Folia Theologica 20. (2009)
Barbour Hugh: The Cosmology of Catholic Worship: Pre-Socratic Sacraments? A Consideration by a disciple of St. Thomas Qauinas
22 BARBOUR, Hugh and substantial, whereby things are what they are and can be defined, that is, the intrinsic causes of matter and form which pertain even to the order of signs to which the sacraments belong. So great is this aversion to the hylomorphism of the sacraments, that it causes scandal and disedification to the neo-Orthodox Catholic when it is applied consistently as a means of understanding the nature and practice of the church's worship. A Roman cleric working in the Holy See on doctrinal issues once lamented to me that although it was easy to find theologians who could expound at length on baptism, he could not find one who was willing or able to explain how precisely baptism works. The otherwise lovely opening definition of the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not even mention bread and wine.10 All of this is of course the result of the general scandal caused by the apparent fall of the ancient cosmology. The only recourse then is an appeal to human subjectivity, or a general divine intention in order to obviate the irreducibly material and composite, individualized nature of Christian Worship. The modern thinker who provides us with the purest example of this scandal is Feuerbach in his analysis of the sacraments in Das Wesen des Christentums. How close his sacramental anthropology is to that of many parish liturgists in the German and Anglophone world, those who have experience of the matter will be able to tell by hearing his words as translated by the great nineteenth century English novelist, the woman pseudonymously known as George Eliot: "But this supernatural significance exists only in the imagination; to the senses, the wine remains wine, the bread, bread. The Schoolmen therefore had recourse to the precious distinction of substance and accidents. All the accidents which constitute the nature of wine and bread are still there; only that which is made up by these accidents, the subject, the substance, is wanting is changed into flesh and blood. But all the properties together, whose com10 "The Eucharist is the very sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus which he instituted to perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until his return in glory. Thus he entrusted to his Church this memorial of his death and Resurrection. It is a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet, in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us." Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: n 271. The sign of bread and wine are given in n 279.
