Thursday, August 21, 2014

You Can't Own God

The Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is basic stuff in Catholicism.

As such, a consecrated Host - the Eucharist - is not an article of property. You can't own the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The very idea is absurd and contrary to every teaching on the Real Presence. No human can assert ownership over Jesus as if He were mere chattel.

An unconsecrated host, being merely a kind of bread, can and is property. But once it is consecrated it is no longer possible to be a species of property. And to claim that the Host still is property and that can be owned - that anyone can own the Body of Christ, the Divinity of Christ - is among the highest kinds of hubris that one can imagine.

Clearly, anyone who would claim that the Eucharist is property capable of being owned is either a heretic of the grossest kind or he is someone who really hasn't quite thought through the ramifications of his too-cute-by-half argument.

5 comments:

wishful thinking said...

By using extraordinary means to retrieve that Host, perhaps positive attention will be drawn to the abomination which is the black mass, thereby educating people.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes drastic measures are necessary to get people's attention. In this case, maybe people will understand that the black mass is an abomination and maybe it will help get rid of Communion in the hand.

Bender said...

Actually, rather than engendering respect, by calling the Eucharist "property" which we can "own," one ends up fostering disrespect. Rather than showing that the black mass is an abomination, calling the Blessed Sacrament a mere thing ends up justifying it.

You can't desecrate a piece of property.

If the Eucharist is something that we can have dominion over, then Christ is not King and He is not God. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, if the Eucharist is just a thing, just a piece of property, to hell with it.

Yes, it is a drastic measure, it is grasping at straws to call the Eucharist property which we can own as part of a legal tactic. But in winning the battle, we end up losing the war. By gaining the world, we lose our soul. That profits us nothing.

And it all could have been avoided if instead of a specious theory of "ownership," a much more theologically sound assertion of "custody" or "guardianship" had been put forward.

Anonymous said...

Then what is the answer? Two of those things making national news in a couple of months is not good.

Bender said...

What's the answer??

The same answer as everything else -- love in truth.

Truth. Not gimmicks.

Love. Not legal force.

We appeal to consciences. We seek to convert. We do not impose, we simply propose.