Two things on my mind this week:
Dying
I visited a woman in the hospital this week who had received a terminal diagnosis and had transferred to hospice. She had a lot of fears, and we spent about an hour talking those through. In the course of the conversation, we ended up using two questions to bring clarity to those fears: (1) What do you want your death to look like? and (2) What do you want to hear Jesus say to you when you meet him face-to-face?
At the end of that conversation, it struck me that those are two very good questions for all of us to be reflecting on regularly. The first question focuses our earthly life. If, for example, we want to die surrounded by family (as most people do), then it spurns us to forgive our family members and to maintain those relationships. It causes us to think less about the stuff we are accumulating and more about the people we are loving. And the second question focuses our spiritual life. If we want Jesus to welcome us like a long-lost brother or sister, then we had better spend some time with Jesus and get to know who he is. If we want Jesus to say “Well done, good and faithful servant,” then we start taking account of the ways in which we are actually serving Jesus, rather than ourselves.
Transubstantiation
I rarely get tripped up when I am teaching about the Catholic faith, but I tripped hard on my face this week during the class on the Eucharist when we were discussion transubstantiation (link). I was super embarrassed and frustrated with myself, so I have spent the last three days furiously reviewing Aristotelian/Thomistic metaphysics, and I think I am finally close to an understanding (which I will discuss in-person at out next class on Sept. 19).
But for now, a brief glossary of Aristotelian terms, because why not use the Pastor’s Note for this?
- Substance: The-thing-itself. Something which exists in itself and does not rely on another for its existence. Generally, the combination of matter and form. A primary substance is an individual, like Fr. Moore or a specific chair. A secondary substance, sometimes called a species, is “human being” or “chair” – a general category by which something is classified. A genus is a broader general category, like “animal” or “furniture”.
- Matter: The stuff out of which something is made. This does not necessarily refer to the smallest units of a thing (like today’s understanding of quarks), but simply to its component parts. You could say that the matter of a body is flesh and blood and bones.
- Form: The organizing principle of a thing. The form is what allows flesh and blood and bones to be classified as and act together as a body. The form of a human person is called the soul.
- Accidents: Statements about how a thing is. Aristotle gives a list of 9 (discussed here), including quantity, time, and position. An accident relies on something else for its existence. Fr. Moore can be in his office on Sept. 08, for example, but the idea of the time and the date exist as characteristics of the substance Fr. Moore, and cannot exist apart from Fr. Moore.
- Change: A change can be accidental, in that the same substance exists before and after, as in Fr. Moore walking from the church to the office (a change in location). A change can also be substantial, in that a different substance exists before and after, as in the process of conception which begins with the substance of a sperm and of an egg, but ends with the substance of a child.
So what I messed up on Tuesday was that I equivocated between accidents and matter, using both to refer to physical characteristics (the gluten in the bread, for example). To try to explain transubstantiation again, briefly, we would say that the substance (form + matter) of bread and wine are transformed into the substance (form + matter) of the Body and Blood of Christ, but the accidents (number, location, time, etc.) of the bread-now-Body and wine-now-Blood remain the same.
What is confusing is the change in matter. Aquinas is clear (in ST III, Q75, art. 4 & 8) that the whole substance of bread/wine (form + matter) is changed into the whole substance of Body/Blood (form + matter). In conception, the matter (component parts) remains in place even while the organizing principle (form) is changed from “germ cells” to “zygoat” (i.e. the same cell nuclei, mitochondria, proteins, etc. make up the new cell-which-is-now-a-human-person). In the Eucharist, however, Catholic doctrine requires that the matter is also changed. At this point, my understanding is that we cannot say, for example, that it is the same gluten molecules present before and after. Previously, it was normal gluten molecules. Afterwards, it is molecules of the Body of Christ, which have the same shape as gluten molecules.
When we talk about the Eucharist retaining the characteristics of bread, we use the word species, which word designates a category that lists all things with identical essential characteristics. So the species of human being lists all actual human beings, past, present, and future. Weirdly, this means that if you were to list members of the species of bread, you would list everything in the world that has all of the characteristics that define bread (every loaf on every store shelf, etc.); but also on this list is the Body of Christ, because miraculously the Body of Christ in the Eucharist shares all of the characteristics we associate with bread, even though it is not bread. So the Eucharist is in the species of bread (rather than, say, the species of flesh), even though it is not bread.
All of this indicates the presence of three miracles at every consecration: (1) that the bread and wine are transformed in both form and matter into the Body and Blood of Christ, (2) that the accidents of the bread and wine persist in the Body and Blood, and (3) that the Body and Blood have the species characteristics of bread and wine, rather than human flesh and blood.
A final note: our starting point is not crazy complicated Aristotelian metaphysics. Our starting point is that our Lord Jesus said “this is my body” and “this is my blood” and we take him at his word. The metaphysics only exist, not to prove that Jesus meant what he said, but so that we can somehow understand how he could mean what he said. We use our most relevant philosophical system to help us accept by reason what we already accept by faith. But faith is always sufficient – if you do not like or understand all of the above philosophy, and would prefer just to trust Jesus, that is perfectly appropriate!
For further reading: Summa Theologica, Part III, Questions 75, 76, & 77; Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on substance, Wikipedia articles on categories, substance, and hylomorphism, Lawrence Feingold’s book on the Eucharist.
Fr. Moore 