118 Chapter 9
NATURE IS GRACE
his body in time do and will matter. Any dehistoricized cosmology by
definition predetermines the answer to that question, and the answer is
always No. Mr. Minsky, and Ecclesiastes, see it plainly: within
`Nature' not intimately a part of the Eucharistic `order' of history, we
are -- collectively, and individually -- "bound, whether we like it or
not."
Each man as a body in time himself can not give a free answer to
the question of whether he will make an individual, personal choice to
turn toward God, to be free, unless Nature is already Grace. That
individual man is free solely as one of those for whom Our Savior
died, free essentially and inherently, but solely in the blood of the
Lamb, solely within Offertory, Consecration, and Communion, solely
within `flesh,' `One flesh,' and `life.'
Our Lord's works in time, culminating in his One Sacrifice on the
Cross which establishes the New Covenant of `One Flesh' with his
forever Bride and Body, the Catholic Church, re-presented in the
sacraments, give the sole freedom, and thus, the sole meaning, for an
individual man's movements of his body in time. A dehistoricized
cosmology can never give freedom to the movements of a man's body
in time. Both Mr. Minsky and Ecclesiastes saw that, and they saw
correctly. Christ's acts in time, the Event of the New Covenant, alone
takes away the sin of the world.
Absent the Eucharistic `order' of `flesh,' `One Flesh,' `life,' the
possibility of Man giving any free answer to anything is absurd on its
face. The possibility of freedom strangles itself before it can even be
voiced, because the possibility of freedom in 'flesh' is the ultimate
"vanity."
Throughout Covenantal Theology, in many different ways, Fr.
Keefe repeatedly states his conviction that it all comes down to the
Eucharist itself. It is either the center of everything, or everything is
no-thing.
If bread and wine is not Offered, Consecrated, and received in
Communion, then it simply doesn't matter what bodies do, ever,
because what bodies do is then not 'flesh' within a Eucharistic 'order' of
history, but 'flesh' alone, a "vanity."
Puny bread and wine, concrete bread and wine, fully within time,
never leaving it, at a particular place, over a spare hour or so in a
particular day, but within the Eucharistic 'order' of history, becomes
the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord, who still bears the marks of his
Passion, and who actively re-establishes the New Covenant within
which all 'flesh' -- all fourteen billion light years of it -- is right now,
for us, neither condemned, nor destroyed, nor refused, but saved.
All 'flesh' is 'flesh.' By rights, no grace, no complete surprise
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.