Meditations for Layfolks - Communion of the Blood

It is notorious that the taste of blood brings with it a sort of frenzy or madness. We read of animals that have been brought up in captivity and have been perfectly gentle and tame, losing apparently all the ferocity of their nature, till one day by some accident they taste blood. At once they hear "the call of the wild," and the fierce strain of ancestry so long pent in breaks out in desperate behaviour. Man, too, in battle seems to revert to an earlier stage in his development. The centuries of civilization slip from him and he is back once again in a world of "fangs and maw." The long self-control of savage instincts is suddenly forfeited, and the primitive passions, from the tyranny of which he has slowly fought his way to freedom, regain their control. The atrocities in war of which each nation has been accused are the necessary result of arousing the desire to kill. Once the bridle has been loosened, the plunging steed rushes madly on. What is true of a disciplined army is even more true of a mob: it will do the most desperate things, attack the most defenceless people, once its blood has been roused by the sight of blood. These animal instincts, of which the individual would hardly be conscious, at once assume a power and a directive voice which silences conscience and reduces will and reason to absolute submission. In the records of the French Revolution there are tales, perfectly sickening, of deeds inhuman in their ferocity. We find proofs of a savagery which would seem to be impossible in Europe, yet which was practised by women of the middle and lower classes who had seen blood flow. They are evidences of the terrible and horrid frenzy which the taste of blood inspires.

So universal has been this experience, that among many nations it is forbidden to eat meat from which the blood has not been drawn off. Especially is this true in the hotter climates; so that in the Old Law God Himself laid down this command that the Jewish people still obey: "But the blood, which is the life, you shall not eat." The old superstition was that the soul resided in the blood, and that if anyone partook of the blood, the soul of the animal passed into the recipient and at once dominated over his will and reason. It is almost as though God approved of this teaching, that all the energy of the soul lurked within the blood. In any case there is such intimate relationship between soul and body, and they react so forcibly upon each other, that even the food and the drink we use must indirectly affect our thoughts and desires. God, therefore, was at pains to remove all such passionate influences from His chosen people, and made them renounce the use of blood. It was just because of the frenzy that it was forbidden. Then came a new commandment, which set aside and deliberately reversed the earlier command. "The blood, which is the life, you shall not eat" is now " Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall have no life." One forbids what the other commands: both apparently bear witness that in the blood remains the life; but one desires that the life should be barred from entrance, the other commands that it be worthily and reverently received. The opposition is complete, "Thou shalt not" and "Thou shall, and the motive of both behests is the same, for the excitement of the blood carries its message up to the brain and throngs the mind with thoughts.

The Old Law, we repeat unceasingly, was the rule of fear, but the New Law is the rule of love. The Old Law forbade all such practices as should awake the passions of the soul; the New Law insists upon their active co-operation. The Old Law was a school master, the New Law is a friend. On the one hand the tables of stone, on the other the perfect figure of Christ: hence the command is opposed, but the reason remains the same. Blood was forbidden, for it inflamed the passions; because it inflames the passions it is now of obligation upon all; for the blood of an animal makes frenzied the mind, but the Blood of God inebriates the soul. We approach Holy Communion and partake of this Blood precisely in order that it may seize hold of and make captive our love, that it may sweep across the whole being and in its rush lift up the soul from attention to other things and absorb it into union with the divine. " But the Blood, which is the Life, thou shalt eat" is the New Commandment; and unless we drink it we shall have no life whereas He came that we might have life and have it with greater abundance. It is true that the Church has in her wisdom thought good to forbid to the laity Communion under both kinds; and it is perhaps the most daring thing that she has ever done, for it seems on the face of it in absolute contradiction of our Lord's express commands; but obviously there is no question of doctrine in it, for the blood and body of a living man can never be separated; and though in Mass there is the double consecration to depict the mystical death of Christ, yet where Christ is, He is whole and entire. Consequently when I receive Communion let me realize that I receive Blood as well as Body, and with the Blood the very Life of Christ.

- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.