To God, About God

Sola fide was our first and loudest battle cry. This was the core of our Lutheran Christian faith. It is truly impossible to understand the protestant movement and any Protestant communion springing from the Reformation, without understanding the importance of sola fide as the fulcrum of the theology. Indeed, it was Martin Luther’s main objection to the established doctrine of his time that the grace of Christ was open to all who place faith in Him, and faith alone, not because of any merit of their own, but solely due to the free gift of Christ. Salvation (freedom from the debt that I owe due to the burden of my sin) is given, more specifically imputed, to me as a sheer gift.

The story line would have run something like this. Humanity after the fall (and that means each and every individual) is in a state of separation from God irreparable by human effort. God is infinite; He is infinite in Glory, infinite in majesty and honor, and infinite in goodness. When our first parents sinned and violated the balance of justice by failing to give that infinite goodness the obedience it demanded, they incurred a punishment that was equal to the one offended; they owed a debt that was equal to the grandeur of the offended goodness. In other words, by sinning against the infinite God they incurred an infinite punishment. There is now an infinite debt owed to the infinite God.

But finite creatures could never pay an infinite debt: only an infinite being, equal to the dignity of the one offended, could offer a payment worthy of sin. This is precisely why the suffering and death of Christ was necessary to atone for sin. Because Christ was fully God and consubstantial with the Father in every way, He could satisfy the infinite anger of the Father by His death. And, due to Christ’s nature as man, the payment offered for sin can be offered to each and every man or woman who accepts it. [2]  

But here is the crux of the matter (no pun intended). Accepting this payment for sin (what salvation consisted of for me as a Lutheran) is accomplished on the part of each individual through an act of faith and this act alone. Once I place faith in Jesus Christ and his saving death for me, my debt of sin is erased and the punishment owed to God by me because of my sin is wiped clean; in other words, I am saved! This is what salvation consists of; this is the meaning of receiving salvation; not that I have done anything for God, anything for which He now owes to me salvation, but only that He has done this for me. I was barred from Heaven due to my sin and, now that my sin is gone, this access has once again been granted.[3]

It does not take a reader with deep insight to perceive the profoundly legalistic tone that this understanding of salvation presupposes. The entire narrative of creation, sin, fall, incarnation, redemption, and salvation, is seen through the purely legalistic lens where the primary, if not the only, analogate to sin is that of the breaking of a law, not one of a disease of the soul, nor one of a rupture of relationship. The entire cosmic drama of sin and salvation is read through the lens of law, debt, and legal punishment. Through this lens, the reality that bars me from union with God is not so much an intrinsic quality welling up from the depths of my soul (or lack of such a quality), but an external statute that has been imputed to me, declaring me unsuitable for union with God.  For Luther, sin provokes not so much the rupture of a relationship with God that I was born to enjoy (the fulfillment of which is heaven itself), but the external legal declaration that I am guilty of sin and am not owed such a relationship.

From such a perspective salvation does not consist in the transformation of my soul, but in a legal imputation. From such a perspective, once this legal banishment from heaven has been lifted, there remains nothing more for me to do. There is now nothing in my power that can add to or subtract from my legal standing before God. This was my understanding of freedom in Christ. This was my understanding of what being a Christian meant.

One might ask, “I thought this was an essay regarding the Catholic belief in the Eucharist: what does this system of salvation have to do with a belief in the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament?” The answer to such a question is, nothing! Absolutely nothing at all! And this is the whole point. There is no connection between the 16^th century invention of a legalistic salvation in Christ and the belief in His real presence in the Sacrament. If I accept the system of sin and redemption posed by the 16^th century reformers, a redemption that is played out entirely on the field of legal statutes and transposed punishment, where salvation occurs as a legal declaration external to me--if all this is the case, from where will I find a suitable meaning and purpose for Christ to come to me, flesh and blood? If the whole drama of my salvation occurs by a juridic fiat from God declaring me righteous, after which point He will only look upon me as possessing the legal requirements for heaven, what more could be effected in my soul by receiving the real presence of His Son?

Let me try to explain my point in another way, from the perspective of my personal experience of this dilemma. There was one point in my life, when I was about 19 years old, when the massive implications of belief in the real presence dawned on me. It was during a Lutheran church service where communion was being celebrated. I looked on the altar where the pastor was saying the words of institution and I realized that, if it is really true that Jesus is present here on the altar, if it is really true that He is here with the same intensity of presence by which He was present to the apostles, if this is really true, then what is happening on the altar in front of me is the most important thing in the world. If it is true that God has performed such a gesture of condescension that He comes down to me in His body and blood, no other point of the Christian faith could trump the meaning and significance of this event. What in the Christian life could be more important than being in this presence and receiving this presence? If it is true, what was happening there on the altar could never be a mere after thought to the Christian life or a mere supplement to the real heart of the faith. This event of Christ coming to us must be the true drama of the Christian life; this must be the source and summit of what it means to be a Christian.

Yet I still held that the entirety of my salvation was settled and done. I was saved. I had faith in Jesus as my Lord and nothing more could be added. Yet, if this were true, what could be the meaning of this profound and earth-shattering gesture of God to come to me in His body and blood? If this event on the altar was a mere remembrance, as many Protestants claim, why the real presence? Could we not remember Christ’s passion without such condescension of God? And if the appearance of bread and wine remain the same to our senses, what greater value would they have as mere stimulants to memory if Jesus were to become their invisible substance? There must be something more going on here. There must be some greater meaning to the real presence of Christ in the elements, beyond a mere memorial. This event must be loaded with profound meaning and significance for the state of my soul, right now, as I receive the sacrament.

The only answer to the shocking reality of the real presence was that Jesus Christ is coming into my soul to transform me from the inside out. He is, in His very flesh and blood, conforming me into a little Christ (a Christian in the true sense of the word), by feeding my body and soul with His very life. Jesus Christ has not, at one single time in the past, declared me righteous before His Father in one transaction of justice. He is instead making me righteous by transforming me into Him. He is making me just by transforming me into a Saint. Justification and salvation are not two separate events with two separate causes, they are merely two aspects of the same reality; the very transformation of my soul into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This is the heart of the Christian life: transformation in Christ.

What I was holding to as a Lutheran were two beliefs that were not synchronized with one another. In my struggle to sustain identity as a Protestant Christian I was pushing against two fronts, on opposite sides, with two very different arguments; arguments that, if one of them were true, would render the other difficult to explain, if not obsolete. Once I realized the profound meaning of Christ’s words when he said, “this is my body,” and “this is my blood,” I could never go back to believing the teaching that faith alone saved my soul. Christ’s true presence in the sacrament must be the source and summit of my Christian life. Christ’s life and presence in me is the salvation of my soul.

The history of the church is filled with examples of great heretics turned orthodox faithful, and great intellectuals who, after pouring over the profoundest questions, discover the timeless truths of the Catholic faith. I wish that mine were one more of those stories. However, my journey to the Catholic Church is much less heroic than my hubris would like to flaunt and, although my imagination and memory can weave back into my own story a theological depth and insight that I have only subsequently acquired, my story lacked the sophistication that my current pride would like to boast. Far from proceeding through these lofty heights, my journey to embracing the Catholic teaching regarding the Eucharist is no more than one of a sincere believing Christian: trying to come to terms with his own beliefs, trying to take the tradition of Christianity that was handed on to him and distill out of its many tenants and beliefs the core of God’s message to him, trying to struggle with the God who he loves so much in order to grow closer to this God. Indeed (if there even is one) this is my only boast. All I wanted or desired, from the beginning of my path until the present day, was to understand God more deeply, to understand Him more so that I could love Him more, to love Him more in order to grow in union with Him.

I was raised as a Missouri Synod Lutheran in suburban Ohio and, like most Lutheran children, was very well educated in the faith. Perhaps it is a hangover from their Prussian and Teutonic roots that Lutherans take so seriously the catechizing of their young in the faith, but I did receive this blessing and, now as an adult, I am very grateful for it. I enjoyed a very thorough and systematic education in the scriptures and the propositions of Luther’s Small Catechism (the primary text that was studied second to scripture). When I was growing up, we had a strong identity as Lutherans. We were proud of being Lutheran. We were convinced that we knew precisely why we were Lutheran and why we were not anything else. Due to these strong convictions, the Missouri Synod Lutheranism within which I was raised was truly “Protestant” in the real sense of the word; that is, they had a strong sense of what they were NOT, of what they were pushing against and protesting. First, I learned that we were absolutely NOT Catholic; the Roman Church was the first enemy that needed avoiding. Second, I learned that we were not like the other non-sacramental reformed churches. We differed fundamentally from both of these groups and held a sort of golden mean between two radically different and erroneous extremes.

With regards to the first protest, that we were not Catholics, there were two pillars of our faith that identified us: sola fide, that salvation is by “faith alone” and not by righteous works; and sola scriptura, that all divine revelation is contained in the 66 books of sacred scripture (opposed to the Catholic 73 books) without deference to any magisterial hierarchical authority and only partial deference to church tradition which we saw as functioning merely as an interpretive aid for understanding scripture. For me, the more important of these two pillars, by far, was the belief in faith alone as the means of justification. Although Sola Scriptura was essential, sola fide was the core of my Christianity, as I will explain below.

With regards to the second protest, that we were not like the other non-sacramental churches springing from the protestant reformation, we rooted our identity in a great Lutheran teaching drilled into my head like the great “hear, O Israel” of the old testament, a truth that Martin Luther himself fought long and hard to preserve, the truth of the “real presence” of Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. It might come as a surprise to many Catholics, but orthodox Lutherans place great stress on this point; there is emphasis placed upon Christ’s literal words at the last supper, “this is my body” and “this is my blood.” I was taught that, when I receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion (for this is what we called it; the word Eucharist was unknown to me until adulthood), I was truly receiving the “real” body and “real” blood of the Lord, Jesus Christ. This is what I was taught. This is what I understood.

As a child and as a teenager I did not question the word “real” in the phrase “real presence”; I just accepted it. I did not demand theological nuances like I later would; I did not demand an ontological explanation for how Christ’s presence could be “real” and yet the taste, smell, sight, and texture of bread and wine remain, as if they also endured as “real” as well. Luther’s Small Catechism expresses this reality by saying that Christ’s presence is “with, in, and under the bread.”^[1]

Such a statement might seem simplistically metaphorical now, but at that time, it seemed good enough for me. I questioned no further. It is indeed true, as I would subsequently learn, that there are profound differences between the Catholic understanding of what takes place at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass designated by the word “transubstantiation” and what Lutheran and Anglican theologians understand as “consubstantiation,” but this is beyond the scope of this short essay. The point is this… I believed it. As a Lutheran, I believed that, in Holy Communion, the true body and blood of Jesus Christ came to me.

This was the Lutheran position, as I knew it; we were engaged in a two front battle for self-identity, perched, as the sole bearers of true Christianity, between two errors. On one side, we maintained a belief in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament, in opposition to the bulk of reformed Protestantism, and on the other we maintained that our salvation was by “faith alone” and not works in opposition to the ancient Church of Rome. As I mentioned above, it was on this latter front, the protest against the Catholic Church’s understanding of salvation as being a matter of faith and works, that our first and primary identity as Protestants rested. To understand this, let me focus on what the sola fide aspect of my faith truly meant.

To be continued in "My Journey from Lutheranism to the Eucharist (part two)"

The parable of the Prodigal Son features a character I can identify with. Saint Maximus the Confessor writes, “Again, he told of how that Father, who is goodness itself, was moved with pity for his profligate son who returned and made amends by repentance; how he embraced him, dressed him once more in the fine garments that befitted his own dignity, and did not reproach him for any of his sins.”

In Luke 15, Christ reminds us of the life-changing love the Father has for us. Reflecting upon my own life, I realize how easy it is to lose sight of this love, especially when we don’t keep vigilant on Christ’s desert path. At times this path appears lined with enormous billboards of temptation. Whereas my journey forward seems lonely and narrow, these temptations can practically seem lit up with the neon of the Las Vegas Strip. Sometimes, I can lose track of how far I’ve already walked –  how much progress I’ve already made. Like Lot’s wife in the Book of Genesis, I feel like turning around to catch a glimpse of the life I’ve left behind.

Indeed, Christ’s words in the Gospel are confirmed by the wealth of my personal experience with sin. First, we learn that disobedience to the will of God inevitably leads to sin and death. This is precisely what the Prodigal Son encounters in the Parable. Departing his true home for the world’s deceptive promises of happiness, and seemingly emboldened by his father’s mercy, the disobedient son enjoys the “good life” for probably quite some time. But where does that lead him? He has to face the consequences sooner or later, and he finds his soul just as sullied as his body is by mud. Confronted by his own misery, he starts the long “walk of shame” all the way home.

But what is the Father’s response? Since his son’s departure, he has not slept well. He has sent emissaries to search for him. He has scoured the horizon daily, waiting for the shadow of his son to appear. “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” The shame of the son is covered by the overwhelming love of the Father.

In “The Problem of Pain,” C.S. Lewis says that “if God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had.” Jesus did not give us this parable to tell us about those sinners over there, yonder. This is a story about you and me — that Our Heavenly Father will accept us even when we’ve hit rock bottom. He waits for us in the confessional. All we can do is repent; meanwhile, God supplies the grace to cover our sins and inject life into the soul.

Now, having come face to face with the Father’s mercy, we surely feel that deep desire to return something to the Lord. What could possibly suffice? In Psalm 101, the Psalmist finds himself in a similar position of inadequacy.

“We have in our day no prince, prophet, or leader, no holocaust, sacrifice, oblation, or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you. But with contrite heart and humble spirit, let us be received; as though it were holocausts of rams and bullocks, or thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be in your presence today as we follow you unreservedly; for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.”

What could I possibly offer to the Lord to repay Him? After going through the possibilities among my material possessions, I am struck once again by the realization that I must daily offer Him my life, inadequate as it might be. It’s not a fair trade for Him, but it’s an exchange that Christ makes perfect.  

I pray for the Lord’s mercy as we approach the final days of Lent. Through the intercession of our Holy Father Dominic, may the Lord continue to mold us into holy preachers, intent only on the salvation of souls.

An anonymous early Renaissance-era English poet once wrote,

Where griping griefs the heart would wound

And doleful dumps the mind oppress,

There music with her silver sound

With speed is wont to send redress.

One would be hard-pressed to find a time, place, or people in history that did not make music. Music, indeed, seems to be a fundamentally human activity where sound and silence work together to form a language that expresses more than is possible in ordinary speech. It is no wonder, really, that most religions make use of music, precisely for its ability to suggest something beyond the ordinary. Far from being seen merely as a recreational device or a commercial commodity, ancient and medieval musicians and philosophers saw music as something pertaining to the harmony (from the Greek word for “joint”) of the universe and of man. By following the design of the Creator, nature made music; by living lives of virtue, man’s life was music; by making sounds through instruments, man expressed and imitated the music of life and nature. When several people join together to sing songs of virtue and truth, a true, just and good community is formed. Due to the power of music, it is no wonder, then, that, in the West, music was carefully prepared for the source and summit of Christian life: the Mass.

Many contemporary Catholics might be surprised to know that the dominant use of hymns at Mass is a relatively recent innovation, and is actually not the preferred mode of singing according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. While hymns have their rightful place in the Divine Office, what characterized the Mass throughout the centuries was the use of antiphons found already in the text of the Mass itself. Antiphons are so named because they were done to sound (Greek phone “sound”) back and forth (Greek anti “in return”), between people in the form of a musical dialogue. These antiphons, typically taken from the Psalms and Sacred Scripture, were not randomly chosen by music directors or clergy members, but were fundamentally linked to the spirituality, the understanding, and the praying of every individual Mass. Instead of singing human poems like the pagans, Christians sang the song of the Holy Spirit, i.e., Scripture. And by singing Scripture, the People of God became harmonized together in the Spirit, and thus they themselves became a Holy Song to God. Throughout their singing, they unlocked for themselves the divine mysteries of the Lord’s Supper.

In today’s Ordinary Form of the Mass, we still have three antiphons (or four, depending on whether the Gradual replaces the Responsorial Psalm). The first is the Introit, or Entrance Chant, which accompanies the entrance procession. Historically the Introit was so important to the people that they would often name masses after its proper Introit. We see this still today with Laetare and Gaudete Sunday. The psalms of the Introit not only named the Mass, but they set the entire tone of the Mass by pointing to the profound spiritual meaning of all the texts and prayers that would be said in light of salvation history. Hence, the 13th century liturgist Guiliemus Durandus writes,

“The Mass is begun with the Introit. The Holy Fathers and the Prophets, long before the advent of Christ, hungered after these times and predicted them. Long before His coming, they offered Him their desires, their works, their praises and their prayers, all of which things are figured in the Mass. With regard to the Introit, it is the antiphon that provides us with the title of the Mass and which provides us with their poetical and prophetical predictions, the desires of their holy prayers as they patiently await the coming of the Son of God and the incarnation of God Himself.”

The other antiphons at Mass, the Offertory and the one for Communion, also use Sacred Scripture to clearly show the spiritual meaning of what is happening at Mass. The Offertory was meant to accompany the presentation of the gifts by the lay people, and it shows that this dignified action of the lay people has been foreshadowed by the great prophets, and, indeed, is now being fulfilled in the midst of the worshipping community. The Communion antiphon likewise reveals that in Eucharist, the People of God are completing what has been foreshadowed in ages past. It, therefore, is meant to move the people, emotionally and intellectually, to a greater understanding of the mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood.

To briefly illustrate how antiphons illuminate the meaning of the Mass, celebrate the participation of the lay people, and move our minds and hearts to contemplate God’s gifts, here are the antiphons from the Solemnity of The Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), and the listing of the readings for year A. Take some time to see how well they all fit together to form a united gift of prayer.

INTROIT: (Ps 80:17,2,3,11) He fed them with the finest of wheat, alleluia; and with honey from the rock he satisfied them, alleluia, alleluia. V. Rejoice in the honor of God our helper; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.

1st READING: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a

2^nd READING: 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

GOSPEL: John 6:51-59

OFFERTORY: The Lord opened the doors of heaven and rained down manna upon them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven; man ate the bread of angels, alleluia. (Psalm 77:23-25) 

COMMUNION: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him, says the Lord. (John 6:57) 

By singing together people form a community; they become harmonized with one another. By singing the antiphons at Mass, Christians form a community that is united, in Christ, to all the men and women throughout history who have anticipated, rejoiced in, and look forward again to the coming of the Lord. In an era marked so much by individualism, perhaps a way to recover and nourish our identity as the People of God, is to rediscover the immense treasure of antiphons. In an era where disputes often occur between peoples of differing tastes in liturgical music, perhaps a way to come together as a single body of worship is to join our voices together in the songs of the Mass: the antiphons.