Teacher Threatens 'Cracker Abuse' With Communion Wafer

worldnetdaily.com ^ | July 12, 2008 | staff

[kellynla]

The Catholic League has launched a campaign to bring public scorn on a University of Minnesota-Morris teacher who threatened to treat a consecrated communion wafer, which Catholics believe becomes the body of Christ, "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse."

To which the professor in question, Paul Zachary Myers, responded: "Scumbags."

The issue arose over an argument that didn't even involve Myers.

As WND reported, a student at the University of Central Florida reported getting death threats after he stole and later returned a wafer from a Catholic Mass in Orlando.

[Mad Dawg]

Believe it or not there was a man named Galileo.

And he was executed, right? Is that what you're saying? Iwas you who said,

They use to burn you if you said the earth revolves around the sun, that didn’t alter the fact that it does.

And when that is disagreed with, you bring up Galileo.

So was Galileo burned?

They used to say that Catholics burned people for denying the geocentric hypothesis, in fact some still say it; that didn't alter the fact that they didn't burn Galileo.

[Theo]

You quote from 1 Cor. 11, where Paul writes, “Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread....”

Paul calls it “bread.”

Is Paul heretical for disagreeing with Rome?

You really need to get over your pet heresy and believe the word of Scripture. Paul clarifies that it is “bread”; I believe Scripture rather than the misguided teachings of the church from Rome.

[Theo]

Paul clarified the “bread” as “bread” when you eat it. Call me as heretical as Paul, then, when I say that I concur with Scripture in calling it “bread.”

Regarding your tagline — of course, Scripture says that “all have sinned.” Mary was a sinner, from birth, in need of a Savior. By God’s grace she was the vessel through whom the Savior was born. She was a blessed woman. This “immaculate conception” heresity is but another example of where Rome got it wrong, and is too prideful to admit they got it wrong....

[Mad Dawg]

I don’t think arguing about this stuff does anybody any good.

[Always Right]

I don’t think arguing about this stuff does anybody any good.

I was reading this verse and thought about these quibbles.

Rom 14:14 I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. 15 And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. 16 Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. 17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.

[Mad Dawg]

Yeah. I think it is often overlooked (even by us papists - horrors!) that, to judge by Paul's writings, there was a lot of snippiness in the early days. That's ONE tradition we've all been eager to maintain, huh?

Here, unless I am mistook, Paul is talking about offering food that was left over from a sacrifice to an idol. But the principle in general, which I guess we could think of as being expressed elsewhere as "All things are lawful but not all things are edifying," is good to remember and to think about.

We are in perilous times. (Maybe all times are perilous.) and while it is good to understand one's own beliefs and to have chosen them intentionally, AND while it is NOT true that all beliefs are equally good, I really do think that God has not abandoned us and that He can and does speak to us through one another, despite our sad divisions.

This, however, does not apply to Yankees fans.

But the rest of us would do well to listen to Paul, not only in the passage you quote but also in Colossians 3:13-17 and elsewhere.

[dsc]

“I’m stealin’ it.”

I’d be flattered.

[dsc]

“Regarding your tagline — of course, Scripture says that “all have sinned.” Mary was a sinner, from birth, in need of a Savior. By God’s grace she was the vessel through whom the Savior was born. She was a blessed woman. This “immaculate conception” heresity is but another example of where Rome got it wrong, and is too prideful to admit they got it wrong....”

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said, “There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church—but there are millions who hate what they mistakenly think the Catholic Church teaches.”

Can we talk about how this is exactly such a case?

The docrine of the immaculate conception does not hold that Our Lady never sinned after her birth. It holds that she was conceived without the taint of Original Sin that affects the rest of us, exiled children of Eve that we are.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but as a protestant you don’t believe in the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin anyway, right? So when Catholics say that Mary was born without the taint of Original Sin, that is something you would agree with, right?

It is when we hold that the rest of us are born with the taint of Original Sin that you would disagree, isn’t it?

I wonder how many of your other criticisms of Catholicism are similarly grounded in misunderstandings.

[DieHard the Hunter]

Mrs Don-o is right: I am trying to understand this because I am studying to be Catholic. My questions are genuine even though they may seem awkward: they’re not intended to be.

And I am genuinely grateful for any help you can give me toward understanding.

> I guess the next issue would be what do we mean by “sentient”> (I mean we can rule out liberals, but what else?)

An excellent question. Tho’ there *may* exist some sentient Liberal Catholics (I’m thinking of one in particular, a good mate of mine) it is probably safe to surmise that the majority of “sentient” Catholics are probably Conservative in nature, even as the Holy Father is, by definition. Else he would not be Pope.

To me, to be “sentient” requires a deliberate thought process, beyond “blind faith”. St Paul wasn’t kidding when he said described “faith” as being “the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen”.

“Substance” and “evidence” are both lawyer words, and we know that St Paul was a lawyer, trained at the feet of Gamaliel, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was good enough at it to represent himself in the various trials that he underwent.

Lawyers tend not to like fuzzy concepts: hence, “substance” and “evidence”, when conjoined with “faith”, lend a fairly high standard of thinking to be achieved. A standard that probably goes beyond “because” being an acceptable answer.

We know that this is an acceptable concept, because King Solomon said it is “the Glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings to search out a matter.”

Now it may be argued that Christ requires us to have faith like little children if we are to enter into His kingdom. And, it is true, and that was demonstrated by St Peter when he walked on water. But, even so, Christ provided him with substance and evidence for this faith, by virtue of the fact that St Peter did not sink.

(And so it was with all of Christ’s miracles: yes, they were improbable things to happen. But they had literal consequences: lepers were literally healed, Lazarus was literally raised from the dead, and St Peter literally walked on water. Hence the question “does the Host LITERALLY become Christ’s body by way of Miracle?” — it’s a genuine question, which is why it was one of the first ones I asked of Mrs Don-o. I understand the answer to be “no”...?)

> Seriously, I don’t think that “full” participation in the Eucharist involves the kind of thinking I like to do.

Hmmmmmm...

> If some not theologically inclined Cat’lick comes to the altar to receive the sacrament, trusting that somehow Our Lord is present, and (by His gift) loving Him and desiring to love Him more, that’s pretty good.

Undeniably so.

> In fact I’d venture to say that in a lot of ways it’s a lot better than some smarty-pants meandering his way up to the priest while thinking about words like “substance”, “hypostasis”, “ousia”, “presence”, and all that.

That depends entirely upon the attitude of the “smarty-pants”, doesn’t it? Because we know that God searches our Hearts and pays a great deal of attention to our motives.

If he is being a smarty-pants merely because he can, or to show off, he would be no better than the Pharisee in Christ’s parable. If, on the other hand, he was thinking deep thoughts and searching out the matter of, say, “what is the Host?” then he was merely being a sentient believer, tuned in and acclimatized to the event that he was about to celebrate.

> But Sumus omnes in manibus Dei, and I tend to offer God my foolishness and hope and trust that in exchange He’ll give me His Love, that He HAS already done so ....

Fair enough.

I attended Mass yesterday (our Sunday), as an observer. It had a very “Pacific Island” flavor: the Priests were all wearing leis and the hymns were “happy” and upbeat and simple, and not very solemn. This makes perfect sense because most present were Pacific Islanders.

I may attend Mass some other place next week, because Worship, as I understand it, does require a degree of Solemnity and — I dunno if “Decorum” is the right word, because what I saw yesterday had “decorum” in that it was dignified and orderly — and what I attended yesterday was more of a Celebration than a Worship.

Does that make any sense?

Now, as with the Host “being Christ’s body”, I can accept that as an answer, at an intellectual level, but really only if I can understand “in what way is it Christ’s body?”

We have established that it is not literally so (I think?)

“By way of Metaphor” would make perfect sense: we are participating in an event first instituted by Him prior to Calvary, that was foreshadowed by the Passover Feast when the Children of Israel fled Egypt.

His words “this is My Body” could indeed be a metaphor, merely by its language construction: as you have pointed out, he did not use the words “this is LIKE my body”, so we know it is not a Simile (a language construct which he also used often, particularly when describing the Kingdom of Heaven.)

Or the Host being an Allegory for Christ’s body would also make sense, if we look to the first chapter of the Gospel of St John, where “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word was made Flesh.”

Naturally, we know that the Word being spoken of here was the Holy Ghost, the Divine Purpose. We know that it became Christ when this Divine Purpose became Christ, in the Flesh, the man, the descendant of King David thru Mary his mother and thru Joseph his adopted father.

The bread and wine as Metaphor thus makes sense, because Christ makes that link for us in the upper room, thus keeping alive and unbroken a chain of continuous thought that goes back to the Law of Moses and indeed back to the Garden of Eden, when God took the blood of a Lamb to redeem Adam and Eve (and thereafter, thru continued practise, Mankind up to and including the moment of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf.)

The Host being the Body of Christ also works as an Anti-type: the literal flesh and blood of a sacrificial lamb being the Arch-type, followed by the literal sacrifice of Christ as the Type, followed by the event’s observance thru the bread (Host) and the Wine as the Anti-type.

And the Host being the Body of Christ also works (and probably most simply) as a Symbol, in the same way as the Cross serves as a symbol for a belief in Christ’s sacrificial death and literal resurrection from the dead.

So I can understand the Host being a Metaphor, an Allegory, an Anti-Type, and a Symbol for Christ’s Body given for us for the remission of our Sins. All of that can make perfect, logical sense to me.

I could even, by using my imagination, see the Host being a transport mechanism whereby Christ’s Body (”God”, in the same sense as is conveyed in St John’s Gospel) is brought into us by way of assimilation as a “Concept” or as an “Idea”: to use (rather poorly) the “cracker” as an example of what I mean:

Yes, it is true that it is merely only a piece of Host (as anyone observant would all-too-readily point out), but that is not the important bit: what matters is the Concept of Christ that the Host transports to be assimilated within us...

...in much the same way that we probably don’t mind too much about the literal crackers that we eat at a cocktail party: they are rather deliberately bland and unimportant to the actual event. It is the *caviar* that the cracker transports to be assimilated within us that is their important function. Else we wouldn’t probably choose to consume crackers in the first place.

So I can even (by stretching my imagination) have that make sense: the Host is Christ’s body as a Concept or as an Idea.

And I suspect that, even by so doing, I am missing the point.

[Mad Dawg]

Short evasive answer: Do you have a catechism? Get one. Let's look at the language there.

Even shorter evasive answer: I repeat what I said about the library and Aquinas.

I think every Mass is considered a miracle.

I just glanced at the Catechism at paragraph 1413 page 395. I see these words used of the presence of Christ: "True", "real", "substantial". Further his presence is detailed further: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity.

I think the idea of "metaphor" would NOT be the way to go in an effort towards getting what the Church is trying to say.

I sort of like your idea of "concept or idea" and would like to pursue that further.

When we are engaged in this activity, thinking about the Eucharist, words like "literally, actually, physically" and the rest become important and we must use them with awareness.

If you say to me, "It is not literally Christ's body," I will blink and wonder what letters have to do with it and then say, "Maybe not literally, but it IS Christ's body."

And then you say, "But in what WAY is it Christ's body?" And I say, "Truly, really, substantially." And then we get to wonder what the heck I meant by that.

To me "Truly" means something along the lines of "reliably". Truth is related to "troth" and has to do with commitments and keeping them. "Real" relates to things (itself a concept so rich that it blows my mind). But things can be pointed at, small ones can be held. They are localizable and palpable. And we've kind of worked on "substance".

When God speaks through His Word, things happen. He says, "Let there be light," and there it is. And of the Word of God, Isaiah tells us that God says, "It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I purpose and prosper in that for which I sent it."

SO while I cannot be articulate about in what way or how it comes to be that the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ should be there where all I see is something that looks like unleavened bread and wine, nevertheless, I am reluctant to say He meant something like a "figure of speech".

This is not so much an argument as a confession.

As to decorum in worship, I think the Church rightly tolerates great latitude. Personally I am of the sort of "ancient splendor or even more ancient austerity" school. But I understand that that is not for everyone. And the real deal is not the style, but the self-giving of the Lord, in any event. I think the worshipper should find the service which he likes, but not get overly attached to this or that style.

[marajade]

“The Catholic Church was founded by Christ, circa 32 AD.”

I would say Jesus’ church was founded by Christ when he resurrected.

[marajade]

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/13/story_1349_1.html

[DieHard the Hunter]

Thanks for that -- I will get a Catechism (that's a book, no?) and will go to the library tomorrow re: St Thomas Aquinas.

> When we are engaged in this activity, thinking about the Eucharist, words like "literally, actually, physically" and the rest become important and we must use them with awareness.

That much is becoming apparent, and it's certainly not just semantics. You are using words with a very precise meaning, and those meanings have a different precise meaning to what I might understand them to mean.

For example, to me "literally" means something that can be taken prima facie. And "real" means something that exists within our ability to comprehend in this existence, not necessarily something that can be touched. Its analog is "imaginary". And "actually" means to me what "truly" means to you. And "truly", to me, is all about Truth: its analog is "falsely". And "physically" means to me what "really" means to you: its analog is "conceptually"...

> I sort of like your idea of "concept or idea" and would like to pursue that further.

Ok, on that basis then, we know that Christ was not a loaf of unleavened bread when he was born and when he lived amongst men. Neither was he resurrected as a loaf of unleavened bread. And in bakeries worldwide that manufacture Host, we know that they are not baking Christ: they are baking wafers of unleavened bread for use in religious observance, the recipes for which being probably readily available on the Internet and in any case well known, comprising common baking goods such as flour and water.

I think we would agree so far on that...

So the "Host" is a wafer of unleavened bread that (......) Christ at Mass. We have, by the above analysis, established that the word in the missing blank cannot be "is".

So what is the missing word...? That is where I am struggling. I have heard and accepted that the word isn't any of the following: "symbolizes", "represents", "typifies", or even "becomes" (because if it were "becomes" it would be no different to cannibalism, and anyway it is far too easy to prove that it doesn't: an autopsy would establish that).

So is the word then "transports"? Or "distributes"? Or "carries"? (each of these going back to the cracker/caviar analogy).

Or is it something else, a verb that means "idea" or "concept"...? "Conceptualizes?" Is that the missing word?

In which case, that too can make perfect sense. It isn't the wafer of Host that is important, but rather the concept that stands behind the wafer, and it is that concept that is ingested or assimilated when celebrating Mass: Christ, who is God's only begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary, and given is Sacrifice for the remission of our Sins, whose Character and Example we are expected to emulate, and with Whom we identify, and whose life, sacrifice, and resurrection we celebrate when we observe the Eucharist at Mass...?

Does that work?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Just briefly -- 'cause I'm in a hurry at the moment --- but hey-golly, I'm glad I did my small bit to make the DieHard-Dawg connection. You two have similar intellectual drives and aptitudes: it's a joy to sit unobtrusively on the arm of the sofa and overhear you two at work/ at play.

One small note before I take off: "the Word being spoken of" in your context is not the Holy Ghost. The Word is the Second Person of the Trinity, and it was the Second Person, the Son, the Word, who became flesh. The Holy Ghost --- the Third Person ---is not incarnate.

But please don's ask me further about the inner life of the Trinity. It is a tremendous reality but I find I can think about it only on my knees. Perplexed. Struck dumb.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hoo! Interesting! Thank you! I’m setting this aside for careful reading.

[DieHard the Hunter]

Thanks for the note, and for the introduction, Mrs Don-o.

> One small note before I take off: “the Word being spoken of” in your context is not the Holy Ghost. The Word is the Second Person of the Trinity, and it was the Second Person, the Son, the Word, who became flesh. The Holy Ghost -— the Third Person -—is not incarnate.

Hmmmmmmmmmm... I rather suspected the Trinity might prove problematic. More things for us to talk about, ay Mad Dawg.

[Mad Dawg]

One way to explain why this is so hard to talk about is that it is at once a theological matter and a philosophical matter.

With respect to philosophy and words, many words become "terms of art", and my own personal way of looking at words (influenced a little by Heidegger but I was doing it before I read him) is to look at their backgrounds. E.g.:

• Literal — of or pertaining to letters (literae)
• real — of or pertaining to a thing - (res)
• Actual — of or pertaining to an act, a thing done.
• Truth — about loyalty, fidelity, reliability, (as above) cf. Troth (= pledge). A "true servant" is one who does as he ought and as he is told.
• Physical — of or pertaining to physis (φυσις - from φυω, to grow - KINDA like "nature" from natura - things that are born.) But all these are extended to other non-living, ah, stuff.
• Conceptual — of or pertaining to grasping (with the mind)

I do not mean to say that this is right and some other way is wrong. But these etymological aspects of the words influence their use, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, through the 2,500 year (give or take) conversation (at least in the west), and when one finds that, say, truth, veritas, and aletheia all have parallel developments one begins to think that there might be something to the idea or to the human mind which deserves our attention.

Another way to circle around this issue is to look at what others say.

A very simple, pleasant out of print book by a Lutheran (Swedish, I think ) is Yngve Brilioth(Hebert, trans) Eucharistic Faith and Practice Evangelical and Catholic Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1930.

Hooker articulated well the position known as "Receptionism", which may be caricatured as "the Real Presence of Christ in the Recipient" (as opposed to in the "elements"). (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity). What makes Hooker worthy of attention is that, of course, the "Real presence" or SOME kind of presence of Christ in the believer would seem to be the object of the exercise. Also, Hooker ain't stupid.

(Also, you get to say, "Oh, he's a receptionist," and watch while people try to figure out if you mean he makes coffee, answers the phone, and welcomes people to the office, or what?)

As to the stuff from "Ok, on that basis then," to the end, I'd say that first we have to hammer into the ground the distinction between what a thing IS and what it is made of.

But having do one that, we still have to examine what a thing IS. And I want to distinguish between "a thing" and "a kind of thing". One baby is very like another, I suppose. But I don't want "A" baby. I want "MY" baby.

Of course it's different when talking about God because He's the only instance of his species, and the esse of His species is that there be only one instance, and further that everything about Him is "of the essence", while you are you whether you are blond or black-haired (or no-haired).

(I'm sorry I'm so verbose AND so scattered.)

As to cannibalism, I guess we need to think about it a little. I hear, but I don't know how reliably, that cannibals hope to acquire by eating some of the, what, mojo or virtus of the person whose body is tonight's entree. But I'd guess we think all he gets is, protein, fats, like that. (And a LOT of very bad karma!)

In our ritual cannibalism, we don't get protein or fats. We get an insignificant about of carbs. But we hope for the "mojo or virtus".

One more inarticulate utterance and that's enough for this AM: If I bump into you in the dark, I don't normally say, "Is that your body?" I say, "Is that you?"

What is the correct answer to that question, to either question? — Heck, whats the correct question?

I don't want Jesus' flesh, qua flesh. If He's truly incarnate, it'll be flesh pretty much like other human flesh, I suppose.

Yes the Catechism is a book. It's a pretty good outline.

[Jim Noble]

Catholics readily admit as much of their teachings come from traditions as from scripture.

You are mistaken - seriously mistaken - to deride and to simplify Catholic and Orthodox Tradition as "opinions of Popes".

First of all, the body of Tradition was the principal means of communicating revelation to the entire world for more than 1500 years. Second of all, John's gospel is quite clear that there are many things not written down (John 21:25). The Bible didn't die for you.

This is in no way intended to deny the many manifest errors of the Roman Catholic Church which are evident to any reasonable person. But your understanding of Holy Tradition is seriously defective.

[Always Right]

Just because John says it is impossible to have written down the many things Jesus did so well, to non-Catholics anyways, in no way implies anything about a Holy Tradition. If I believed Apostolic Succession, I would be Catholic.

[Mad Dawg]

Hey, Kolo!

We got a guy inneressed in talking about the Trinity. Got some Excedrin handy?

Okay, Diehard, give us your best shot. No wait, let me loosen up a little here ....

(Kolokotronis is an Ort’odox, and he’s good at talking about God ‘n stuff.)