euphemos

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. — Jesus Christ (John 6:56)

“[Those] Who possesses God’s love, finds so much joy that every bitterness transforms itself into sweetness, and that every great weight becomes light. One must not be astonished because living in charity you live in God:
‘God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God abides in him’ (1 John 4:16)
Thus, living in God you can have no bitterness because God is delight, gentleness and never-ending joy!
This is why God’s friends are always happy! Even if we are sick, poor, grieved, troubled, persecuted, we are always joyful.”
St. Catherine of Sienna: Embrace Jesus on the Cross, loving and beloved From the “Letters” of St Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380) (letter no. 165 to Bartolomea, wife of Salviato of Lucca).

Those who preserve their integrity remain unshaken by the storms of daily life. They do not stir like leaves on a tree or follow the herd where it runs. In their mind remains the ideal attitude and conduct of living. This is not something given to them by others. It is their roots… it is a strength that exists deep within them — Sun Tzu

O inestimable Love! You enlighten us with your wisdom so that we may know your truth and the subtle deceptions of the devil.
With the fire of your love, set our hearts alight with desire to love you and to follow you in the truth.
You alone are Love, alone worthy of being loved!
(St Catherine of Sienna)

A family member is investigating Catholicism, and raised two primary objections to the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The first – Jesus had to humble Himself to become man, it doesn’t seem right that he would debase himself to become bread and wine. The second – Why do we need the real presence?

The first turns out to be a strong argument against consubstantiation, and makes transubstantiation more palatable, so to speak. The Church teaches that the bread is changed into Christ’s body, and the wine into His blood. They are no longer bread and wine, they are the body and precious blood of Jesus. The early Protestants didn’t deny the Real Presence, but, in an effort to distance themselves from the Church, proposed consubstantiation as a compromise. In consubstantiation, the bread and wine remain bread and wine, and this would indeed raise a question as to the propriety of Him becoming bread and wine. Transubstantiation, the complete change of one substance to another, avoids this difficulty. Transubstantiation, of course, raises the question of why the body and blood appear to the human eye to be bread and wine, but the discussion of substance vs. accidents of appearance is a another can of worms.

So, having dispensed with the argument that it would be improper for Jesus to debase Himself to become bread and wine, why do we need the Real Presence? In short, just as we need physical food for our physical being, we need spiritual food for our spiritual being. As the USCCB says, “Jesus gives himself to us in the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment because he loves us… By eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist we become united to the person of Christ through his humanity. ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him’ (John 6:56). In being united to the humanity of Christ we are at the same time united to his divinity. Our mortal and corruptible natures are transformed by being joined to the source of life. ‘Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me’ (John 6:57)… By his Real Presence in the Eucharist Christ fulfils his promise to be with us ‘always, until the end of the age’ (Mt 28:20). As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, ‘It is the law of friendship that friends should live together… Christ has not left us without his bodily presence in this our pilgrimage, but he joins us to himself in this sacrament in the reality of his body and blood’ (Summa Theologiae, III q. 75, a. 1).”

A few helpful resources:
John Young, Transubstantiation and reason 

USCCB – The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist

1 Corinthians 11: 27, 29 – Paul indicates strongly that the body of the Lord is truly present.

John 6: 25-71, particularly 52, where they understand Him to say they must eat His flesh, and He does not clarify it, merely reaffirms it (53, 54, 55, 56, 57, and 58), even though the cost (66) is that many left Him. In other cases, he did correct misunderstandings:
Matthew 16:5-12, concerning the “leaven of the Pharisees.”
John 3:1-15, where Nicodemus didn’t comprehend being “born again

One of the earliest saints, Saint Ignatius of Antioch (~106 AD) criticized those who “abstain from the Eucharist and the public prayer, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same Body of our Savior Jesus Christ, which [flesh] suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness raised up again” (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6, 7).

In any case, logical arguments aside, I choose to emulate St. John Chrysostom, whom Pope Paul VI, in Mysterium Fidei quotes as saying “Let us submit to God in all things and not contradict Him, even if what He says seems to contradict our reason and intellect; let His word prevail over our reason and intellect. Let us act in this way with regard to the Eucharistic mysteries, and not limit our attention just to what can be perceived by the senses, but instead hold fast to His words. For His word cannot deceive.”

St. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome (Romans 5:3-5), encouraging them to remember

Tribulation leads to Perseverance,

Perseverance leads to Proven Character, and

Proven Character leads to Hope.

Modern feel-good pop-psychology churches most often focus interpretation of this scripture upon tribulation as a means of strengthening, and proving the strength of, our character. I wonder if perhaps it might be more helpful to shift our focus to realize that perseverance through the Lord’s grace and strength leads to us having proven God’s character, giving hope that He will sustain us to the end.

The word ‘dokime’ (δοκιμή) has been translated variously as trial (Douay-Rheims), approvedness (ASV), experience (KJV), character (RSV), probatio (Vulgate, proving/trial/approval/proof/demonstration), and proven character (NAS). William Barclay gives the sense of the original meaning as “Dokime is used of metal which has been passed through the fire so that everything base has been purged out of it… It describes something out of which every alloy of baseness has been eliminated. When affliction (tribulation) is met with fortitude, out of the battle a man emerges stronger, and purer, and better and near God.”

Faith in our own faith may, in fact, be more harmful than helpful, but if we place faith in God, He will never disappoint us. Proving our own character, in the sense of eliminating those base things which are an obstacle to grace, makes us a better conduit of that grace, but if we consider our character proven in the sense of having confidence in our character, we may find ourselves upon a dangerous road. St. Peter’s example painfully reminds us our own strength of character is insufficient, and confidence in that character, misplaced. Paul tells the Corinthians the power of God reaches its perfection in weakness. So much so that when he is weak, then he is strong. (2Cor 12) If perseverance leads us to trust in our own strength, we’ve missed the point entirely.

Perseverance through trial allows God to purge our character of that which is unworthy of entering His presence. Confidence in our own character gives us only a false hope that we’ll persevere to the end, but confidence in God’s character gives us hope with substance – faith.

I meet with a few men on Friday mornings for a bible study. We start bright and early (more early than bright perhaps), but my Fridays are blessed as a result. We’ve been studying 1 Peter, and today we hit 1 Peter 3:1-7, with the infamous discussion on wives being submissive to their husbands. We chatted about this being a continuation of the thought in 1 Peter 2 encouraging servants to submit to their masters and everyone submitting to governmental authority, but for me, the most interesting portion of our conversation was where I least expected it.

In 1 Peter 3:3-4, he encourages women to focus on the “hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit” instead of on outward beauty. “J” mentioned that Peter seemed to have some insight into women, to understand the challenge they faced and commented upon how there is “something” about a woman’s spirit that can enhance the most beautiful and make the homely appear lovely. “K” pointed out that even 750+ years before, Isaiah had to point out the same problem in the women of that day (Isaiah 3:16). “k” mentioned that the woman admired in the Song of Solomon is not particularly beautiful if you convert the physical description to a picture, but that her spirit made her beautiful in the eyes of her lover (which has some cool applications to God as the lover of our soul and us, His church, as the beloved). What struck me, however, was our culpability as males for this stereotypical tendency in the women we love.

It is generally accepted that a “good husband” remembers to express to his wife how beautiful she is, and a “great husband” doesn’t even have to remember; it comes naturally. But how often do we admire our wife’s hidden person? How often do we compliment her upon her spirit? As humans, we respond to positive feedback. If we men only praise our wife for her external beauty, why are we critical of her tendency to be “overly concerned” about her appearance? We have a duty to fulfill here, and it is not an onerous one. Let’s remember to admire the inner beauty of our wife as well as her outward attractiveness. By doing so, we encourage her to become even more beautiful, and that’s good for everyone involved.