A Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter
Readings: Acts 2:42-47 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31
The great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.”
There are other animals who produce and respond to signs, but we humans are the only ones who create entire worlds from them. The name we give something and the stories we tell about it situate it in a world of meaning, one woven by language. Consider, for example, the distinct worlds of value and insight that have generated these two opposing phrases: reproductive rights and the right to life.
We are entering the second of a three-year Eucharistic revival, which the bishops of the United States have launched in response to the growing number of Catholics, who no longer believe, or even know, of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Here again, the limits of our language are the limits of our world. How we understand the Eucharist is more than a question of terms and pronouncements. It is woven into a way of life, a thoroughly human way of life, one composed of words, gestures, symbols and rituals.
In their quite marvelous Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life (2022), two British philosophers, Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, retrieve the contribution and stories of Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Iris Murdoch. They were among the first women to study and teach philosophy at Oxford.
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.”
Elizabeth Anscombe and her husband, the philosopher Peter Geach, were converts to Catholicism. Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman retrieve the eucharistic catechesis of Anscombe, a philosopher who corrected and challenged geniuses such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and C.S. Lewis.
Though Elizabeth found C.S. Lewis confused about cause and reason, she sympathized with his motivation. He thought that it was only by defeating naturalism that a place for miracles could be found in human life. But Elizabeth saw no conflict. She and Peter were teaching Barbara, aged five, and John, nearly three, about transubstantiation—they believed it should be taught as early as possible. The children were too young for the word “transubstantiation” but were learning its place, the ritual of speech and action into which the use of that word would later be woven. They were being taught to see a pattern in the ritual to which the description “changing the wine into Jesus’ blood” could later be applied.
“Look! Look what the priest is doing,” Elizabeth would whisper to her children from St. Aloysius’ pews. “He is saying Jesus’ words that change the bread into Jesus’ body. Now he’s lifting it up. Look! Now bow your head and say ‘My Lord and my God,’” then “Look, now he’s taken hold of the cup. He’s saying the words that change the wine into Jesus’ blood. Look up at the cup. Now bow your head and say ‘We believe, we adore your precious blood, O Christ.’” Elizabeth maintained that her narrative “need not be disturbing to the surrounding people,” but we can imagine the odd disapproving stare. The teaching was so successful that one day when Elizabeth returned from the communion rail, Barbara asked her reverently, “Is He in you?” “Yes,” she said, and to her amazement and delight the child prostrated herself before her.
What happened within the tomb remains a mystery, but on the Sunday following, the Risen Lord Jesus appeared to his disciples behind locked doors. There he introduced a new world to them, speaking in an utterly new way of peace, of a Holy Spirit, and of the forgiveness of sins. Like our own, this new world was woven not only of words but also of symbols and gestures:
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe” (Jn 20:27).
It is a law of nature that animals struggle with each other for survival. So, if we really believe that one day the lion will lie down with the lamb it is only because of a fundamental law of our own humanity that we humans struggle with each other to create worlds of meaning, worlds large enough for us to flourish. We do this whenever we turn from whatever is misleading, limited and sterile.
The church has been about this business of language weaving since that first Sunday of Easter.
They devoted themselves
to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life,
to the breaking of bread and to the prayers (Acts 2:42).
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” What needs to change in Catholicism? What gestures, words and rituals need to be retrieved for the phrases “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood” to be for us exactly what they say they are?
If we really believe that one day the lion will lie down with the lamb it is only because of a fundamental law of our own humanity that we humans struggle with each other to create worlds of meaning, worlds large enough for us to flourish.
Our bishops feel that weekly attendance at Mass is plummeting because too many of us do not believe in the Real Presence. It is a reasonable inference. Why would those who truly believe not be there every week to rejoice in and to receive such a presence?
Yet the bishops’ revival, perhaps inadvertently, seems quite focused on extraordinary devotion to the Eucharist outside of Mass, but the Second Vatican Council spoke of five real presences of Christ in the eucharistic celebration.
Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of His minister, “the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on the cross,” but especially under the Eucharistic species. By His power He is present in the sacraments, so that when a man baptizes it is really Christ Himself who baptizes. He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in the Church. He is present, lastly, when the Church prays and sings, for He promised: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20)” (Sacrosanctum Concilium §7).
Knowing that meaning is a woven affair, here is the pressing question: If you fail to cultivate four of the five presences of Christ in the Eucharist, will the fifth flourish?
