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The
Blessed Sacrament is Truly Emmanuel
Edited
by the Rev. Msgr. Keith P. Steinhurst, P.A.
from
a larger piece by the Rev. Regis Scanlon, OFM Cap.
Can
We Call Christ a Human Being?
One must also understand that, for St. Thomas Aquinas, unless we are
speaking about God, essence (substance, nature, or form) does not
necessarily include being (esse or existence). When St. Thomas
discusses the composition of a thing other than God, he says that
"being is other than essence" and "being must be other
than its quiddity, nature, or form." Even "the being of the
intelligences must be in addition to their form" - except for
the "pure being" which is "God."
It has already been pointed out that, when the Church teaches that
Jesus is "consubstantial with us according to the human
nature," she means this in the sense of "essence," but
not in the sense of "hypostasis" or "person."
Jesus does not have a human "hypostasis" or human
"person" in common with us. This is why St. Thomas says,
"That Christ must not be called a creature." While Christ
has a full human nature or essence, this essence does not include
created being or a created hypostasis (person). The Angelic Doctor of
the Church says:
But in Christ there is no other hypostasis or person save that of
God's Word, and this person is uncreated as is clear from the
foregoing. Therefore, one cannot say without qualification:
"Christ is a creature," although one may say it with an
addition, so as to say a creature "so far as man" or
"in His human nature.
Someone might object and say that if Christ's human nature did not
have created being then Christ took on less than what we are, for our
human nature has created being. But, Pius XI quoted St. Thomas
Aquinas in his Encyclical Letter, Lux Veritatis saying:
Personality belongs to the dignity and perfection of any being
insofar as the dignity and perfection of any being require that it
should have its own existence as is understood by the term person. It
is, however, a greater dignity for anyone to exist in someone of
greater dignity than to have one's own existence. Therefore, human
nature is more dignified in Christ than in us, because in us with our
own existence it has its own personality, whereas in Christ it exists
in the person of the Word.
Thus, Pius XI teaches that "human nature" in Jesus Christ
does not have its own being or "existence," but rather
"it exists in the person of the Word." While the Son of God
assumes the essence or nature of created man (i.e., humanity), He
does not assume the being of created man. The Son of God, therefore,
does not assume human or created being. So, Jesus Christ is not a
human being except in a qualified sense. Rather, He is a divine Being.
If one were to try to say that Jesus Christ is both a human and
divine being, one would imply that Jesus Christ is both two beings
(one divine and one human) or that He was a blend of a human being
and a divine being. But, to say that Jesus Christ is two beings is to
clearly fall into the Nestorian trap. For it does not matter whether
you call the supposit of the man a person or a being and the supposit
of the God a person or being, the result is still the same - two
separate individuals. Salvation and the Catholic Faith would entirely
collapse. For, as St. Thomas says, "Hence, if the human nature
is not united to God the Word in person, it is nowise united to Him;
and thus belief in the Incarnation is altogether done away with, and
Christian faith wholly overturned."
And an attempt to mix divine being and human being into one blended
created and uncreated being would also be disastrous for the Faith.
The early Fathers of the Church found it necessary to explicitly
reject any intrusion into the Deity by created being. In his First
Letter to Serapion, probably written between the years 359-360 A.D.
from the Libyan Desert, St. Athanasius taught: "We acknowledge
the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien
element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of
creative and created being."
Finally, it is clear that Jesus Christ cannot be a human being or
created being because we are called upon by the Church to adore Jesus
Christ with "the worship known as 'latria' (act of adoration)
which may be given to God alone." But, it is idolatry to adore
anything created. Jesus Christ, therefore, can only be a divine
Being. St. Thomas says: "the adoration of latria is not given to
Christ's humanity in respect of itself, but in respect of the Godhead
to which it is united, by reason of which Christ is not less than the
Father." Similarly, Pius VI taught in "Auctorem fidei,"
August 28, 1794 that the "humanity and the very living flesh of
Christ is adored, not indeed on account of itself as mere flesh, but
because it is united to the divinity."
Thus, while it is correct to say that Jesus is fully human because
He has an essence or full human nature in common with us, we should
not say that Jesus is a human being. The "a" in the "a
human being" particularly indicates an individually existing
created human substantial form or nature. It will be most likely be
understood as human substance or human nature in the sense of a
"hypostasis," "suppositum," or
"subject," i.e., "person." And then it would be incorrect.
The hypostatic union in Jesus Christ is a mystery beyond all
telling. We will never completely understand how a fully human nature
or substantial form can be joined to a divine Person without
destroying itself or substantially altering the being of the divine
Person. We cannot even understand how a substantial form can have the
divine Person as its suppositum or being. We only know that this is
not contradictory. While Jesus Christ has a full human nature and a
full divine nature, these natures subsist in His divine Person
(hypostasis or suppositum). So, we should not call Christ a human
being, for He is a Divine Being. Jesus Christ is truly Emmanuel. He
is a divine Person and Being in human form. When we touch the hands
and fingers of Jesus Christ we are touching his divine Person. Thus,
St. John refers to the "Word of Life" as that which
"our hands have handled" (I Jn 1:1). Let us now turn our
attention to the Blessed Sacrament.
The
Blessed Sacrament is a Living Physical Divine Person and Being
The Council of Trent has defined that there is no difference between
the reality of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Sacrament, except for the
appearance. The Council stated: "First of all the holy Synod
teaches and openly and simply professes that in the nourishing
sacrament of the Holy Eucharist after the consecration of the bread
and wine our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really,
and substantially contained under the species (appearance 45) of
those sensible things." Similarly, in his encyclical, Mysterium
Fidei, Paul VI stated about the effect of the consecration at the
Mass that "once the substance or nature of the bread and wine
has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains
of the bread and wine except for the species
("appearance"47) - beneath which Christ is present whole
and entire in His physical 'reality,' corporeally present, although
not in the manner in which bodies are in a place."
Because the Blessed Sacrament is the same "Thing" as Jesus
Christ, one might also ask whether or not one can call the Blessed
Sacrament a human person or a human being? No doubt, one might think
that, if Christ's "physical 'reality"' is "corporeally
present" in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, then the Blessed
Sacrament must be a human person or human being. But, we have
previously stated that, for St. Thomas, substantial being is
"being through itself (per se) because it is not in another"
and "accidents" "do not have being in
themselves,independent of a subject." But, "physical"
is a quality and therefore only represents accidental being or
"being in another (in alio)." And, the "Other" or
"Subject" in which this physical quality subsists is the
divine Being who is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Thus,
the Catechism of the Catholic Church states "everything in
Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its
proper subject." This includes Jesus Christ's "physical, 'reality'."
So, when our tongues touch the Host, we are not coming into bodily
contact with a human person and a human being. Rather, we are coming
into bodily contact with a living physical divine Person and Being as
directly and immediately as did St. Thomas the Apostle when he put
his finger into the nail-marks of Jesus' wounds and his hand into
Jesus' side and exclaimed: "My Lord and my God!" (Jn.
20:27-28). The Blessed
Sacrament
is Emmanuel!
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