Christian Theology

"(About Saint Thomas Christians) They had only three sacraments, baptism, eucharist, and the orders; and would not admit transubstantiation in the manner the Roman Catholics do."

"Vatican II spoke so strongly about full, conscious, active participation. That was the primary purpose of liturgical renewal. I think we are really missing out on that. Many people come to the Eucharist without much of an idea what it is about. Nor do they have an awareness of their own call, in virtue of their baptism, to participate in the Eucharist. There are probably four places in the documents of the Vatican Council that talk about the baptized offering the Divine Victim to the Father in the Eucharist. I think that 90% of the baptized people don’t really see themselves, in virtue of their baptismal priesthood, as able to offer the Divine Victim to the Father."

"We go to the Holy Land in a spirit of communion with the Christians who live and suffer there, praying and celebrating the Eucharist with them, which is very much appreciated and mutually reinforcing. The spirit is that of pilgrims who learn from the Holy Places and let ourselves be filled by the grace of the pilgrimage"

"On the national level, the Eucharist becomes for us the way to true unity: as was asserted by the Fathers of the Special Synod for Africa, we try to make clear how much the Blood of Christ by itself can realize the unity of the nation that has more than 50 ethnic peoples, ready to oppose each other and enter battle especially when they are manipulated by politicians for electoral reasons."

"We will be humble and trusting pilgrims in a place that is of highest importance in the faith, bringing our hopes and anxieties, and in the celebration of the Eucharist, in our encounter with the Risen Lord, we will pray for ourselves and our Church, that we may receive the gift of a joyful and courageous faith, so as to produce hope and dialogue with those who will ask us about the meaning of life. We owe it to Rome, to offer this city a renewed proclamation of the Gospel, capable of transforming the daily lives of families, youth, the sick, and the poor."

"Our source of strength is daily prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, as well as daily Eucharist...Like other daily appointments, prayer (our appointment with God), needs to be scheduled."

"Faith in the Eucharist is not an easy faith. One cannot use the criterion of knowledge through contact or the experience of the Presence. It is pure faith. This is why I said that the Eucharist is "the testing ground of faith," of our faith. If there is no faith in the Eucharist it is because an approach is lacking to the mystery of the faith."

"[T]he conciliar debate on Marian devotion influenced the postconcilar debate on celibacy. Devoid of all connotations of sexuality, Mary had long served a twofold purpose in maintaining the discipline of celibacy. First, she provided a justification for a celibate priesthood. The medieval monk Petrus Damiani argued that because Jesus was born of a virgin, he could be touched only by virgin hands, thereby establishing a connection between sexual purity and the Eucharist celebration. Second, she served as a chaste role model and mother figure for priests. Mary, Pius XII wrote, provided the priest solace in his daily struggles against the temptations of the flesh: “When you meet very serious difficulties in the path of holiness and the exercise of your ministry, turn your eyes and your mind trustfully to she who is the Mother of the Eternal Priest and therefore the loving Mother of all Catholic priests.” Many bishops and theologians wanted the council to expand Marian doctrinal some supported conferring on Mary a new title, “Mother of the Church.” However, not all council fathers shared this view. Some preferred that piety be more centered on the Bible and the liturgy and less on devotional practices, including Marian worship. They felt that Marian devotion often diverged from the message found in scripture and in the liturgy. They also feared that any elaboration of Marian devotion would undermine the ecumenical movement. Thus, the seemingly innocent question of where to locate a statement on Mary had far-reaching theological and political ramifications. On August 29, by a margin of only forty votes, the council fathers decided in favor of incorporating a statement on Marian piety into ‘’Lumen Gentium’’. Although Paul VI later preempted the decision of the council fathers and bestowed upon Mary the title they had denied her, “Mother of the Church,” the popularity of Marian devotion continued to decline in Western-Europe."

"The center of eucharistic spirituality is found, of course, in the communal celebration itself; but private prayer and adoration of the blessed sacrament are an excellent means of personally digesting the immense riches of the actual celebration."

"Adoration of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is always to be understood as deriving from the presence of Christ in the actual celebration of the eucharist; adoration is meant to bring us again to the celebration of the eucharist with greater fervor and understanding. So, adoration begins in the celebration of Mass itself. However, in the Mass adoration is primarily to God the Father. It is adoration in “spirit and truth” (John 4:23), that is, adoration of the Father through Christ, the Truth and in the Holy Spirit."

"If any man be well grown in grace, he must needs come [to receive the Eucharist], because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast: but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come, that so he may grow in grace. The strong must come lest they become weak; and the weak that they may become strong. The sick must come to be cured; the healthful to be preserved."

"When our Lord has prepared a person in this unbearable state of misery - for this prepares him much better than all the spiritual practices that all people might be able to accomplish - then our Lord comes and leads him to the third stage. In this stage the Lord removes the cloak from his eyes and reveals the truth to him. Bright sunshine appears and lifts him right out of all his misery. It seems to this person just as though the Lord had raised him from the dead. In this stage the Lord leads a person out of himself into himself. He makes him forget all his former loneliness and heals all his wounds. God draws the person out of his human mode into a divine mode, out of all misery into divine security. Here a person becomes so divinized that everything he is and does God does and is in him. And he is lifted up so far above his natural state that he becomes through Grace what God in his essence is by nature. In this state a person feels and is aware that he has lost himself and does not at all feel himself or is he aware of himself. He is aware of nothing but one simple Being."

"The mystery of our union with God affected by the Eucharist, is a union more intimate than the human mind can conceive."

"[I]f there be any truer measure of a man, than by what he does, it must be, by what he gives."

"“The Eucharist has always carried the memory of Jesus’ meals with tax collectors and sinners.”"

"There is nothing wrong with a church being small and simple. As long as we can pray in it and celebrate the Eucharist. Above all, it is important to have a temple of God also in our hearts too, adorned with prayer and good works, if we really want to be children worthy of His name."

"All my sermons are prepared in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. As recreation is most pleasant and profitable in the sun, so homiletic creativity is best nourished before the Eucharist. The most brilliant ideas come from meeting God face to face. The Holy Spirit that presided at the Incarnation is the best atmosphere for illumination. Pope John Paul II keeps a small desk or writing pad near him whenever he is in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; and I have done this all my life — I am sure for the same reason he does, because a lover always works better when the beloved is with him."

"We have to make sure that we always recognize that we don't own the sacraments, the sacraments are the work of Christ. It is he who comes to us ... and it's his grace that takes precedence over everything else. Therefore we should see in each of those encounters with Christ in the sacraments a sacred experience even beyond our comprehension. And the one, of course, that's the supreme of everything is the Eucharist, because that's when Christ sacrificed on Calvary. We're fed with the same food that the disciples were fed at the Last Supper, and the same blood of the covenant from the cross is given to us. So again, it's Christ who is there, Christ offering the sacrifice. We are with him but it is he who does it all, it is he who feeds us."

"In the Eucharist Jesus Christ nourishes us with his Body and his Blood, allowing us to share in the eternal fullness of divine life, allowing us to sit at table with Him at the Supper for which we rejoice for ever with the knowledge and love of God, communion of life with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints, and with all those whom we have loved on this earth and whom Jesus saved with his Cross"

"The joy of these faithful to frequently receive the Eucharist, or to celebrate the Marian procession on the river, is priceless."

"The rubrics call for the altar to be stripped and the removal or veiling of crosses after the liturgy in preparation for Good Friday. Veils should be violet in color. If the font is to be emptied, this may happen at this time also. While the church need not be stripped of furniture and art, generally simplicity should be the norm for Good Friday. Because people remain to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, any work on the environment should be done in silence, particularly if the place of repose is within earshot....The Blessed Sacrament is brought into the sanctuary for Holy Communion along with a fair linen, corporal and candles. These are returned to the altar of repose and the sacristy, respectively after Communion."

"Enough hosts should be consecrated to allow for the Communion of the faithful on Good Friday. The altar of repose for the Blessed Sacrament should be carefully constructed, but need not be overly ornate."

"There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us. And on the far side of every cross we find the newness of life in the Holy Spirit, that new life which will reach its fulfillment in the resurrection. This is our faith. This is our witness before the world."

"We have to let God's love break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires. That is why prayer is so important: daily prayer, private prayer in the quiet of our hearts and before the Blessed Sacrament, and liturgical prayer in the heart of the Church."

"I like to think, especially during these days when the whole Church is as it were focused on the Eucharistic mystery, that precisely there, on the altar, Cardinal Caprio's life and ministry - the various posts to which the diplomatic service of the Holy See took him - would have found their deepest point of convergence."

"If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists. This norm is not at all a punishment or a discrimination against the divorced and remarried, but rather expresses an objective situation that of itself renders impossible the reception of Holy Communion: '... If these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage'."

"Invisibly our Eucharistic celebrations gather a still absent people, one of those who are searching for God in the righteousness of their hearts. For a particular Church, the way of living the Eucharist cannot be separated from its concrete history with the people she was given to by the Lord."

"We think that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the life of the Church and for this we do not abandon its essential importance."

"Celebrating the Eucharist means celebrating who we are, always living our priestly identity, our ministry or service of making the Lord's Supper present. What greatness we possess! And what a responsibility! Are we astounded by this self-giving and this responsibility before Christ and the Church? At least we should be."

"Faced with the present situation in Spain the Lord calls us Catholics to suffer and be scorned because we are Christians, Christian religious sentiment is attacked and ridiculed by certain media."

"John Peckham,"

"Peckham's visitation of Lincoln diocese brought him to Oxford on 30 Oct, 1284, when he condemned certain erroneous opinions in grammar, logic, and natural philosophy, which, though censured by his Dominican predecessor, Kilwardby, had now [been] revived. ...Chief among them was the vexed question of the 'form' of the body of Christ, which involved the received doctrine of the Eucharist. The doctrines in question were maintained by the Dominican rivals of Peckham's own order, and their condemnation appeared to impugn the reputation of the Dominican doctor St. Thomas Aquinas. ...The prior [of the Dominicans], he said, had misrepresented him; he was actuated by no hostility to the Dominicans, nor to the honoured memory of St. Thomas; he had no intention to unduly favour his own order, and his censure was supported by the action of his predecessor."

"In most cultures in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, dancing groups in traditional costume is used in the most important celebrations of the people’s life. These dances can also express the joy, happiness and unity of the people during Mass. There is no better way to build Christian community through the Holy Eucharist, the center of the Church."

"Inevitably, this period of lockdown will have repercussions on the lives and the faith of our Christians, both positive and negative. There will be a before and an after. For some, being unable to take part in the Eucharistic celebration will deepen their desire and thirst for God and for union and communion with him and with their community. For lukewarm Christians, however, this could be the end."

"Our faith is counter-cultural to the American ideal of individualism. We are a part of the universality founded in Christ and thus a part of a larger, single family-the people of God. The care of our common home does not fall in step with individualism. God asks us to think about ourselves in relationship to God and thus in relationship to our immediate family and our extended family throughout the world."

"If I were tied to the letter of the Scriptures and rigid dogma, I believe I could not have painted these profoundly felt paintings about the Eucharist and the 'Pentecost' [religious paintings, he made c. 1909-11) I had to be artistically free - not have God before me. like a steely Assyrian ruler, but God in me, hot and holy like Christ's love."

"People who say this cracker is literally and physically the body of their god and that I'm doing this great act of heresy and sacrilege and horror -- even though I didn't actually do anything to it -- is disturbing. It's like discovering there are witch doctors lurking in your community and they've been doing weird practices."

"It was a source of great joy to pass these three weeks not only "sub Petro" but "cum Petro". Pope Benedict was with us for most of the time, listening with arefuly and creating a friendly atmosphere amongst the Synod fathers; that's very important."

"I know I would not be able to work one week if it were not for that continual force coming from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (during my Holy Hour of Adoration)."

"When the Sisters are exhausted, up to their eyes in work; when all seems to go awry, they spend an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This practice has never failed to bear fruit: they experience peace and strength."

"What will convert America and save the world? My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer."

"Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth."

"The things, good Lord, that I pray for, give me thy grace to labour for. Amen."

"One of the greatest problems in present-day Eucharistic celebration is the temptation to abandon the traditional explanations without proposing appropriate substitutions. It was easy to demolish the past, but explanations have not been suggested that might last longer. The solution of course is not to continue with the guidelines of the past, and beyond renewing exterior forms, we must add new vital sap. The form can change or remain the same, what is important is to have a new justification, with greater vigor and support."

"Many of the faithful believe Holy Communion leads to personal sanctification and transformation of attitudes and engenders responsiveness to the needs of others... for many others there is a disparity between what they believe and how they live."

"It is the Eucharist that invites us to be part of the mission of Christ. We need life in the Sydney Church to flourish."

"It has become more evident that the celebration of the Eucharist is truly the culmination and source of all the life and mission of the Christian communities, which are called to live and transmit the message of hope and peace of the Gospel from generation to generation."

"For the evangelical left, those who suffer largely exist as mechanisms for others’ salvation, but not as beings with consciences of their own—or more precisely, they are allowed to have their own conscience if and only if it fits into their salvation model. Else, they can be considered as corrupted. The black man loses his “blackness,” which is a state of grace and nothing to do with skin color. Clarence Thomas isn’t “really” black but Bill Clinton is, in the same way that the Eucharist literally becomes the body of Christ."

"In the past, some media has tried to portray this effort as inimical to the ecumenical effort, and that cannot be further from the truth. For one thing, Anglicanorum coetibus was a generous, pastoral response by Pope Benedict XVI to groups of people who were making a direct request of the Holy See. It is also ecumenically significant in that it demonstrates, perhaps for the first time, that corporate, Eucharistic unity is possible in a way that does not simply assimilate. The ecumenical principle that informs Anglicanorum coetibus is that unity in the profession of Catholic faith allows for a vibrant diversity in the expression of that same faith. That is, to my mind, exactly what ecumenical dialogues have been building towards."

"Thousands of communities meet on Sunday not for the Eucharist but for a service of the Word. We cannot allow this situation to continue. If the faithful and the priests become used to this wound in our faith life, they will give up looking for solutions. We vehemently oppose other distortions of our faith; therefore we must reject this one as well."