Pros and Cons

"The Holy Virgin Mary "by Chris Ofili (Brooklyn Museum)

The notions of con and transubstantiation are suggestive in a curiously pragmatic and material way. Of course these refer to the Eucharist. Are these the body and blood of Christ? Or are they are in fact symbols which have yet to be. Consubstantionistas, like the Lutherans, who hone to this belief, can’t wait. They need to be reassured that God is in the house while their counterparts in the Roman Catholic Church are content with an abstraction which places the Holy Spirit elsewhere. Though Catholics preceded Lutherans, transubstantiation is more evolutionary in that it propagates a higher order of thinking involving ideation of the loved object--something similar to what happens to children when they're finally able to separate from the mother. It's also a premise of romanticism and that which lies under the creation of paper currency.

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