{"id":38473,"date":"2017-10-22T10:20:49","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T15:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=38473"},"modified":"2017-10-24T11:54:55","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T16:54:55","slug":"why-luther-a-letter-to-a-puzzled-pray-tell-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/22\/why-luther-a-letter-to-a-puzzled-pray-tell-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Luther? A Letter to a Puzzled Pray Tell<\/i> Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pray Tell is running a series of quotations from Martin Luther this month leading up to the 500th anniversary date of October 31, 2017. After the post this week \u201cMartin Luther on Communion under Both Forms<\/a>,\u201d a reader wrote in with the following concerns. My response follows.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I am puzzled by this post, as well as the others in this series.<\/em><\/p>\n

I too pray for the day that Lutheran Christians become reunited with us Catholics. I recognize that for such a reunion to ever occur, Lutherans must be willing to repudiate Martin Luther\u2019s errors, while Catholics must in turn be willing to embrace those insights of Luther\u2019s which are good in and of themselves and not contrary to the Faith.<\/em><\/p>\n

That said, it seems shocking to me to give consideration to Martin Luther\u2019s views on the Eucharist, especially as a means of acknowledging the 500th anniversary of his break with the Church. Luther\u2019s actions, whether one sympathizes with his situation at the time or not, directly led to millions of Christians over the last half-millennium losing out on Christ\u2019s Real Presence in the Eucharist.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Eucharist is the very source and summit of Christianity. It is impossible to put into words the tragedy of Christianity gutted of this Most Precious Gift.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dear Pray Tell<\/em> reader,<\/p>\n

Thank you for writing in. I commend you for your passionate commitment to the Catholic faith and to the Eucharist. I also commend you for your sensitivity and your respectful manner of posing your question. I hope my words help you understand where I\u2019m coming from, and maybe inspire you to look at your troubling questions from another angle.<\/p>\n

First, to be clear: I believe in the Real Presence, including everything the Catholic Church believes about this mystery. I emphasize this at the outset to make clear that my following comments to you about mystery, paradox, and ecumenical openness are meant not as a lessening of eucharistic faith, but rather a deepening<\/em> of it.<\/p>\n

It cannot be emphasized enough: The Real Presence is a mystery. Neither I nor you nor anyone can comprehend it rationally \u2013 though human reason is a great gift of God that we use to try to get closer to God\u2019s unfathomable gifts. I have had to change my thinking on the Eucharist many times, and I expect I will continue to do so. More than once I thought my mind understood the mystery, and then I realized that my understanding was mistaken.<\/p>\n

Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th<\/sup>-century explainer of \u201ctransubstantiation\u201d (which was a new philosophical term of his era), strove mightily to show that this is a mystery. Before him, as a result of complicated prior disputes involving Radbertus and Ratramnus which I won\u2019t go into here, theologians and church leaders had backed themselves into a corner in their efforts to defend the Real Presence. They felt obligated to defend the presence of the physical<\/em> Body of Christ in the sacrament. Thomas Aquinas rejected this view.<\/em> He spoke of transubstantiation in way which was, compared to the dominant understanding, more spiritual, mysterious, paradoxical, and reconnected to the larger mystery of Christ building up the Church.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/p>\n