PASOS A SEGUIR DURANTE LA APLICACIÓN DE LA ESCALA

‘The ear, that is the ground of the word, which is audible; the eye, which is the ground of the Sacraments, which are visible.’101 For Andrewes, the Word is an

audible sacrament and the sacrament is a visible word. The Word is to awaken us through warning of his coming, and the sacraments are to show us the day of that visitation of our salvation.

As was discussed in the preceeding chapter, Andrewes believes that God is free to use any of these three means to communicate his Holy Spirit to us as the arteries in our bodies communicate the blood throughout us. It is Andrewes’ view that our obedience to use the gifts given to us of Word, Sacrament and Prayer whereby we will come to manifest in our lives the grace of the Holy Spirit given through them. Andrewes sees great benefits of these three means being used but does not exalt one

98 _{Andrewes, Works, III, 37.} 99 _{Andrewes, Works, III, 38.} 100

Andrewes, Works, III, 38. 101

over the other but calls upon the Church to be faithful to partake of all three together. In concluding this sermon102, Andrewes calls upon the Church not to have prayer only, solitary services of preaching only, or the Eucharist without the other two. He finds the benefits of all three communicating the fullness of grace to the Church. Though this quotation is long, it is necessary to quote from it in full in order to understand how he weds these gifts as a means of communicating the grace of the Spirit of God to the Church.

Howsoever it be, if these three, 1. Prayer, 2. the Word, 3. the Sacraments, be every one of them as an artery to convey the Spirit into us, well may we hope, if we use them all three, we shall be in a good way to speed of our desires. For many times we miss, when we use this one or that one alone; where, it may well be God hath appointed to give it us by neither, but by the third. It is not for us to limit or appoint Him, how, or by what way, He shall come unto us and visit us, but to offer up our obedience in using them all; and, using them all, He will not fail but come unto us, either as a wind to allay in us some unnatural heat of some distempered desire in us to do evil, or as a fire to kindle in us some luke-warm, or some key-cold affection in us to good. Come unto us, either as the Spirit of truth lightening us with some new knowledge; or, as the Spirit of holiness, reviving in us some virtue or grace; or, as the Comforter, manifesting to us some inward contentment, or joy in the Holy Ghost; or, in one or other certainly He will come. For a complete obedience on our part in the use of all His prescribed means never did go away empty from Him, or without a blessing; never did, nor never shall…Only let us dispose ourselves by the use, not of this one or that one, or two, but of all the means, to receive it by. Inwardly, by unity and patient waiting His leisure, as these here; outwardly, by frequenting those holy duties, and offices, all which, we see, succeeded with those there in the three places remembered. And in these, the blessed Spirit so dispose us, and in them so bless us, as we may not only by outward celebration, but by inward participation, feel and find in ourselves, that we have kept to Him, this day, a true feast of the coming of His Spirit, of the sending down the Holy Ghost!103

The way we taste this goodness is through the celebration of the Eucharist as the vehicle of His Spirit.

And even that note hath not escaped the ancient Divines; to shew there is not only comfort by hearing the word, but we may also “taste of His goodness, how gracious He is,” and be “made to drink of the Spirit.” That not only by the letter we read, and the word we hear, but by the flesh we eat, and the blood we drink at His table, we be made partakers of His Spirit, and of the comfort of it. By no more kindly way passeth His Spirit than by His flesh and blood, which are vehicular Spiritus, ‘the proper carriages to convey it.’ Corpus aptavit Sibi, ut Spiritum aptaret tibi; Christ fitted our

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Andrewes, Works, III, 108-129. 103

body to Him, that He might fit His Spirit to us. For so is the Spirit best fitted, made remeable, and best exhibited to us who consist of both.104

What is very interesting here about Andrewes’ language is how he is communicating a real presence in the receiving of the flesh and blood of Christ in the Eucharist that is united to the Spirit. The Spirit is the knot of the hypostatic union as he implies earlier in this sermon. In relationship to the psychosomatic nature of humanity, Andrewes expresses the same unity of the body and blood communicated in the Eucharist as it is united to the Spirit. So, in the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ there is a true sense of objective life communicated to us through the vehicles of the Spirit. Those vehicles are the bread and the wine transformed into the body and blood of Christ. The sacrament conveys the life it represents since it carries the Spirit of Christ to the communicants. This means that there is an objective operative aspect of the Eucharist in the theology of Andrewes’ sacramental celebrations. This implies, very

importantly, a belief in real presence in the sacramental elements. Since there is a real presence of body and blood then there is naturally for Andrewes a presence of the Spirit since they both are united to the body of Christ. He is not a spiritless being. And so, Andrewes continues,

This is sure: where His flesh and blood are, they are not examines, “spiritless” they are not or without life, His Spirit is with them. Therefore was it ordained in those very elements, which have both of them a comfortable operation in the heart of man. One of them, bread, serving to strengthen it, or make it strong; and comfort cometh of confortare, which is ‘to make strong.’ And the other, wine, to make it cheerful [Psalm 104.15] or “glad;” and is therefore willed to me ministered to them that mourn, and are oppressed with grief. And all this is to shew that the same effect is wrought in the inward man by the holy mysteries, that is in the outward by the elements; [Hebrews 13.9] that there the heart is “established by grace,” and our soul endued with strength, and our conscience made light and cheerful, that it faint not, but evermore rejoice in His holy comfort.105

For Andrewes the flesh and blood is present in the elements as well as the Spirit and this was ordained by God to be present as a result of the transelemented bread and

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Andrewes, Works, III, 162. 105

wine. The Christian faith for Andrewes was not a mere auricular profession as we have seen in the opening chapter. The prayer of the Eucharist and the giving of the Spirit via the elements is where we encounter communion with Christ and a pouring out of the Spirit. What is certain is that Andrewes steered well enough away from any form of a ‘receptionist’ view of the Eucharist. As Nicholas Lossky rightly observes in a similar denial, quoting Andrewes’ own words:

where, in connection with the Eucharist, the use of the word ‘spiritual’ is clearly freed of any ‘receptionist’ sense: it is called ‘spiritual food’ (1 Cor. 10:3): ‘so called

spiritual, not so much for that it is received spiritually, as for that being so received it maketh us, together with it to receive the Spirit, even potare Spiritum [1 Cor.

12:13]—it is the Apostle’s own word.106

3.9 Concluding Remarks

I remain convinced that Andrewes made every effort to maintain a realist view of presence within the elements of bread and wine within his Eucharistic theology. After a careful reading of Andrewes, I believe I have shown that in union with the reality of Christ’s flesh in the Incarnation there is an inseparable reality of the Incarnation and the flesh of Christ received in the elements. His language of

Eucharistic presence is realistic. Perhaps, had the Tridentine formula and those who wanted to maintain the orthodox teaching of Christ’s real presence in the signs of bread and wine been more careful in how they expressed this presence while

understanding some legitimate concerns held by the Reformers there might have been less confusion. On the other hand, if Andrewes had been more clear in indicating the errors of those Reformers who came before him and some of his own contemporaries in showing that the orthodox position of Eucharistic presence was one of an objective presence in the elements, this could make him more of a catalyst for ecumenism. Yet,

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a careful reading of Andrewes’ sermons and polemical works surely allows even the hostile critics to see that he never intended to deny that God works through a material universe in using these effective signs of Christ’s self-gift to the Father and

transformative food and drink for humanity. Had the Tridentine Church been more careful to express the ontological change of bread and wine, perhaps this could have gotten us to a place where the discussion of Eucharistic sacrifice could be easier to understand and dialogue on the basis of Andrewes’ approved more fruitful. Kereszty writes:

The church’s teaching on ontological transformation (transubstantiation) presupposes that Jesus becomes really present but under the real sign of bread and wine. Bread and wine, then are not annihilated (analogously to the human person who offers himself to God through Christ) but rather reach their ultimate, God-intended perfection in becoming the effective signs of Christ’s presence in the eucharistic consecration. Therefore, Catholics should be more careful in defining the meaning of the word “appearance” in eucharistic theology. God does not intend to deceive us by false appearances: the empirical qualities of bread and wine are real and they must remain in order to express Christ as true food and true drink for the believers who still live in the world of sense experience. In this way we could do justice to a legitimate

Protestant objection while, at the same time, articulating better the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation in such a way that it might appear as an organic development of scripture and patristic doctrine rather than the outdated creed of what Luther called the “Aristotelian Church.”107

In the same manner there is quite a bit more understanding needed from those who oppose an ontological transformation. They need to hear what is being said and not said by those who hold to such a position. What is essential for a realist view, such as that upheld by Andrewes, is that there is clarity needed when describing the ontological transformation of the elements. Andrewes’ realist approach to presence shows how the recipients are able to receive the whole Christ through the effective signs of his self-gift to the world so clearly expressed in his theology of Eucharist and Incarnation. It is this realist approach to presence that allows Andrewes to also hold an orthodox understanding of the Eucharist as the Christian offering

107 _{Roch Kereszty, ‘The Eucharist of the Church and the Offering of Christ’, in Rediscovering}

the Eucharist: Ecumenical Conversations, Ed. By Roch A. Kereszty, (New York: Paulist Press, 2003),

which was so vehemently opposed by the Reformers preceding Andrewes and after. This particular issues which is from a Catholic perspective is where we now turn to examine his understanding of the union of Christ’s one offering on the cross and the offering made by the Church to the Father.

Chapter 4 Andrewes: Eucharistic Re-presentation, Immolation and the