February 27, 2009

Trusting Your Doctrinal Instincts

Once when I was in formation a friar came to teach us about the Eucharist. In an effort to illuminate our understanding of the real Presence of Christ in the eucharistic species, he developed a certain charming metaphor.

I had my doubts about whether this metaphor led to a proper Catholic understanding. Last night, to my surprise, I ran into this metaphor for the Eucharist again--in the writings of Ulrich Zwingli!

3 comments:

Jeanne said...

Don't keep us in suspense! What was the metaphor?

Anonymous said...

How frightening. Zwingli was seriously evil.

He abolished the sacrament of confession, and annointing of the sick, as well as the Holy Sacrifice of the mass. He profaned the relics of saints, and destroyed art and statues, and melted down sacred vessels into coins. He took up arms against the Catholic who attempted to live with him in peace.

Even Martin Luther thought he was too violent!

Just horrible!

Anonymous said...

Can we assume that it the analogy of the king presenting the ring to the queen? I think that this was used by some of the reformers to reject the teaching on transubstantiation. If so, then whoever taught you was in error just as much as the reformers were in error.