As per my previous post, we consume the species. The matter is really digested. If the species are the Body and Blood, then we are consuming Body and Blood. See also the Summa.
I'm curious... What do you think happens to the Eucharist when it enters your body if it doesn't go into our digestive tract and become digested? Certainly our soul is fed, but I'm asking about the species. Does it disappear or transmorgrify somehow?
As much as I love the Summa and St Thomas Aquinas (I'm a student, you know), he is not infallible and in fact wrong on some things.
Yeah, but he's smarter than us.
So what is the truth? I think what happens is what (I believe) Bl. Mary of Agreda was privately revealed by God, namely, that He goes to start to the heart and soul in Communion.
Private revelation is even shakier than Aquinas. I think there is a reason he is a Saint and a Doctor of the Church and she hasn't gotten past Blessed. Maybe because her revelations have contradicted other ones, and they contradict because they are not to be taken literally but as spiritual nourishment and consolation. Mystical visions often reveal truths but not facts.
There are others that same similar things too so I'm being rash here, this truth may be yet to be solemnly defined by the Church through the Pope. Do you think all the sacred dogmas of the deposit have been defined already? I don't.
No, I don't think so.
We may have the mission from God to help His Church realize and define another. Would this not possibly help our Holy Mother?
No, I don't think we have that mission, and no I don't think it would help. And I'll be happy to explain why.
1) We aren't educated enough. People like Aquinas and the other theologians who advise the Pope on dogma are people who have dedicated their whole lives to it and know the matter thoroughly. We're idiots with keyboards and library cards. There's a difference in competence.
2) It is
irresponsible to posit ideas of speculative theology in the public arena especially with an eye towards developing them. Those posits belong in the academic and ecclesiastical arena where they can be tried and proven to have some level of probability. The reason for this is people pick them up and start believing and quoting them even though they may be random musings not worthy of belief or completely or quasi heretical. In this way we work against the Church which would have to deal with combating a new heresy or erroneous belief.
God is love, but He is all good things, too. And that is irrelevant to the fact that to be sacrificed He became incarnate. It would be rather difficult to sacrifice God in His God-substance. For one, He is not material, for another, He cannot die.
God is a Substance though, He is real. He is material now in Christ but even so, before the Son's Incarnation, He was still Substantial, Spiritual not Substantial. You're not materialist, are you (joking)?
First, let's look at what "sacrifice" means.
From CE
By sacrifice in the real sense is universally understood the offering of a sense-perceptible gift to the Deity as an outward manifestation of our veneration for Him and with the object of attaining communion with Him. Strictly speaking however, this offering does not become a sacrifice until a real change has been effected in the visible gift (e.g. by slaying it, shedding its blood. burning it, or pouring it out).
There was no way for Christ to be sacrificed without becoming incarnate. He had to be 1) sense-perceptible, and 2) affected by a real change - death.
Love is not a sense-perceptible gift, therefore it cannot be a sacrifice.
I say Christ thirsts to consume souls really and truly, as St. Paul says "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me", Christ Wills us to participate in His Divine Nature forever just as He does ours. This is God's purpose of creation. Maybe it's creation already, we just to accept it by Faith, Hope and Charity. All of creation is a single and eternal act of God sacrificing Himself, no?
Consume:
1: to do away with completely Does God do away with our souls completely? Nope. But let's go to the full truth. There is nothing God qua God is in need of because he is complete. If he needed something, He would be incomplete and not God. Thirst is a sign of need - a need for drink and refreshment. Christ on the Cross thirsted. You say it is for souls. Does God in any way, shape or form need souls? No, of course not. Does Christ Incarnate need water to sustain His flesh? Yes, of course. So it seems to me He was asking for a drink of water, as dying men are wont to do, rather than a pitcher of souls. Creation is not a single and eternal act of God sacrificing Himself. Before the fall, there was no need for the Sacrifice. And, Creation occurred before the fall. If there was an act of sacrifice before or even in Creation, then that would mean God did something needlessly and that would be stupid. God is not stupid, therefore there was no act of Sacrifice in Creation. We enter into a Mystical Union with Him, He doesn't digest us like Choronzon the devourer of Souls.
A mystical union is no less a real and substance union that the
Mystical Body of Christ is real. Mystical does not mean fake or false. Heaven is all symbol and mystical according to saints but nonetheless real.
I didn't deny it wasn't a substantial union. However, I have never heard it taught that He consumes us (read: makes us disappear), that we lose our individuality and become part of a "greater whole". In fact, evidence points to the contrary or there wouldn't be degrees of Sanctity and the angels and souls wouldn't be distinct from God.
If we are consumed by God and cease to be individual souls, then how would the General Judgment take place? He would be judging part of Himself which doesn't make sense.
BTW, I have to warn you (and anyone else reading this):
this forum is not the place to posit theological speculation with an eye towards convincing others of the truth of the posit.
It is one thing to wonder aloud and ask questions; it is another to promote something that is unapproved unless it is within the normal workings of the Church - e.g., promoting the cultus of a person, promoting an approved or reasonably held theological opinon such as the Co-Redemptrix of Mary, etc.
Your comment about how it might be our place to help form a dogma combined with your rather interesting speculations of late is what prompts me to give this warning. If you want to promote such things, I suggest a blog and you can put a link in your sig, but it can't be promoted directly on this forum. I won't allow it for the reasons I stated above (education and responsibility). I hope we can agree on those parameters.
