Anscombe at 100

I appreciated and enjoined this essay by John Schwenkler, at Commonweal, on Elizabeth Anscombe.  A bit:

One of the things that will likely strike the reader who turns to these essays is the unflinching confidence and literalness with which Anscombe articulates and defends traditional Christian doctrine. Her teacher Wittgenstein is a likely influence here: he insisted that in doing philosophy we should avoid falling back on abstractions and technical jargon, and should put things instead in words that could be at home in everyday life. Anscombe’s brilliant essay “On Transubstantiation,” published by the Catholic Truth Society in 1974, showed what it would be to take this approach in the way we speak about the Eucharist:

It is easiest to tell what transubstantiation is by saying this: little children should be taught about it as early as possible. Not of course using the word “transubstantiation,” because it is not a little child's word. But the thing can be taught, and it is best taught at Mass at the consecration, the one part where a small child should be got to fix its attention on what is going on. I mean a child that is beginning to speak, one that understands enough language to be told and to tell you things that have happened and to follow a simple story. Such a child can be taught then by whispering to it such things as: “Look! Look what the priest is doing…. He is saying Jesus’ words that change the bread into Jesus’ body. Now he’s lifting it up. Look! Now bow your head and say ‘My Lord and my God,’” and then “Look, now he’s taken hold of the cup. He’s saying the words that change the wine into Jesus’ blood. Look up at the cup. Now bow your head and say “We believe, we adore your precious blood, O Christ of God.” This need not be disturbing to the surrounding people. If the person who takes a young child to Mass always does this (not otherwise troubling it), the child thereby learns a great deal.