Below is a homily delivered by Deacon Patrick Taylor of Portsmouth Diocese on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 2009. Not content with having heresy preached at Mass, the Deacon’s homilies are made available as reflection material for the poor parishioners to imbibe during the week. Read it and then click on ‘comments’ with your views.
Note: A brief commentary from the Portsmouth layman who sent us a copy of this heresy, follows the homily.
H O M I L Y . . .
In the Eucharist we share in a communal meal and are strengthened as one in our commmitment to Christ and to one another as well as to Christ’s mission in the Church. Now the death and resurrection of Jesus cannot be repeated or added to. The Eucharist is not a repetition or addition but a Memorial – which in Jewish tradition means making present again, a re-enactment, of some saving deed of God. Just think: when we come together at the Mass we are taken back into the3 Upper Room to share in the Last Supper as though there has been no passageof time. We should not be thinking about a dead past but an enduring present.
When we receive the Eucharist we must always remember it is the glorified Lord who is made present and not the earthly physical body of Christ. This will always remain a mystery because we simply do not know what the quality or reality of the glorified body is of whichSt Paul speaks. Theologians have disagreed for years on this subject.
What I have found helpful to reflect on is the fact that the word “body” stands in Hebrew for person and that the word “blood” means life, since this is what blood stood for in the Semitic mind. Thus we need not bother too much about macabre and rather materialistic details. When Christ said “This is my body, this is my blood”, he implied “I am really present in this bread and wine as a person, and I am fully alive”. This has allowed me to respond fully to Christ’s intent of being present in the Eucharist.
We need to note that from the earliest times the Eucharistic prayer – with the words of institution – always referred to the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as present in the Eucharist, and therefore all are present in the bread and wine because all are included in the glorified body and blood of Christ.
Now when we think of the Mass we must always remember that it is a meal but we also have to take into account that it is a sacrificial meal. We are with Christ at the Last Supper but also with him at the cross and his resurrection.
When we think of a meal we recall how we listen and communicate. At the Mass we listen to the Word of God, we speak when we pray. At the Last Supper Jesus spoke and at one point gave us the final revelation of the Father “I have made known to you all that my Father has told me; and so I h ave called you my friends”
Sometimes we also ‘offer’ during a meal. Out of friendship, and to express that friendship, guests bring gifts. We do not come with empty hands. Hosts offer an inviting table, laid with the best they have. At the Mass the table is very inviting because the bread and wine we share in take us into the body of Christ. And we come with our gifts of bread and wine which we offer to the Lord as well as our lives in the service of his name. Think then of the reciprocal love of the ord when he gives himself back to us in the transformed gifts of bread and wine.
The Eucharist is the means whereby we are all united in communion with each other.
Let me now give you a few matters to concentrate on:-
(a) the actual words of consecration are when the Priest asks that the Holy Spirit blesses and sanctifies the gifts so that they m ay become the body and blood of Christ. It is not when the Priest says the words ot eh Last Supper “Take this and eat it this is my body”. These are the words of distribution.
Father Bernard Haring the great Priest Theologian said “It is not we priests that consecrate, such that what was bread becomes the presence of christ. This mystery takes place on the occasion of the epiklesis (by the power of the Holy Spirit)
Since the Spirit consecrates within the community, if one person presides at the Eucharist, it is simply as the community’s representative, not as Christ’s.
It is interesting that Augustine spoke of the faithful as the stuff that is transformed by the Eucharist. He never mentions (any more than the New Testament did, or Ignatius did) the power of the priest to consecrate. He said it is the faithful recipients who make the body of Christ present by becoming it. Over and over again Augustine places the validity of the Sacrament of the recipient’s unity with God and each other, not in any preceding words of magic.
(b) It is also interesting that Augustine rejects the idea that teeth and chewing and swallowing makes one receive the body and blood of Christ. Augustijne says that we cannot take Christ into us. “The symbol is received, it is eaten, it disappears – but can Christ’s body disappear, Christ’s Church disappear? Far from it. We must be taken into Christ’s body, not he to ours. END.
COMMENTARY FROM LAYMAN, PORTSMOUTH DIOCESE…
Pat Taylor was probably one of the first lay Deacons appointed in the 70`s by Bishop Worlock. He is now much older but no wiser. The Community Centred approach to the Eucharist triumphs the Christ centred approach in most First Holy Communion Programmes throughout Britain. Children are taught neither to love or adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Nobody seems to have noticed this. Paul Inwood first came out with this idea that the bread and wine change when the Holy Spirit is invoked not at the words of the priest “This is my Body…” or “Hoc est enim Corpus….” It is part of an ongoing attack on the priesthood. All (Deacon) Pat says comes from the Diocese not himself. The idea that the priest acts `in persona christi` is not believed by most priests in our diocese, according to Fr Grufferty, after a survey on this matter by Vicki Stephens our religious education supremo. Hernce the priest acts for the community and not Christ. As you may know Bishop Hollis is trying to do away with priests and this is the underlying teaching that will come to the fore. It is all so awful. It really needs airing. . I will inform the parish (that it is to appear on the CT blog). Unfortunately the Parish Priest of ST Joseph’s, Basingstoke is Fr Mark Hogan. I believe his is orthodox but is keeping his head down. Irrespective, this diabolical plot against the Church must be brought to light. END
Well – does Fr Mark Hogan PP have any right to keep his head down while this Deacon preaches heresy to his congregation? I say “no way!” What do you say? Click on ‘comments’ with your views, now.
