bearing blog

Transsubstantiation as "metabole."

In the last few days the bloggers at Pontifications have posted a few theological excerpts on the topic of Transubstantiation.

I like this, by Sergei Bulgakov:

The bread and wine completely and wholly, without any limitations, become the salvific body and blood. It is, however, precisely the bread and wine that are transmuted, that is, not the qualityless, abstract matter of this world (”earth”), which does not even exist, but a specific type of this matter with qualities, namely bread and wine, which, as materials of this world, do not change but now belong not to themselves and not to this world but to Christ’s glorified, spiritual body.

I think what he's saying here is that at the consecration Christ takes up into his body the qualities of this specific bread and wine:  that the Body of Christ becomes larger, taking it in.

The whole problematic of the theory of transsubstantiatio... flows ... from the difficulty of explaining the transformation of one material into another material within the limits of cosmic being. But no transformation at all occurs... for only different things of one and the same natural world, not things that belong to different realms of being, can be transformed. Things that belong to different realms of being can only be transmuted the one into the other, while preserving their own mode of being in their own realm.

I'm not really sure what the distinction is between "transformed" and "transmuted."  I think he's saying that there's no way an earthly chunk of bread can change in form to the supernatural body of Christ (that would be "transform"), but that it can change in reality or essential quality (that is, "transmute.")   Hmm.

Bulgakov refers the Latinate word "transmute" to the Greek synonym metabole while he explores this concept.  It's a neat choice, because he goes on to refer to metabolism in a very direct way:

The fact that the body and blood in their earthly nature remain what they were has no significance here. As such, they have become other than themselves; they no longer have independent existence as things of this world but belong to the body of Jesus, in the same way that the bread and fish that He ate in the presence of His disciples belong to His body. The Lord, who in His spiritual and glorified body abides at the right hand of God the Father, creates, in the transmutation, a body for Himself from the bread, matter of this world, and animates it with His blood.

I think this is a nifty way of grappling with the mystery.

The tree came down.

Here it is:  a lovely, mature maple tree...

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...and here are my boys watching the big truck cart its branches away.

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Leafless after only a few hours, it stands out against the midmorning sky.

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A deep notch is cut. 

One worker runs across the yard to join the others in what will prove a very short game of tug-of-war.

Down... down... down.

St. John Chrysostom.

Part of a series.

"I can worship God better outside in nature than in a building."

I have heard that line before, spoken by non-churchgoing folks.  It has never struck me as a good excuse (not that anyone owes me an excuse); indoor worship doesn't exclude outdoor worship, and I wonder how much worshipping the speaker does outdoors at all.  Why not just say "No, I don't go to church, I don't like it?"  At least it would be honest.

Today's one-sentence selection tells why community worship is an important part of a balanced spiritual diet.

You cannot pray at home as at church, where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests.

The writer is John Chrysostom (347-407), whose nickname ("Golden-Mouthed") reflects his reputation as a brilliant public speaker and preacher.   He wrote prolifically, and I hope to excerpt some more of his work.

The sentence doesn't denigrate the prayers offered in the home, alone or among family.  Family and private prayer in the home is good.  But it does point out two special qualities of worship in church.  Neither is conferred by the building.

The first quality is rooted in the people gathered there for the purpose of worship.  That gathering is an act of worship in and of itself, because it exists solely as a worship community (unlike the family or the indvidual).

The second quality comes from the ordained priests, who ordinarily preside at worship in church and are absent from private or family worship.  As this passage demonstrates, the Church has always understood the ordained priest as a special representative.   He "has something to offer" that most of the Christians do not, by virtue of his office and the sacrament of Orders he has received.   

Private prayer is valuable; but corporate worship and sacramental worship are needed, too.

Photoshopping at USA Today.

USA Today gets in the Halloween mood early by quietly turning Condoleeza Rice into a demon.

Photojournalism just isn't the same anymore, is it?

UPDATE:  USA Today pulls the photo and publishes a retraction.  How much of this stuff did they get away with before blogs?  H/t Instapundit.

Papal headgear.

From Andrew at Shrine of the Holy Whapping:

Catholics of course have an inherent love for any custom which is both obscure and funny-looking.

Scroll down to "As far as Papal headgear goes..." with the b&w picture.

Tip of the day.

Don't try to pick up Play-Doh with your left hand and eat gumdrops with your right.

The Platinum Rule.

Mitchell at Our Word and Welcome To It posts on the new business buzzword, the "Platinum Rule:"

"Treat others the way they want to be treated."

Hmm, you're thinking. It sounds kind of familiar, but there's something just a little off, isn't there?

It's a nice distinction, but no improvement on good old-fashioned gold.  All that glitters, indeed.  (H/t this week's Catholic Carnival.)

Deaths from sexually transmitted disease.

Eugene Volokh points to this (information re-ordered):

An interesting article, S.H. Ebrahim, M.T. McKenna & J.S. Marks, Sexual Behaviour: Related Adverse Health Burden in the United States, Sexually Transmitted Infections, vol. 81, pp. 38-40 (2005), reports that sexually transmitted diseases were responsible for nearly 30,000 deaths in the U.S. in 1998.

A third of the deaths were among women, and two thirds among men.

Three quarters of the deaths were from HIV, but nearly 5000 were from cervical cancer, which seems to be generally caused by some strains of human papilloma virus, and nearly 2000 were caused by sexually transmitted hepatitis and hepatitis-caused liver cancer. (The study purported to take into account the fact that not all hepatitis is sexually transmitted.)

There were also over 100 deaths from syphilis and fewer than 10 from gonorrhoea (presumably from the very rare gonorrhoea-caused heart disease), but apparently modern antibiotics have done a great deal to limit death and serious illness caused in the U.S. by bacterial sexually transmitted diseases.

...By way of comparison, there were about 44,000 car accidents, a titch over 30,000 suicides, a little under 18,000 homicides, and a bit over 30,000 total firearms deaths (including suicides, homicides, and the few accidents). ...

The study also reported that sexually transmitted disease causes some 600,000 cases of infertility per year (overwhelmingly among women); and of course hepatitis, cervical cancer, liver cancer, and HIV can be quite painful and disabling even when they don't cause death.

The comments are... interesting.   A lot of people get very defensive about this news and seem to care about it only insofar as it fits in with their beliefs about education policy.

A side note:  I do not believe it reflects on Eugene personally, and the VC is one of my favorite blogs, but Ann Althouse attracts, generally, much smarter and wittier commenters.

And you thought France was bad.

They could take a page from Turkey's book.

"I could never stay home full time. Locked in the house all day with two kids? No way."

Possible answers:

1.   Oh come ON.  That's ridiculous.

2.  Yes, that's exactly what it's like.  My husband chains the door every morning when he leaves from work and lets me out when he gets home.  It's like that all over the block:  women with their noses pressed up against the glass.

3.  Take your pick.  You can be locked in the house, or your children can be locked in an institution.

4.  Yes.  Isolation can be a real problem.  But it can be overcome.  I have a wonderful network of friends who also care for their own children, and the time we spend together has pretty much eliminated all sense of being "locked in."   If you are willing to reach out to other mothers, so that you plug into a wider community, well, it's really a very balanced and healthy existence.

Guess what I said.  Guess what I wish I'd said.