Editor’s Note: Fr. George Rutler is on the money again in his post-election bulletin column at St. Michael’s Church in New York City:
“Considering how many crucial matters were at stake during the recent election, including the right to life and religious freedom, and the preponderant bias in the media and opinion polls, it did not seem melodramatic to hope for a prudential hand to guide things. There will be much thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day….
“After the election, histrionics have abounded in academia. Our college campuses have been breeding grounds for self-absorption and corruption of the senses. Professors who had never attained moral maturity themselves reacted by providing ‘safe spaces’ for students traumatized by reality. In universities across the land, by a sodality of silliness in the academic establishment, these ‘safe spaces’ were supplied with soft cushions, hot chocolate, coloring books, and attendant psychologists. At least one university provided friendly kittens and puppies for weeping students to cuddle. A college chaplaincy invited students to pray, the implication being that their petitions might persuade the Lord to rethink his political leanings.
“The average age of a Continental soldier in the American Revolution was one year less than that of a college freshman today. Alexander Hamilton was a fighting lieutenant-general at 21, not to mention Joan of Arc, who led an army into battle and saved France when she was about as old as an American college sophomore. In our Civil War, eight Union generals and seven Confederate generals were under the age of 25. The age of most U.S. and RAF fighter pilots in World War II was about that of those on college junior varsity teams. Catholics who hoped in this election for another Lepanto miracle will remember that back in 1571, Don Juan of Austria saved Western civilization as commanding admiral when he was 24.
“None of these figures, in the various struggles against the world and the flesh and evil, retreated to safe spaces weeping in the arms of grief therapists.
“What will the frightened half-adults do when they leave their safe spaces and enter a society where there is no one to offer them hot chocolate? Christ formed his disciples in a more practical way: ‘I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves’ (Matt. 10:16). We are here today because those disciples did as they were told, and were not shrewd as doves and innocent as snakes.”
Q. You recently stated that we behold the glorious, risen Christ at the elevation at Mass. It has been my understanding that, after the consecration when the priest breaks off a small fraction of the larger Host, this symbolizes the death of the Lord and, when he places it into the chalice, that this commingling rite symbolizes the Lord’s Resurrection. I have always viewed Christ on the cross at the elevation. — J.H., California.
A. Consecrating the bread and wine separately symbolizes the separation of our Lord’s Blood from His Body on the cross. Breaking a small portion from the Host and placing it into the chalice symbolizes the reuniting of our Lord’s Body and Blood as the priest prays, “May this mingling of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ bring eternal life to us who receive it.” Here is how the General Instruction of the Roman Missal explains the action:
“The gesture of breaking bread done by Christ at the Last Supper, which in apostolic times gave the entire Eucharistic Action its name, signifies that the many faithful are made one body (1 Cor. 10:17) by receiving Communion from the one Bread of Life, which is Christ, who for the salvation of the world died and rose again. . . . The priest breaks the Bread and puts a piece of the host into the chalice to signify the unity of the Body and Blood of the Lord in the work of salvation, namely, of the Body of Jesus Christ, living and glorious” (n. 83).
Q. In the recent daily Mass readings from the Book of Revelation, there is talk about locking up the Devil “until the thousand years are completed,” when he will “be released for a short time,” and then those “who had not worshiped the beast or its image…came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. . . . When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison. He will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth.” But then the Devil will be thrown “into a pool of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:1-10). What is the meaning of these verses? — E.M.D., via e-mail.
A. Christians since the first century have argued over these verses and those who have tried to interpret them can be grouped into three categories: premillennialists, postmillennialists, and amillennialists, with millennium meaning a thousand years. The comments that follow are based on three good sources of information about these groups: Fr. Alfred McBride’s book The Second Coming of Jesus, David B. Currie’s book Rapture, and Paul Thigpen’s book The Rapture Trap.
Premillennialists believe that Christ will return to earth in glory and reign in human form literally for a thousand years. When this time of peace and prosperity comes to an end, the theory goes, Satan will be released to instigate a period of great tribulation that will finally be ended by the Second Coming of Christ. The Church has explicitly rejected this theory of millenarianism in these words from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 676):
“The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism [cf. DS 3839].”
The Catechism (n. 677) says that “the kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven [cf. Rev. 13:8; 20:7-10; 21:2-4]. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world [cf. Rev. 20:12; 2 Peter 3:12-13].”
Postmillennialists believe that the Earth is slowly being Christianized and that Christ will return at the end of a millennium of peace and righteous living. This theory does not appear to leave room for the rise of the Antichrist, who will assail the Church for a period of time before he is cast into Hell at the Second Coming.
Amillennialism has been the position of many Catholics since the time of St. Augustine, who held that the millennium does not refer to a literal thousand years, but rather to that symbolic age that began with the first coming of Christ in Bethlehem and will end with His Second Coming. Paul Thigpen sums up Augustine’s position in these words:
“Just before the close of the present age, however, God will loose the Enemy once more for a brief time. Then the Devil ‘will rage with the whole force of himself and his fallen angels for three and a half years’. . . . This is the period of the great tribulation under Antichrist’s oppression. At the end of the tribulation, Satan will be conquered and judged by Christ at His coming in glory. So why did God loose him in the first place? ‘So that the City of God might see how mighty an adversary it has vanquished, to the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, and Deliverer’” (The Rapture Trap, pp. 207-208).
Thigpen says that “St. Augustine’s views on the symbolic nature of the millennium, though they have dominated Catholic thinking for many centuries, have not been officially adopted by the Church. The Magisterium has never defined the ‘millennium’ as the present age of the Church (in fact, it has never defined the ‘millennium’ at all). Nevertheless, the Church does teach that Christ reigns even now, and the Church is the sacrament of that reign in the world” (p. 208).
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