Rich Leonardi has an entry about a priest who can't understand why Catholics like to avoid using "bread" and "wine" to describe the eucharist. Let me suggest the Fr. McBrien's comments be entered into evidence as Exhibit A in the case against waffling.
From Flannery O'Connor (who is much more intellectual than it may sound based on her defense of the Eucharist):
________________________________
I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, A Charmed Life, reviewed in Time.) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. The people who took me were Robert Lowell and his now wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the "most portable" person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it." That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.
_____________________________________
These remarks were explained in relation to O'Connor's most Eucharistic-themed short story, "A Temple of the Holy Ghost". Her writing is staunchly Catholic, and I highly recommend it, but I must warn anyone not familiar with her work that she falls pretty soundly within the "Southern Gothic" movement so her stories aren't pretty or sentimental or anything of the sort. Her basic philosophical approach to life and writing was that God's grace is inherently violent since it wrests us from ourselves, so she writes that approach pretty literally into her stories, with old ladies being murdered by philosophizing serial killers or little girls being hugged too tightly by fat nuns and such things.
But it's nice to know that once upon a time the sort of Catholic person who dined with "Big Intellectuals" still bothered to consider the Eucharist "the center of existence," as it is.
I wonder if the same people who are arguing that American Catholics are so intellectual and sophisticated that they don't need to adore the Eucharist or listen to a bunch of old celibate men in Rome are the same people who are arguing that the new translations of the liturgy are too complicated for Americans to understand?
I really hate this "they wouldn't do it if they only knew better…like me" mentality. Yes, I as a traditional Catholic am guilty of this as well (i.e. "if they only attended the Tridentine liturgy, they'd agree that…"). But it really presupposes that everyone else has not arrived at your conclusion because they don't have the facts. McBrien should know better is all.
December 4, 2009 at 4:33 am
McBrien Fail.
December 4, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I just love Fr. Barron. What a blessing he is to our Church. So very faithful. Great, great points he makes, as always.
December 4, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Unfortunately, Fr. McBrien's columns are printed in my Diocese's newspaper – Rochester NY
December 5, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Bravo!
December 5, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Rich Leonardi has an entry about a priest who can't understand why Catholics like to avoid using "bread" and "wine" to describe the eucharist. Let me suggest the Fr. McBrien's comments be entered into evidence as Exhibit A in the case against waffling.
December 5, 2009 at 8:03 pm
From Flannery O'Connor (who is much more intellectual than it may sound based on her defense of the Eucharist):
________________________________
I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, A Charmed Life, reviewed in Time.) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. The people who took me were Robert Lowell and his now wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the "most portable" person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it." That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.
_____________________________________
These remarks were explained in relation to O'Connor's most Eucharistic-themed short story, "A Temple of the Holy Ghost". Her writing is staunchly Catholic, and I highly recommend it, but I must warn anyone not familiar with her work that she falls pretty soundly within the "Southern Gothic" movement so her stories aren't pretty or sentimental or anything of the sort. Her basic philosophical approach to life and writing was that God's grace is inherently violent since it wrests us from ourselves, so she writes that approach pretty literally into her stories, with old ladies being murdered by philosophizing serial killers or little girls being hugged too tightly by fat nuns and such things.
But it's nice to know that once upon a time the sort of Catholic person who dined with "Big Intellectuals" still bothered to consider the Eucharist "the center of existence," as it is.
December 7, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I wonder if the same people who are arguing that American Catholics are so intellectual and sophisticated that they don't need to adore the Eucharist or listen to a bunch of old celibate men in Rome are the same people who are arguing that the new translations of the liturgy are too complicated for Americans to understand?
December 7, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Father Barron may be the Bishop Sheen of the YouTube generation.
December 8, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I really hate this "they wouldn't do it if they only knew better…like me" mentality. Yes, I as a traditional Catholic am guilty of this as well (i.e. "if they only attended the Tridentine liturgy, they'd agree that…"). But it really presupposes that everyone else has not arrived at your conclusion because they don't have the facts. McBrien should know better is all.