We have seen that all comes to us through Mary, and we have inferred, as a natural consequence, that we owe to her the ineffable gift of the Eucharist, and all the graces which that Sacrament contains. We must study still more closely the part that Mary had in the Gift that was given us for the first time at the Last Supper, we must see what are the special graces which Eucharistic piety may hope for from Mary in its daily practice toward the Blessed Sacrament. In other words, is it to Mary that we owe the first institution of the Eucharist? Is it to her that we owe the Gift that has been made to us with so great liberality in all places and in all times?
First, let us recall this principle, namely, that the Eucharist is the extension, the final end, the crowning-point, and the application of the Incarnation. It will be permitted us to apply to Mary's relations with the Eucharist the laws which regulate her relations with the first mystery. Mary knew beforehand, she desired, she hastened by her prayers the Incarnation of the Word. She merited in part the realization of that mystery of love, and it was for her, above all, for love of her, that the Word became Man. She co-operated most admirably in that divine work, and her co-operation became the foundation of her universal power in the order of grace.
These principles are established by Saint Thomas and by Suarez, for whom they are incontestable. Let us endeavor to apply them to the Eucharistic order.
If, before Its institution, Mary knew of the mystery of the Eucharist, she ardently desired Its accomplishment. She prayed for It, and it was her prayers which, united to the inflamed will of her Divine Son, obtained It for us. We have seen in a preceding chapter, that Mary in giving her blood to the Word, co-operated in forming the Eucharist. We shall now give our attention to the question, whether the desires and the prayers of Mary exerted any influence over the will of Jesus, and whether, above all, it was in view of His Mother that God be came bread as He has become flesh.
Some remarks upon the supernatural light and the knowledge of the Blessed Virgin will be useful here.
"From her Immaculate Conception," says Suarez, "Mary, prevented by grace, turned to God by a free disposition of her will, and she knew Him more perfectly than any other creature. During the whole of her infancy, she had the most perfect use of her reason, illumined by the splendors of faith. Her whole life was an uninterrupted contemplation of God's mysteries. Her intelligence never ceased to act. She was ever in actual meditation of the divine magnificence. Her teacher was the Holy Spirit Himself, and it was from Him that she received by infusion her first notions of the divine mysteries, and the gifts of knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence, which admirably aided those first ideas. The angels, also, notably Saint Gabriel, were commissioned to instruct her in certain things." "Men taught her nothing," says Saint Bernard. "It ought not to be that the Mother should appear ignorant of her Son's designs. On the contrary, it was proper that she who would one day instruct the Apostles and the Evangelists, should, from the first, and by a divine light, be herself instructed in the mysteries of her Son."
Follow Mary to the Temple. By the assiduous reading, joined to the constant meditation, of the Holy Scriptures, she increased her knowledge, and penetrated all the secrets of the Old Law, the figures of the Patriarchs, the mysterious words of the Prophets.* "Mary," says Origen, "possessed perfect knowledge of the Scriptures, and constant meditation had revealed to her all the oracles of the prophecies."
If this was so, when Mary prayed before the Ark, did not the Manna contained in it reveal to her that the day would come when we should possess the true Manna descended from heaven? When morning and evening, she saw the lamb sacrificed in the Temple, did she not understand that it was the figure of the Lamb immolated from the beginning, and which would be offered at all times and in all places? She had read Malachias, and she knew that the figurative sacrifice of the Temple was no longer pleasing to God, that the goats, the bulls, and rams were not the pure oblation which would appease His offended majesty, and attract His looks of complacency. The Scriptures are full of the most expressive figures of the Eucharist. For Mary these figures were no longer veiled.
The Incarnation was effected in her womb. The Word Incarnate there offered Himself continually to His Father. "At that moment," says Suarez, "as later in the most important circumstances of the Saviour's life, Mary was admitted to see God face to face." She beheld the mysteries in the light of the Word, as they are seen in the heavenly home, in order, says Saint Bernard, that He who was known only to the Father in heaven, should be known, also, by His Mother on earth. "At the moment in which Mary uttered her fiat, by the clear understanding that she had of the Prophets, and still more, by the abundant effusion of celestial light that flooded her soul, she saw as in a mirror, and one after an other, all the events, all the mysteries, which were to fill the life of the Son whom she had conceived."
Doubtless, Mary did not know at that time all the circumstances, the mode, the numerous mysteries of the Real Presence. But she knew enough to adore the immense love that Jesus testifies for us therein, enough henceforth to look upon her Son as the Bread that was to nourish her old age, and which was to return to her in Sacramental Communion the flesh that she had given Him in His Incarnation.
What! Mary not know in advance, Mary not comprehend the mystery of the Eucharist, when her Son was born at Bethlehem, the House of Bread! when she laid Him upon that straw, of which He was the Divine Wheat! Ah! let us elevate our ideas, let us entertain sentiments worthy of this incomparable creature in whom all is marvelous!
"The Mother of Jesus," says Père Machault, "knew that He had come to be the Saviour of men, as much by the instruction that she had received from the angel, as by the interior light of the Holy Spirit. She knew that one of the principal means that He would employ for our salvation, would be to make Himself in the Eucharist the Bread of our soul; consequently, she desired to give Him to us in that quality. This was the sweet meditation of Saint Augustine, who, contemplating Jesus in His early infancy at His Mother's breast, addressed to her this devout prayer: "O Virgin, suckle thy Son, nourish our Bread! Lacta, Virgo, panem nostrum. That Infant sheltered in thy arms, whom thou dost press to thy bosom, thou know, Virgin, will be our Bread. He is as yet too young. He must reach maturity, He must attain full growth, in order to serve for our nourishment. Take care, then, to feed Him. Give Him the breast, that He may grow. Reflect that, by suckling and feeding thy Son, thou art suckling and feeding all the Faithful, whose milk and nourishment He will one day be in the Eucharist."
Thenceforward, all Mary's care, all her labor and solicitude are to watch over our Bread for us, to protect for us our Eucharist.
O what prayers, what sighs, what burning desires, rise from her heart and call for the institution of the Eucharist! She is united to her Son and to her God by grace and love, but she no longer feels Him living in her womb as during the nine months that she carried Him. "O my Son, return, return into my womb, that I may again feel Thee living therein! But since Thou canst return only by the Eucharist, hasten, hasten the institution of that august Sacrament!"
Jesus seems to have wished to hear in advance the prayers of His Mother, and His first miracle will be a figure, perhaps the most striking, of the Holy Eucharist. "See," says a pious author, "with what ardor Mary urges her Son to institute the Adorable Sacrament: Vinum non habent!" But the hour had not yet come. Jesus had to acquire, by His apostolic labor, His weariness, His sufferings, and His death, the infinite treasures of grace and mercy that He desired to enclose in the Eucharist, in order to apply them all at once. Let us say with Pinna and his commentator that, if Mary pressed Jesus in this way at Cana, it was because, since the day of His Birth, He had pledged Himself to His Mother to institute this Sacrament of Himself, and Mary did but claim the fulfillment of His promise. However that may be, Jesus first miracle is one that announces and prefigures the Eucharist. And it was performed at Mary's request. It seems as if Jesus wished to comply, as far as He could at the moment, with the ardent prayers of His Mother for the Eucharist. Ah! the guests at Cana believed in Him, says the Sacred Text, but they did not understand Him! Mary comprehended its import. She knew that three years would not pass before the Eucharistic Transubstantiation, prefigured by the change of water into wine, would crown the marvels of Jesus power and love.
If all this does not suffice to prove that Mary knew of the Eucharist long in advance, it must, at least, be allowed that she believed in the famous promise made at Capharnaum, and that she fully comprehended the words: "I am the living bread. I am the bread come down from heaven. I am come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world, is my flesh." Yes, Mary knew, and because she knew, she desired, she prayed. With Salazar, Père de Machault, and Père Bernardin, of Paris, we say that was to her prayers, it was for her sake, it was for her, above all, that Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
Suarez, supporting his arguments on Saint Thomas, proves that the Holy Fathers of the Old Law merited, by their prayers and their ardent desires, not the Incarnation of the Word, which, being the cause and the foundation of all graces, could not be merited, but the manifestation and the accomplishment of the Incarnation; and more than that, they merited even some of the merciful circumstances that accompanied its accomplishment.
But Mary surpassed them all. She was, in all truth, by the graces with which she had been prevented, and by her constant co-operation with them, worthy to be come the Mother of God. The Church, following the Fathers, declares that she had prepared in her womb a tabernacle worthy of the Son of God.
"It was the most holy purity, the most pure holiness of her heart," says Saint Anselm, "that merited for her to become the perfect reparatrix of the lost human race."
Saint Bernardin says, "The Word became incarnate more for Mary, than for all the rest of the human race: Plus venit pro ipsa redimenda, quam pro omni alia creatura."
Ah, yes! if Jesus instituted the Eucharist, it was more for His Mother than for us. She was His principal end in view, and it was on her account that we received this Adorable Sacrament.
Read on this chapter the admirable work of Père Bernardin, of Paris, and be convinced of this truth.
We shall review some of his reasons: In all things God chooses the noblest ends. Now, Mary, by her graces, her holiness, her title of Mother of God, is more worthy to arrest the thought of Jesus than any other creature.
If the Eucharist is the effect of His immense love for the Church, Mary is more beloved by Jesus than the entire Church.
If it is the love that He hopes to receive in return for that magnificent Gift, the honors that will be given It, the fruits of holiness which that Sacrament will bring forth, that led Him to institute It, Mary alone will love Him more than all those that will come after her down through the ages; she alone will honor Him more than we ever can; and the Eucharist produced in her more fruit than in all the saints that will ever live!
Study the eight reasons that the Council of Trent gives for the institution of the Eucharist. They appertain to Mary by many more titles than to us. One alone does not belong to her. Having never been tainted by sin, or the inclination to sin, in her the Eucharist is not an antidote to sin; but, we must acknowledge it, this negative effect of the Eucharist proceeds only from our misery. It is not a title by which this Sacrament is to be merited, which is the Sacrament of the living; and if this effect is not produced in Mary, it is for her a glory, very far from being a reason to exclude her from participation in this Mystery.
Jesus, says the Sacred Council, desires to scatter profusely the riches of His love. But what object is more worthy than Mary? In whom will His love find such correspondence as in her?
Jesus wishes to establish in the Sacrament a memorial of all His works. For whom will He do it more gladly than for her who co-operated therein in so admirable a manner?
Jesus desires that, in consecrating the Eucharist, we show forth His death. But who better than she who stood at the foot of the Cross, and who suffered with Him one same martyrdom, can recall His death, can reproduce it in herself, can immolate herself in union with the Victim of the altar?
Jesus instituted this Sacrament to be the spiritual nourishment of Christians. But of what Christians? Of those that live always of His life by sanctifying grace, for He is the Living Bread. Now, in whom will the spiritual life ever attain perfection even approaching that of Mary?
The Eucharist is a sign of spiritual union with Jesus. .But is there a creature more closely united with Him, who is more strictly one with Him than His Blessed Mother, whose thoughts, whose desires, whose will, whose whole life is absorbed in Him?
Lastly, Jesus desires that the Eucharist should be the pledge of future glory, the leaven of the resurrection. But Mary was to rise in body as well as soul. She must not know the corruption of the tomb, and so it is for her, above all, that it is true to say: "He who eats Me, I will raise him up in My glory."
One reason more: "I have desired," said the Saviour in the effusion of His love, "I have desired with desire to eat this Pasch with you!"
What! eat with us, with us poor creatures? with us so lacking in virtue? Yes, Jesus sighs for our hearts, those tabernacles which sin, alas! has so often defiled, and which are warmed and purified by so little love! But, my God, what was Thy desire to eat that Pasch with Mary, to dwell in the tabernacle of her heart, holy, pure, immaculate, adorned with the most beautiful virtues, and burning with love? O my Saviour, the saints prepared themselves by penance to receive Thee, the martyrs by prisons and tortures, and still they are unworthy of Thy Majesty. But, behold Mary! She is worthy of Thee. Thou hast already dwelt in her. Thou know her heart. Thou make therein Thy delights. Ah! institute the Eucharist. Re-enter into her. Come reside in this dwelling which is thine, which the enemy has never taken, never laid waste, never despoiled of its beauty! Satisfy Thy desires. Institute the Eucharist for Thy Mother. Let us receive It on her account. Let the abundance of her love, of her virtues, indemnify Thee for what Thou dost not, alas! receive from us. Yes, because Mary communicated, I understand Thy desires to institute the Eucharist, and Thy eyes were fixed upon Thy Mother when Thou didst exclaim in the inebriation of Thy love: ''"Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum!"''
Let us conclude with Père Bernardin, of Paris: "We are not rash in affirming that, among all the Faithful, Mary was present to the mind of Jesus Christ when He instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. He rejoiced to return to His Mother the Body that He had received from her. It was to Mary principally that this great miracle of His love referred. Suarez declares that the primary cause of the institution of Eucharist was Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It was on this account that Saint Gregory of Nyssa calls the Eucharist the Mystery of the Virgin, Mary being the chief reason for the Divine Power's doing so great things in this Mystery."
- from Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, by Saint Pierre-Julien Eymard