Folia Theologica 20. (2009)
Barbour Hugh: The Cosmology of Catholic Worship: Pre-Socratic Sacraments? A Consideration by a disciple of St. Thomas Qauinas
THE COSMOLOGY OF CATHOLIC WORSHIP 23 bination forms this unity, are the substance itself. What are wine and bread if I take from them the properties which make them what they are ? Nothing. Flesh and blood have therefore no objective existence; otherwise they must be an object to the unbelieving senses. On the contrary: the only valid witnesses of an objective existence - taste, smell, touch, sight - testify unanimously to the reality of the wine and bread, and nothing else. The wine and bread are in reality natural, but in imagination divine substances.... So long as faith in the mystery of the Lord's Supper as a holy, nay the holiest, highest truth, governed man, so long was his governing principle the imagination." ...Think, therefore, with every morsel of bread which relieves thee from the pain of hunger, with every draught of wine which cheers thy heart, of the God who confers these beneficent gifts upon thee, - think of man! But in thy gratitude towards man forget not Gratitude towards holy Nature! Forget not that wine is the blood of plants, and flour the flesh of plants, which are sacrificed for thy well-being! Forget not that the plant typifies to thee the essence of Nature, which lovingly surrenders itself for thy enjoyment. Therefore forget not the gratitude which thou owest to the natural qualities of bread and wine! And if thou art inclined to smile that I call eating and drinking religious acts, because they are common every-day acts, and are therefore performed by multitudes without thought, without emotion; reflect, that the Lord's Supper is to multitudes a thoughtless, emotionless act, because it takes place often; and, for the sake of comprehending the religious significance of bread and wine, place thyself in a position where the daily act is unnaturally, violently interrupted. Hunger and thirst destroy not only the physical but also the mental and moral powers of man; they rob him of his humanity of understanding, of consciousness. Oh! if thou shouldst ever experience such want, how wouldst thou bless and praise the natural qualities of bread and wine, which restore to thee thy humanity, thy intellect! It needs only that the ordinary course of things be interrupted in order to vindicate to common things an uncommon significance, to life, as such, a religious import. Therefore let bread be sacred for us, let wine be sacred, and also let water be sacred! Amen.'"2 Heilig sei uns darum das Brot, heilig der Wein, aber auch heilig das Wasser! Amen. 11 12 11 See Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity,translated by George Eliot, Harper, 1957, pp. 241-243. 12 Feuerbach, pp. 277-278.
