Autor: Sokolowski, Robert

Buch: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Titel: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Stichwort: Eucharistie u. Transsubstantiation (Transformation d. Materie);

Kurzinhalt:

Textausschnitt: Transformation of matter

104c In the Blessed Sacrament, matter becomes a vehicle for the presence of the transcendent God. Can we reflect on how this occurs? (Fs)

105a One of the points made repeatedly by St. Thomas in his discussion of the Eucharist is the contrast he draws between the Eucharist and the other sacraments. In the other sacraments, the material element—the water in baptism, the oils used in anointing—is set apart or consecrated simply for the use that is made of it. These sacraments terminate in the application made of the matter (for example, water is used in baptizing). In the Eucharist, in contrast, the matter itself is transformed: the sacrament finds its completion in the change of the material element.1 The bread is not only used to nourish us but is changed in its substance. The Eucharist involves Transubstantiation while the other sacraments do not. The baptismal water and the oils used in anointing remain water and oil. (Fs) (notabene)

105b To bring out the meaning of such a change in matter, let us examine another way in which matter is elevated into a higher use. Consider the kind of elevation of matter that occurs when something material is made into a human symbol. A piece of cloth is made into a flag. When this occurs, the cloth becomes more than cloth. Within the human context, the cloth truly is a flag and certain responses become appropriate while others are inappropriate and even provocative. No one cares if you burn a piece of cloth or stomp on it, but people do care if you burn a flag or trample upon it. Would this paradigm be helpful in speaking about the Eucharist? To make the case stronger, suppose we said that the Eucharist is a more substantial symbol than a flag, because the transformation is brought about not simply by human agreement but by the declaration made by Christ, with divine authority. The bread is the body of Christ not simply by human convention but by divine assertion, and therefore it would remain so even apart from the continued agreement of believers. The bread and wine of the Eucharist would take on a new sense, a paradigmatic sense, within a community of shared meaning. (Fs)

105c But this model fails, because the logic and the being of such symbols is not adequate to the Church's eucharistie faith. Even though a flag truly is a flag, it also remains cloth, while the bread does not remain bread. This fact is brought out by a remarkable comment of St. Thomas, who observes that in the Eucharistie Prayer Christ is quoted not as saying,"This bread is my body," but " This is my body." If Christ had said "this bread" was his body, then the thing referred to would still be bread, but the simple demonstrative pronoun "this" without a noun implies that it is not bread any longer.2 (Fs) (notabene)

106a Furthermore, to say that in the Eucharist the bread and wine remain what they are but acquire a new signification would contradict the logic of the Incarnation. Christ was not simply a prophet who pointed out the way to the Father; he was the way to the Father. He did not just communicate the truth about God, he was the Word of God. The believer comes to the Father not by the way and the truth that are signified by Christ, but through Christ himself, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Analogously, if the bread and wine were to remain bread and wine, they would point us toward the Death and Resurrection of Christ and toward the Son of God, they would signify him and what he did, but they would not be his presence and the presence of his action among us. The Eucharist would fail to continue, sacramentally, the form of the Incarnation, and we would be deprived of the presence, the bodily presence, of the way, the truth, and the life. The Incarnation would have been withdrawn from the world. (Fs) (notabene)

106b The Eucharist continues the Incarnation, but there are important differences between the two mysteries. In the Incarnation, when the Word became flesh, the divine nature did not transubstantiate the human nature. It did not take the place of the human being. To say that it did would fall into a monophysite interpretation of the mystery. To understand the Incarnation as a transubstantiation would imply that the human nature ceased to be but only appeared to be when united with the divine. Instead, the human substance, soul and body, is integrally present in the Incarnation. In this respect, the human substance in the Incarnation is different from the substance of bread in the Eucharist. The human substance, soul and body, remains intact, but the substance of the bread does not. (Fs) (notabene)

106c Indeed, it is the very material and bodily quality of the Incarnation that calls for Transubstantiation in the Eucharist. If Christ is to be present in the sacrament, he must be present in his divine and human natures; if his human nature is to be present, it must be present in both soul and body. And if his body is to be present, the bread cannot be. The one thing cannot be two material substances, both bread and a human body, not even the glorified human body of Christ. If it is the one it cannot be the other. The two bodily natures exclude one another, and it is the bodily presence of Christ that is specifically emphasized in the words of consecration. The body of Christ is not with the bread but takes the place of the bread in the change we call Transubstantiation. If we deny this change, we deny the bodily presence of the glorified Christ, and hence we deny the presence of Christ. Without Transubstantiation the sacramental presence of Christ would not occur. (Fs) (notabene)

107a In the Eucharist, therefore, it is the radical worldliness of the Incarnation, its materiality, that calls for Transubstantiation in the Eucharist. It is the incarnate divinity, the Word made flesh and not simply the divine nature, that is present in the Eucharist. If I may use the terms, the body of Christ, because it is material, "displaces" or "dislodges" the bread. Whatever matter may be, it takes place, it is located. Through Transubstantiation, the bodily presence of the transcendent divinity, in the person of the Son, takes its place among us in a manner that follows upon the Incarnation, and it does so by replacing the substance of bread and wine. (Fs)

107b However, not everything of the bread ceases to exist in the Eucharist. As St. Thomas says, "the accidents, which are the proper object for the senses, are genuinely there."3 The accidents and natural characteristics of bread are truly there; we should not think of the species of bread and wine as merely images in our minds. They are part of the world and they provide the place where Christ is present. St. Thomas says that these accidents serve as a kind of subject for the presence of Christ: "Strictly speaking, there is no subject in this change ... All the same, the accidents which remain do bear a certain resemblance to a subject."4 The sacramental presence of the Word occurs here in this place and at this time, and it thus bears the signature of the Incarnation. The visible and tangible forms of bread and wine, the forms present to the senses, remain as they are, but the substantial form, the form present to the understanding, does not: the body of Christ is now present to the understanding, but to an understanding enlightened by faith, an intelligence guided not by vision, touch, or taste, but by hearing. We recall also that the Eucharist directs us toward the celestial liturgy and our future participation in it, where no sacramental presence, no appearance of bread and wine, will be needed, and where the same God who is now an object of faith will be present to vision. In that celestial liturgy the bread and wine are no longer required for the presence of Christ, but his human being, the fruit of the Incarnation, does remain. For our present state, however, the bread and wine are a worldly expression of the glorified body of Christ that is present to the Father, a worldly expression that we return to the Father in the Great Amen of our Eucharistie Prayer. (Fs) (notabene)