From what has been said on the nature of the Sacraments, it is easy to see how the Holy Eucharist is truly one of them, for it contains the three parts essential to every sacrament. It will be sufficient for the present to merely state this, and, as we advance, to point out and develop at some length each of these three essentials as we come to them.
The Holy Eucharist is commonly defined to be the true Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, under the appearances of bread and wine.
1. Body – When we speak here of Our Lord’s Body, we mean that physical body, which was born of His Immaculate Mother in Bethlehem, in the most lovable form, the form of a little child, whom she wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manger of the stable. It was a body constituted of muscle and tissue, flesh and bone, like our own bodies, human in every respect. It is that body that travelled over Palestine, through the lanes of the country and the streets of its towns, seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel, going about doing good to all, for virtue went forth from it, to heal the sick and the ailing (Luke 6:19). It is that same body that suffered so cruelly for us at the time of the Passion, and was finally put to death on Calvary, amid excruciating sufferings and in deepest ignominy. Three days afterwards it rose gloriously from the tomb, in which it had been laid in death, while a few weeks later it ascended to Heaven in splendour and majesty, and is there one of the beauties that the Blessed contemplate for ever.
This, and no other, is the Body of Christ that we have in the Holy Eucharist, worthy of our humblest adoration, because it is the Body of the God-Man. We must enliven our faith in this doctrine, and bring home to ourselves the truth of it, so that we may approach to receive Holy Communion with all due love and becoming reverence.
In the fourth Book of Kings 13:21, we read how some friends of a dead man were carrying his body out to burial, when they were surprised by the sudden appearance of a roving band of Moabites, a hostile tribe. In great haste they removed the stone from the tomb of Eliseus, which was near, and laid their dead friend in the sepulchre, in order to be free to escape from the enemy. No sooner had the corpse touched the remains of the Prophet, than the dead man returned to life again and stood upon his feet!
If such a miracle of Divine power was wrought on a dead man, by simple contact with the bones of a prophet, a mere man like ourselves, what wonderful effects may we not expect to find produced in our souls when we come to touch and receive within us, not the body of a mere man, but the Body of Christ, Our Lord, laid on our tongues in Holy Communion? There can be no closer physical contact than this. With what awe, with what reverence should we approach to receive so great a gift, and what confidence should its nearness inspire!
When a poor woman, who had been suffering for twelve years, came full of confidence, touching merely the hem of Our Lord’s garment, as He was passing by, she was made whole from that hour (Matthew 9:21). And many other sick and diseased did in like manner, receiving a like mercy (Matthew 14:36). In Holy Communion we touch not His garment, but receive in very truth the Body of Our Lord. What graces, then, may we not hope for, if only we prepare ourselves reverently and carefully to receive it with sentiments of lively faith and confidence. As our daily food gives sustenance and support to our bodily life, so the flesh of Our Lord in this Sacrament feeds and strengthens the supernatural life of our souls.
2. Blood – When Our Saviour instituted the Holy Eucharist, converting the bread into His own sacred Flesh, His body was living, as He is now also in Heaven. Now, a living body must have blood coursing through its veins. When, therefore, we receive the consecrated Host, we receive the living Body of Christ, and necessarily the Precious Blood, for the one is inseparable from the other. This Blood He took from the pure blood of Mary, His Mother, as He was conceived in Her immaculate womb. This same Blood He began to shed shortly after His birth, when on the eighth day He was circumcised, receiving the holy name of Jesus. At the end of His life, He shed it in His Agony in the Garden, when, realizing the malice and evil of sin, and foreseeing the terrible sufferings awaiting Him that night and the following day, He was bowed down, and overwhelmed with anguish and grief; then the last drops of it He shed, as He hung in death on the Cross.
Hell fire, though burning for a whole eternity, cannot, with all its fierce vehemence and activity, consume a single mortal sin; but one drop even of this Precious Blood is able to cancel the sins and crimes of ten thousand worlds, for it is the Blood of the Son of God, and therefore of infinite value before the Father.
Its wonderful power is well typified by the blood of the Paschal Lamb. God Almighty had already punished King Pharao for his obstinacy in refusing to allow the Israelites to depart from Egypt. But the various chastisements inflicted on him seemed only to harden his heart the more, and he refused to grant them their liberty. One further punishment God inflicted on Pharao and his people, and this was the death of the first-born in every house of the Egyptians. By the mouth of Moses, God commanded the Hebrews (Exodus 12:7) to take a lamb by their families, and to slay and eat it in their homes, and then with its blood to sprinkle the door posts of their houses. That same night God sent His Angel through the land of Egypt to slay the first-born of every Egyptian family, while he passed over the houses of the Israelites, on the door posts of which he saw the blood of the lamb had been sprinkled. A cry of anguish arose throughout the land next day, for death reigned everywhere. Filled with horror at the death of his own eldest son, and the plaint of woe that everywhere arose, Pharao sent for Moses and Aaron, and besought them to depart with their people from Egypt. Thus were the Hebrews saved from the common chastisement by the blood of the lamb.
How much more will our souls be preserved from the Devil and sin – as the angel was a type of the Devil, or probably was the Devil – by the Precious Blood of Our Lord in Holy Communion, concealed under the mysterious veils, and by it we were redeemed from the captivity of sin, when Our Lord shed it to the last drop on the Cross.
In Holy Communion, our souls are bathed in this Precious Blood, and the Devil, seeing them thus signed and washed, is less able to harm or injure them, just as the slaying angel was unable to harm the Israelites, when he saw their doors sprinkled with the blood of the Paschal Lamb.
3. Soul – Once again, in Holy Communion we receive Our Lord as He is, that is, a living being. Yet a body cannot live, unless it be animated by the soul. It is the departure of the soul from the body that causes the terrible phenomenon we call death. Thereafter the body remains helpless as a mass of clay, soon subject to corruption, which makes us hurry to take it forth to burial, as unfit to remain amongst us. As, then, we receive the living Christ, we receive with His Body and Blood His Soul likewise. He had a soul like ours, for He was human like ourselves – soul, the most beautiful work of all God’s creation, most perfect, and worthy of His Divine Son, for whom it was fashioned.
In the life of Saint Catherine of Siena, we read how God Almighty permitted her to see, in some mysterious manner, the beauty of a soul in the state of grace; and she tells us how the brightness and splendour of the sight dazzled and blinded her, how there was nothing in this world she could think of that could give any idea of what she had seen: neither the soft, sweet light of the morning, nor the dazzling beams of the noonday sun, nor the beautiful colours of rainbow or flower, for that soul surpassed them all, bright with the whiteness of Heaven, such as is not to be found on this earth. If such be the beauty of the soul of a little child, in the grace of God, what must be the heavenly glory and splendour of the Soul of Christ, the Author of all grace, the very sanctity of God Himself!
It is this Soul of Our Lord that suffered the anguish of Gethsemani, oppressed with the weight of the sins of men, and with the thought of the sufferings He had to pass through, in consequence of their heinousness and guilt before God. It was the departure of this Soul from Our Lord’s Body on the Cross that constituted His death, as is the case with us all. At that moment his beauteous spirit went down to Limbo, where were detained the souls of countless Saints of the Old Law, who could not as yet enter into possession of their Reward, for the golden gates of Heaven were still closed against them. On its arrival, that place of Rest was lighted up with incomparable splendour, the souls were filled with gladness and joy, joy intensified by the knowledge that now, at long last, the day of their deliverance was at hand, that soon they should pass into the Divine Presence for ever. For some thirty-six hours or so, the Soul of Our Lord remained in Limbo, and then reunited itself to the lifeless Body still in the tomb, rising together by a glorious resurrection in the early morn of Easter Day.
Now, it is this Soul of Our Lord, so perfect in sanctity, in beauty, and every perfection, that we receive in Holy Communion, its glory being hidden from our eyes by the sacramental veils. Would to God we realised the honour that is done to us, by the visit of such a guest to our hearts! and that we could draw from its presence within us all the graces it is able and ready to bestow! Surely it is true to say that one Holy Communion is enough to make us Saints!
It is this Body and Blood and Soul that constitute the sacred Humanity of Our Lord, humanity like to our own in all things, without sin (Hebrews 4:15). In this human form He was able to show Himself to the eyes of men, to discourse to them, to suffer and die, thereby making reparation to God for the sin that human nature had committed against Him, in the person of our first parents and their descendants.
4. Divinity – But Our Lord was not only man, having a human nature like ours, He was also God. The union of the two natures, human and Divine, in the one person of God the Son, was effected in the mystery of the Incarnation, at Nazareth, and is known by the name of Hypostatic Union, that close, intimate, and personal union of the Divinity and Humanity in Our Blessed Lord. He was, therefore, God as well as man, and it was the omnipotent power of the Divinity that He displayed on those occasions during His public career, when people brought to Him such as were sick of any disease, and He healed them by a mere word of His lips.
Before Him, the Incarnate God, the Angels in Heaven are ever prostrate to adore and sing eternally “Holy, holy, holy,” to the glory of His name. He whom we receive in this Sacrament is in very truth a Divine Person, Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, in His twofold nature, who created us, who redeemed us from hell, who, at the end of our lives, will be our impartial Judge, and for all eternity, let us hope, our unending reward. Yet this is truly what we do receive when we approach the Holy Table! Could God Himself bestow more than this – His own infinite Self – to us His sinful creatures? Can we, therefore, ever make a return of gratitude and love worthy of God, worthy of such a gift as we here receive! Yet how much better thanksgiving should we be able to make after receiving this Sacrament of Love, if only we tried to realise more fully who He is that comes to us therein, Our Divine Lord, truly God and truly man.
How thoroughly animated by a deep, lively faith was the pious Count of Hapsburg, of whom the following anecdote is related. He was one day hunting among the mountains, when he saw a priest much embarrassed to cross a stream swollen by the rains. He had to cross it, to carry the Holy Viaticum to a dying person. At once the Count alights from his horse, makes the priest mount him, and himself follows on foot in deep recollection. The priest afterwards wanted to give back the horse to the Count, but the latter answered: “I do not deem myself worthy ever again to remount a horse, which has had the honour of bearing the Lord of lords: it is from Him that I hold in fief all I possess.” And so saying, he left the noble animal at the service of the priest and his church. The report of this edifying event soon spread in the neighbourhood, causing everywhere a pious joy among the people. May it not also teach us a lesson, and remind us how great is the honour Our Lord does us, when He comes into our hearts, leading us to show all reverence and respect to the Blessed Sacrament, so infinitely venerable and sacred to the eyes of a lively faith?
In dealing thus far with the definition of the Holy Eucharist, an important word has been omitted, reserved for our consideration at this point, a word of the utmost importance. It is the word True: the true Body and Blood, by which we mean that Our Lord is really and substantially present in the consecrated bread and wine; this the Council of Trent has formally and solemnly declared. It is, therefore, of faith that in Holy Communion we receive the true, real and substantial Body and Blood of Christ, not a mere symbol, or representation or figure of them, but the substantial reality itself. Our Lord did not say, at the Last Supper: “This is a figure of My body, or a reminder to you of My body,” but He did say: “This is My Body: this is My Blood.” Now, if words have any meaning at all, what other conclusion can we come to than the one just stated, that in this mystery we have nothing less than His Sacred Body itself, along with His Precious Blood. This is the plain and obvious meaning of the words He used.
The truth of this has been manifested many times by miracles during the course of the Church’s history. The consecrated Host has been known to remain untouched and uninjured, when all around has been absolutely consumed and destroyed by fire; or it has been suspended, and has remained without support in mid-air, in similar circumstances.
A well-attested miracle is recorded by the French writer, Fleury, who tells that, in the year 1290, a poor woman living in Paris, in order to purchase some food, pawned her cloak in a Jew’s shop. A few days before Easter, she begged the Jew to lend it to her, that she might be able to go to church and fulfill the Easter precept. “With pleasure,” said the Jew; “I shall not even require it back again, if you will bring me a little of the bread you call your God; I wish to see if it be God.” The woman agreed, and then went to receive her Paschal Communion. When it had been given to her, she, without being noticed, managed to conceal the Sacred Host, and took it, according to agreement, to the Jew. He, on receiving it, laid it on a table and cut it with a penknife. At once blood began to flow from it, and his wife became very much alarmed, and made every effort to prevent him from proceeding further in the sacrilegious work, but he would not be restrained. He now forced a nail into the Host, and again it bled. At last he dipped it into boiling water, which immediately appeared red, as it were, with blood. This extraordinary occurrence amazed the Jew, and he at length withdrew in bewilderment. In the meantime, his son said to some boys going to church, that there was no use in going to adore their God, as his father had just killed him. A woman, who was passing by, heard the jest from the boy and entered the house, where she beheld the Sacred Host, which, as soon as she appeared, entered into a small vessel she was carrying in her hand. The woman at once took it to the church and gave it to a priest. The Archbishop of Paris, being informed of what had taken place, had the Jew arrested, who, confessing his crime, received the punishment he deserved. His wife and children became Catholics, and were baptized. In the year 1295 a citizen of Paris built an oratory called the miraculous chapel, on the site where had stood the house of sacrilege.
The presence of Jesus Christ, real and substantial, in the Sacred Host is a Divine truth, revealed by Our Lord to His Apostles, and taught by the Church to her children, and enforced on their acceptance, under penalty of eternal loss, as an article of faith, during the nineteen centuries of her existence.
Appearances – There yet remains something further to consider, in order to complete the definition of the Holy Eucharist, viz., to explain the words: appearances of bread and wine.
By appearances we mean such sensible qualities as the shape, colour, taste, and feel of a substance, being sometimes called the accidents or species of the substance. If you take a piece of wax, you find it has a certain consistency, a certain colour and shape. These, however, may vary, though the wax itself remains; for instance, heat it a little, and you can mould it as you please, giving it quite another shape, but you still have the wax; or bleach it, and its colour changes, yet it is wax still. These changes are what we call the accidents or the appearances of the substance, wax. Now in the Holy Eucharist, the substance of the bread and of the wine no longer remains after the Consecration, but only the species or the appearances of them. What to our senses seems bread is now the true and real Body of Christ, and what seems to us wine, truly His Precious Blood. For, as the Council of Trent says (Sess. XIII., c. 3): “It has always been believed in the Church of God that immediately after the Consecration, the true Body of Our Lord, and His true Blood exist under the species of bread and wine, together with His Soul and Divinity,” in other words, there is no bread and no wine after the Consecration, but only the species and appearances thereof.
Nevertheless, our senses are not deceived as to these. There was no dove at Our Lord’s Baptism, but to the eyes of those present only the appearance or resemblance of a dove. There were no tongues of fire at Pentecost, but only the appearances of such, “parted tongues as it were of fire.” So in the Eucharist there is no bread, but only, to our eyes and other senses, the accidents or species of bread.
And why should Our Lord thus conceal Himself from us, and hide under these humble veils?
1. Because no man can see God and live (Exodus 33:20); the dazzling splendour and beauty of Our Lord would blind our eyes, as if they were to gaze unprotected on the bright noonday sun. When Saint John saw, in a vision only, one “like to the Son of man,” like the sun shining in his power, he fell down as one dead (Apocalypse 1:17). What, then, would be our fate, if we saw Our Lord Himself, not in vision only, but in reality, with all the display of His magnificence and glory!
2. That we may not be afraid to approach Him. Such splendour as this would terrify us, and we should fear to go and receive Him, unless He veiled His majesty from our eyes. When Moses had spent forty days and nights with God on Mount Sinai, he at length came down to the plain; but the people, and even Aaron, his own brother, were afraid to come near, because of the brightness of his countenance, after his long converse with God (Exodus 34:30). It is the will of Our Lord that we should go, and go frequently, to receive Him in this Sacrament. Yet how should we dare – frail, sinful creatures as we are – to approach this infinite sanctity and beauty of God, unless He concealed His grandeur and sublimity from our eyes?
3. It is a trial to our faith and belief. If we saw Our Lord here as He is, we should have no such test. Whereas, hidden as He is from our senses, we give proof of our faith and belief, by accepting His word, that under the sacramental veils He is truly and really present. When the Apostle Thomas refused to believe in the Resurrection, unless he could see and touch his Lord, he was faithless and unbelieving. Our Saviour rebuked him for this, and added, “Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed” (John 20:29). By our faith and belief in the Real Presence, in spite of what appearances may say, we acquire merit, and merit here means reward hereafter.
4. Moreover, we are in this reminded that we are but pilgrims on the earth, where we are unfit and unable to see the glory of God. We should, therefore, long and sigh for our true country, God’s kingdom of bliss, where we shall see Him face to face as He is, and rejoice in His glory for ever.
Bread – As previously stated, bread is part of the matter of the Eucharistic Sacrament, and very appropriately so; for, as bread is the staff of life, the chief food of the body, so the Body of Our Lord, under the form of bread, is the food and support of our souls. Hence, material bread is the appropriate matter of this Sacrament, which is the supernatural Bread that came down from Heaven. Moreover, the form of bread is the simplest and easiest manner of receiving Our Divine Lord. We can hardly conceive any other.
The bread employed in this case is unleavened, that is to say, it consists simply of flour and water, panis triticeus, without yeast or fermentation. Such was the bread Our Lord used at the Last Supper, for according to the Old Law, the Jews were forbidden to have any leavened bread in their houses at the time of the Passover festival, and the Evangelists distinctly tell us that Christ instituted the Blessed Sacrament on the first day of the azymes, or unleavened bread, and after eating with the Apostles the Paschal Lamb, at the offering of which any but unleavened bread was unlawful (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7).
In the Latin Church, unleavened bread may alone be used, as more closely following the example of Our Lord. Some Oriental Churches, however, use leavened bread, though not of the ordinary household kind, but bread made with greater care and attention. Such bread is always valid matter, but in the Western Church unlawful.
The bread used in this Sacrament is termed the Host. It is flat and circular in form, a custom that goes back to the very earliest days of Christianity. In the Greek Church it is sometimes square; and in both cases bears the figure of the Crucifixion, or the letters I.H.S., initials of the words Jesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus, Saviour of Men.
Wine – Wine is the other part of the matter of this Sacrament, and again most appropriately, for wine is a very invigorating drink for the body, imparting gladness and strength to our natural frame, while the Precious Blood of Jesus, received under the appearance of wine, invigorates the soul, and inebriates it with spiritual delights.
This wine must be the juice of the grape, vinum de vite. Any kind of wine may serve, if truly the juice of the grape; for such was the matter used in the cup by Our Lord at the Last Supper. Tradition says He added to it a few drops of water, hence the Church requires us to do the same at the Altar, when preparing for the Consecration. The Council of Trent gives to this mixing of wine and water three symbolical meanings, namely:
1. To honour the water and blood that flowed from the side of Our Lord, when one of the soldiers opened it with a spear, as He hung upon the Cross in death (John 19:34).
2. To represent the union of the Faithful with Christ. Water typifies the Sacrament of Baptism, whereby we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church, and wine signifies His Blood in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Hence the water is blessed, as representing the Faithful; the wine is not, which typifies Our Lord.
3. To recall to our minds the two natures, human and Divine, united in the one Person of the Son of God, effected in the mystery of the Incarnation, and never to be separated for all eternity. The Monophysites, in the fifth century, refused to mix water with the wine, for, as their Greek name implies, they held but one nature in Christ. In their action they were consistent with their doctrine, though so heretical in itself, and always declined to adopt the practice of the Church, which teaches the two-fold nature of Her Founder – practice which dates back even to the time of the Apostles.
These two elements, bread and wine, constitute but one Sacrament. The consecration of one of them without the other would be criminal and sacrilegious, even if valid, and nothing would excuse or justify such an act, not even to give Holy Viaticum to the dying.
As showing the reverence and care that should be used in regard to the matter of this Sacrament, we read of saintly kings and queens, who, despite their many preoccupations and anxieties, yet found time to prepare with their own hands the bread and wine for the Altar. Thus was it with Queen Radagundes, of Thuringia, in the sixth century, Saint Louis, King of France, in the thirteenth, and the martyred Saint Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia, in the tenth. This last used to sow the wheat and tend a special vine with every care, that the best flour and grapes might be procured for making the altar bread and wine for the Holy Sacrifice.
Such examples ought to be to us an incentive to show all possible respect to everything connected with this august mystery. Should it ever be our privilege to have anything to do in preparing the matter for it, let it be done with all reverence and care; this especially applies to the choice of the wine, which must always be procured from reliable firms, authorized by the Bishops to provide it, and when procured, be kept with care, so that it may not be diluted, and so possibly be rendered invalid matter for the Sacrament. Our faith and reverence must make us guard against such a danger.