Oklahomily - Roots of the Real Presence Doctrine

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following is written for my sister. Sis, I hope you don’t mind if I share this with a bunch of other good people. Thanks!)
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By DAVID JONES
My professional life began with newspapers and then, at a strange juncture, switched into the music recording business. The former was involved with the communication of the printed word accompanied by photographs; the latter, communications of lyric and music as song. They are not as unalike as they might seem. Modern journalism and recording both employ highly technical equipment and a great deal of creativity. They also share a new vulnerability: both professions have been endangered, at least as money-making enterprises, by the arrival of new technologies that put the ability to publish news and record music into the hands of the hoi polloi (the unschooled masses). The computer and the internet are redefining both, for better in many cases, and for worse in others.

As I experienced both professions, there was one other odd commonality: both newspapers and recording studios employed the strategic use of red lights.

At the newspaper, the darkroom was the gloomy (and odiferous) domain of Jim, our chief photographer, who developed film and made prints for our entire news staff. He was a popular fellow, especially around deadline, but there were times when it was forbidden to enter. To do so would jeopardize the film or the printing. So outside the darkroom lab was a red lamp. When it was lit, the meaning was clear: keep out and don’t bother Jim.

At my recording studio, I mounted a red light over the door into the area where musicians and singers worked. The message was similar: when the light is on, something important is beyond this door. Stay out until we say you can come in.

Most of the time the red light system worked just fine; on occasion, however, it was ignored. It still surprises me how often a few people ignored the red light, walked through the doors, ruining prints and recording takes.

What brought all this to mind was a question asked by my sister in Kansas, not too terribly long ago. She and her husband had been to a wedding at a Catholic church. While both of us were raised in a small, Southern Baptist congregation as kids, I converted to Catholicism in my mid-20s. Thus I am the repository of knowledge of all things Catholic for my siblings, a role I have not always handled very ably. Too shy to ask anyone at that church her question, she confided, what she wanted to know:

“What is the meaning of that red candle over in the front of the church?”

My explanation at the time was very technical, precise, orthodox and, without a doubt, uninspiring. “That signifies that the Holy Eucharist is reposed inside the Tabernacle at the front of the sanctuary,” I told her. “It’s where the priest keeps the consecrated hosts left over from communion.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, now I know.”

Well, no, she doesn’t.

While what I told her is exactly true, it is not the whole truth or even the most important part of the truth. But at the time I was afraid to share the rest of it with her because, as Jack Nicholson once stated in, I believed she “couldn’t handle the truth!”

And what is that truth?

The red candle quietly indicates that you are in the Holy Presence of the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lamb of God and Savior of the World. You are but a precious few yards away from the Truly Present Jesus, the Son of the Living God. The red candle is no symbolic gesture. It is herald of Jesus as He offers His flesh as true food for the life of the world.

That’s what it means. That’s what we believe, although too often our actions do not reflect our belief.

One of the saddest consequences of the divisions in Christendom is that most of the part that calls itself Protestant has rejected the ages-old teaching on the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the eternal sacrifice of the Cross and the Last Supper. The belief taught by the early church fathers that Jesus is really and truly Present in Holy Communion under the appearance of bread and wine.

As a young man investigating the teachings of the Catholic Church, I was astonished when I was told of the Real Presence. I’d never heard of the concept. Sure, I knew about communion services, the "grape juice and crackers" ceremony various churches offered once in awhile. At least for those I witnessed, these events more social than mystical, and not particularly reverent. Even the symbolic nature of the event was somewhat obscure.

Could it be that the Lord’s Supper was something more than I’d been taught? The Catholics I observed seemed to think so. They knelt in the presence of the Tabernacle (with its silent red vigil candle nearby). They spoke in hushed tones, if at all, in their sanctuaries and chapels. In the churches of my boyhood, when you entered the sanctuary before services began it was a time to shake hands, say hello and exchange greetings, a very social (and not unpleasant) way to start worship, though sometimes it would take a few moments for the music of the opening hymn to impose a bit more decorum on the congregation.

In each of the Catholic churches I visited, I would see parishioners kneeling and praying reverently, quietly. Conversations, when they occurred, were whispered and short. The focus was not on family and friends; it was on something or someone else. There was a palpable sense of expectation. I would learn that it was part of the preparation for meeting Jesus in the flesh, in communion.

As I said, it was an astonishing discovery, and a bit unsettling. My upbringing in Biblical fundamentalism demanded that I search the scriptures to find proof or refutation of this Catholic teaching. Fortunately for me, the Catholics I had met knew their Bible as well as any of my Baptist friends. I was asked to read several chapters (not just verses) and to pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I had no qualms about reading the Bible and praying, and my investigations of this strange belief began.