Sir, - Colin Maxwell (February 25th) is mistaken. There is no onus on either Frank Flanagan (February 20th) or on me to prove the Real Presence instituted by Christ and before the Reformation accepted by all of Christendom. The onus is rather on the heirs of Calvin and Cranmer to refute the received faith of the past two millennia. They have yet to do so.
Mr Maxwell's own principal objection, incredibly, is nothing more than that "none of the five senses perceives the bread and wine to be a physical body". (They are not a physical body: a physical body has in all but appearance replaced them.) None of the same five senses, in my experience, perceives the resurrection or the Godhead. Does Mr Maxwell reject them too? Surely faith is a transcendent relationship with "realities that at present remain unseen" (Hebrews 11:1)
Mr Maxwell seems further to imagine that the faith of the apostolic churches is somehow "opposed to the word of God". But the word of God is the very basis of our Eucharistic beliefs! In the Gospel, Jesus says "the Bread that I shall give is My Flesh, for the life of the world" (John 6:51b); and: "Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will not have life in you" (John 6:53b); and, climactically: "Whoever eats Me will draw life from Me" (John 6:57b) - here at last simply and explicitly positing absolute identity between Himself and the Sacrament.
I find it ironic that the only parts of the Bible which Protestantism, allegedly founded on a platform of Scriptural literalism, insists on not taking literally are the words of the Last Supper and in the sixth chapter of St John's Gospel. Every Jesuitical argument conceivable - including translation back into hypothetical Aramaic, a language in which the Scriptures were never revealed - is marshalled to prove that these alone represent charming, if highly misleading, flights of fancy on the part, then, of a rather irresponsible or naïve Messiah. For the fundamentalist everything else, apparently, is taken exactly as read - except the Eurcharist.
It is not surprising, therefore, that John 6 continues to be studiously ignored in many Protestant theological colleges to this day. (Luther, after all, having once rejected Purgatory, was then obliged to reject the Book of Maccabees.) Scott Hahn, the great contemporary convert, tells us that he was warned off even reading this passage of the Bible during his training to become a preacher, or else he would "end up Catholic" - which is indeed what eventually happened! - Yours, etc.,
Father DAVID
O'HANLON, C.C.,
Parochial House,
Kentstown,
Co Meath.