I) Can mere words change reality? Let us see in the natural day-to-day world:
1) If you are at a ball baseball game and see from the stans that a runner is safe as he rounds third and slides into home! You cannot help saying aloud: "Safe!" Do your words cause the runner to be safe? Not really; it is only your opinion. But if the man in black raises his hands and says: "You're Out!", then the runner's reality and score keeper's reality is that he is "Out!" replays notwithstanding!! So the ump's "You're Out!" did change reality.
2) If you are at a party; and your tipsy buddy comes up to you and says, "You are under arrest for drinking too much", you know he is kidding. But if a uniformed man with a badge comes into the party looking for you and says: "You are under arrest and need to come to the station for questioning!", then your reality is change by these mere words.
[These examples 1) and 2) are taken from Fr. Robert E. Barron's work: Catholicism in which he asserts that "words can change reality."]
3) If you have been dating a woman for 5 years and have a loving relationship, that reality is positive. But what if -- and this really happened to me -- on February 29 (Sadie Hawkin's Day), she asks you: "Will you marry me?" Will those words change the reality of your relationship. Absolutely! I felt loved, awed by her love, excited that someone wanted to give me her whole life. I never had this experience before..and it was heart expanding and affirming and awesome and even very exciting! Her words surely changed my total reality!
4) When couples before a priest or minister say, "I do" or "I will" and then the minister says: "I now pronounce you man and wife.", there is a profound difference that the exchange of vows and the pronouncement of the priest or minister effects. The reality of two single people are now joined as husband and wife before God and the community and even the state. Words do change reality.
5) When in a long drawn out court battle where a defendant is facing murder charges in a state that has the death penalty, the jury's "Guilty" or "Not guilty" profoundly changes reality. The defendant will be condemn to die or set free just based on the words spoken by the Jury and ratified by the Judge. Words totally change the defendant's reality.
6) When a boy or girl hears the words: "I love you" from each other or from their parents, their spirit changes - even their body changes since endorphins are released when we hear those words spoken with true love and tenderness and caring.
7) And what of negative words? In the old testament, there is a passage that says: "Words can break a bone."
8) Jesus says: "He who calls his brother: "Thou fool!" will be liable to the fires of Gehenna."
II) Let us look at the spiritual world:
1) God said: "Let there be light" - and light came. [It is interesting that God made Light. Is God reflecting himself in doing this? St. John writes: "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all." Rev. 1:5. Was the Big Bang -- a great burst of light -- then, merely a reflection of God's being, as artist, and in perfect response to God's spoken word? Before the Big Bang, as far as the material world, "there was no where." After the Big Bang, "there was everywhere." The material Universe - the whole Realty of the whole cosmos - was the result of God's spoken word: "Let it be!" When we say something, we cannot create something out of nothing; but when God speaks -- what He says -- effects what His words signify. So the very reality of all living things and all planets and galaxies came "to be" by God's spoken word! God's word is actually in this sense synonimous with Realty.
2) And is not Jesus, Himself, the Word of God: "In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God; and the Word was God; and the Word became flesh and dwelled amongst us." John 1: 1
3) Sacraments are words and actions that cause what they signify. Thus, the priest or minister, who pours water or emerses the person, says: "I baptize you in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit", the child or adult is prurified from original sin and changed into the a full member of the Mystical Body of Christ, is baptized into Jesus and is "a new creation" in Christ. The person is now a child of God and full member in His Church.
4) But most of all, let us look at the "summet and source of the Faith": The Holy Eucharist! Jesus during His life time said many things: His words cured blindness, forgave sins, open the ears of the deft and loosed the tongues of the mute. His words: "Lazarus, come forth!" rose a man from teh dead. His words made 5000 people to eat fully and have 7 hampers of fish and bread left over. His words changed water into wine. Seems that Jesus like His Father could speak things INTO reality. He even said: "My Father works; and I work." He said to Phillip: "When you see me, you see the Father." The Father and Jesus' Word creates Reality and changes Reality.
So, if Jesus' word changed water into wine, then His word could change bread into His Body and wine into His Blood! And the priest - doing ordained by the Sacrament of Holy Orders - says these same words over the bread and wine at Mass, these words are heard by the Holy Spirit who changes the bread into Jesus' Body and the wine into Jesus' Blood. Jesus also said to His disciples: "Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you retain, they are retained." Jesus' word gave power to his disciples to forgive sins. Does a sinner look different after confession? Does the bread and wine look different after the Consecration at Mass. What we only "see" is not the whole of reality. What appears one way can well be another. The reality of the Eucharist is this: what appears still as bread and wine has in very essence be changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. When Jesus said the famous words: "Take and eat; for this is My Body...take and drink for this is My Blood of the New Covenant that will be shed for many.." The apostles still saw what looked like bread and wine; but the Realty was that He was sharing His very own Body and Blood with them. What Jesus's words say, that is the Reality of the true essence of the Sacrament. St. Thomas' Transubstantiation: "the whole substance of
bread is changed into the whole substance of the body of Christ.." The appearance (accidental change) remains the same but the substance is totally changed. There is a transubstantiation. But this is a good explanation; but truly the best explanation ever is this: Jesus said so!!!!
So, Jesus' word effects a change of natural bread and wine into His own Body and Blood. He has the power to do that. It was an ingenious and loving idea. No human would have ever come up with such an idea of the Eucharist. But the change of Reality does not end there! There is more change that the Eucharist effects: When we eat natural breast, it is assimulated into us. What we eat become part of our body. But when we partake in the Holy Eucharist MORE happens to us: we become what we eat! We become more and more like Christ in his thinking, loving and doing. The more we receive the Holy Eucharist, the more like Christ we become. So, the words of consecration: "This is my Body and this is my Blood" changes the natural elements into Jesus' Body and Blood and also changes the Reality of US! Jesus' body does become out body! His mind becomes our mind. His mission becomes our mission. And if we suffer, our sufferings are so united to Jesus' that we hang with Him on the cross..so that we "fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ." There is nothing lacking; but our sufferings are UNITED to His for the redemption of others. So we cannot just look at appearences..Reality is much deeper than what our senses can see.
5 Let us give some examples where appearance seems to say something where the reality is different:
a) When you look at the stars in the heavens, those stars appear to be there; but they are in reality not there. It has taken so long for the light from those stars to reach our eyes, that these stars have probably burned out. They are not there at all. So what appears one way may be another. [example by Fr. Robert E. Barron.]
b) When you are driving, the trees seem to be moving toward you. The sun seems to rise and set and to be passing over during the day; but actually the sun is stationary as are the trees really standing still.
c) When a sperm and egg unite into a new being, it can hardly be seen with a naked eye; but a human person is present: body and soul.
d) You do not see angels at all..and do not see God; but both exists -together with the whole heavenly host: angels, saints and God who keeps all alive. That is why we Catholics say in the Nicene Creed: "I believe in what is seen and unseen."
e) When a man looked at Padre Pio in the sanctuary, Padre Pio's look back totally transformed the mind of the man looking at him. Just this look re-ordered all the man's thinking. The man could not see Padre Pio's sanctity but Padre Pio's great holiness was there and could be felt and had immediate effects. What is invisible is a Reality as much as the winde - which we cannot see - still has effects on the clouds, the trees and even upon our face.
Considering all I have presented from my heart to yours, Words do absolutely change Reality; and this Reality can be not what only what we see but what we do not see as well. We do believe in "what is seen and unseen."
The bottom line is this: The spoken word effects a change in Realty. And the Word of God: Jesus speaks a word over us! As when Jesus heard: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," Jesus says the same over us: "You are my beloved sons and daughters in whom I am well pleased."
And listen to the deepest meaning of these words of Jesus: "Father, that they may be one; just as You and I are one; that they may be one in us!" How "one" does He intend? Is this a mere communal unity...or does it mean that we become so united to Jesus as to be considered the Father's "beloved Son in whom He is well pleased.." Does the Father see His Son in us...and love us as He would His son? A great mystery...but understand that Jesus' [the Word of God] words DO change Reality. They change us! If the Father has said: "As the heavens are above the earth; so are my thoughts above your thoughts.." Then we can be sure that Jesus does not think shallowly; but rather He thinks only at the deepest levels...deeper thatn we can imagine..
Peace and blessings and love,
Pio
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