In the name of the parents, the offspring and the spiritual essence. So be it!
And so continues a brouhaha that is as old as the Reformation.
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH...
A lot of folks think about things that are spiritual as being somehow less real than matter as we know it. That’s almost certainly wrong. In fact the pre eminence of spirit over matter is proven by the bible verses that say that God is spirit, and that in Him all things hold together.
We crazy evangelical/Protestants believe we’re claiming MORE, not LESS than our Roman brethren when we say He puts in a spiritual presence in the communion elements.
To add what we might call a physical dimension (as is sometimes held to be VISIBLY manifested in Roman Catholic eucharistic miracles) is like gilding the lily. It might be done by God on occasion in order to appeal to us in our weakness in order to believe at all.
Although tending to worship Baptist style, I think my real concept of the phenomenon is most like Martin Luther’s “consubstantiation” except to say that it’s more than physical, not less. To try to elucidate more would be to delve into areas of metaphysics that God probably hasn’t allowed to be explained, less we puff up with pride at the knowledge.
... LEST we puff up with pride at the knowledge.
And in an odd way, in some sense we crazy evangelical/Protestants might be able to approach the “transubstantiation” claim from a different direction, that of a definition of body.
Let us posit that a body is a physical entity occupied by a spirit.
If the spirit of Christ can occupy the bread and the cup, then that very same matter has been repurposed, as it were, into being His “body.” It hasn’t changed of itself, however, unlike in the Roman doctrine.
Anyhow this is as far as I dare to go.
Experientially, most of the way I get the spirit of Christ is through direct faith — as even Roman Catholics know they must keep on doing when they have left the Mass. The boost I get at the communion is a side feature in my partaking of His spirit, not the main one. If anything I go into it as “Lord I believe; help Thou my unbelief.” Believing and obeying (carrying on according to the desires of the Spirit) is the thing that makes robust partaking in His Spirit possible. It is a flow — not a static thing.
All eyes will be on the USCCB.
The instant they comply with such an obviously heretical, and quite protestant bastardization of an already vandalized holy sacrament, there will be a sea change.
The change will amount to the establishment of one more protestant church. It will be the schismatic Bergoglio Church, not the Church, and no matter what they elect to call it, it will be the schismatic Bergoglio Church, and will simply be one more schismatic denomination.
Please pray for the conversion of pope Francis.