Folia Theologica 20. (2009)
Barbour Hugh: The Cosmology of Catholic Worship: Pre-Socratic Sacraments? A Consideration by a disciple of St. Thomas Qauinas
12 BARBOUR, Hugh troduced.7 The practice of daily concélébration is now practically universal in monasteries, seminaries, shrines, and cathedral chapters, and indeed on any occasion when several priests are present at a Mass. This universality of the practice and the reduction of single celebrations indicates that the Church sees no difficulty in the less frequent offering of the sacramental sacrifice for her daily needs, in favor of a liturgical- ly more ideal form of celebration which puts into greater relief the unity of the sacrifice and of the priesthood which offers it. Thus the question, by an argument a posteriori ex usu is resolved against the value of multiplying single celebrations of the Eucharist as essential to the logic of the sacramental order instituted by Christ. Thus we have three objections to our thesis, the first which derogates from the necessity of form and matter as well as individual application for the effect of the sacrament of baptism, the second which derogates from the necessity of a distinct form for the confection of the sacrament of the Eucharist, and the third which derogates from the necessity of the multiplication of individual applications of the matter and form for the general fruits of the sacrament of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Corpus Articuli Now we proceed to the affirmative resolution of the question, after which we will resolve the objections. This requires that we go to the heart of physical reality first undertaken by the Pre-Socratics and its perfection in the universal doctrine of physical causality manifested in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and thus the broadly Neo- Platonic (for lack of a better denomination) perspective of the theology of the sacraments adopted by the Fathers, St. Thomas and the better part of the scholastic tradition. 7 This concern was expressed, though, in a written intervention by the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Paul-Pierre Philippe at the first session of the Second Vatican Council "Nempe in hac re non est considerandus tantum fructus qui ex devota ac fraterna celebratione producitur, sed inprimis natura actionis quae peragitur, scilicet sacrificium sacramen- tale Christi. Porro, fructus obiectivus sacrificii Missae, videlicet placationis et impetrationis pro vivis ac defunctis, est fructus principalis, quippe qui non aequaliter habetur in una Missa concelebrata sicut in pluribus Missis a pluribus sacerdotibus celebratis... etc." See Acta Concilii Vaticani Secundi: periodus I, Libreria Editrice Vaticana,, n 69, pp. 264-265.
