The Eucharist [Hardcover]

Edward Schillebeeckx (Author), N.D. Smith (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1968

An analysis of Transubstantiation and its meaning today. Considers patristic and modern interpretations.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A profound study made on the basis of established theological principles and with all the resources of theological scholarship. It is difficult to see on what ground Schillebeeckx's conclusions could be contested on any point.' Dom Illtyd trethowan, The Catholic Herald

'An important work, not least because Schillebeeckx stands unequivocally on the side of the authority of the Council of Trent. The translator too has done his work well.' Irish Theological Quarterly

"The work is still very relevant, both to historical studies on Trent and to the development of a theology of Eucharistic presence in the light of contemporary thinking and culture. Indeed, one might say that in Catholic circles Schillebeeckx's presentation surpasses much that has been written between then and now and students and scholars would benefit from returning to the careful and accurate thought of a Magister in the field. We can be grateful to Continuum for the reprint."- David N. Power, The Catholic Historical Review, July 2006

"Schillebeeckx is an honourable forebear among theologians and can always be read with profit. The challenge to theologians in our time is to examine the foundations carefully and go on to build on what is solid, as he did." --Susan K. Roll, Saint Paul University, Theoforum Vol. 39 No. 3, 2008 (Susan K. Roll, Saint Paul University )

“The work is still very relevant, both to historical studies on Trent and to the development of a theology of Eucharistic presence in the light of contemporary thinking and culture. Indeed, one might say that in Catholic circles Schillebeeckx’s presentation surpasses much that has been written between then and now and students and scholars would benefit from returning to the careful and accurate thought of a Magister in the field. We can be grateful to Continuum for the reprint.”- David N. Power, The Catholic Historical Review, July 2006

"Schillebeeckx is an honourable forebear among theologians and can always be read with profit. The challenge to theologians in our time is to examine the foundations carefully and go on to build on what is solid, as he did." --Susan K. Roll, Saint Paul University, Theoforum Vol. 39 No. 3, 2008 (, ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Dutch (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Sheed & Ward,U.S.; First Edition edition (December 1968)
• ISBN-10: 0836200756
• ISBN-13: 978-0836200751
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,952,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT BACKGROUND RESOURCE FOR OUR HOLY FATHER'S NEW SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS, CLEARLY EXPLAINS WHAT ST. THOMAS AQUINAS THINKS, July 27, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

Written forty years ago already, the great and influential Dominican priest and preacher and professor the Reverend Father Edward Schilebeeckx clearly covers the history of the Eucharist, past, present and future, foreseeing even the exciting developments in our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI's Sacramento de La Caridad: Sacramentum Caritatis.

Please note as well this book, the Eucharist, by the REverend Father Edward Schillebeeckx, bears the IMPRIMATUR of His Excellency Robert F. Joyce, Bishop of Burlington, as well as the NIHIL OBSTAT of Father Leo Steady, Censor Librorum. For anyone to suggest this book should be banned is to place oneself above and beyond the judgment of the Catholic Church's own magisterium and hierarchy, which blesses this essential and comprehensive and still informative study. Such a person might then either accept the learned judgment of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, or reconsider their own relationship to this Church.

In defending the revolutionary (for his times) statements of his brother Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas (now our standard theological touchstone), Father Schillebeeckx asks how Saint Thomas and especially Saint Bonaventure's scholastic discoveries would be received in our persent instant media age, in which the majority of the Church might still reject their orthodox theology, maintaining still as then that the EUcharist is actual flesh and human blood rather than the mystery of transubstantiaion of aristotilean phenomeom of accident as explained carefully and subtly by Saint Thomas. Fr. Schillebeeckx writes without writing, between the lines, the difficulties encountered by the theologian now pursuing the Thomistic Eucharistic dogma, and the care and balance required in new restatements of the theological truths.

For instance, Father Schillebeeckx quotes Saint Thomas Aquinas's then extraordinary statement: "Corpus autem Christi non manducatur in sua specie, sed in specie sacramentali. (p. 15)" a dangerous writing when most Catholics still believed they were chewing actual human flesh rather than the "accidental appearances" of bread bearing the Real Presence of the Body of Jesus Christ. In this book, Father Schillebeeckx clearly, carefully, cleverly, completely explains, among several other orthodox Catholic Church dogma, this Thomistic concept of Sacramental species, and thus supplies us an excellent background for understanding and for living Our Holy Father's recent restatement of these truths of our Faith.

Briefly, and I strive here to write impossibly briefly, after this excellent introduction of the issues involved, Father Schillebeeckx devotes the first part of this book to explaining clearly the Tridentine approach to Faith, as defined at the Council of Trent which set so many other standards for our Church. He concludes this first section with a discussion of the Aristotelian doctrine of substance and accidents and their relevance to our Church and to the Eucharistic mystery, and asks the essential question "What is Reality?"

His second part brings the Tridentine principles up to date, in light of our scientific age. He breathtakingly explores the conflict between Aristotle and modern physics, and humbly displays the breadth and depth of his knowledge and faith in his defense of Trent and of Aquinas in the face of our modern perspectives. Any true believer may find here in this section sufficient response to those empirical philosophers and scientists who cannot "see" nor "sense" the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. If a host sits alone in a tabernacle, with no one to see and to hear and to pray and to adore, is it any less loved and loving? The empiricist might question whether the tree falling ni the wood with no one to hear makes any sound, but Saint Thomas Aquinas makes it clear that Christ is in no way confined in Real Presence by the Tabernacle.

Father Schillebeeckx then provides current anthropological and Lacanian concepts of Sacrament as Sign, sacramental symbolic activity, and the religious sacramental act, returning resoundingly to the Tridentine Concept of Substance. He then discusses how the One Real Presence of Christ can have manifold realizations. He touches on the Eucharist in the light of the then desire for Christian Unity, even with denominations which refuse to recognize the real presence in the Eucharist. He again underscores the Distinctively Eucharistic Manner of the Real Presence, and returns to Scriptural sources for exploring the Biblical assumptions.

Upon this foundation he develops the Basic Principle: "Reality is Not Man's Handiwork." We do not decide what is real and what is not. Christ is Really Present in the Eucharist. This is a Reality we did not make, but must recognize. To deny Reality is insanity (These are my own observations, not relections from Father Schillebeeckx, but inspired by him, who writes so much better, so much clearer, with such greater discipline and learning and structure).

Father Schillebeeckx concludes this great and good book by explaining the ways in which we seek to give meaning to the undeniable realities. We cannot deny the reality of an event, of a phenomenom, of a substance, but we diverge in our understanding of its meaning, and in our expression of that understanding. After explaining various aspects of this meaning-filling process, Father Schillebeeckx again returns to exposing this in light of the "Real Presence of Christ and of His Church in the Eucharist." and the Body of the Lord appearing in sacramental form, through transubstantiation, transsignification or a new giving of meaning.

An excellent and comprehensive conclusion closes this book, which is essential for any thinking Catholic seeking the ever unattainable understanding of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ, which has fascinated and challenged our Church from the first days of Christianity, and continues to do so, as evidenced in the urgent interest around the Pope's recent Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist.

Other important works to consider, along with our Holy Father's, include Eucharist and the Hunger of the World and The Eucharist and Human Liberation and of course The Living Bread by FAther Thomas Merton.

It is important here to note that at no point does Father Schillebeeckx suggest replacing the traditional Thomistic doctrine of the Transubstantiation with some new formula of transignification and in fact there is no contradiction between the two beyond the process of hermeneutics. In fact repeatedly at every point in this imformative and Faithful treatise, Father Schillebeeckx explains clearly and with conviction the concept of Transubstantiation as first written and taught by his brother Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas, and held as a central doctrine of our Faith with some literalist grumblings ever since. Father Schillebeeckx in fact transmits a greater and more clarifying understanding, confirmed belief beyond all understanding, and conviction in the very orthodox and subtle and mystical doctrine of Transubstantiation than most Catholics then or now. Any restatement in terms of transfiguration seeks to address the contemporary concerns of the highest echelons of academic philosophers, including the Lacanian psychologists (as in for example, most accessibly Lacan for Beginners (Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book) or Introducing Lacan (Beginners)) or even Bahtkin. At no point does Father Schillebeeckx deny in any way the dogma of the Transubstantiation, but rather explains more clearly and completely than in any other text available. Should the average Catholic come to encounter in this way the full implications of the Real Pressence in Transubstantiation, he may experience a mind-numbing shock similar to that experienced by the average American first reading carefully and with comprehension our Bill of Rights.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT BACKGROUND RESOURCE FOR OUR HOLY FATHER'S NEW SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS, CLEARLY EXPLAINS WHAT ST. THOMAS AQUINAS THINKS, July 27, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

Written forty years ago already, the great and influential Dominican priest and preacher and professor the Reverend Father Edward Schilebeeckx clearly covers the history of the Eucharist, past, present and future, foreseeing even the exciting developments in our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI's Sacramento de La Caridad: Sacramentum Caritatis.

Please note as well this book, the Eucharist, by the REverend Father Edward Schillebeeckx, bears the IMPRIMATUR of His Excellency Robert F. Joyce, Bishop of Burlington, as well as the NIHIL OBSTAT of Father Leo Steady, Censor Librorum. For anyone to suggest this book should be banned is to place oneself above and beyond the judgment of the Catholic Church's own magisterium and hierarchy, which blesses this essential and comprehensive and still informative study. Such a person might then either accept the learned judgment of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, or reconsider their own relationship to this Church.

In defending the revolutionary (for his times) statements of his brother Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas (now our standard theological touchstone), Father Schillebeeckx asks how Saint Thomas and especially Saint Bonaventure's scholastic discoveries would be received in our persent instant media age, in which the majority of the Church might still reject their orthodox theology, maintaining still as then that the EUcharist is actual flesh and human blood rather than the mystery of transubstantiaion of aristotilean phenomeom of accident as explained carefully and subtly by Saint Thomas. Fr. Schillebeeckx writes without writing, between the lines, the difficulties encountered by the theologian now pursuing the Thomistic Eucharistic dogma, and the care and balance required in new restatements of the theological truths.

For instance, Father Schillebeeckx quotes Saint Thomas Aquinas's then extraordinary statement: "Corpus autem Christi non manducatur in sua specie, sed in specie sacramentali. (p. 15)" a dangerous writing when most Catholics still believed they were chewing actual human flesh rather than the "accidental appearances" of bread bearing the Real Presence of the Body of Jesus Christ. In this book, Father Schillebeeckx clearly, carefully, cleverly, completely explains, among several other orthodox Catholic Church dogma, this Thomistic concept of Sacramental species, and thus supplies us an excellent background for understanding and for living Our Holy Father's recent restatement of these truths of our Faith.

Briefly, and I strive here to write impossibly briefly, after this excellent introduction of the issues involved, Father Schillebeeckx devotes the first part of this book to explaining clearly the Tridentine approach to Faith, as defined at the Council of Trent which set so many other standards for our Church. He concludes this first section with a discussion of the Aristotelian doctrine of substance and accidents and their relevance to our Church and to the Eucharistic mystery, and asks the essential question "What is Reality?"

His second part brings the Tridentine principles up to date, in light of our scientific age. He breathtakingly explores the conflict between Aristotle and modern physics, and humbly displays the breadth and depth of his knowledge and faith in his defense of Trent and of Aquinas in the face of our modern perspectives. Any true believer may find here in this section sufficient response to those empirical philosophers and scientists who cannot "see" nor "sense" the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. If a host sits alone in a tabernacle, with no one to see and to hear and to pray and to adore, is it any less loved and loving? The empiricist might question whether the tree falling ni the wood with no one to hear makes any sound, but Saint Thomas Aquinas makes it clear that Christ is in no way confined in Real Presence by the Tabernacle.

Father Schillebeeckx then provides current anthropological and Lacanian concepts of Sacrament as Sign, sacramental symbolic activity, and the religious sacramental act, returning resoundingly to the Tridentine Concept of Substance. He then discusses how the One Real Presence of Christ can have manifold realizations. He touches on the Eucharist in the light of the then desire for Christian Unity, even with denominations which refuse to recognize the real presence in the Eucharist. He again underscores the Distinctively Eucharistic Manner of the Real Presence, and returns to Scriptural sources for exploring the Biblical assumptions.

Upon this foundation he develops the Basic Principle: "Reality is Not Man's Handiwork." We do not decide what is real and what is not. Christ is Really Present in the Eucharist. This is a Reality we did not make, but must recognize. To deny Reality is insanity (These are my own observations, not relections from Father Schillebeeckx, but inspired by him, who writes so much better, so much clearer, with such greater discipline and learning and structure).

Father Schillebeeckx concludes this great and good book by explaining the ways in which we seek to give meaning to the undeniable realities. We cannot deny the reality of an event, of a phenomenom, of a substance, but we diverge in our understanding of its meaning, and in our expression of that understanding. After explaining various aspects of this meaning-filling process, Father Schillebeeckx again returns to exposing this in light of the "Real Presence of Christ and of His Church in the Eucharist." and the Body of the Lord appearing in sacramental form, through transubstantiation, transsignification or a new giving of meaning.

An excellent and comprehensive conclusion closes this book, which is essential for any thinking Catholic seeking the ever unattainable understanding of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ, which has fascinated and challenged our Church from the first days of Christianity, and continues to do so, as evidenced in the urgent interest around the Pope's recent Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist.

Other important works to consider, along with our Holy Father's, include Eucharist and the Hunger of the World and The Eucharist and Human Liberation and of course The Living Bread by FAther Thomas Merton.

It is important here to note that at no point does Father Schillebeeckx suggest replacing the traditional Thomistic doctrine of the Transubstantiation with some new formula of transignification and in fact there is no contradiction between the two beyond the process of hermeneutics. In fact repeatedly at every point in this imformative and Faithful treatise, Father Schillebeeckx explains clearly and with conviction the concept of Transubstantiation as first written and taught by his brother Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas, and held as a central doctrine of our Faith with some literalist grumblings ever since. Father Schillebeeckx in fact transmits a greater and more clarifying understanding, confirmed belief beyond all understanding, and conviction in the very orthodox and subtle and mystical doctrine of Transubstantiation than most Catholics then or now. Any restatement in terms of transfiguration seeks to address the contemporary concerns of the highest echelons of academic philosophers, including the Lacanian psychologists (as in for example, most accessibly Lacan for Beginners (Writers and Readers Beginners Documentary Comic Book) or Introducing Lacan (Beginners)) or even Bahtkin. At no point does Father Schillebeeckx deny in any way the dogma of the Transubstantiation, but rather explains more clearly and completely than in any other text available. Should the average Catholic come to encounter in this way the full implications of the Real Pressence in Transubstantiation, he may experience a mind-numbing shock similar to that experienced by the average American first reading carefully and with comprehension our Bill of Rights.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Lesson in Theological Understanding of our Faith, December 26, 2008

By 

R. Friel - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Eucharist (Paperback)

Fr. Schillebeeckx does an excellent job of analyzing the work of the Council of Trent, particularly in reference to the two main canons regarding the Eucharist. He points out that the essence of their statement is contained in Canon 1, that we partake of the real presence of Christ when we participate in the Eucharist. He then points out that Canon 2 is an explanation of Canon1 using Aristotelian Philosophy as a tool to understanding our faith.

He then goes on to explain that in the past 800 years the tools available to theologians to help us understand our faith have progressed dramatically, and it is time to explain Canon 1 using more current theological tools. This is, in fact what he does, and he does it very clearly and very systematically.

At no time does he ever question Canon1, that we partake of the real presence of Christ when we participate in the Eucharist.

I would ask those who are initially disturbed by Fr. Schillebeeckx's work to take another closer look at it with the above comments in mind. The Catholic Church has a rich tradition of encouraging theologians to help us understand our faith better, and to use the best tools available to them to accomplish this task, and I feel that Fr. Schillebeeckx has done an excellent job of continuing this tradition.