Last words on The Hidden Manna

I finished this wonderful book yesterday. The author talks about our (e.g., mine and yours) relationship with the Eucharist. The Eucharist is our physical link with Jesus; just like human friendship depends on at least occasional direct encounters with the other, our friendship with Christ derives from the physical intimacy with Christ in the Eucharist.

The flip side of this intimacy is the betrayal of unworthy reception of the Eucharist. Receiving the Eucharist while conscious of unconfessed grave sin is an act of adultery, a betrayal of the same friendship we were just discussing, just like a man continuing physical intimacy with his wife while partaking of an adulterous relationship with another.

This is why the Eucharist and Confession go hand in hand. The more we receive the Eucharist, the more conscious we are of God's great good will towards us, and the more conscious we become of when we fail to respond to the Lord's gift. Thus we feel more and more the need for frequent sacramental confession.

I personally used to go four, five, even six months at a time without Confession. During that time I committed the sacrilege of unworthy reception many times, although I hope the effect was mitigated due to the lack of clarity in my mind of the nature of my sin. Anyway, now I can hardly last three weeks without longing for the grace of Penance.

Mary and the Eucharist

The author's reflections on Mary and the Eucharist close the book.

First and most concretely, the Body we receive in the Eucharistic host is the same Body borne by Mary; the same Body that took its human flesh from her and that she nursed and cared for. In St. Augustine's words, she "gave milk to our Bread." Much of this book is taken up with the Church's path to this truth of the Faith and the various attempts to illuminate this mystery.

Second, Mary is an example of the devotion we all should feel when we approach the Eucharist. Like Jesus, Mary was unwaveringly faithful to the will of the Father. Such is the attitude that all of us should have when approaching the Eucharistic banquet. "Although it is equally fitting that those who receive Communion frequently or daily should be free from venial sin, at least from such as are fully deliberate, and from every affection thereto, nevertheless, it is sufficient that they be free from mortal sin, with the purpose of never sinning in the future; and if they have this sincere purpose, it is impossible but that daily communicants should gradually free themselves even from venial sins, and from all affection thereto." (from the decree Sacra Tridentina Synodus)

Third, Mary is chief among the saints, a leading light of the communion of saints, the Body of the Church that is formed by the Eucharistic communion. By partaking of the Eucharist we join in the Church Militant - the church on Earth, striving for sanctity; the Church Suffering - the poor souls in purgatory; and the Church Triumphant - the saints in heaven.

Faith and Reason

In closing I want to return to the most striking sentence in this book, halfway down page 123, speaking about the fourteenth century:

"The theological synthesis of the previous century was threatened by evidences of a strange and dangerous dichotomy between faith and reason." (Emphasis added)

This dichotomy, so much taken for granted today, is false. The Faith is reasonable; it is amenable to reason, can be explicated and illustrated by reason, and is in no way contradictory to reason. How can there be such a dichotomy? The one God made the earth and everything in it, including us men and our reasoning faculties; and he also gave us the divine Revelations in Sacred Scripture and handed down by Sacred Tradition. How can there be a dichotomy between what He made and what He revealed?

This means that the Faith is grounded in objective reality and that reasonable men can dispute, discuss, debate, rationally propose and oppose propositions of the Faith. Such is what men have been doing ever since there were men. Faith is not a matter of feelings, of what I feel like doing right now.

I have much more to say on this subject but it will have to wait for another day!