Project Canterbury The Eucharist as the Center of Unity
By Ralph Adams CramA paper read at an Eucharistic Conference in All Saints,' Ashmont, Oct. 12, 1923. American Church Quarterly volume 14, 1923
pp 265-276
AMIDST the manifold terrors and portents of a dissolving social system, now in the vortex of signs and wonders that declare the unhonoured ending of the era of peculiar civilizations we ourselves have known, that another of unknown character and quantity may take its place, there are indeed many signs of hope, forecasts of a better future than perhaps we deserve, and amongst them none is more heartening than the consciousness that arrives at last that the disunion of Christendom is an evil thing, evilly engendered; that it lies close at the root of current (calamities, and that—humanly speaking—only through speedy reunion may anything of value be saved from the wreck and the world enticed into paths that may lead, not to final calamity and a new era of Dark Ages, but to vital regeneration and a true renaissance. By force of events the truth is fast being borne in upon us that, so great is the need, so monstrous the courses we have boastfully followed for so many generations, nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of Catholic reunion; neither inherited prejudice nor personal predilection, neither pride however justified, nor self-interest however poignant and commanding. It is not for us to say "the fault lies elsewhere, let another take the first step." We cannot hold back on some technical point of dogma, some detail of discipline, crying ''non possumus" when in our souls we mean "non placet." Schism is so grave a sin, continued disunion so acute a peril, that we are bound in honour to waive anything, everything, except the final and solemn monitions of conscience, and even here, when conscience seems to call most clearly, I conceive it to be our duty very scrupulously to search within ourselves that we may test the call and be positively assured that it is not conditioned by undertones of pride, stubbornness and self-interest. The time that, is left us is not very great; there is weakening and failure of organic religion all along the line, hidden from common sight by the dazzle of conferences and congresses and the sporadic fires of local activities. These indeed are, and we thank God for them, but meanwhile sixty-five per cent of the people of these United States ignore religion altogether, while in government, in industry and commerce, in education, in social life, religion. bulks less and less and degeneration steadily continues. We have tried sectarianism and manifold isolations; we have rejected the one, visible, organic Church of Catholicity for the vision of a mystical Church Invisible of Protestant theory, and the results are pressing upon us, the fruits ripe for the fall. What shall stand in the way of repentance and amendment? Is there any sacrifice one would not make, is there any humiliation one would not endure, if so we could make an end, and bring fulfilment to the prayer ''that they all may be one?''
Something of this consciousness, this desire, is stirring in the souls of the minority that still profess and call themselves Christians. On every hand there are tentative efforts at compromise and minor concessions. An half dozen sects of some sect in itself perhaps a scission from another, meet and argue—and then agree to disagree; two or three denominations, now divided only by the lingering traditions of old history and the embarrassments of vested interests approach, concede, and in a few instances actually coalesce, as regards the major part of their adherents, though an irreconcilable few, pursuing the law of their being, withdraw and form yet another sect, whereby the number remains the same, though the proportions are changed. Vast movements, universal in the scope of their vision, come into being, with much mechanism and an inclusive charity, striving with prayer and fasting to find the least common denominator of two hundred mathematical abstractions; brave under adversity, patient under discouragement, cheerful and ardent under rebuffs and refusals. And after twenty years of effort can it be said that anything actually has been accomplished?
Why, with the ardent and unquestioned will, is the result so negligible? Under correction, I submit that we have made the wrong approach. Honestly and earnestly we have established our "irreducible minimum," we have proffered concessions instead of offering a gift, and as always under similar circumstances the result is puzzlement on the part of those we would engage, and a resentment not always unjustified. The old "Quadrilateral" still stands, though with added extenuations and concessions. The inspiration of the Bible, the Divinity of Christ, the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, and the three-fold ministry of Apostolic succession. This, of course, is perfectly sound and right, as far as it goes. Apart from certain rampant minorities it is hardly conceivable that, in the matter of Biblical inspiration substantial unity could not be effected on the basis of St. Augustine's definition (Ep. LXXXII) reaffirmed by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical, Providentissimus Deus, while the deity of Christ and His birth of a Pure Virgin also offer no obstacles except in the case of a similar rampant minority, which can offer here no sufficient ground for consideration or tolerance. It is when we come to the question of the Catholic Sacraments that the rift of final division shows itself and the grave weakness of all schemes of reunion thus far offered. In two respects we are seriously at fault. In the first place we balk the issue by requiring acceptance of two Sacraments alone, as rites only, without regard to their essential nature, implicitly admitting any interpretation from that of the Catholic Church to that of the most Zwinglian of Protestants, and in the second place we impose the Episcopate and the laying-on of hands as a mere matter of discipline or order, permitting here, as there, any interpretation that may commend itself to the private judgment of the several sects, or individuals. In a word, what we offer is union on the basis of forms, not on that of essential significance.
Now it is true that as forms only, divested of their Catholic content, both the Holy Eucharist and the ministry of Apostolical Succession are rites which neither we nor any one else is justified in proposing as a sine qua non of reunion, and for my own part I think that Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists and other Protestants are quite right in rejecting our advances on these terms. If we admit as orthodox, or at least tenable, the view that the Holy Eucharist is no more than a commemorative form which can stimulate certain subjective spiritual reactions in the participant, have we the right to demand that this rite shall not be administered except by those duly authorized by bishops who claim a line of tactual succession back to the Apostles f And if we demand acceptance of the rite and practice of ordination to the sacred ministry through such channels alone, on the grounds of unbroken precedent and seemly procedure, without insistence on the essential character and function. of the sacerdotal order, how can we be surprised if here also we meet with rebuff? Were we to say, ''Yes, we ask you to accept the episcopate in the line of Apostolical succession since this is the Divinely ordained method for the making and commissioning of priests who can serve as agents for the accomplishing of the miracle whereby bread and wine become verily and indeed the true Body and Blood of Christ; for the offering of his Body and Blood as a Holy Sacrifice acceptable before God for the living and the dead: and finally as ministers for the forgiveness of sins through the Sacrament of Penance—if we said this, then, though our offer might be rejected with equal alacrity, at least our position would be clearly defined, and it would be Protestants themselves who would be the first to admit that, though they denied our arguments, we were quite justified in standing firmly on that foundation since our contentions (mistaken as they held them to be) were so vast in their claims and implications that we could do nothing else.
I cannot escape the conviction that the efforts towards reunion that have been engendered in the Episcopal Church have proved fruitless, and will, because we have compromised on essentials and have not been wholly frank and straightforward in our attitude. It is here as in the case of the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. Certainly the majority of laymen who desire this wish the privilege for purposes of devotion, of adoration, as in the rest of the Catholic Church of the West, yet the bishops are asked to sanction the practice solely on the ground that it is desirable in the case of those who are ill, a request coupled at times with what holds the appearance of a disingenuous disavowal of any desire to use the Sacrament, so reserved, after the Catholic fashion. Is this quite frank, and if not does it deserve to succeed!
So with the question of reunion. No doubt it is true Catholic unity that is desired by the protagonists of the several movements, but it is not easy to admit that the proffered terms bear this appearance. We ardently strive for the least common denominator, minimizing differences, scaling down our irreducible minimum both in bulk and in definiteness, promising not to scrutinize interpretations if only the forms or the words be accepted. This was not the way of St. Paul, of St. Athanasius, of St. Thomas Aquinas, of St. Bernard, it was not even the way of Luther, Calvin and Knox, nor of any prophets, apostles or missioners, whether they were right or wrong, who had in themselves the fire of conviction, the white passion of what they believed to be right and the living truth, and for which they were willing to suffer, or even to die.
I admit the peculiar difficulty of the present situation. A St. Paul or a St. Athanasius confronted a comparatively simple problem; one settled conviction against another; two forces only in clear-cut contest. Now the problem of unity as it presents itself to us of Ecclesia Anglicana, is that of one force exercising itself against three—the Roman Church, the Orthodox Churches of the East, and Protestantism. Rome has complete unity of dogma, discipline and practice, the East has no unity of discipline but substantial identity of doctrine, not only within itself but with Rome, but. Protestantism has no unity of doctrine, discipline or practice, being divided into some two hundred mutually antagonistic sects which can not even achieve a working unity amongst themselves. Moreover, and here is the fatal weakness, the same thing can be said of us, of the power that makes the tentative advances, for within our bounds we count and include almost as many "varieties of religious experience" as are found in Protestantism itself. The Anglican Communion has not taken a strong, definite, irenic position simply because it would not have been backed up by a majority of its own adherents, and any effort in this direction might have resulted in disruption. What we have been trying for was not only the least common denominator between Rome, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Protestantism and ourselves, but also the same mathematical coefficient within our own membership. What result, other than failure, could have followed?
Is the case then hopeless? No, only in so far as the methods now adopted are concerned. There is a way; I do not know that it would show immediate results, but I believe it is the right way, and if it is, it would achieve the blessing of God, and that is the first consideration, for unless we have this the cleverest schemes, the most ingenious promises, must end in nothing.
First of all, let us abandon compromises and minimising and the acceptance of any private interpretation of things which are valueless apart from the special interpretation placed upon them. This means as a prerequisite to reunion: acceptance of the inspiration of the Scriptures in the Catholic sense and when interpreted by Catholic authority; the Deity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Catholic sense and as defined in the Catholic Creeds; the Apostolic Order through the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying-on of hands for the making of a priest who can consecrate a valid Eucharist, offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, and forgive sins through the Sacrament of Penance. Finally, acceptance of the Catholic Sacramental system and philosophy with the Seven Sacraments of the Church, of which one, the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, both Communion and Sacrifice, is, and in its Catholic sense, the very centre of unity.
It is here that we touch the point I would emphasize today; the absolute, essential necessity of this Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, this particular and incomparable Presence of God in the tabernacles of our churches through the Reserved Sacrament, as the fundamentals of any vital and righteous Christian unity. How, for us, can it be otherwise? Consider for a moment. If the Catholic Church has been right throughout the ages, and after the Canon of the Mass there is present before us in Chalice and Host, not bread and wine but verily and indeed the true Body and Blood of the only-begotten Son of God, how can there be communion and effective unity with those who honestly hold that no miracle has taken place, and that there is nothing there but a bit of bread and a sup of wine; who do not bow down in adoration before the Incarnate God; who receive this Divine Sacrament as an empty symbol and deny that it is in any sense an Holy Sacrifice, acceptable before God for the quick and the dead?
I have never been able to understand, I do not understand now, how there can be any compromise, any accommodation on this point. These things are possible in many matters, perhaps even over certain credal questions, for after all what are the Creeds but the best possible verbal definitions of mysteries so great, so ultimate in their nature, that they cannot actually be expressed in words, cannot wholly be apprehended by the human understanding. Here however, so far as the fact is concerned, two mutually destructive interpretations cannot exist side by side. Either the Catholic Church is right or Protestantism is right. The Blessed Sacrament cannot be at the same time the very Body and Blood of God, and only a poetic but empty symbol. Ton cannot juggle with definitions in this case, nor charitably agree to disagree. If a nation cannot exist half bond and half free, how can a Church exist in a substantial unity where one moiety prostrates itself in adoration before the Consecrated Host while the other declares such obeisance idolatrous—as it is, indeed, if the latter is right? Given unanimity on every other point of the Christian Faith, does not this one divergence establish a severance that makes the other agreements of no avail? Surely this is a matter so holy, so vital, so penetrating in its implications that it stands by itself, the final and absolute test of organic unity.
It does not seem to me that we can blink this fact. It does not seem to me that we can longer put it aside in the interests of expediency and good feeling, any more than we can follow the same course in the case of the Deity of Our Lord and His birth of a pure Virgin. In each instance one or other of the opposed contentions is right; no system of accommodation can include them both without affronting human intelligence and subjecting itself to the charge of double-dealing. Certainly-we can work side by side, as we do now, and in charity and fellowship, with those who refuse to accept the position we hold, but how can we receive them into the unity of the visible Church when at each Celebration of the Holy Communion the gulf opens between us the moment the words of Consecration are spoken and we ourselves, but alone and by ourselves, believe that the Divine Miracle has been accomplished and before us, veiled but veritable, is Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
This is the touchstone of unity; not a judicious irreducible minimum, nor an inclusive programme of generalities, nor yet a firm avowal of the belief in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, nor even an acceptance of Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour of men. These things draw us together for righteous strife and honourable labours, but the Catholic Church is a special and definite thing, having its being, preserving its unique identity, in the midst of these, and the chief method of operation of this Church, this living and potent organism founded and energized by God Himself, is the seven-fold cycle of the Catholic Sacraments, the consummation of which is the Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
If this is so, as we, with the Catholic Church throughout the ages, most firmly believe, then we can hardly escape the conclusion that thus far, though with intentions the most devout and most honourable, we have erred in our efforts at a recovery of Christian unity. If this cannot be a reality except through acceptance, ex animo, of the Church's sacramental system, and especially of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar as the veritable Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and as the effective Sacrifice of the New Law, then certainly it follows that we can neither expect nor strive for any union with those bodies of Christians that exist on the basis of explicit denial of these things we hold to be axiomatic. On the other hand we are equally bound to expect and strive for union with those bodies that do accept and avow these things and so, in essentials, are at one with ourselves.
In what already has been said I know I have laid myself open to the charge of making the Holy Eucharist not the centre of unity but a further cause of division, but is this so? True, it does stop us from trying to find some accommodation between irreconcilables and therefore would deter us from taking further part in any plans for possible organic union with those religious bodies that are unable to accept the reality and validity of the Catholic Sacraments, but apart from this, which is a detail and temporary, is it not conceivable that the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, in Itself and in the devotions that centre about It, may become a greater spiritual force for accomplishing this unity than anything hitherto attempted? Essential as they are, the propositions thus far laid down as fundamental have a certain abstract quality, with an appeal to intellectual assent, that can hardly serve as that flaming spiritual power that can draw men away from inherited ways and acquired predispositions. Certainly this is true of the insistence on the form of the Holy Eucharist apart from its essence, and of the even greater stress that is laid on episcopal ordination when the reason therefor is put in the background. Neither of them so stated,—and it is they that arouse the most opposition—possesses the personal appeal, the direct spiritual motive power that must be when it comes to so drastic a problem as the overturning of age-long customs and habits of thought. Love of Christ, individual, passionate attachment to the Person of Our Lord and a fervid desire to do His will—these are the final tests of Christianity, and in them is fervour and fire—as these are not in the intellectual postulates of so many schemes of reunion. But it is just these living and creative energies that are engendered by the Communion, the Sacrifice, the Presence that are the three-fold aspects of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. It is the very counterpart of personal devotion and loyalty to Christ, the focalizing of this devotion and this loyalty in the most personal and poignant forms.
Those of us who know the significance and power, the love and the devotion, the consolation and the succor of this most holy Sacrament, accepted in this sense, which is the unfaltering doctrine of the Church for more than fifteen centuries, must, I think, feel most profoundly that here indeed is the very centre of unity. Instead, therefore, of asking our separated brethren to make various concessions to the practices to which we are bound; instead of striving to extort from them unwilling intellectual assent to a number of formal propositions, should we not rather try to show them that we have something to offer that they have not, nor even claim to have; something that is the perfect expression and culmination of that love for Our Lord they rightly hold to be the foundation stone of Christianity itself? If we could concentrate on this, pushing to one side all debatable questions of discipline and order, proclaiming just this flaming reality, these glad tidings of great joy, should we not be in a stronger position than we are today, coming as we should with a great gift in our hands—the strengthening, consoling, vivifying Presence of Christ, Who, because He so loved the world, is so tabernacled amongst men.
And if this truth of the nature and power and function of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar is once accepted, everything else for which we contend follows of necessity; the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures as denned by Catholic authority, the Deity of Christ and His Virgin birth, Apostolic succession, the other Sacraments, the sacramental principle, all are consequences of this pregnant and comprehensive truth. If once it is lost it is not easy to build up to it by dogmatic or liturgical stages, as we have found, but if once it can be regained by experience or the mercy of God, then, so great is its power, so focal and culminating its position, all else follows inevitably, from the essential affirmations of the Creeds down to mere questions of ritual and liturgies. Truly it is the very centre of Catholic truth, the talisman of Catholic unity.
It seems to me therefore that, centering all our energies around this one supreme and comprehensive truth, we should not only make our appeal on this line alone, but should in every way hold up this great gift we bring ever more prominently and pressingly. It might almost be expressed in a phrase: "We do not ask concessions, we only bring a gift." If we could do this, if the Church could formally proclaim its adherence to the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist as Communion, Sacrifice and Presence, then her position would be so secure and so unmistakable that she could officially take her place in federations and councils and other works of cooperation where membership now would be compromising to her integrity as an autonomous portion of the One Holy Catholic Church.
Quite seriously therefore I feel that we are bound to take no further part in schemes for the recovery of Christian unity where the acceptance of the Catholic sacramental system, and the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist are not established as a sine qua non. Yet without this unity the case of Christian civilization seems increasingly hopeless, and certainly we can not sit idle at such a juncture, simply because none of the movements in vogue at present can command our support. That we at least may show our faith and our willingness I venture to suggest two things. First, the founding of a League of Catholic Unity, established on such fundamental principles as I have tried to indicate, and pledged to work ardently, earnestly, and with unlimited self-sacrifice, for the achievement of organic unity between the Eastern, Roman and Anglican Communions, and any other bodies or individuals that will accept the premises. Second, a renewed and intensified devotion to Our Lord in the most holy Sacrament of the Altar. Every Mass that is added to weekly services, every opportunity that is offered for adoration through Reservation, Exposition, Benediction, where these are possible, each repetition of such gatherings as this in honour of Jesus Christ present in the Holy Eucharist; all things of this nature are potent in themselves, and far more so than mechanistic schemes of a fictitious unity based on covenants, treaties and verbal compromise. And to them I would like added, several times a year, and in some church in Boston for example, a Novena with special intention for Catholic unity through the Blessed Sacrament, with continuous exposition and veneration. Indeed there are many ways whereby spiritual energy may be generated, or effectively invoked, and after all it is by spiritual power that this, and all things else, may be accomplished, rather than by mechanical or material devices, however ingenious and well contrived.
The call goes out to us at this time for a new ardour and intensity in our defence of the Catholic Faith. By this only may the world be saved from the bitter penalties of the errors into which it has fallen during the last five centuries. The counsels—and Councils—of diplomats and politicians, the machinations of "big business," the clever mechanisms of the exploiters of science and of efficiency experts, the panaceas of the new. educators and the prophets of new philosophies and religions—all avail nothing. It is only Christ Who can save through His Church and her Sacraments, and just in proportion as this Church achieves unity and authority is her power increased in effectiveness and widened in its scope. Nor is it only here, in this wide field, that we are called to action. On every hand, in the most intimate relationships, this faith is now assailed with increasing arrogance and determination. There is no doctrine, no practice of the universal Church that is not called in question with impunity. And there is one doctrine, one practice that meets each denial; the Catholic doctrine of Holy Mass, as Communion and as Sacrifice, the Catholic practice of Reservation with all that follows therefrom. Here in one perfect synthesis are gathered up every conclusive argument against the multitudinous new-old heresies that now flourish, unchecked if not unrebuked. It is in very fact a miracle of comprehensive refutation, for every necessary affirmation follows from it. Until the Episcopal Church accepts and declares as essential to communion with herself, this Catholic doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, and until her practice, including Reservation for purposes of adoration, is brought into conformity with this doctrine, I believe she will still remain practically impotent before the denials and defiances of disloyalty.
I am not blind to the implications that follow from what I have said. I believe we are bound in honour and faithfulness to accept them at any cost. We stand at the parting of the ways and the choice must be made forthwith. Through charity and a passion for peace and the fear of strife we have compromised and conceded and bargained, but somewhere there must be an end. Is that end now? For my own part I think so, for the question is no longer one of expediency, the problem no longer simply internal and domestic. Suddenly it has widened out until it includes the whole world and we see that there is no other power that can redeem us save only Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, as He and the Father and the Holy Ghost come to us through the Sacraments of Holy Church.
And amongst these, personal to each one of us, intimate with a closeness the world knows nothing of, sacred and holy beyond all power of expression, even of comprehension, is the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ: Communion, Sacrifice, Presence. The bond that unites us with those who hold as we hold, is a bond that is closer than any other that experience can offer. The gulf that separates us from those that hold not as we hold, is a gulf that may not be passed.
Pray then, and work, for the unity of the Church through the Holy Sacrament of the Altar; ready, with a willing mind, to sacrifice all else, without limit or reservations, in defence of this most sacred of all the gifts of God to man. Single in heart, single in purpose, we may go forward with incense, scattered flowers and songs of praise in the train of Christ present in the Sacred Host, at once the Divine Instrument of our salvation, and the Divine Ensign of triumph, of the Victory that overcometh the world.
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