Sometimes questions just hit you, things you’ve blindly accepted without mental bother for years suddenly become a pressing question in your mind.  This weekend clear out of the blue I realized I had absolutely no idea why we Catholics call the Eucharistic bread a “host”.  It seems a word with a host … *ahem* … a plethora of potential meanings, none of which really seem to apply and some of which would lead directly to such heresies as transfiguration (which holds the consecration creates a “figure” of Jesus’s Body) and consubstantiation (holding that Jesus’s Body and Blood co-resides with the bread).  Since teaching heresy didn’t seem to be a decent reason for the word, I had to look it up.

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia has this, in part:

According to Ovid the word comes from hostis, enemy: “Hostibus a domitis hostia nomen habet”, because the ancients offered their vanquished enemies as victims to the gods. However, it is possible that hostia is derived from hostire, to strike, as found in Pacuvius. In the West the term became general chiefly because of the use made of it in the Vulgate and the Liturgy (Romans 12:1; Philippians 4:18; Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews 10:12; Mabillon, “Liturg. Gall. vetus”, pp. 235, 237, 257; “Missale Mozarab.”, ed. Leslie, p. 39; “Missale Gothicum”, p. 253). It was applied to Christ, the Immolated Victim, and, by way of anticipation, to the still unconsecrated bread destined to become Christ’s Body. In the Middle Ages it was also known as “hoiste”, “oiste”, “oite”.

In time the word acquired its actual special significance; by reason of its general liturgical use it no longer conveyed the original idea of victim.

Perhaps that’s all there is to it.  But somehow in Catholicism it seems the answer to a question this old never has just one string.  So… does anyone have anything else to add to this?

Fr. Phillip Powell, OP has a simply superb homily (and would you expect anything less from a Dominican?) for yesterday’s Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  I do think St. Dominic would be proud.  A small snip:

We start our life-long regime at The Jesus Gym on the day we are baptized. From that moment on, “the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age. . .” As Catholics, we don’t have any trouble understanding grace as divine help, a gift from God to assist us when we need it. What we do have trouble understanding sometimes is that the help we get isn’t always the help we want. Like the skinny 18 year old freshman who wants ripped abs in a week to impress his girlfriend, we sometimes approach the throne in prayer and ask not for assistance to accomplish some goal, but rather we ask God to accomplish the goal for us, instead of us. The freshman is very disappointed to hear that his six-pack will take a semester or two with lots of hard work. And we are no less disappointed to learn that grace does not prevent us from traveling the ways of the godless nor desiring what the world would have us desire. Instead, grace trains us how to be godly men and women. The hard work of chiseling out a ripped spiritual six-pack is all ours. But we do not work alone.

The Vatican today announced the motu proprio Omnium in mentem, which makes changes to a few of the Canon laws by which the Church is governed.  Unfortunately to my knowledge a full translation into English has not yet been made available, but that hasn’t stopped the commentary from flying.  In short, the motu proprio does two things:

• Changes the requirements for Catholics who formally defected from the Church such that they are no longer bound to observe canonical form in marriages.  What it, in the end, means is that a great number of marriages that heretofore have been considered valid are now considered null.  Many marriage tribunals are now going to have their hands full figuring out exactly how to apply these newly worded canons.
• Alters the definition of the ministerial function of Deacons, specifically by removing any reference to a capacity to act in the person of Christ the Head, moving that terminology to the canon defining the presbyterate.

Fr. Z shares the VIS story announcing the new motu proprio here (the combox is, per usual, lively and informative), and Dr. Ed Peters gives his commentary on the first bullet here.  I suspect Dr. Peters will help explicate the effect of the second bullet when it is more well understood.  Life, I must say, in the Catholic world is never dull!

I can think of no greater venue in southern New Hampshire to focus one’s attention on Christ in the Eucharist than under the Baroque cover of Ste. Marie’s church in Manchester.  Even the still in-progress installation of a marble floor for the spacious sanctuary could not distract those present from Him who in His Eucharistic Presence is the source and summit of our faith.

I’m  going to be there.  Are you?  The speakers will be Bishop Robert Hennesey, Auxiliary Bishop of Boston, Bob and Penny Lord of EWTN fame and Dr. Hugo Poza of the hosting Ste. Marie Parish.  Mass will be offered by Bishop John McCormack, Bishop of Manchester.  What better way to spend a day and $20?

In The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt has proposed “a total re-catechesis for the sacrament of penance” in an article here.  He suggests this will be an ongoing series – keep a watch out for follow-up posts to this excellent beginning.

H/T to WDTPRS.

This is my one and hopefully only post on the P.Z. Myers issue. To start, let me second what Jimmy Akin wrote: Myers must be fired, not purely because of what he did but because he has compromised his ability to act as an educator and particularly one at a public institution. Perhaps I’m just being credulous, but I find it highly interesting that just as I clicked on this story on the TV Mother Angelica‘s nuns started to pray the Rosary.

Next, let me also second what Jeff at the recently-mentioned St. Peter Canisius Apostolate had to say. In fact, let me quote him:

So beginning next Friday, August 1, let us all join in prayer for the conversion of PZ Myers every day, until Sunday, August 31. Let us pray Rosaries for his conversion, offer up the Mass for his conversion, engage in abstinence and fasting for his conversion, and spend time in Adoration for his conversion.

Let us remember, in this Year of St. Paul, to ask the special intercession of St. Paul who started toward his great conversion by attacking the Church.

Finally, while contemplating this whole issue, let us do it with this image from The Crescat firmly in our minds. Nothing more need be said.

This past week was a whirlwind of milestones for my son. On Monday he tested in his Kenpo Karate class, earning his blue belt and therein also a promotion to the next class. This will be the last class before he has to decide whether to pursue his black belt – it seems entirely too soon for that but at the same time I see the progress he’s made and can see how it could happen that soon. On Wednesday we were back at the Karate studio for their promotion night where he for the first time worked out in front of the studio’s founder and was presented his belt. Makes one feel downright old, it does.

The biggest day, however, was still to come. Just yesterday along with about thirty of his classmates he received the Body and Blood of our Risen Savior for the first time. It has been so wonderful to see him take the path I never had the chance to as a child, to grow up always knowing of the love and care his Eternal Father has for him and growing to understand the extent to which that love was willing to go for him. There are some, and at one point I was one of them, who would argue that children of his age are too young to understand what, or rather Whom, they are receiving. Having gone through this and quite honestly interrogated him myself (yes, to be honest I would have not allowed him to go through with the Sacrament if I did not find him properly prepared – to me there’s no such thing with the Eucharist as “keeping with the schedule”) I can now properly and honestly attribute that to a severe case of adult convert myopic vision. I find myself having been guilty of that very arrogance of so many of the elite who thought the simple could never understand the Mass or its mysteries. Yet here is this young child who probably would struggle to spell transubstantiation showing a most pure and true grasp of what and Who is going on. It reminds me that the path from the heart to the head is much smoother than from the head to the heart; it indeed may be the only one where going up is faster than going down. I have so far to go…

…there is exactly one thing better than assisting at Mass. Yup, there’s one thing better. Wanna guess what it is? C’mon, you know you do.

It’s assisting at Mass after receiving the Sacrament of Confession. I mean right after. As in “walking out of the Confessional, performing your penance and praying until Mass begins without leaving your pew.” There is a qualitative difference, at least for poor sinful ol’ me, in my participation in praying with the Mass directly after Confession when I haven’t even had a chance to commit even a venial sin and assisting at Mass even only a couple of days later when I’ve been beaten down by the sludge of the world. The Mass is the Mass, yes, but assisting with a sparkly clean soul is just plain different. I can’t help it, sorry.

So I renew my plea to any priest (or potential priest) reading this post – please, do anything and everything in your power to offer confession before each and every Mass in your parish. Even if it means rearranging the Mass schedule to avoid, as I believe Pope Benedict called it “the parking lot syndrome” with Masses so close together there is neither time for people to get in and out of the parking lot easily nor for Confession. Even just ten minutes. Even if nobody comes. You can read, you can write, you can review your homily, you can just sit in the quiet and pray. Admit it my beloved priests, you’d love ten minutes of peace and quiet, if that’s the “down” side of offering Confession before every Mass. I simply cannot recommend this enough.

Now this is a movement just about everyone should be able to get behind:

The Worldwide Hour of Eucharistic Adoration will take place at 7:00 p.m. local time on April 2nd, 2008, the Third Anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death.

By hosting this hour in time zones throughout the world, this will result in a full calendar day of Eucharistic Adoration in remembrance of Pope John Paul II.

This endeavor will work towards the promotion and education of Eucharistic Adoration worldwide.

Adoration ends with Benediction at 5:00 PM at my parish, but there are three other Perpetual Adoration chapels around that I know of. It’d certainly be nice, though, if any parish that has the capacity for Adoration (i.e. a Monstrance, a valid minister to expose and repose the Blessed Sacrament, and the commitment of at least one person for the hour) were to schedule something for that one hour. Just the thought must send shockwaves through the depths of Hell.

H/T to Mark Shea.