Christ on a certain occasion discoursing with the Jews said, Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in you. They not having heard His saying in a spiritual sense were offended, and went back, supposing that He was inviting them to eat flesh.
In the Old Testament also there was show-bread; but this, as it belonged to the Old Testament, has come to an end; but in the New Testament there is Bread of heaven, and a Cup of salvation, sanctifying soul and body; for as the Bread corresponds to our body, so is the Word appropriate to our soul. — Catechetical Lecture 22.
He once in Cana of Galilee, turned the water into wine, akin to blood, and is it incredible that He should have turned wine into blood? When called to a bodily marriage, He miraculously wrought that wonderful work; and on the children of the bride-chamber, shall He not much rather be acknowledged to have bestowed the fruition of His Body and Blood?
Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to you His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood; that you by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, may be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature. — Catechetical Lecture 22.
I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, &c.
Even of itself the teaching of the Blessed Paul is sufficient to give you a full assurance concerning those Divine Mysteries, of which having been deemed worthy, you are become of the same body and blood with Christ. For you have just heard him say distinctly, That our Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it, and gave to His disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is My Body: and having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, Take, drink, this is My Blood . Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood? — Catechetical Lecture 22.
After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good . Trust not the judgment to your bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ. — Catechetical Lecture 23.
One ought, moreover, to recognise that it is one thing to look at a matter as it is, and another thing to look at it in the light of reason and thought. In the case of all created things, the distinction of the subsistences is observed in actual fact. For in actual fact Peter is seen to be separate from Paul. But the community and connection and unity are apprehended by reason and thought. For it is by the mind that we perceive that Peter and Paul are of the same nature and have one common nature. For both are living creatures, rational and mortal: and both are flesh, endowed with the spirit of reason and understanding. It is, then, by reason that this community of nature is observed. For here indeed the subsistences do not exist one within the other. But each privately and individually, that is to say, in itself, stands quite separate, having very many points that divide it from the other. For they are both separated in space and differ in time, and are divided in thought, and power, and shape, or form, and habit, and temperament and dignity, and pursuits, and all differentiating properties, but above all, in the fact that they do not dwell in one another but are separated. Hence it comes that we can speak of two, three, or many men.
And this may be perceived throughout the whole of creation, but in the case of the holy and superessential and incomprehensible Trinity, far removed from everything, it is quite the reverse. For there the community and unity are observed in fact, through the co-eternity of the subsistences, and through their having the same essence and energy and will and concord of mind, and then being identical in authority and power and goodness —” I do not say similar but identical —” and then movement by one impulse. For there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one authority, one and the same, I repeat, not three resembling each other. But the three subsistences have one and the same movement. For each one of them is related as closely to the other as to itself: that is to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, save those of not being begotten, of birth and of procession. But it is by thought that the difference is perceived . For we recognise one God: but only in the attributes of Fatherhood, Sonship, and Procession, both in respect of cause and effect and perfection of subsistence, that is, manner of existence, do we perceive difference . For with reference to the uncircumscribed Deity we cannot speak of separation in space, as we can in our own case. For the subsistences dwell in one another, in no wise confused but cleaving together, according to the word of the Lord, I am in the father, and the father in Me: nor can one admit difference in will or judgment or energy or power or anything else whatsoever which may produce actual and absolute separation in our case. Wherefore we do not speak of three Gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but rather of one God, the holy Trinity — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.
From the NY Times: Tending to a Flock in Hard Hats
The Rev. Brian Jordan had just loped to the end of a long run on a Saturday afternoon, savoring one of those rare times a priest could be considered off duty, when he checked the message on his cellphone. The voice belonged to an old contact in Local 14 of the operating engineers’ union. His words were succinct and specific: —There’s been an accident at 51st and Second. Can you help us?—
Within minutes, Father Jordan covered his running gear with the brown habit and capuche he wore as a Franciscan and drove from the Rockaway beachfront back to Midtown Manhattan. The scene he found there on March 15 was a chaos of rubble, crushed cars, rescue crews, ambulances, gawkers and, at the center, a collapsed building and a buckled construction crane.
Father Jordan looked past all of it, searching for the men in hard hats —” his parish, his flock. Some were crying, some were hugging, some were kicking at the ground. A couple recognized the priest from the months they had spent at ground zero in Lower Manhattan.
On this day, as on those days, Father Jordan picked his way into the ruins. Four construction workers were known to be dead, and the bodies of two more workers would be found days later (along with the body of a woman who had been visiting from South Florida). Their surviving comrades lifted off their hard hats as the priest sprinkled holy water amid the wreckage and prayed that God would grant the souls of the departed eternal rest.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, Father Jordan has ministered to the building trades, which has meant both celebrating acts of material creation and mourning those killed in this dangerous work. The six workers’ deaths on March 15 were the most he had dealt with on a single day since Sept. 11, and came amid an especially tragic 12 months, with 26 fatalities on New York work sites.
On April 28, Father Jordan officiated at a Mass for Workers’ Memorial Day in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In most years, safer years, the annual event had been easily accommodated in the priest’s home church, St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street. Regardless of the setting, Father Jordan has preached a consistent message.
—Union construction workers have sacred instruments,— he said in his homily at St. Patrick’s. —No, not just their tools, machinery and computerized systems that they are trained and responsible for. These sacred instruments are their hands.—
—As a surgeon has sacred hands while performing a medical operation, as a priest has sacred hands while celebrating the Eucharist, so are union construction workers with their sacred and skillful hands— doing godly work by building hospitals, schools, family homes. —I am not stretching the imagery of sacredness,— he continued. —I am simply stating a fact.—
Father Jordan, 52, grew up in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, the son of a bakery-truck driver who was the shop steward in his Teamsters’ local. —My father used the term ‘solidarity’ when I was a kid,— Father Jordan recalled in an interview. —He’d say, ‘When we go to church, we pray together. When we do a job, we work together. When we stand up for something, we stand together.’ So I had that concept from a young age.—
Still, Father Jordan entered Siena College near Albany with the goal of becoming a lawyer. It was the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, then an assistant to the college president, who recruited the undergraduate with this sales pitch: —Don’t be an unhappy lawyer. Be a happy priest.—
During seminary, through ordination in 1983 and in his initial parishes in the Bronx, Boston and suburban Washington, Father Jordan counted Father Judge as his mentor. In particular, he learned from the example Father Judge set in his role as chaplain to the New York City Fire Department.
So it was almost eerily appropriate that on the day Father Judge died at ground zero while tending to the fallen, Father Jordan arrived there with his holy water, beginning 10 months of praying for the dead and the living alike.
—Caring for people, making time for people, not worrying about your own needs,— Father Jordan said of his mentor’s example. —He always said, ‘Time is a gift from God. What you receive as a gift, give as a gift.’ He said that to me 30 years ago. Still makes sense.—
In acting on Father Judge’s advice, Father Jordan has worked extensively among immigrants as well as construction workers. Increasingly, he has seen the lines blur between his two specialties as immigrants have moved into the building trades. Father Jordan’s role requires a series of balancing acts: being on good terms with labor unions as well as contractors, visiting union workers as well as nonunion worksites, empathizing with illegal immigrants while hearing out rank-and-file members convinced that those same immigrants are driving down wages. On one point, though, Father Jordan has been repeatedly, publicly assertive: he believes that nonunion contractors do not provide the high level of training that construction unions do and that, as a result, nonunion workers face a greater risk of injury or death…
Because of the work I do in my non-clerical profession I know of what he speaks – and I have seen it first hand. The abuse of workers (also see here, here, and here) is rampant and is keyed in to one thing – improving the bottom line. I have often said that the abuses that take place, especially those aimed at the immigrant worker community, equal the horrors seen in the the manufacturing environment in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
The Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) is the church of these workers. It was founded by the hard working coal miners of Pennsylvania, as well as those who worked in manufacturing in Chicago and Buffalo. Their struggle for fair wages, education, health and safety protections, and the elimination of child labor was championed by Bishop Hodur.
On November 30, 1919 Bishop Hodur gave an address at a reception for Maciej Leszczyński held in Scranton’s town hall. Mr. Leszczyński was in the United States as a delegate to the International Conference of Workers
One of the greatest achievements of modem civilization is respect and honor for human labor. In the past, labor was undervalued, work was shameful, and what goes with that, working people were mistreated and abused. There was kowtowing and bowing before those who did not need to work hard, and those who did work hard and with their toil created wealth and fed others were regarded as half-free or slaves. Even the greatest of the ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle regarded this economic system as just and the only one recommended, in which a minority rules and possesses full rights of citizenship and the majority works and produces. This majority of people had no rights, it was not free. And such a system lasted whole ages.
Truly Jesus Christ came on earth as the greatest teacher of humankind, the spiritual regenerator, and he condemned a social order based on cruelty and injustice…
Not until the beginning of the nineteenth century were the commandments of Christ the Lord remembered, His teaching about the worthiness and value of labor…
And from that time, that is, more or less from the middle of the last century, begins the organization of workers on a larger scale in the name of the rights of man, in the name of the value and worthiness of labor. Everything that workers did in the name of their slogans was good.
And today one may say boldly that the cause of labor is the most important one, and that progress, the development and happiness of the whole nation, of all mankind, depends on its just resolution. Workers today have more privileges than they have ever had.
In this reasonable and just struggle for rights, bread for the family and education for children, for common control of the wealth created by the worker, our holy Church stands before the worker like a pillar of fire, and the hand of Christ blesses him in his work.
Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life: Who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son: the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and Son, since He is co-essential and co-eternal: the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the fountain of wisdom, and life, and holiness: God existing and addressed along with Father and Son: uncreate, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord: deifying, not deified: filling, not filled: shared in, not sharing in: sanctifying, not sanctified: the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all: in all things like to the Father and Son: proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son, and participated in by all creation, through Himself creating, and investing with essence and sanctifying, and maintaining the universe: having subsistence, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, inseparable and indivisible from Father and Son, and possessing all the qualities that the Father and Son possess, save that of not being begotten or born. For the Father is without cause and unborn: for He is derived from nothing, but derives from Himself His being, nor does He derive a single quality from another. Rather He is Himself the beginning and cause of the existence of all things in a definite and natural manner. But the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of generation, but after that of procession. And we have learned that there is a difference between generation and procession, but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand. Further, the generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.
All then that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very being: and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is. And unless the Father possesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit possesses it: and through the Father, that is, because of the Father’s existence, the Son and the Spirit exist, and through the Father, that is, because of the Father having the qualities, the Son and the Spirit have all their qualities, those of being unbegotten, and of birth and of procession being excepted. For in these hypostatic or personal properties alone do the three holy subsistences differ from each other, being indivisibly divided not by essence but by the distinguishing mark of their proper and peculiar subsistence.
Further we say that each of the three has a perfect subsistence, that we may understand not one compound perfect nature made up of three imperfect elements, but one simple essence, surpassing and preceding perfection, existing in three perfect subsistences. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.
And this also it behoves us to know, that the names Fatherhood, Sonship and Procession, were not applied to the Holy Godhead by us: on the contrary, they were communicated to us by the Godhead, as the divine apostle says, Wherefore I bow the knee to the Father, from Whom is every family in heaven and on earth. But if we say that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, we do not suggest any precedence in time or superiority in nature of the Father over the Son (for through His agency He made the ages ), or superiority in any other respect save causation. And we mean by this, that the Son is begotten of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father naturally is the cause of the Son: just as we say in the same way not that fire proceeds from light, but rather light from fire. So then, whenever we hear it said that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, let us understand it to mean in respect of causation. And just as we do not say that fire is of one essence and light of another, so we cannot say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of another: but both are of one and the same essence. And just as we say that fire has brightness through the light proceeding from it, and do not consider the light of the fire as an instrument ministering to the fire, but rather as its natural force: so we say that the Father creates all that He creates through His Only-begotten Son, not as though the Son were a mere instrument serving the Father’s ends, but as His natural and subsistential force . And just as we say both that the fire shines and again that the light of the fire shines, So all things whatsoever the Father does, these also does the Son likewise. But whereas light possesses no proper subsistence of its own, distinct from that of the fire, the Son is a perfect subsistence, inseparable from the Father’s subsistence, as we have shown above. For it is quite impossible to find in creation an image that will illustrate in itself exactly in all details the nature of the Holy Trinity. For how could that which is create and compound, subject to flux and change, circumscribed, formed and corruptible, clearly show forth the super-essential divine essence, unaffected as it is in any of these ways? Now it is evident that all creation is liable to most of these affections, and all from its very nature is subject to corruption. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.
So then in the first sense of the word the three absolutely divine subsistences of the Holy Godhead agree: for they exist as one in essence and uncreate. But with the second signification it is quite otherwise. For the Father alone is ingenerate, no other subsistence having given Him being. And the Son alone is generate, for He was begotten of the Father’s essence without beginning and without time. And only the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father’s essence, not having been generated but simply proceeding. For this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. But the nature of the generation and the procession is quite beyond comprehension. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.
Accordingly the everlasting God generates His own Word which is perfect, without beginning and without end, that God, Whose nature and existence are above time, may not engender in time. But with man clearly it is otherwise, for generation is with him a matter of sex, and destruction and flux and increase and body clothe him round about , and he possesses a nature which is male or female. For the male requires the assistance of the female. But may He Who surpasses all, and transcends all thought and comprehension, be gracious to us.
The holy catholic and apostolic Church, then, teaches the existence at once of a Father: and of His Only-begotten Son, born of Him without time and flux and passion, in a manner incomprehensible and perceived by the God of the universe alone: just as we recognise the existence at once of fire and the light which proceeds from it: for there is not first fire and thereafter light, but they exist together. And just as light is ever the product of fire, and ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so in like manner also the Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any way separate from Him, but ever is in Him . But whereas the light which is produced from fire without separation, and abides ever in it, has no proper subsistence of its own distinct from that of fire (for it is a natural quality of fire), the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without separation and difference and ever abiding in Him, has a proper subsistence of its own distinct from that of the Father. — Book I, Chapter 8, Concerning the Holy Trinity.