Monday, September 26, 2011

"The Perfection of Sacramental Signification"



The following is taken from Abbot Vonier's "A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist:"

Saint Thomas [Aquinas] has thought it worth his while to devote an Article to this very subject:  Whether the Body of Christ as It is in this sacrament can be seen by any eye, at least one glorified?"
"The Body of Christ," he answers,

according to the mode of being which it has in this sacrament, cannot be detected, either by the senses or by  imagination, but only through the intellect, which is called the spiritual eye.  It is, however, detected by various intellects in various degrees.   As the mode of being according to which Christ is in this sacrament is entirely supernatural, Christ is visible to the supernatural intellect only, I mean, the divine intellect; and, as a consequence, to the beatified intellect, either of angel or man, which in a participated brightness of the divine intellect sees the supernatural thing, in the vision of the divine essence; but as for the intellect of man here on earth, it cannot perceive [the sacramental Presence of Christ] otherwise than by faith, as is the case with all other supernatural things; nor is the angelic intellect capable of seeing it, left to its merely natural resources.

St. Thomas of Aquinas, pray for us.

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