Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Transubstantiation is a way of articulating the change that's necessary to understand in order to explain Jesus words, that this is Jesus body, this is Jesus blood. So the substance, what is there changes from being bred into Christ's body, although it's only the substance, not the outward appearances, that changes.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome to the catholic theology show presented by Ave Maria University. This podcast is sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle, a community that supports the mission of Ave Maria University through their monthly donations of $10 or more. If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Ave Maria University, I encourage you to visit avemaria.edu join for more information.
I'm your host, Michael Dauphine, and today I am thrilled to be joined by a former student and dominican sister and a associate professor of theology, formerly at Ave Maria, but now at the University of St. Thomas, Sister Albert Marie Szermansky. Thank you so much for being here, sister.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: You're welcome. I'm so glad to be here. It's a great opportunity when I get a chance to come back to Ave Maria.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Well, we're so glad to have you here. And sister Albert Marie is really kind of unique in the history of Ave Maria because she's a triple alum. She did her bachelor's degree, her master's degree, and her PhD at ave Maria. So it was a real blessing and then taught for us for a number of years before being moved by your order to another great school. So we're certainly just glad to have you here and so proud of you and all your work.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. When I was first at Ave Mer, it was before I entered our community, so it was a great place to discern religious life, and then it was really beautiful to be able to come back and study more as a sister.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's beautiful. And so you've done a lot of work on St. Albert the great in your scholarly work, and obviously also with St. Thomas Aquinas and also. Right, the Dominican. Or do you want to, what's the official name of your order?
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Yeah, so we're the dominican sisters of Mary, mother of the Eucharist.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Right. So Mary, mother of the Eucharist. And so I wanted today to really kind of dive into what is the eucharistic spirituality in a way, of the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas, of the Dominicans of your particular order. Right. Sisters of Mary, Mother the Eucharist. But I thought, before we move too quickly, one of the key things for Thomas and the Dominicans is that truth is attractive. Truth is beautiful. Truth becomes something that we desire when we come to know it. And I think at the heart of any eucharistic spirituality is really rediscovering the truth of the Eucharistic. So what would you say to maybe.
I have a family member who is a very committed Protestant who thinks that the catholic teachings on the sacraments are somewhat superstitious and magical, that this is merely a symbol, that Christ was only sacrificed once.
I know other people who just maybe don't have strongly held beliefs, but just don't find the Eucharistic.
They go to church or they've been to church, but they don't find it moving to be in the presence of the Lord. So maybe just for those two, what would you say to those two people?
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a big question. I mean, if I was speaking to a devout Protestant or someone who loves Jesus, I'd probably want to start by focusing on the importance of the incarnation. Right. Jesus takes on human nature. Jesus becomes physical and how grateful they are for that, and then maybe help them to have some sort of sympathy or interest in realizing that when the Eucharist, there's a way in which that presence of Christ, presence of his body, presence of his blood, soul, and divinity remains with us. So someone who loves the incarnation is in some way predisposed to love the Eucharist, even if they haven't fully broken through to recognizing that and then talking to someone again who loves Jesus. I'd probably invite them to spend time with his words at the last Supper. Right. The church's doctrine can be very technical and very detailed, but it's really a contemplation and opening up of the very simple words that Jesus gave us at the last Supper. This is my body. This is my blood.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. And it's interesting, Thomas Aquinas, one of the reasons why he says that Jesus instituted the Eucharist is he says, friends want to be with friends. Friends want to be in each other's physical presence. So if Jesus is our best friend, I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.
Then he wants to be with us, and so he gets to be with us in that personal dimension. So if you want to receive, if you want to have Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, it's like, I can't think of a better way to do it than to adore him in the Eucharist and to receive him body, blood, soul, and divinity.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Yes. No, exactly. I actually was speaking to some students at my university down in Houston last week, because it was University of St. Thomas, we were having events for the feast day and the week of St. Thomas, and I gave a reflection on things that would help students receive communion better. And I started with friendship. That was the first point. And then the second one is really important, too. It's faith, right? That the sacraments are sacraments of faith, and that although we don't see Christ's physical appearances in there, there's an invitation to hear his words, respond to his words with faith, and experience his presence. But with that, faith and appreciation of faith tends to be something also that Protestants, they're not used to applying it to sacraments. But the idea that Christ gives us an opportunity to come to him with faith in regard to the Eucharist is something I think they could come to appreciate, too, possibly.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. I think one of the.
In one of Cs Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, at the beginning in the silver chair. Anyway, one time one of the kids says to another kid, are you good at believing things? And she says, maybe in some ways, believing things is actually a very important thing. The whole medical industry depends upon us trusting doctors. You have to believe and trust things in a lot of ways. I think we've just kind of. We're not very good at believing things in the modern world. And so that sense of just. Are you good at believing things? And I like that sense of, yes, the Eucharist is meant to be above reason. It's not against reason, as we'll talk about a little bit, but it is above reason. Right. We believe it in part because. And this is. I have one corinthians 1123, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. And this is also very technical kind of language. I received what I handed on. This is the original tradition of the church. What is it? What's the original tradition, actually? The Eucharist. Right. I received from the Lord what I handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord. Right. So this is that beautiful mystery. And in a certain sense, are we good at believing it?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's really important. And it's important to think about faith, too, in the sense that it's a human action, but it's also divine action. Right. That you receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, sanctifying grace, and that, in a sense, overflows into or moves our will and mind to be able to choose to accept as true what God has revealed. So when we're believing that's actually a spiritual experience in a way, because God is actually strengthening us to be able to make that act of faith. So someone who is receiving the Eucharist are in adoration. They're like, well, I don't see anything. What is this? But to realize that to activate that faith, make that act of faith, there's a spiritual element in the Lord being there, but there's also an element in the Lord strengthening your own will. So to be attentive to the Lord in one's life, making that belief possible, I think, can be powerful. People reflect on that with a little more awareness.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So we also talked a little bit about those, about people who go to church and have attended mass, right. There was a joke about football, which is that many attend but few understand. And I think the same is true about the mass. Right. Many attend, but few understand. And definitely, you know, people have an experience of at least some, especially young people. But I just think any age of just going to mass, nothing happens. Going to mass, nothing happens. Right. There's no. They don't have this interior encounter with the Lord. Right. So what would you say to those people to help them or if they're interested in trying to grow in their faith?
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a few things. So I think because faith constitutes part of our religious experience, reading or studying or listening to podcasts to get an understanding of what the Eucharist really is can really help. Maybe even to look at some. Something beautiful, like images of gothic cathedrals and sort of seeing where you have the Eucharist or the altar in the center and just getting a sense of that reverence, but so the study and learning more about it, but then also purposely making the act of faith. Right. We have that beautiful line from scripture, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. I think that can be helpful, actually, if you accept in faith that the Lord is present there, actually try and speak to him and address him in an honest way and sort of see where that goes. And then the other piece that I always tell students who come to talk to me about spiritual dryness or something is sin. And preoccupation with things that aren't the things of God in a disordered way makes it harder to be receptive of any sort of spiritual experience. So one sort of looks, is there somewhere I'm not being generous to God? Is there something in my life that is an idol and put ahead of God that's stopping me from really caring about the things of God? So those are the two areas, I think.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: And then we have that dimension that the more we ask God and invite God into our life, we kind of recognize that God was already there calling us. Like I wouldn't have. It's funny, in that same Lewis book from Narnia, the silver chair, eventually they start calling on Aslan. They go into the world of Narnia, and then eventually they find out, you would not have been calling me unless I had been calling you. And so also that deep sense of just remembering that, yes, we want to invite. We want to ask God to manifest you himself to us, but also recognize that he's already that very desire, because my life is already a gift of his. He's created me and he's given me these desires for him.
And I do think that sense, too, about sin and guilt and shame.
Not as though it's kind of like, not as though the Lord won't accept us till we turn away from them, but it's that we can't turn to the Lord until we turn away from them. Because if we're turning on them, then we're simply not. Like God has to be the highest thing, has to be the highest reality, bigger than all of creation. So if I'm loving something more than God, even if it's in a wounded, broken way, I can't experience God. I'm just really experiencing kind of a false image of God somehow in my kind of somewhat my confused mind and heart.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: No, exactly. Yeah. It's not like look for sin in your life so you could feel guilty about it, but look for what's blocking you from appreciating the Lord and put it aside so that you can appreciate the Lord. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: And really to discover that's the beauty of the Eucharist is that Jesus did for us what we can't do for ourselves. It's that deep mystery that and even if people have been to mass at the beginning of mass, you have the. My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault. As we get closer to the Eucharist. We say, right, Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. To a certain extent. To be a Catholic is to kind of like raise the white flag and say, I surrender. I give up. I have failed to be a good person. I have failed to live my life according to my deepest desires. It's only in Jesus Christ that I can only, and not just in Jesus Christ as an example, but in Jesus Christ's death on the cross, that he performed the sacrifice of perfect charity. He loved God and himself and us perfectly. When my best attempts to try to love God or love my neighbor apart from Jesus Christ inevitably fail. And so I think that element, when you really begin to discover in a certain sense what Jesus has done for you, then it also makes sense then that other aspect of the Eucharist, which is thanksgiving, it makes sense to go back and say, thank you, Lord, for giving me back not right, because you saw me in my shame and my sin, and you loved me anyway. I was that, you know, I was the sheep. That was that one sheep that ran off and was lost, but you found me.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: No, definitely. I mean, that's definitely how we want to think about the eucharistic approach. Just, you said earlier, just want to underline again that sense. If you have a desire to experience more or to love the Lord more in the Eucharist, to recognize that is God calling you, because people can. Sometimes I get sort of upset, wasted all this time. I don't care about God as much as I should. And, I mean, the Lord always takes us where we are and just where you are, if you're having a desire to come to know him more, that's him drawing you. Yeah.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: That's beautiful. So I also want to just kind of ask a little bit about now, at the heart of, really, the catholic teaching on the Eucharist back in lateran four and 1215, before Thomas is even born, and then when Thomas teaches it, is this doctrine of transubstantiation. Some people find that there's overly complicated. Some people have objected that it's overly aristotelian. How would you maybe just first explain why the doctrine of transubstantiation is actually really not overly complicated?
And then maybe for those who wonder, let's talk a little bit about how does it actually kind of fit within a modern scientific understanding.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So in a basic way, transubstantiation is a way of articulating the change that's necessary to understand in order to explain Jesus words, that this is Jesus body, this is Jesus blood. So, I mean, you break down the word, you have trans, which means to move across, and then you have the word substance, which means the being of something. What something is the type of thing that it is. And that's the word the church uses to express the idea that the substance, what is there, changes from being bread into Christ's body, although it's only the substance, not the outward appearances, that changes. So it really is just a basic articulation that helps us hold to the truth of Jesus words. This is my body. This is my blood.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: And I remember hearing, too, that mostly in life we have not transubstantiation, we have trans accidentation, right? We have that. I remain the same person, but I look different when I'm five or 50 now, right? So I have more gray hair than I did when I was five, right? But on the other hand, so my accidents, my appearances have changed, but my substance has changed the same. So normally in life we experience this all the time, right?
That the appearances. And so here we just have the miracle is simply that here we have the reverse. The appearances stay the same. But the words that Jesus says are effective. And I like that idea that it is a miracle. But creation itself is a miracle as well. The fact that nothing would turn into something is a miracle like that doesn't happen on its own. And so when God says, let there be light, there is light in this basic sense of creation, not how did the world come about? Because that has a long scientific history that we can dive into.
But why is there something rather than nothing, that, in a way, is a miracle? And in the same way, then we have this power of Christ's words.
They create a kind of presence. There's a reality that the his body and blood, which is given and shed for us, again, he offers the sacrifice that we can't make.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: So how do we have to make sure? I think there's a way that a lot of people, in terms of. With a modern scientific understanding, think about substance, in terms of, like the material substances we can touch and feel and measure. So it seems like that's just the opposite, in a way, of what the church means by transubstantiation, in terms of the being of the thing that is more than what we can touch. How do we understand our contemporary use of the word substance? And then maybe this more formal use.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Of the word substance before that, just to remind that, of course, there's no other case of transubstantiation with other types of change. You can look at natural examples. There is no natural example here. So that can make it a little bit difficult to think about.
It's really important to recognize that the word substance is being used differently, because in a scientific way, we tend to use the word substance to mean the type of matter that something's made of. Right? Like you take a sample of something like, oh, what substance is this? Is it water? Is it tea, is it coffee? So it's looking at sort of chemical components, right? And that's not what they meant by that word. In the time of Thomas Aquinas, they're using the word substance in a philosophical way to mean a individually existing thing, a particular thing. So you'd say a person is a substance, a dog is a substance, a loaf of bread is a substance meaning a particular thing. And I mean, chemically, you actually could have similarities, like if you sort of broke down molecularly, like a dog and a cat or something. Actually, probably on the level of molecules, the amount of carbon in each of them is actually probably going to be similar. But so sort of in that kind of chemical analysis, but in terms of the actual existing dog, the actual existing cat, you can recognize almost in a common sense, a metaphysical way, that they're distinct things and they're individual things. So it's an entirely different use of the word substance. You have to hear it that way in the teaching.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: That's great. And so you have that, like, substantial hole that it's kind of what makes a dog a dog. And it's that that dog is a dog and a dog and a cat, everybody just intuitively knows, are very radically.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Different things, and especially this dog and this cat.
But there's a integrity, a unity of all the parts and all that you see, all the qualities of the dog or the cat, the appearances, but it's also the unified whole, the thing that it is.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And that idea that. And it's more than its body, because also, at the moment of death, its body, in a way, hasn't really changed.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Actually, chemically, it's identical the moment that it dies, but it's quite different. You've had a child who's lost their pet, the dead pet and the live pet. So different, such a different.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: And that's the difference between subs.
Like, that's when you have the substance leaving. So the substance we're talking about is that living. It's the living principle that makes this cat alive.
And if we think about then what makes the Eucharist become the substance of Jesus? It's not, again, a material change. It's a substantial change, which means that not fido or I don't know, or fluffy or something, but Jesus Christ.
Not just human nature, but that man, right? That man who knows. Who knew and loved me on or. Yeah, I think it's the catechism in 615 says. Right? He knew me, and he knew and loved us all on the cross.
That. That man, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, he personally is present in the Eucharist. It actually. It's the substantial change of the being of the thing that allows that person in his human nature and, of course, in his divine nature to be present so that I encounter that individually existing thing, that person, my Jesus, my Lord, my all.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: And of course, it's a miracle that sustains the appearances of bread, even when you don't have the substantial being of bread present there. So that, in a way, the presence of Christ is mediated to the surrounding space through the accidents. And again, there's no natural time in which this happens. So you have to.
Yeah. You can't just point to another example. You have to recognize it is unique, special, it's miraculous.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: And that's also important why? That we're not eating the flesh of Jesus in its physical spatial form. Right. To say that Christ is present substantially but without the appearance means that the entire humanity of Jesus is present. Right. In each kind of other particle of the bread and each particle of the wine. Right. That it's not spatially present, but it's really present.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Right. It's mediated through those accidents. Right. Yeah. I was giving a talk again the other week, and someone was like, well, I was told in school not to chew the host. You want to chew up Jesus? Like, well, you're only chewing up the appearances or the forms. I mean, you probably don't want to get the Eucharist stuck in your tooth because, you know, Christ is truly present. You want to fulfill the sacramental symbolism of taking in and eating and being sustained by. But there's a lot devotionally that ties to that idea. There can be a lot of fear. What if I accidentally. I mean, we show so much reverence for the house, but what if I accidentally drop a particle or something happens? You're like, well, jesus is a savior. We show reverence to him, but we don't need to save him. And you can't damage him. You can only damage the appearances of the bread and wine.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: That's beautiful. So tell us a little bit about maybe your own story. How did you get. How did you end up at Ave Maria? How did you become a dominican sister? How did you end up studying? Right. St. Thomas and St. Albert the Great.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I grew up in Canada to a fairly devout catholic family. And just one of those things when you're a high school student, people sort of say to you, you should think about, you should pray about what you're going to do with your life. And I was just a pretty simple, straightforward student, was like, okay, I'll do that. I'll pray about a vocation. That's something I should think about. And it's actually really tied to the Eucharist. So it was just one day in mass after having received the Eucharist, I just had this really strong sense of Christ's reality, Christ's presence, and Christ's love for me, and that whatever I did in my life, my connection to him would be what is most important. And that's not a religious vocation, that's a christian life. Right? That should be true for every Christian. Every Catholic is invited to that. But then following on that experience, I just had the sense of an invitation that I could look into religious life, give my life to the Lord in this way. And at first I thought, well, I didn't know a lot of people who'd done that. The only sisters I knew were some cloistered Carmelites who were lovely. But it just. It was clear to me that wasn't where I needed to go. But I kind of was like, lord, well, if this stays with me, right, that's also a sign of when you're think you hear God's voice, a sign that it's authentic, is that it has power, it stays with you. And what you're invited to do, you're given the strength and the ability to do so. That stayed with me. And when it was time to go to college, I didn't know yet which religious community I wanted to enter, so I thought I would go to a catholic school. I was like, well, if I'm going to be a sister at some point, I need to go to a school where I can trust the theology, trust the philosophy, and get a formation that will help me grow in this desire rather than lose it. And Ave Maria was a great opportunity, fulfilled those desires. And I was canadian. It wasn't at that point, it was in Michigan, so it was far enough away I wouldn't live at home, which I didn't want to do, but also just seemed like a comfortable distance to go to. And when I applied, everything just fell into place. So then when I was at Ave Marie, it was very beautiful. Again, the Eucharist still was very central to student life at the school. I know my junior and senior year, the dorm I was in had a chapel with the blessed Sacrament, and I'd actually find myself taking my theology books down there to sort of pray and read and just sort of realizing, praying and studying and learning about the truth really helps my prayer life. And that was, I didn't realize at the time that was a specifically dominican part of the vocation. Right. Dominican, the order of preachers all in some way teach or preach the truth and find growth in love in that way. St. Catherine of Siena, one of our great saints, says, upon knowledge follows love. So if you find your spiritual life growing in that way, there's an affinity with the dominican charism.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: And we're going to take a break in a minute, but right before, I do want to highlight that, of course, Thomas himself, after writing on the Eucharist, on the tertia pars of the third part of the summa theologia, he took his writings and he put it before. Right. The altar and the crucifix and. Right. He just kind of said, lord, I've written this for you. And he has this vision. Our Lord speaks to him and says, right, you've written well of me, Thomas. Ask anything and I'll give it to you. And he says, right, non nicite. Right. Nothing but you.
Even though Aquinas was a, was a master student. Master teacher. Right. Brilliant. It was all really for. Right. It was for Jesus and it was to. He didn't want anything other than Jesus and. Right. That's the beautiful gift. That's actually what's offered to us in the Eucharist. And I think that's kind of the heart in a way, of that kind of encapsulates Thomas's eucharistic spirituality.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: And when you study his eucharistic values, you always have to start there and come back to there. Right. Not about doing a mental exercise to get all the concepts straight so you can say all the weird aristotelian words. Like, it's because we want to contemplate Jesus words. We want to study and think more and then bring that back to actually. And this is the reality about which I'm just studying and learning. That's. So I tell master students when I teach them anything to mystic that that's so important. Always take it back to the reality and address the Lord who you've just learned about because you don't want to get that separated.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: That's beautiful. Well, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to go into a little bit more of this kind of dominican spirituality. I'd like to hear a little bit about the spirituality of the sisters of Mary, mother of the Eucharist. And I'd love also to kind of dive in a little bit to a beautiful hymn that Thomas wrote on the Eucharist, this adoro te devote, right? Devoutly. I adore you. And just kind of go through a little bit of his poetry and his prayer. And this is one that I think our listeners or viewers can look up and pray on their own. So I think it's a great opportunity. So we'll be back in a couple minutes.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Okay, great.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: You're listening to the catholic theology show presented by Ave Maria University and sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle. Through their generous donations of $10 or more per month, Annunciation circle members directly support the mission of AMU to be a fountainhead of renewal for the church through our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. To learn more, visit avemaria.edu. Join. Thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Catholic Theology show. I'm your host, Michael Dauphine. And today we're joined by Sister Albert Marie Szermansky, dominican sister of Mary, mother the Eucharist. Welcome back to the show.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: And we've been talking today about the eucharistic spirituality of Thomas Aquinas and the Dominicans. So we've mentioned a couple times that your particular.
Your sister, I guess it's the order.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: The community.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: The community, that's right. Cause I think it's technically like a group of third order Dominicans or something.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Within the larger dominican order.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Within the larger dominican order. And so the community. Tell us a little bit about your name. Right. What's the name of the community and how did that get started and what does it mean?
[00:29:11] Speaker A: So we're relatively new dominican community. We were founded in 1997 with awareness of John Paul II's call for new evangelization, but just a desire of our foundresses to start another center of dominican life in order to be present in places where religious life has died off or is just not a present or people don't have that experience. So we're largely a teaching community, although we're open to other forms of the apostolate. We have some online resources with open light media, but many of us are. The large majority of the sisters are in classrooms from pre k up to I teach graduate students and everything in between, but the Mary, mother of the Eucharist. So, I mean, Mary is a model for all christians, but always, especially for women, religious right. And then seeing Mary as mother of the Eucharist, we have this great love of Mary for the Eucharist. The idea that Mary, when she was pregnant in the visitation, brought the child Jesus, and Jesus was that source of grace for John the Baptist, who leapt in the womb of Elizabeth. And then we also think about Mary receiving the Eucharist after Christ's resurrection, adoring, being close to the Lord. So that sort of sense of wanting to be like Mary and be close to Christ in the Eucharist. And one of the ways this is really expressed in the spirituality of our community is that we always have a daily eucharistic holy hour. So that was one of the things that drew me to our community in the first place, because adoration was a big part of my prayer life and a place where Christ was very present in a real and luminous way. And then seeing that our community also has those moments of adoration really draws our sense of life and strength from that. So in a typical day, we start our day, at least on a weekday, with an hour of eucharistic adoration, and we have community prayers within that. So the dominican order emphasizes liturgical prayer in common. So the office and then the daily mass as well. So adoration and then opening up into daily mass is very, very important to.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Us, as you maybe offer counseling or spiritual direction or spiritual motherhood, friendship, sisterhood, all these different elements in your relationships with young people. And you mentioned you're also teaching seminarians. What would you say to people who maybe are, I don't know, want to try to make a holy hour, but maybe find it hard? Maybe they get bored, they feel dry, other commitments come down upon them.
What kind of suggestions would you give them?
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah, probably, first of all, just encouragement.
That seems to be a devotion that's very powerful nowadays and one of the ways in which the Lord really is powerfully present in people's lives. But, I mean, a practical suggestion would be, you don't have to make an entire holy hour, right. If Jesus is there exposed in the blessed sacrament, just make a commitment, but make a really small commitment. I'm just going to go and sit in front of the blessed Sacrament for five minutes, or I'm going to sit there for ten minutes and five minutes. I'm going to read a scripture passage like, Jesus is here, and I've got his words in scripture, and I'm going to read it slowly and think about it. Then I'm going to spend two minutes actually just telling the Lord what I'm thinking, doing that conversation, and then maybe just two minutes in silence to see if he wants any ideas or thoughts to come into my mind or just to see if I can experience that peace. So it can be a short period, but that idea of, there can be moments of silence, moments of reading, moments of sort of thinking internally, speaking to the Lord internally. And you can fill, probably a college age student say, try 15 minutes, but structure it. Don't just be 50 minutes of, I want to sit here and just stare in silence. That might be powerful. It might not be powerful, but to pray, to read, to think, and that can go by pretty quickly.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: That's beautiful. There's Father Jacques Philippe, whom at least a lot of people who've definitely become very popular, at least among Catholics who want to grow in their spiritual life. Scepter publishers, publishes a lot of his works, and he has a book called the Way of Trust and love. It's a retreat on Theresa le Sue. And in there, he just gives one little anecdote. But he says at one time, when he was a young man and his was kind of, he had wandered, he was not living a catholic life, but he ended up somehow going on a retreat for, like, a weekend.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: And as after that retreat, he made a promise to pray 15 minutes every day.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: And he said that he kept that promise, even said sometimes he'd get home at 02:00 a.m., after, like, being out with his friends, but he would pray for 15 minutes a day. And it was like, two years later, basically discerned a call to the priesthood. Ended up, I think, joining, I think it's like the community, the beatitudes or something. And now is one of, like, the kind of, I don't know, probably one of the premier living spiritual teachers of the day. So that sense of that commitment to anything, but find that commitment to being present with the Lord.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: And if our relationship with the Lord is a relationship, it can't but be nourished by spending that 15 minutes a day. Because, I mean, anyone you think of in your life who you spend 15 minutes of a day being in their presence or just talking to them and listening to them, that's a meaningful friendship in your life, and you're inviting God to have that space in your life.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: It's really developing, that kind of affection.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Yes. It's intellectual, yes, it's volitional, but it's also just. It kind of grows from the heart. So I did want to talk a little bit about Thomas Aquinas. Many people know him as a brilliant philosopher, brilliant biblical commentator. Summa theologiae. I think it was some. I don't remember which it was somebody, you know, said that. Right. Every article is a miracle of sorts. Right. You know. Anyway, but he. Aquinas was also a poet. Right? He ended up writing a lot of the prayers for the feast of Corpus Christi.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: And around this, which was Pope Urban IV, established in 1264, so he died in 1274. So ten years before he is asked to help out with this.
Anyway, the Dorote devote. So what would you say, just maybe, as a kind of overall summary, what would you say is kind of important about maybe some of the theology or spirituality in the adorite devotee? And again, for listeners or viewers, it's just Adoro. A d o r o t e. Devote. D e v o t e. Sometimes hidden God devoutly, I adore you. Or there are about a dozen different english translations that people might find.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: I mean, I think we want to notice first it starts with that word, adoro. So it is Aquinas putting himself in front of the Lord in a position of adoration and inviting us to enter into that. It's also a fairly richly doctrinal hymn, because he'll go through and talk about not seeing the Lord and yet believing that he's there. And there's awareness that actually probably my favorite verse is where it talks about Christ's blood, that a single drop of Christ's blood would be enough to forgive the sins of all the world. Right. So reminding us if we come to the Lord's mercy, if one drop of blood could heal the sins of the whole world, you don't need to worry about anything. You bring to the Lord the power that's present there. It's very beautiful.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: It's almost easier, perhaps, to think of a drop of the Lord's blood forgiving the sins of the world than it is to think about a drop of the Lord's blood forgiving all my sins. I just think there's some times where at least I've encountered that in students or in loved ones that somehow genuinely having that complete confidence and trust that our Lord has paid the price, has shed the blood, he has restored us into communion if we are willing to walk into his, into the communion that he's offered. And so I do love that line. Right. I think it's a single drop of which is given all the world from all its sin to save just such a beautiful image of that. And I kind of also like too. Even that's just the very beginning line. Adora te devote laetens deita.
I adore you.
So it's. You know, it's funny. Even in 20th century understandings of religion and Martin Buber, it's the I thou relationship. And John Paul II, in his work on his dissertation, which he wrote at the Angelicum under the dominican father Garagou Lagrange, he wrote on it, on faith in John of the Cross. And why he went back to John of the cross was to develop that personal dimension of faith. Faith is not rationalism. It's through our reason encountering another person. Right. And so I love it. Sense of adore. I adore you. And then devote devoutly, Aquinas will say that devotion is when charity is activated and animated. So we have that sense of devotion. Charity is an awesome virtue. Right. It's not even. It's a theological virtue. So it comes from God and goes to God and attains to God. It's poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit. But when it becomes inflamed, that's devotion. Right.
It's the kind of inflaming of charity. So I adore you with an inflamed charity of devotion or devotion of charity. Right. And then Layton's data. So that sense of hidden God. Right. Truly present underneath these veils. So we're also seeing that we're with God, but it's still, you know, the God that we're with is. The God whom we're with is still somehow mysteriously present. Like, we still have to.
You know, the christian life is a life of the presence of God, but also, in some ways, right.
I mean, you know, that God's presence is hidden. And I need to journey. I need to keep journeying to him, because this world is also kind of like a valley of tears.
I just love the way he begins to hold those together.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Then there's that line a little bit further. Incrice la tebat sola deitas, that on the cross, Christ's divinity was hidden. So even for those who were there, seeing him at the cross, like our lady and St. John, they still have to have that faith, because it's really not visible when he's bleeding and dying on the cross, that he's God. So they're having to believe in that. And yet here also, his humanity is hidden. So we're almost challenged to make a greater act of faith and that something is still hidden, but something more is hidden. But we're also post resurrection, so that helps us have that faith as well. We've got something that they didn't have also.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And the next stanza, the stanza too, is beautiful too, where he says, visus tactus, gustus inte falatura. Vision, touch and taste fail to comprehend. You set out creditur, right? But faith. But hearing alone allows me to believe or to trust. And then it's credo, quidquid dixit dei filius nil hoc verbo veritatis verius. Right. I believe whatever the Son of God has said, because nothing. Right, but nothing but this word of truth himself.
Right, which speaks. So it's this idea that, like, how could I not trust in the very word of truth, right. If I genuinely believe that Jesus is the word, then I'm gonna. It's like a child who doesn't know much about what's going on in the world will trust the voice of his or her mother. You just trust the voice of your mother. And it's like, because it's like without that, you're going, the world's a really scary place. But if we have, if Jesus himself, right, is, I think it's John Henry Newman, that truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true and really recovering, that sounds like wasting. No, this is truth himself speaking to me. It's rational to believe that the truth himself would speak truly.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And it goes back to what we were saying, that, I mean, we trust that the Holy Spirit has guided the church in clarifying this teaching, but the teaching is really founded on the words of Jesus. Yeah, there's actually, there's a quote in Albert, the great Thomas teacher that's always helpful but kind of amusing to me where he says, we call the Eucharist the sacrament of the mystery of faith. And he's like, well, that's because it's one of the hardest. It's the least naturally available to our reason and therefore the hardest to believe in. A little irony there and then for calls for our faith in the greatest way. So there's a little as a challenge, in a sense, in a challenge, but also a consolation when we're able to believe in that great thing.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: I think Aquinas will also speak, probably, perhaps quoting or echoing Albert, possibly he will speak of the Eucharist as the most arduous sacrament. And I think it's kind of the most arduous, the most difficult sacrament, somewhat providentially or whatever, in both ways. One, because it actually is the sacrament of Christ's own passion.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Okay. Yes.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: So it's the sacrament of Christ's own suffering and death, which, because he's suffering for all of our suffering, and he knows and feels and sees all of our suffering and all the suffering of every right, both guilty and innocent person, throughout history. It is the greatest of all sufferings. So it is the most arduous. And yet it's also kind of somewhat arduous for us because we have to not only partially enter into that suffering, but also the very act of faith and trust is itself kind of like, am I really willing to just submit and surrender my faith or, like, my own, my faith in myself in a way. And maybe that's not the right way of putting it, but I guess what I'm saying is it's like Paul in Philippians will speak about the sacrificial offering of your faith. And it seems to me that faith itself is a sacrifice of my own ego. And I have such a strong desire to trust my own understanding that to surrender it and sacrifice it to God and to say, look, my plan for running my life and running the world, I'm going to surrender that and I'm going to trust your plan. And your plan is that Jesus Christ, right, rose from the. Again. The one who died, who gave his life for us, rose again. And it's in his name that I have true love, true communion with God, that there my sins are forgiven. And so to believe in the Eucharist is also that kind of. It is arduous because I have to somewhat set aside my ego, right? Because to really believe in the Eucharist, I have to believe that if God is truly present in his passion and in the true sacrifice, then I have to, like, get rid of my ego, will edge God out of the picture. Right. My ego and the Eucharist can't exist in the same room. Somewhat. I have to. Somewhat I have to, like, let Jesus wash away my ego. I have to be reborn right into a true child of God who can, in the spirit, through Jesus, come to the father.
[00:45:17] Speaker A: No, that's definitely true. And that ties into another eucharistic point that I think is very helpful. Right. In the Eucharist, we have this experience of looking and eating and believing through faith. But then there also, like St. Thomas will say in a later verse, he'll talk about the Eucharist as the living bread that gives life to man, and he'll talk about tasting the sweetness in the sacraments, that recognition that if someone is consistently, generously receiving the Eucharist, there is an experience of being able to love God more, of growing in that sense of life in Christ, in that ability to act in a virtuous way with more freedom and more joy. That someone might not experience that after receiving the Eucharist once, but it works like nourishing food, that over time, you can almost test it by your experience, and that there's going to be an impact and gradual change in your life that's going to make being associated with the things of God sweeter.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And in some ways, you see here, Thomas theology has a very strong. Right. Not only eucharistic dimension, but a very strong experiential dimension. Right. He's just like, right, make me to believe more in you. Right. To hope in you more. Right. To love you more. This is kind of. This is just like. Not just, you know, faith, hope and love are not static things that we either have or don't. They are really kind of, you know, they are our participation in the utter, pure love, sheer act. Right. Thrilling life of God. And so therefore, we can always enter into them more deeply.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: And that's so important because I find that for people, the hardest thing to believe is possibly Christ real presence in Eucharist. But after that really is Christ's presence in their life. Like, people can see and appreciate holiness in someone else. They can maybe see that the liturgy is beautiful, but they often just feel like I'm terrible or I have problems, and God just isn't there with not everyone, but it's really fairly common, and it's so important to recognize, well, you're probably not going to feel God infusing faith and love into you. There might not be a. There might be. Sometimes when people receive the Eucharist, there is sort of an experience of sweetness, that gift of wisdom, but that over time, to recognize it, the fact that you're able to believe that you desire eternal life, that you could say, yes, I believe Jesus is true, and I want to know him more. That that's not just a purely human act, that's God's action in your heart through sanctifying grace, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, making that possible. And that's very important and worthwhile to reflect on. I mean, I was reading Catherine of a couple days ago, and she's all about self knowledge, knowing what your own sins are, knowing God's greatness. But she'll also talk about someone who's loving God and living a sacramental life, learns to appreciate God's goodness outside of themselves and to appreciate God's goodness in themselves, to recognize that God's work is in us. And it's not against humility to recognize that. And just we thank God for it. It's not something that's just of ourselves. But I mean, St. Clair, not a Dominican but a Franciscan, but on her deathbed, she, in a sense, adds a phrase to St. Francis, candle of creation, that, you know, the candle of creation, blessed be God for, you know, the sun and the moon and the stars, and blessed be God for having created me. She's able to see the goodness God has done in her life and in a holy way, just appreciate that. It's really beautiful, but it ties into the dynamic of deification that we see in Aquinas, eucharistic spirituality.
[00:48:59] Speaker B: And the beautiful thing is the hidden God whom we adore, we get to receive. So that's that ultimate beauty of it. And therefore we get to.
We are able to receive Jesus Christ into our innermost being and so to be transformed. So therefore, it would be understandable of us, but it would not be true or really effective of us to disdain the very creature he has created, redeemed, and actually entered into.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Right, right.
And this has been assumed in what you're saying. But of course, we eat the Eucharist, recognizing that it's a source of strength and grace for us. I'm just thinking, because I had someone ask me a couple weeks ago, well, we eat things that are lower than us and they get destroyed. Like, how is that respectful to the Lord to be eating the Lord?
You know, Christ's condescension and this, like, great giving of the Lord, but the idea that we're not focusing on, like, the. Just, like, the fact that everything else we eat is lower than us, but the recognition that we're given strength, energy, union from what we receive.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: And I know Augustine, whom Aquinas quotes all the time, right. Says that in other food, we digest it, but in a certain sense, right. The Eucharist, because it's actually God, digests us. So we have that beautiful imagery, we get incorporated into the body of Christ.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: Right?
[00:50:27] Speaker B: Absolutely.
We're coming up at the end of our time. I'd like to ask you three quick questions. Yeah, sure. What's a book you're reading?
[00:50:35] Speaker A: A book I'm reading.
I'm reading so many things for class right now. I'm currently reading some sermons of Saint Bernard, actually. But for the seminarians, who I'm going to be talking to about that next semester. Her next week.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Next class, yeah. That's right. And what's. I mean, I have obviously many practices. I'm sure you do. But what's one practice that you would. That you kind of do on a regular basis, a religious practice where you find your faith increased?
[00:51:04] Speaker A: I mean, I tend to be drawn to the most simple. So the simple fact that we spend some time in front of the blessed sacrament every day, that definitely is the most important. I mean, as a religious, one of the greatest things is living under the same roof as the Blessed Sacrament. I know the first time I was sent on mission to a different house or a different place, you're like, well, is this going to feel like home? This is a different place. But you realize that because the Eucharist is at the center of religious life and our communities in particular, you're at home wherever the Blessed Sacrament is. So our devotion related to that, I think. Yeah.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: And what's a belief that you held about God or about catholic theology that was like, that you maybe at some point you held it earlier and then later discovered that it was false. And what was the truth you discovered in kind of encountering through study and through learning and prayer?
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I immediately think of a christological doctrine I don't think I had. When I thought about Christ, I just sort of thought about, before I did my master's degree in theology, a God and then a human body. And I didn't really think about, recognize that Christ has a full human soul and the importance of that being, that Christ with a true human soul has all of those virtues. So he's the source of virtue for us, but a model of virtue in a very particular way that Christ thinks and has this charity and makes acts of obedience and has the Holy Spirit indwelling in his human soul in a way that he's much more richly a model for us. And just sort of, sort of God joined your human body, does actions that we imitate. That's a very beautiful and rich teaching, can go into it so much more. But that's when I definitely. Oh, I studied that heresy, apollinarianism. I was like, oh, that's how I used to. That's how I think. Yeah.
[00:52:49] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's well said. Well, sister Albert Marie Szermansky, Dominican of the community of sisters Mary Mother Eucharist, thank you so much for being on the show.
Triple graduate of Ave Marie, her bachelor's, master's, and PhD in theology.
We're so proud of you and so grateful to have you back on the show. People who are interested in learning more about the sisters of Mary Mother the Eucharist.
[00:53:12] Speaker A: Is there a website or yeah, www.sistersofmary.org okay, if someone wants to reach out to me, University of St. Thomas, you can find my university email on the website, too.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: That's great. Well, thank you so much and we'll end our time here. But thanks again for being on the show, and thank you for listening or viewing with us today.
[00:53:35] Speaker C: Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content.
We'll see you next time on the catholic theology show.
