stories are our heritage as Americans.
The great deeds they accomplished were not really of their doing. They lent their hands to a greater power. They joined the fight against fascism, despotism, communism, and all that would destroy our liberty. The good they accomplished was simply part of the goodness of God’s loving providence.
Often when you meet veterans, you are immediately struck by their perspective on life. They have seen great evil and ugliness. They have danced with Death herself. Yet they know intimately of God’s goodness: their lives are the very proof of his mercy. Thanksgiving for our veterans should always lead to thanksgiving for God’s gifts.
For many, however, life post-combat is anything but sunny. Sadly, many of the men and women who offer their very lives to protect this nation suffer from trauma, addiction, and depression and are lying homeless on our streets. The battles they fought on the field are replaced by new battles within. Let us lift them up most of all, in material aid, in our esteem, and most especially in our prayers.
The veteran’s trials and triumphs are an example to each of us. The combat we wage each day in the name of Christ, the combat against sin, can be fought out to absolute victory, so long as we trust completely in God’s graces and fight valiantly.
“Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end.
Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for thy name’s sake” (Ps 43:23, 26).
The bravery of Americans on the battlefields of the past—this forms part of the foundation of our country. We Americans can consider ourselves fortunate that war is not a daily reality for us today (would that this were true for Ukrainians). God grant it stay that way! But let us not ignore those brave fighting men and women—for whom it was a reality—until it is too late. They convey a lesson for each of us, be it through missing limbs, fireside stories, or, perhaps, a yearly march come November.
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Photo by U.S. Marine Corps
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
An Autumnal Fascination with Satan
’Tis the season for cardigans and jack-o-lanterns, orange leaves and autumnal foods. As we enjoy cool weather and pumpkin spice lattes, we are reminded why fall is objectively the best season of the year. But this season also has a spookier side that begins to appear as we approach the cultural feast day of Halloween. While leaves are falling, imitation webbing is going up. As we put on sweaters, we put out skeletons. Ghosts are appearing and spiders are crawling.
While many celebrations at this time of year are innocent in themselves, Halloween is a time when a more sinister obsession comes to the fore: the devil. Modern man is fascinated with Satan and his demons, so much so that, whether he believes in the devil’s existence or not, he will consider wearing a demon costume to a party or watching a horror movie about demonic possession. As Catholics, we rightly respond to this obsession with an emphasis on spiritual warfare and the importance of sacramentals and the Prayer to Saint Michael. The devil is real and not to be messed with.
But what if the real horror of the season is that this obsession with Satan is only a distraction? What if other enemies of evil are lurking in the shadows or even—unbeknownst to us—already have us in their clutches?
As it turns out, the devil is only one of the foes we face as Christians. In the shadows of society and the corners of our hearts you’ll find the other two: the world and the flesh.
The world draws us in by tempting us to accept its own values as the meaning of our lives—that we are meant merely to make a lot of money, find fulfillment in human love, and follow the passing fads of our day. “Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God?” asks Saint James. “Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (Jas 4:4).
The flesh allures us into using our bodies and passions as the sources of our happiness. When we are obsessed with food, drink, and sex or are driven by our passions and desires, we have been overcome and conquered by our own flesh. Saint Paul exhorts us to put this enemy to death: “Now those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24).
In this cozy and creepy season, our spiritual battles are not against Satan alone. While society is fixated on the devil, the real horror is that it seems not to notice that it is already in the clutches of two other foes. Satan is only one-third of our battle. We must contend with the world and the flesh, as well.
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Photo by Johannes Plenio
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
Sanctuary Lamp
Signs are everywhere in our daily life. We look to signs as a way of navigating our daily lives. Oftentimes a sign seems to go unnoticed until it disappears, malfunctions, or is disobeyed. Consider a traffic light. It serves an important function in navigating city streets; without it chaos would ensue. Despite its role it is something that receives little attention and is easily taken for granted—that is, until it stops working. If a storm knocks out the power, the flashing yellow lights at a busy intersection can lead to the dangerous situation of hesitant drivers who no longer know what to do. Some signs require a certain amount of knowledge to understand; others seem pretty much universal, like a smile or a wave.
A Catholic Church is full of signs. The windows, paintings, statues, and altar all point to something greater than themselves. They remind us and direct us to truths that are not always immediately apparent, but which, by faith, we grasp as efficacious and important to our daily lives. Holy Water reminds us of the life and grace given to us in baptism. Statues of the saints evoke their gifts and remind us of their heavenly intercession. The crucifix reminds us of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our salvation.
Of all of the signs in a church there is one in particular that I propose is the most neglected, yet which is strikingly universal and irreplaceable in its significance. Next to each tabernacle reserving the Blessed Sacrament, there burns a steady flame, sometimes white, sometimes red, but always communicating the same thing: Jesus Christ—body, blood, soul, and divinity—dwells here. This is the only permanent sign in the church that, in a sense, could be considered alive. The flickering flame represents the burning love which gave us such a sacrament, such a presence among us, fulfilling Jesus’ promise that he will indeed be with us always (Mt. 28:20).
The task of the sanctuary candle is remarkably simple, yet by its very presence it conveys a mystery beyond understanding. Such a simple thing, it is profoundly evangelical. It proclaims Christ’s consoling presence among us, it communicates the efficacy of the Blessed Sacrament, and it designates the holiness of the sacred space. As Christians we are always striving to conform our life to Christ’s and, in a way, we can also strive to be like this sanctuary candle. With a simple, faithful flame it proclaims Christ to those who look for his presence, whether during a weekly visit for Sunday Mass, or when in desperate need of the consolation of Christ’s presence in a time of crisis. The simple candle has not the eloquence of the chalice, the altar, the reredos, or even the tabernacle whose presence it communicates. We too may find ourselves with a simple task, living a simple life, and perhaps wishing we had a greater task with more responsibility and attention. May we too let Christ shine in us so that we become as living flames signifying his presence to the world.
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Photo by Br. Benedict Hernandez, O.P. (used with permission)
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal
A Reliable Aid in Every Age
Imagine a religiously uninformed millennial stopped in traffic behind a car with a bumper sticker that says,
HELP AMERICA
PRAY THE ROSARY
(Anyone who has spent time in a Catholic church’s parking lot knows this sticker—the wind-blown American flag in the background, the fragile-looking chain-link rosary to the left.)
Now, suppose this irreligious driver has never heard of the rosary but, after reading this bumper sticker, decides to do some research. He finds a set of instructions and, after reading about the prayers, the mysteries, and the beads, says to himself, “This? Doing this is going to help America?”
For us Catholics, the answer to this man’s question is a vehement “yes!” We believe that God—who uses the weak to shame the strong (cf. 1 Cor 1:27) and who casts down the mighty but lifts up the lowly (cf. Luke 1:51)—chose Mary, a lowly virgin from Nazareth, to be the mother of Jesus and has crowned her as heaven’s most powerful intercessor. This same God, moreover, has also willed that, through the rosary (so bizarre and unsophisticated in the eyes of unbelievers), Mary should accomplish many mighty deeds and be a source of aid for Christians in their every need.
The Church commemorates one such mighty deed today on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which marks the victory at the Battle of Lepanto on this day in 1571. Though outnumbered, Christian forces defeated a massive fleet of Ottoman invaders at sea, after Pope Pius V ordered that churches and monasteries keep vigil and urged all believers to pray the rosary for the welfare of Christendom. Pope Leo XIII recounts the illustrious event in his 1883 encyclical Supremi Apostolatus:
And thus Christ’s faithful warriors, prepared to sacrifice their life and blood for the salvation of their faith and their country, proceeded undauntedly to meet their foe near the Gulf of Corinth, while those who were unable to take part formed a pious band of supplicants, who called on Mary, and unitedly saluted her again and again in the words of the Rosary, imploring her to grant the victory to their companions engaged in battle. Our Sovereign Lady did grant her aid; for in the naval battle by the Echinades Islands, the Christian fleet gained a magnificent victory . . .
Pope Leo XIII saw that the late nineteenth century was no less threatened by calamities and dangers than the time of Lepanto. Confident that the Blessed Mother still stood ready to lend her aid, he hoped to spur Catholics to take up their rosaries once again and beg the favor of the Mother of God for the Church and the world.
Today’s feast, along with many other miracles attributed to the rosary, should likewise induce us to cling to those beads. Heeding the advice of many popes, saints, grandmothers, and bumper stickers, we ought to call upon her whose intercession has power, both yesterday and today, to overcome plagues, wars, heresies, and—yes—even to help America.
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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)
Originally published in the Dominicana Journal
God the Chess Master?
Imagine if God’s will for you unfolded like a chess game. God is the grandmaster, and you are the amateur who desires to perfect your long game. God anticipates every move you make and responds in a way based on your choice. He wants you to win the game so he sets up the board each time for you to achieve your checkmate. You leave the table feeling like God and you have a good relationship. His actions depend on your choices and the result is a give-and-take between you and God that preserves your freedom and helps you to achieve your goal.
Many people think about God’s will in a manner similar to this chess game. Thankfully, this is not how God’s will works in the human person. There is no “give and take” between God’s action and our action. To think of God as a chess master obscures the correct understanding of divine motion. God’s will moves us in every free action of our lives. How or why he moves us does not first depend upon “our move.” Rather, God’s infinitely wise and loving will is the very principle that actualizes every natural or supernatural move that we make.
God’s will moves man both according to his nature and according to his supernatural end. In the realm of nature, we call this motion a divine natural aid. In the supernatural realm, this movement is properly a grace. Both kinds of movement begin in the will of God and terminate in their respective natural and supernatural ends. Furthermore, neither type of movement moves the human person in a deterministic way. Instead, God moves us in a way that initiates and preserves our ability to act freely as human persons. Because we are created and sustained in being by God, we are dependent upon him for our every act. We need divine natural aid to do natural things. The natural mode of divine aid activates our capacities to think, choose, and freely do good things naturally. Without God’s natural aid, we would cease to act freely or even to exist.
Grace, on the other hand, is a central principle to understanding how we advance in the spiritual life toward our supernatural end of heavenly beatitude. Specifically, God gives us actual graces that move us to do supernatural acts. Without the help of actual grace, we would make no progress in the spiritual life. We can only make real acts of faith, hope, and charity, for example, when moved by actual grace. These acts bring us closer to knowing and loving God as he is in himself.
In the end, our chess game metaphor fails to justly articulate the divine motion of God. God is not a chess master awaiting your next move in the game before he acts. It’s his will, not ours, that determines when and how he moves us, and a divine foreknowledge of our choices does not condition God’s action. In the challenges and difficulties of everyday life, it is easy to forget this truth about God’s loving will and to overestimate the independence of our own human will. In these moments, we pray for the actual grace to know and love God with a freedom that is real and yet entirely dependent on God moving us first.
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Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pixabay
Originally published in the Dominicana Journal
Eucharistic Concomitance and the Resurrection
When we speak about Jesus, the “Lord of glory” who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (1 Cor 2:8; John 1:14), we often use rare words or phrases specially crafted to express the mystery of his being. Hypostatic union is one of them: the two natures of Christ are united in his one person. Consubstantial appears every Sunday in the Creed: the Father and the Son are one in substance. We would also do well to restore concomitance to our collective vocabulary. The doctrine of concomitance, taught in 1551 by the Council of Trent, captures a marvelous truth about the Eucharist and thus about Christ who “being raised from the dead will never die again” (Rom 6:9). During our nation’s Eucharistic revival, thinking through concomitance can and will inflame our devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
At first glance, concomitance may seem simple. The Son of God becomes fully present—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—under both sacramental species used at Mass. What used to be bread and what used to be wine are equally, substantially changed into our Lord by his own divine words. Only the species or “forms” of bread and wine remain. Therefore, according to concomitance, we do not receive “more” when we receive from both the chalice and the host, nor “less” if only from one. This doctrine is practically important especially when both forms are newly offered (or newly discontinued) for the communion of the faithful. In Holy Communion, the whole Jesus is always received under either form.
If concomitance is true, then why have two forms? The priest consecrates bread and wine separately in imitation of Christ, who did so at the Last Supper and told us to do what he had done. Christ gave his Body and Blood to the disciples separately precisely because this Body and Blood would soon be separated for them, in the free outpouring of his redemptive love. The Mass is a sacrifice because it is this one sacrifice, the unique sacrifice on the Cross. The daily offering of sacramentally separate Body and Blood reveals and makes present the one sacrifice of Calvary, so that we may all join in Jesus’ self-offering to the Father.
While making present the awesome mystery of the Cross, the Mass never turns back the clock on our redemption. For Christ has only one body, and in the Eucharist precisely this human body is signified and offered. On the cross, Jesus’ body and blood were separated. In death, his human soul was separated from both. But on the third day, for his and our glory, the one body of our Savior was raised and exalted, in the real re-union of his real humanity. This body ascended into heaven and sits at the Father’s right hand. And it is this body that Christ offers us at every Mass.
Concomitance signals this reality. We receive the Body and the Blood separately, commemorating the Passion of our Lord. But we know by faith that Jesus Christ, the eternal Word with his assumed human nature whole, resplendent, and never more alive, now dwells forever in the glory to which he calls us. We cannot hear enough that it is this one, risen Body that we receive in Holy Communion, or that it is to this glory that it will lead us.
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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)
Originally posted on Dominicana Journal