Jesus in the Eucharist, Chapter VI - Saint Hilary and Saint Cyril of Jerusalem on the Real Presence

I. Saint Hilary was born in the beginning of the fourth century and owing to his great merits was made bishop of Poitiers. He was one of the most prominent bishops of his time in Gaul on account of his holiness, learning and zeal for the defense of the Catholic faith against Arianism, a heresy which denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. On account of his masterly defense of the divinity of our Savior, the Arian emperor Constantius banished him to Asia and left nothing undone to induce him to embrace Arianism. But Saint Hilary so well championed the cause of the true faith, that the Arians, seeing themselves overcome by Hilary in their councils, and fearing his continued success in bringing so many Arians back to the Church, prevailed on the emperor to send him back to Gaul. His return was hailed with demonstrations of joy all over Gaul, and he soon turned his attention to restoring religious peace in that country by refuting and converting the Arians. He died in 368. His able writings and his defense of the faith won for him the title of Doctor of the Church. He is a powerful witness of the faith of the Church in the Real Presence, as we shall see by two passages of his writings. The first passage, though short, is very conclusive.

1. "The word was truly made flesh, and we truly receive the Word made flesh in the Lord's food" (that is, in Holy Communion).

These words clearly denote that Saint Hilary holds the Real Presence to be just as true as the Incarnation of the Son of God. Of course, those who do not believe in the mystery of the Incarnation, that is, that Jesus Christ is truly and really the Son of God made man, will not admit the Real Presence, such persons can have no genuine claim to be or to be called Christians. We will now proceed to the second extract from the writings of Saint Hilary.

2. "We should not speak of things divine in a merely human or worldly manner. Let us read the things that are written and endeavor to grasp their real meaning, and then we shall discharge the office of a perfect faith. In speaking of the natural truth of Chris*- in us, we speak foolishly or without reverence, unless we learn the truth from Him (that is, unless we understand His words in the sense He Himself attached to them). For He said: "My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed; he that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, dwells in Me and I in him. There is no room left to doubt of the reality of His flesh and blood (in the Eucharist). For now by the Lord's own declaration and by our own faith, it (the Eucharist) is His true flesh and His true blood, and the receiving of these has the effect that we are in Christ and Christ is in us, and is not this really true? Those, indeed, who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, do not hold this as true. Therefore, He Himself is in us through His flesh, and we are in Him, whilst that which we are with Him is in God. That we are really in Him through the communion of His flesh and blood, He Himself testifies in these words: And this world does not see Me, but you shall see Me, because I live and you shall live, since I am in My Father, and you are in Me and I in you. That this natural union exists in us, He Himself thus testified: He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood dwells in Me and I in him. No one can be in Jesus, unless Jesus be in him; Jesus will take up the flesh of him only who shall have received His. He had already previously taught the sacrament (or mystery) of this union in these words: As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; and he that eats My flesh, the same shall live by Me. Jesus, therefore, lives by the Father, and in the same manner in which He lives by the Father, in like manner also do we live by His flesh."

The words of Saint Hilary are very remarkable. In the first place, he calls our attention to the fact that, in order to understand the meaning of the words of our divine Savior, we must not consider our own views, or notions, or theories, but we must seek to understand them in the sense which Jesus Christ attached to them. He that insists on under standing them in his own way without regard to Christ's real meaning, is both foolish and impious. This is conclusive against those who pretend to interpret Holy Scripture in accordance with their private judgment. What we should especially consider in the words of Saint Hilary is the assertion that we cannot live by Christ, as Christ declares we should, in order to be saved (John 6:58), unless we receive this life by partaking of His real flesh and blood. Saint Hilary, moreover, shows that our divine Savior compares the union between those who receive His true flesh and blood, to the union existing between Jesus and His heavenly Father. How beautiful, how grand must such a union be! Without the Real Presence such an intimate union could not be effected by Holy Communion. In the next place, Saint Hilary calls our attention to the fact that only those deny the Real Presence, who deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ. This is perfectly true, although some who deny the Real Presence, declare that they believe in Christ's Divinity; but notwithstanding their claim, they have a false conception of the mystery of the Incarnation, and consequently do not believe it in its full meaning. By the Incarnation the Son of God united Himself to our human nature; by Holy Communion He unites Himself to each individual recipient, and makes him an individual partaker of the benefits, which the Incarnation and Redemption bestowed on human nature, and gives a pledge to each individual recipient of a glorious resurrection and of eternal life in heaven, as He Himself declares: "He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, hath ever lasting life, and I will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:55)

II. Let us now consider the testimony of Saint Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem and Doctor of the Church, on the Real Presence. Cyril was born in the year 310. After his ordination to the priest hood he was entrusted with the office of instructing converts and explaining the doctrines of our holy faith to the people. In the performance of this noble and holy task he wrote his admirable catechetical instructions, in which he clearly explains and victoriously defends the mysteries of the Christian religion against all the infidels and heretics of his time. Although he lived nearly sixteen hundred years ago, when we read his works, we would feel inclined to imagine that we are reading the works of Saint Alphonsus, or of some eminent theologian of our own epoch. Shortly after he was made bishop of Jerusalem, a wonderful event took place, which lasted a whole day. A luminous cross, brighter than the sun, appeared in the heavens in the day-time from one end of Jerusalem to the other, and was seen by both Christians and pagans. The Arians had raised a furious persecution against the Church, and with the help of the Arian emperor succeeded in causing the banishment of the most holy and prominent Catholic bishops from their sees; among these was Saint Cyril. He suffered much in his banishment. After the death of Constantius, Cyril returned to Jerusalem. Soon after the new emperor, Julian the Apostate, who out of hatred to the religion of Christ, which he intended to destroy, undertook to disprove the prophecy of Jesus Christ, in which He foretold the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, saying: "They shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone." (Luke 19:44) Julian therefore invited the Jews all over the world to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. The Jews hastened eagerly to comply with Julian's invitation. They joyfully set to work clearing the ground with silver and golden pickaxes and other tools; even the rich Jewish ladies carried away the earth in their silk aprons, and all the Jews contributed either labor or money to carry out the emperor's intentions. At last the laborers reached the lowest stones of the foundation, which had never yet been removed, and which they now removed, fulfilling thereby Christ's prophecy to the very letter, that " not a stone would remain on a stone." When all the remains of the old foundation had been taken away, the Jews aided by the emperor's skilled workmen began to lay the proposed new foundations, but were soon unable to make any headway, for earthquakes overthrew their work, globes of fire darted forth from the ground, scattered the workmen and consumed all that was combustible on the grounds. These wonderful occurrences were repeated every time the Jews at tempted to resume the work, so that they had at last to give it up in despair, to their great distress, and to the confusion of Julian the Apostate and the other enemies of the Christian religion. Saint Cyril continued to defend the Christian religion against all its enemies until his death in the year 381. Let us now consider his admirable testimony in favor of the Real Presence.

"The very doctrine of Saint Paul," he declares, "abundantly suffices to make us believe the divine mysteries, which render us worthy to become, so to speak, relatives of Jesus Christ both in body and blood. For this apostle clearly proclaims that our Lord Jesus Christ on the night, in which He was betrayed, took bread and, giving thanks, gave to His disciples saying: Take ye and eat, this is My body. And taking the chalice and giving thanks, He said: Take ye and drink, this is My blood. Now, since He Himself declared and said: This is My body, who will henceforth dare to deny it? And since He Himself so positively said: This is My blood, who will ever doubt it and say that it is not His blood? Jesus had previously at Cana of Galilee changed water into wine, which has some relationship (or similarity) to blood; and shall we esteem Him unworthy of being believed when He changed wine into blood? Having been invited to those nuptials where bodies are united, He performed the aforesaid miracle which no one expected; and shall not we be most firmly convinced, that He gave us His body and blood for our nourishment, and perfectly certain that we are receiving His very body and blood? For He gives us His very body in the species of bread, and His very blood in the species of wine, so that when thou taste the body and blood of Christ, thou become a partaker of His very body and blood. Thus we become Christiferi, that is, we are bearers of Christ in our bodies, when we receive His body and blood into our members; hence, according to Saint Peter, we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Formerly Christ, disputing with the Jews, said: Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you shall not have life in you. But the Jews, not taking these things in a spiritual sense, were shocked and forsook Him, for they imagined He invited them to feast on His flesh as if it were (the) flesh (of animals). In the Old Testament there were the loaves of proposition; but these have been abolished together with it. In the New Testament the bread is heavenly, and the chalice is salutary, for they sanctify our body and soul. Therefore I do not wish thee to consider them as merely simple bread and merely simple wine, because they are the body and blood of Christ. For although thy senses tell thee that they are mere bread and wine, nevertheless let faith confirm thee (in the belief that they are really the body and blood of Christ). Do not judge of the thing by its taste; but let faith make thee certain beyond even the shadow of a doubt, that thou art made worthy to become a partaker of the body and blood of Christ."

These clear, beautiful and strong words of Saint Cyril, the great catechist of the fourth century, are an unanswerable proof that the faith of the Church of his time in the Real Presence is identical with that of the Church of the twentieth century.

- text taken from Jesus in the Eucharist, by Father Ferreol Girardey, C.Ss.R.