Correspondence:
KRAMER, MARILYN & Bowman, Jim & IMBELLI, (REV.) ROBERT P. & WILGRESS, JANE & DONOHUE, WILLIAM A. & O'CONNOR, JAMES D. & MITCHELL, NATHAN & Alleva, Richard & Steinfels, Peter
CORRESPONDENCE NRLC unheard Lawrence, Mass. To the Editors: Dr. Jim Hood's criticism [Correspondence, February 10] of the National Right to Life Committee's response to violence does not square...
...Yet his article, in providing a needed rectification, can also contribute to a new one-sidedness...
...he felt this would encourage a stronger sense of community...
...One needs to utter a like caution regarding Mitchell's recourse to Rahner's "liturgy of the world...
...He was correct: We received as individuals but within a group, preserving personal union while emphasizing reception as a community (much more effective than single-file lines...
...Regardless of that theology, union with God through the body and blood of Christ is a very personal act, requiring quiet contemplation to grasp and hold the full meaning of union with God...
...Surely a truly comprehensive vision contemplates both who is on the table and who is at the table...
...This appears, for example, in his formulation of "the basic eucharistic question": "not who is on the table but who is at the table, and how did we get there...
...The NRLC has consistently, forcefully, and articulately denounced all violence against the abortion industry and its workers...
...The "logic" of the eucharistic sacrifice, culminating in our reception of and constitution as church by the other who is the risen Jesus Christ, is currently obscured by inserting a horizontal exchange that in fact diverts attention from his real presence on the altar...
...One is prompted to ask: Can there be a faithful understanding of eucharistic mystery and presence whose heart is not Christological...
...For whose body and blood do we, the church, receive...
...This will better conform to eucharistic logic and to the command of the Lord that we be at peace before offering our gifts at the altar...
...To the Editors: In his thoughtful appeal for a new synthesis of eucharistic theology ["Who Is at the Table...
...REV...
...Articles by David Andrusko, Wanda Franz, and Michele Arocha Allen in the January issue of NRL News are recent examples of this long-standing position...
...But Rahner-inspired (Continued on page 27) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) liturgists may need to stress more than they often do the transformative newness that sacramental consecration effects...
...To propose this is not to conspire in the "resacralizing restoration" that Mitchell fears, but to allow the Christological heart of Eucharist to receive a more adequate ritual expression...
...The issue, then, is not to contrast "Christological" and "ecclesiological," but, rather, to foster a less constricted ec-clesiology, one that appreciates the differentiated role of the entire body of Christ in eucharistic celebration...
...Intimations of presence indeed abound to eyes sharpened by faith in Jesus Christ's Resurrection and Real Presence...
...Perhaps it is time for a poet/dramatist working with theologians to rework the eucharistic celebration to bring a personal sense of the Real Presence back to the Mass and create a real sense of community...
...Unfortunately his views did not prevail...
...I refer to the present placement of the exchange of peace...
...For many, this loss has turned the Mass into a symbolic ritual...
...his method took too much time...
...Criticism would be better directed at the news media, which have failed to report the NRLC's position accurately and prominently...
...Finally, may I suggest that the actual practice of the revised rite has itself inadvertently abetted a Christological re-ductionism...
...What of the Irishman who, on learning that some people doubted the host as the body and blood of Jesus, said after a moment's thought, "But what else would it be...
...REV...
...any suggestion that the Resurrection of Jesus is adequately exegeted by the claim that he rose "a people...
...ROBERT P. IMBELLI...
...To the Editors: The opinions expressed in your issue on eucharistic presence [January 27] are astounding...
...ROBERT P. IMBELLI...
...The figures given on beliefs, and the quibblings on transubstantiation as something that "cannot guide us" suggest such a debacle...
...For unless our necessary but perishable gifts of bread and wine have been truly transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, then our assembling and our faith are, ultimately, in vain...
...But the liturgy does not permit any space or quiet time for such contemplation...
...Jim Hood's criticism [Correspondence, February 10] of the National Right to Life Committee's response to violence does not square with the facts...
...I certainly concur with Mitchell in desiring a more ample sense of the whole Christ, head and members...
...What indeed...
...Moreover, the feeling of community is often forced, because the eucharistic presence is not felt by the individual members...
...But I resist any declension that tends to absorb the head into the members...
...We should be ashamed...
...MARILYN KRAMER Understanding Eucharist Yonkers, N.Y...
...For it can all too easily evaporate into rhetorical sentimentality, unless grounded in the liturgy of word and sacrament that alone provides the substance of things hoped for...
...January 27], Nathan Mitchell seeks to redress an imbalance and to promote the active participation of the believing community in the celebration of the Eucharist...
...It also appears in the implied contrast between a "Christological" understanding of the eucharistic mystery and an "ecclesiological" one...
...Who is the living Lord of the community in whose presence we gather, are nourished, and sent forth...
...With many others, therefore, I advocate a repositioning of the exchange of peace after the "Prayers of the Faithful" and before the "Presentation of the Gifts...
...JAMES D. O'CONNOR Astounding views Pacific Grove, Calif...
...Have we become a people with a "there-may-be-something-in-it" attitude toward the words of Jesus...
...To the Editors: The post-Vatican II theologically correct emphasis on community has been a major factor in the apparent decline of belief in the real presence in the eucharistic celebration...
...Soon after the Vatican II liturgical changes, my pastor wanted communicants to receive in groups standing in a semi-circle before the altar...
...Hocus-pocus...
...jane wilgress No lime for reflection Wausau, Wis...
Vol. 122 • March 1995 • No. 5
