Commenting on the Roman Catholic dogma of giving worship to the consecrated elements of the Eucharist, Vittorio Subilia (1911-1988), then-dean of the Waldensian Theological Seminary in Rome, wrote the following about this (theologically aberrant) practice:
Since the Eucharist, in distinction from other sacraments, ‘not only produces grace, but also contains the author of grace permanently in it’, it is to be adored, ‘as is clear from the very ritual of the August Sacrifice, where the sacred ministers are enjoined to adore the Most Holy Sacrament by genuflection and deep obeisances’.
This enables us to understand the developments in Catholic dogmatics:
In this way there is an ontological bond between the mystery of the Eucharist and that of the Incarnation, as there is between this list and that of the Trinity . . . These mysteries have a considerable likeness and affinity for each other. All three show us the same Son of God; the first, in the bosom of the Eternal Father, i.e., as he receives his being from the same; the second, in the bosom of the Virgin, i.e., as he comes through her into the world; The third in the bosom of the Church, i.e., as he lives among men and is made one with them un a universal and abiding presence. (M.J. Scheeben, Die Mysterien des Christentums, Freiburg i. Br. 1941)
In this way, too, we see how some seemingly imprudent assertions are legitimized: such as qualify priests as
men who have power over God and their own kind, to the point of making God alive for them.
Further, from the idea that the Host of the Mass, reserved in the tabernacle, is Christ himself (Missae hostia ipse Christus), there understandably derives the notion of churches as the dwelling places of the Lord, and the exhortation to keep them always open to the street, so that passers-by may there meet the Lord and have from him favour and consolation:
See to it then, venerable brethren, with your habitual maximum care, that the churches built in the course of centuries by the piety and faith of generations of Christians, to be an eternal hymn of glory to God omnipotent, and to be the dwelling place of our Redeemer as he hides himself under the forms of the Eucharist, may be open as often as possible to that growing number of the faithful that desire to gather at the feet of our Saviour and hear his sweetest of invitations: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt. 11.28). Let the churches be indeed the house of God, in which all who enter to ask a favour, may rejoice at receiving all they ask (cf. the Collect in the Roman Missal for the dedication of a church), and obtain the heavenly consolation. (Pius XII, ‘Mediator Dei’, 20 Nov., 1947: AAS XXXIX [1947]) (Vittorio Subilia, The Problem of Catholicism [trans. Reginald Kissack; London: SPCK Press Ltd, 1964], 146-47)
For more articles interacting with, and critiquing, what I believe to be among the best biblical and patristic arguments for the Mass, see, for e.g.:
