HERALDCATHOLIC

In search of the Real Presence

In July, a group called the Real Presence Coalition undertook a national survey of lay Catholics in the United States to t r y to understand why there has been such a loss of faith in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist – a Pew For um study found a decade ago that 70 per cent of Catholics do not believe in this fundamental dogma. As Katherine Bennett repor ts in this issue, it was the single largest survey of lay Catholics ever conducted in the US, and involved 16,000 par ticipants reasonably representative of American Catholics in terms of age, sex and diocese, though inevitably weighted towards those congregations that included members of the Coalition. Given that one in five at tends a Tridentine Mass, it may well over-represent lit urgical conservatives. It posed the question not whether the par ticipants themselves believe in the doctrine, but: “Why do lay Catholics believe there has been a loss of faith in the Real Presence?”

The answers are thought-provoking. One is critical: “lack of humility and reverence in the presence of the Eucharist” and, closely related to this, “a casual at tit ude to the Eucharist on the par t of some clergy” and “lack of catechism about Eucharistic doctrine”. And connected to all these things, “a loss of the sense of a sense of t ranscendence at Mass”. There are other suggestions which perhaps reflect the sample group, such as the reception of the Eucharist in the hand while standing (though this is a valid view) but the overall sense of the findings is that Catholics have lost the sense of awe and reverence towards the Eucharist which would be evident if they really did believe that God is on the altar at Mass and present in the taber nacle in ever y Catholic church across the world. Practice follows belief, and belief has to be taught and inculcated as well as absorbed.

Some simple morals can be drawn f rom this survey, which the bishops in the US should take to hear t. One is that there needs to be more r igorous catechesis in schools and parishes, which will help form the understanding of the next generation of Catholics – and we have an account in this issue by one catechist of what that entails. Another is the necessity to behave as if we believe what we profess. If we have the habit of genuflecting before the Blessed Sacrament, for instance, that physical expression of belief will affect what goes on in our heads. And we need to consider whether our lit urgy reflects the numinous, and whether the atmosphere in our churches raises the mind and hear t to God. These are all questions the bishops must consider. Reminding children to bless themselves as they pass a Catholic church, to salute God within, would be a ver y good place to star t.

Sweet Heart of Jesus

Pope Francis is full of sur prises, and the latest is his encyclical on that sometimes unfashionable aspect of Catholic devotion, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In it he declares: “Devotion to Christ’s hear t is essential for our Christian life to the extent that it expresses our openness in faith and adoration to the mystery of the Lord’s divine and human love.” But he also acknowledges that representations of the Sacred Heart might st r ike us “as tasteless and not par ticularly conducive to affection or prayer. Yet this is of lit tle importance, since they are only invitations to prayer…”

This is cer tainly a problem for many contemporary Catholics for whom the over t emotional charge of this Baroque image can be dif ficult to handle. In Ireland in par ticular, where marriage was once described as “a cont ract between a man, a woman and a picture of the Sacred

Heart”, the once ubiquitous image is associated with an age of piety that is passed. Religious imagery responds to its age, but the abandonment of those pictures is a loss.

For the Pope is r ight to say that “The Christ we see depicted with a pierced and burning hear t” is “the same Christ who, for love of us, was born in Bethlehem, passed through Galilee healing the sick, embracing sinners and showing mercy”. He quotes St John Henry Newman, who “encountered the living hear t of Jesus” in the Eucharist and prayed “O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou ar t concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still…”. We should not be embarrassed by the affective piety of the image; it is powerful because it expresses a t r uth, that Christ loves us. It may be time to resur rect the emotional hymns to the Sacred Heart – “Sweet Heart of Jesus”, for one – which allow us to express that sentimentality that is an important element of Catholic piety. Or at least, we might recite that simple prayer: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my hope in you.”

2 CATHOLIC HERALD ● NOVEMBER 2024