THE REAL PRESENCE Cf3y REV. F. MANGAN, S.J. THE REAL PRESENCE By REV. F. MANGAN, S.]. THE PAUL 1ST PRESS 401 \VEST 59TH STREET NEW YORE: 19, N. Y . , Nihil Obstat: ARTHUR J, SCANLAN, S.T.D., Censor Librorum. Imprimatur: ffi PATRICK CARDINAL HAYES. Archbishop of New York. New York, SePtember 25, 1925. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE PAULIST PRESS. NEW YORK 19, N . Y. THE REAL PRESENCE By REV. F. MANGAN, S.J. THE teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the Holy Eucharist is that by the words of consecration the sub- stance of the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Who is thereafter "truly, really, and substantially" present under these appearances. The Body and Blood of Christ are present truly, and not in any merely figurative or metaphorical sense. They are really present; it is not that we partake of mere food, however loaded with blessings from on high, and in the partaking appre- hend Christ, in some sort, by Faith. They are substantially present, that is to say, it is not merely the power or virtue of Christ that is present in these material things; there is no sub- stance of bread and wine at all; in its place, under the appear- ances of bread and wine, are present the very Body and Blood of our Lord. Tbese three adverqs, therefore, used by the Council of Trent, deny three mistaken explanations advanced by heretics about the Real Presence. The Catholic doctrine falls under three heads; -3- 4 THE REAL PRESENCE - (1) The Body and Blood of Christ are truly present in the Holy Eucharist. (2) After the consecration there remains no substance of bread or wine. (3) The way in which this comes about is by the change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's Body and Blood. This change is called Transubstantiation. The plan of this paper is first to prove the fact of the Real Presence, taking together the first two heads of doctrine, since they are complementary; and, secondly, to establish the way in which the Real Presence is brought about. A-THE FACT Scripture tells us three things about the Holy Eucharist: the promise of it, the fulfillment of the. promise in its institu- tion, and the belief concerning it of the Apostolic Church. I-The Promise (St. John vi. 26 ff.) [It should be noted that the Church has never defined that the discourse of our Lord in St. John vi. concerns the Holy Eucharist. Nevertheless this is the unanimous opinion of theologians and beyond reasonable doubt.] - At the opening of his sixth chapter, St. John describes the feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes THE REAL PRESENCE 5 (vi. 1-15), and the walking of Christ upon the waters by night (vi. 16-22). The rest of the chapter gives His discourse in the synagogue at Capharnaum on the Bread of Life. This discourse falls into two parts, the division occurring at v. 48, or, according to other scholars, at v. 51. About the meaning of the first part Catholic scholars are not agreed. Some hold that it refers to the Holy Eucharist, others that our Lord is speaking only of Faith in Himself as the means to obtain this heavenly food. All agree that at least from v. 51 onwards, He is speaking of the Holy Eucharist. St. John vi. 51-59.-Looking, then, at this second portion, we find that our Lord's words are: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that 1 will give is My Flesh, for the life of the world. . .. Amen, amen, 1 say unto you: except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath everlasting life: and 1 will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh is meat indeed: and My Blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me: and 1 in him. As the living Father hath sent Me and 1 live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever. " 6 THE REAL PRESENCE Reality or Metaphor?-In seven verses our Lord repeats seven times that He Himself, His Flesh and His Blood, are to be eaten and drunk. Did He mean this literally, or was He speaking in metaphor? From the tone of His speech we should certainly gather that He meant His words to be taken literally. He uses the formula of solemn assertion, "Amen" signifying "in very truth." He repeats His statement many times, now negatively, now positively. He declares that His Flesh is "meat indeed and His Blood drink indeed." He appeals to His own union with His Father: "As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live my Me." Further, His hearers understood Him literally. They asked: "How can this Man give us His Flesh to eat?" And our Lord so far from undeceiving them, insists on the truth of what He has said. Many even of His disciples found it "a hard saying" and "walked no more with Him." Yet rather than abate in the least the force of His words, He let them go. Is this the conduct we shall expect of Christ, even from the merely human point of view, if He had been speaking only in parables? Certainly it is inconsistent with His practice as recorded elsewhere in the Gospels. We find repeatedly that whenever His symbolical phrases were understood literally, He was at pains to correct the mis- THE REAL PRESENCE 7 take. Thus, when Nicodemus understood literally His saying that "unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God," He took care to explain that the new birth was to be "of water and the Holy Ghost" (St. John iii. 3 ff.) . On the other hand, when His words were intended literally, and by mistake were taken metaphorically, He insisted, as in the passage before us, on His original statement. An example may be found in St. Matthew ix. 2 ff., where the Pharisees charged Him with blasphemy for saying to the paralytic: " Thy sins are forgiven thee." "Whether it is easier to say: Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say: Take up thy bed and walk. But that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then said He to the man sick of the palsy): Arise, take up thy bed and go into thy house." (Cf. St. John iv. 32, viii. 32, xi. 11; St. Matthew xvi. 6.) This point is confirmed by the fact that even in this dis- course (according to one, at least probable, interpretation of a difficult passage) He tries to correct a misapprehension of His hearers. They took Him so literally that they seem to have thought He meant some kind of revolting, cannibalistic eating. It is against this interpretation that, whilst still main- taining the truth of His assertion, He says: "Doth this scan- dalize you? If then, you shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (vi. 62-64). He appeals, in fact , to His 8 THE REAL PRESENCE divine power, and hints that the Flesh which He will give, will be no longer mortal flesh. Metaphor Impossible in the Context.-There can be no doubt, therefore, that the audience at Capharnaum did, in fact, understand His words literally, and that He meant them so to be understood. Indeed, He must have done so. Not that the phrase "to eat the flesh and drink the blood" of another is incapable, in the language used by our Lord, of bearing a metaphorical meaning. One, and only one, such meaning it can bear. But that one meaning makes nonsense of the whole discourse. For metaphorically the phrase means to pursue with the utmost hatred, or to inflict upon another a grievous injury, e. g., Psalms xxvi. 2: "Whilst the wicked _draw near against me, to eat my flesh"; Job xix. 22: "Why do you per- secute me as God, and glut yourselves with my flesh?" Isaias xlix. 26: "And I will feed thy enemies with their own flesh, and they shall be made drunk with their own blood, as with new wine." From this we may judge the value of the common objection that our Lord was an Eastern speaking to Easterns, and there- fore, apparently, in a language charged with vagueness and poetical imagery. The only image conveyed to an Eastern by this phrase would be one of horror, and one which, as has been said, maltes nonsense of the entire passage. He Cannot Have Meant Faith.-This, too, is another refutation of the common Protestant view that our Lord is THE REAL PRESENCE 9 here speaking only of Faith in Himself. The phrase could convey no such meaning. But does not our Lord Himself say that " the flesh profiteth nothing," and that "it is the spirit that quickeneth"? Can He then have meant His previous words to be taken literally? Is He not rather offering here a figurative explanation? Undoubt- edly the two verses, 63 and 64, are in many ways difficult. But this is certain, that they-are not a figurative explanation of what has gone before. Hitherto our Lord has always spoken of "My Flesh" and "My Blood." Here He speaks of "the flesh," and contrasts it with " the spirit." Now this meta- phorical contrast is common in Hebrew, as in other tongues, to distinguish a natural element from one that is supernatural. One instance from Scripture will occur instantly to the mind: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (St. Matthew xxvi. 41). Again, we have the words to Nicodemus: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (St. John iii. 6). It is frequent also in the Epistles of St. Paul. But, further, if we are to refer the words to the preceding passage, it works havoc with the theory that by His Flesh our Lord meant Faith. For He is thus mad€ to say that Faith profi teth nothing. II- The Fulfillmeut We have four accounts of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, given respectively by St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. 10 THE REAL PRESENCE Luke, and St. Paul. They are printed here in parallel columns for the sake of comparison: St. Matt. xxvi. 26·28. And whilst they were at supper Jesus took bread, and blessed and brake and gave to His disciples and said: Take ye and eat. This is My Body. And taking the chalice He gave thanks and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is My Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many un to the re- mission of sins. St. Mark xiv. 22-24. And whilst they were eating Jesus took bread, and blessing broke and gave to them and said: Take yeo This is My Body. And having taken the chalice, giv- ing thanks, He gave it to them and they all drank of it. And He said to them: This is My Blood of the new testa- ment, which shall be shed for many. St. Luke xxii. 19-20. And taking bread, He gave thanks and broke and gave to the m f saying: This is My Body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemora- tion of Me. In like manner the chalice also, after He had sup- ped, saying : This is the chal- ice, the new tes- tament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you. 1 Cor. xi. 23-25. The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was be- trayed, took bread, and giving t han k s broke and said: Take ye and eat. This is My Body, which shall be delivered for you. This do for the commemoration of Me. Itt like manner, also the chalice after He had sup- ped, saying: This chalice is the new testa- ment in My Blood. This do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of Me. It is at once clear that the accounts fall into two pairs. St. Matthew and St. Mark closely resemble each other, as also do St. Luke and St. Paul. It is equally clear that in sub- stance the account by all four writers is the same. As regards the bread, the words of institution are identical in all the nar- THE REAL PRESENCE 11 ratives. As regards the chalice, the indirect form used by St. Luke and St. Paul does not differ in meaning from the direct form used by st. Matthew and St. Mark. St. Luke, in fact, adds that the chalice (in the Greek the nominative case . of the participle makes it plain that the shedding is con- nected with the chalice: 'tov'to 'to :TCO't~QLOV lj ~aLV~ ~LUih1~'Y] EV tiP ULfLUtL fLoU 'to U:TCEQ UfLWV E~xuvv6fLEVOV) shall be shed. But a chalice cannot be shed; only its contents can be shed ; and certainly wine was not shed for us. Therefore, in speak- ing of "the chalice, the new testament in my blood," the writer must have meant the blood in the chalice. The metaphor, technically called metonymy, is an obvious and old-established one. Our task, then, is to inquire into the meaning of the words : "This is my body" and "This is my blood of the new testa- ment," or, equivalent, "This chalice is the new testament in my blood." The very clearness of the words is, in some degree, a diffi- culty in the way of inquiry. One does not inquire into the obvious. Yet, assuredly, if a man wished to state the doctrine of the Real Presence, he could not use language plainer than this. If, on the other hand, he wished to state a doctrine about a symbolical or figurative presence, words such as these would be singularly misleading. There are, doubtless, many things which are acknowledged to be capable of a symbolical mean- ing, either from their own nature or from the idiom of a 12 THE REAL PRESENCE language, or from the context in which they occur. Thus a picture is of its nature a symbol; in ordinary language we speak of a brave man as a "lion"; and, thirdly, though a fond mother may pardonably call her child her "angel," no one who knows the child is in danger of being mistaken about the fact. These are metaphors and types familiar to all, and there is no fear of error in their use. But bread and wine are not found among these types as symbols of the human body and blood, nor did they convey that meaning to the people of Palestine in the time of our Lord. No True Metaphorical Parallels from Scripture.-It is com- monly said, indeed, that parallel phrases, metaphorical in meaning, are to be met with frequently in Scripture. Weare referred to Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream: "The seven lean kine are seven lean years," etc., and to our Lord's own words about Himself: "1 am the door"; "1 am the vine." But on examination they prove to be no true parallels. Form and context sufficiently show that. Joseph is expressly inter- preting a dream picture. Our Lord does not say: "This door," or, "This vine is My Body," or, "My Blood." But, even apart from this, the very object of a metaphor is to explain by means of a picture. Now, if we take the words, "This is My Body," as a metaphor, they explain nothing. There is no conventional picture according to which bread and wine stand for union with another person by Faith. So far from explaining, meta- phorically considered they make more difficulties. THE REAL PRESENCE 13 Looking now more closely at the words, their emphasis is all in favor of a literal interpretation. Fully rendered in Eng- lish they are as follows: "This is My Body, the (body) given for you; My Blood, the (blood) of the new testament, the (blood) shed for many." Literal interpretation gives an exact correspondence with the prediction in St. John vi. 52: "The bread which I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world." A True Scripture Parallel.-Moreover, to the literal inter- pretation there is a true and most apposite parallel passage in Exodus xxiv. 8, where Moses sprinkles the blood of the sacri- fice on the people, saying: "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you." St. Paul quotes this as: "This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you" (Hebrew ix. 20), pointing to it as a figure of the shedding of Christ's Blood on Calvary. But the most striking point for the present argument is this, that in both the Hebrew and Greek versions of the Old Testament, the phrase here translated "This is" should be rendered literally "Behold." "This is the blood" = "Behold the blood." So Moses; and our Lord, fulfilling, according to St. Paul, the figure, says: "This is My Body; this is My Blood." The words, then, are themselves so far from conveying a metaphor that, had Christ meant them to be understood figur- atively, He must in fairness have given clear tokens of His intention. The need for this becomes more evident when we 14 THE REAL PRESENCE - recall the state of mind of His hearers. For three years the Apostles had witnessed His miraculous power over disease, the forces of nature, and even the evil spirits. They had been privileged to share that power. "The devils aJso," they said, "are subject to us in Thy name." They had come to set im- plicit faith upon His word, and He had encouraged them and even insisted on their doing so. At the time of the promise of the Eucharist they had clung in faith to Christ's word when many of His disciples fell away by reason of the "hard saying." How could He expect them to receive His words in any but their most literal sense unless He warned them against it? Yet He said never a word of warning. Is it credible that He, to Whose sublime character even the unbeliever bears witness, traded upon the simplicity of His followers, and, through them, of the faithful for twelve hundred years in regard of the solemn seal which He declared Himself to be setting on this His last will and testament, the New DiSpensation of God to man? Objections.-Two or three common objections remain to be considered. First, Christ admittedly used a metaphor in speaking of the chalice of His Blood. But if one metaphor be admitted, how can it be said that He must have meant His words to be taken literally? For the sufficient reason that the metaphor of the chalice is unmistakable, whereas, if the whole passage is figurative, it was apt to produce, and did in fact ·produce, a most grievous mistake. THE REAL PRESENCE 15 Secondily, it is objected that even after the consecration the Holy Eucharist is called bread and "the fruit of the vine." But the fact that the appearances of bread and wine remain is enough to account for this. Thirdly, it is urged that "is" must here be equivalent to "represents," as in passages of the Old Testament. To this the reply is that, even where "represents" might be substituted for "is," the passages are never true parallels. A further point in the objection is the claim that the Syro-Chaldaic dialect, prob- ably spoken by our Lord, contains no word corresponding to the English "represent." Poverty of language, therefore, com- pelled Him to use "is." There are two answers: one, that in fact there are forty words meaning to "represent"; the other, that the early writers of the Syrian Church adopt the literal .. meaning. "Christ did not call it [His Body] a type or figure," writes St. Maruthas of Tangrita (cire. 350), "but said: 'This is My Body and this is My Blood.' " III-The Witness of St. Paul For the faith of the Apostolic Church we have the evi- dence of St. Paul. Immediately after his account of the in- stitution of the Holy Eucharist, he proceeds to draw from it conclusions which exclude all doubt of his belief in the Real Presence. These are his words: First passage: "For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, .. 16 THE REAL PRESENCE until He come. Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man prove him- self; and so let him eat of that bread and drink the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord" (1 Corinthians xi. 26-29). Note, first, that the bread and chalice here spoken of are those which Christ has just declared to be His Body and His Blood, and that St. Paul marks them off as special tenl!s by calling them "this bread" and "the chalice of the Lord." Next, this eating and drinking is evidently something solemn, since a man is to "prove himself," to examine if he be worthy, before partaking, and the solemnity is due to the nature of the food eaten. Thirdly, the unworthy partaker commits a special crime. He is "guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." Only the doctrine of the Real Presence can justify this language. On any symbolical theory it is sheer abuse of words. A friend, let us suppose, invites me to dine with him. That is a sign of union. If while I break bread with him, as the phrase goes, and eat his salt, I am privately plotting his ruin, I am, indeed, a black traitor; but no one can accuse me of being guilty of his body and blood. When we remember, further, the plain THE REAL PRESENCE 17 words of institution, which immediately precede this solemn warning, it is evident that one doctrine alone fits the facts, the doctrine of the Real Presence. All this is immediately confirmed by the sentence of damna- tion pronounced against the unworthy man. He "eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord"; in other words, because he presumed to treat as com- mon bread what was in fact the Body of Christ. Another Passage.-Equally explicit is the statement in the previous chapter: "Judge ye yourselves what I say. The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the Body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, one body: all that partake of one bread" (1 Cor. x. 16,17). The plain doctrine st. Paul evidently expects to pass unquestioned. But, moreover, that must be a special bread which unites all that partake of it in one body, and, taken in connection with the teaching of St. Paul on the Mystical Body of Christ, according to which every Christian, in virtue of his union with Christ, is a member of His Body, it is natural to see in this special bread the visible sign of union. But what explanation so well fits this doctrine as that the bread is no longer mere bread but the Body of the Lord? 18 THE REAL PRESENCE IV-The Early Christian Church Space forbids quotation in detail from the Fathers of the Church, and, indeed, the evidence is so abundant that quota- tion on any but a large scale could only prove unsatisfactory. It must suffice to state in general that the Fathers, Eastern and Western, are practically unanimous in teaching the Real Presence. Their language is at times loose and untechnical, and could not be used today, when, largely under the stress of heresy, the doctrine has come to be stated with scientific precision, but of their true mind on the subject there can be no reasonable doubt. The exceptions are so few and unim- portant as to be negligible in a chain of evidence extending over seven centuries. Besides the Fathers, and guiding us in interpreting them, we have the recorded practice of the Christian Church. From very early times it was the custom to receive Holy Com- munion fasting. In administering the Host the celebrant said: "The Body of the Lord," and the communicant an- swered: "Amen." He then received the Host into his hands and put It into his mouth. The deacon presented the chalice, saying: "The Blood of the Lord," and the communicant drank from it after again replying: "Amen." The greatest care was enjoined upon communicants to let none of the sacred species fall to the ground, because it was the Body of the Lord. Under the species of bread the Holy Eucharist was regularly carried to the sick and to prisoners by deacons or, if persecution made THE REAL PRESENCE 19 that course too dangerous, even by children. It was thus that St. Tarcisius met martyrdom. "He preferred to yield his soul in death," says the epitaph inscribed by Pope St. Damasus on his tomb, "than to betray the heavenly members [of Christ] to raving dogs." In time of persecution, too, the faithful took the Holy Eucharist to their homes that they might com- municate in case of need. Itermits, living alone in the desert, regularly reserved it. All this points to a belief in a real and permanent Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. "Discipline of the Secret."-Something may also be gath- ered from the "Discipline of the Secret," that is, the practice of not mentioning the sacred mysteries of Christianity in pub- lic sermons and writings, but of veiling them under some gen- . eral phrase which the initiated understood, but which would convey nothing to the outsider. Why this secrecy should have been observed if the Holy Eucharist was no more than a sym- bol, it is hard to see. On the other hand, the fact that Chris- tians were commonly accused of holding a cannibal feast and eating the bodies of children is sufficient to account for the Discipline of the Secret, and is moreover itself best explained as a perversion of the doctrine of the Real Presence. B.-TRANSUBSTANTIATION The Church not only defines the fact of the Real Presence; she defines also the way in which that Presence is brought about. 20 THE REAL PRESENCE "Since Christ our Redeemer," says the -Council of Trent, "said that what He offered under the appearance of bread was truly His Body, therefore it has always been held in the Church of God, and this Holy Synod now declares it anew, that by the consecration of bread and wine there takes place a change of the entire substance of bread into the substance of the the Body of Christ our Lord, and of the entire substance of wine into the substance of His Blood. This change is by the Holy Catholic Church aptly and accurately termed Transubstantiation" (Session 13, Chap. 4'). There is a common misapprehension among non-Catholics that transubstantiation is a doctrine devised in the Middle Ages and thrust upon a credulous body of subjects by a tyrannical Church. In actual fact, from the first the Church has taught, in accordance with the plain meaning of our Lord's words, that the bread and wine are changed by the words of con- secration into the Body and Blood of Christ. For He did not say: "Here is My Body" or "This contains My Body," but "This is My Body," "This is My Blood." Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died a martyr in A. D. 107, writes that heretics "abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins" (Ad. Smyrn. 7). THE REAL PRESENCE 21 St. Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386), concludes his instruction on the Holy Eucharist with these words; "Filled with the faith that what appears bread is not bread, even though it seems so to the taste, but the Body of Christ; and what appears wine is not wine, even though taste would have it so, but the Blood of Christ" (Catech. Myst. iv. 9). St. Ambrose (d. 397): "Of the works of the whole world thou hast read: He spoke and they were made. . .. Cannot, then, the word of Christ which was able to make out of nothing that which was not, change the things which are into that which they were not?" The Notion of "Change" Universal in the Fathers.-In general, the Fathers employ every possible word for "change" to express the effect of consecration. They say that the bread and wine "are made," "become," "are changed into," "pass into," "are trans-elemented into" the Body and Blood of Christ. If language means anything, these terms mean that what was bread is, after consecration, no longer bread but Christ's Body. For, had the Fathers wished to say that the Body of Christ was united with, or contained in, the bread, what could have been easier? Yet they persistently apply the notion of change, a notion which involves the substitution of one thing for another. But why, it may be asked, introduce this new term Tran- substantiation and discountenance all other? There are two reasons. 22 THE REAL PRESENCE First, this change is unique. It has no parallel. It is not like a change of color, as when dark hair turns gray; nor is it like the change observable in age, when a full body shrinks and grows bent. In neither case does the substance change. Nor even is it like the miraculous change of water into wine at Cana. For in the Holy Eucharist a non-living substance is changed into a living substance, a material substance into a spiritualized substance, the substance of bread gives place to the totally different substance of Christ. A unique event demands a special name. Transubstantiation is the appro- priate name, since it means literally the crossing or changing of substances, just as to transport means to bear across, and to transmit means to send across. Secondly, the term is a test of orthodoxy. Were a variety of terms allowed, expressions might be used about the Holy Eucharist which, without explicitly denying the true doctrine, would be open to heretical interpretation. The Anglican school of Modern Churchmen afford an example of how far men will go in reading their private views into dogmatic formulae. Transubstantiation is a decisive test of true belief about the Real Presence. This, too, is the history of its introduction. It was adopted under the necessity of pinning down Beren- garius, Wickliff and Huss to a precise statement of their meaning. This was in the twelfth century. Not a New Term.-But there are traces of its use in the eleventh century, so that even when first officially employed by THE REAL PRESENCE 23 the Church, some seven hundred years ago, it could hardly be called new, whilst the acquiescence with which it was re- ceived shows that the truth it expressed was the established belief of the faithful. Such is the dbctrine of transubstantiation, accepted with- out question for twelve hundred years, accepted still by the greater part of Christendom. It is an act beyond created power to perform, and beyond created mind to comprehend. But it is one thing to say that we cannot understand how it is done, and quite another to conclude that, therefore, it is impossible. We can say that it is an exception to all human experience, but we cannot show that it is contrary to reason. Appearances naturally imply a substance to which they be- long; but there is no pr-oof that supernaturally they cannot be kept in being apart from substance. Nor can it be said that if so our senses deceive us. Our senses report the form, color, taste, smell which we have learned to associate with the presence of bread and wine, and their report is true. All these qualities are there. It is from an- other source, namely, the authority of Jesus Christ, that we learn that in this case the appearances are connected not with bread and wine, but with His Body and Blood. Again, nat- urally, we are acquainted with substances only as "extended," i. e., as consisting of parts united in a whole, as possessing a certain size and shape. We cannot imagine how a human body can be present in even the smallest particle of bread or in a 24 THE REAL PRESENCE drop of wine. But we must remember that we do not know what substance is in itself. The most we can say is that we have never had experience of it except as extended. That a body should exist in a manner comparable to the manner of our soul's existence in our body, conscious in every part of the body, yet not thereby divided, does not fall within nat- ural experience; but we cannot therefore dismiss it as in- conceivable. The words of Cardinal Newman remain true: "What do I know of substance or matter? Just as much as the greatest philosophers; and that is nothing at all" (Apologia, p. 375). Ignorance, and consequent readiness to accept the assurance of a higher authority, is the only reasonable attitude. And we have for Catholic truth the highest of all authority: "Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius Nil hoc veritatis vexbo verius." "What God's own Son hath spoken is my creed: No truer word than His, Who is the Truth indeed." Book recommended-Hedley : The Holy Eucharist. (Longmans. ) APPENDIX Decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Council on Receiving Daily the Most Holy Eucharist December 20, 1905 1. The Council of Trent, having in view the unspeakable treasures of grace which are offered to the faithful who receive the Most Holy Eucharist, makes the following declaration: "The holy Synod would desire that at every Mass the faithful who are present should communicate, not only spiritually, by way of internal affection, but sacramentally, by the actual reception of the Eucharist." 1 Which words declare plainly enough the wish of the Church that all Christians should be daily nourished by this heavenly banquet and should derive therefrom abundant fruit for their sanctification. 2. And this wish of the Council is in entire agreement with that desire wherewith Christ our Lord was inflamed when He instituted this Divine Sacrament. For He Himself more than once, and in no ambiguous terms, pointed out the necessity of eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, especially in these words: "This is the bread that cometh down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth this bread shall live for ever." 2 Now, from this com- parison of the food of angels with bread and with the manna, it was easily to be understood by His disciples that, as the body is daily nourished with bread, and as the Hebrews were daily nourished with manna in the desert, so the Christian soul might daily partake of this heavenly bread, and be re- 1 Sess. XXII, cap. vi. 2 John vi. 59. -25- 26 THE REAL PRESENCE freshed thereby. Moreover, whereas in the Lord's Prayer we are bidden to ask for "our daily bread," the holy Fathers of the Church all but unanimously teach that by these words must be understood, not so much that material bread which is the support of the body as the Eucharistic bread which ought to be our daily food. 3. Moreover, the desire of Jesus Christ and of the Church that all the faithful should daily approach the sacred banquet is directed chiefly to this end, that the faithful, being united to God by means of the Sacrament, may thence derive strength to resist their sensual passions, to cleanse themselves from the stains of daily faults, and to avoid those graver sins to which human frailty is liable; so that its primary purpose is not that the honor and reverence due to our Lord may_be safeguarded, or that the Sacrament may serve as a reward of virtue bestowed on the recipients. Hence the holy Council of Trent calls the Eucharist " the antidote whereby we are delivered from daily faults and preserved from deadly sins." 3 4. This desire on the part of God was so well understood by the first Christians that they daily flocked to the holy table as to a source of life and strength. "They were persevering in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread." 4 And that this practice was con- tinued into later ages, not without great fruit of holiness and perfection, the holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers bear witness. 3 Sess. XIII, cap. ii. 4 Acts ii. 42 . THE REAL PRESENCE 27 5. But when in later times piety grew cold, and more especially under the influence of the plague of Jansenism, dis- putes then began to arise concerning the dispositions with which it was proper to receive Communion frequently or daily; and writers vied with one another in imposing more and more stringent conditions as necessary to be fulfilled. The result of such disputes was that very few were considered worthy to communicate daily, and to derive from this most healing Sacra- ment its more abundant fruits, the rest being content to partake of it once a year, or once a month, or at the utmost weekly. Nay, to such a pitch was rigorism carried that whole classes of persons were excluded from a frequent approach to the holy table; for instance, those who were engaged in trade, or even those who were living in the state oj matrimony. 6. Others, however, went to the opposite extreme. Under the persuasion that daily Communion was a divine precept, and in order that no day might pass without the reception of the Sacrament, besides other practices contrary to the approved usage of the Church, they held that the Holy Eucharist ought to be received, and in fact administered it, even on Good Friday. Under these circumstances the Holy See did not fail in its duty of vigilance, for by a decree of this Sacred Congre- gation, which begins with the words Cum ad aures, issued on February 12, A. D. 1679, with the approbation of Innocent XI, it condemned these errors, and put a stop to such abuses, at the same time declaring that all the faithful of whatsoever 28 THE REAL PRESENCE class-merchants or married persons not at all excepted- might be admitted to frequent Communion, according to the devotion of each one and the judgment of his confessor. And on December 7, 1690, by the decree of Pope Alexander VIII, Sanctissimus Dominus, the proposition of Baius, postulating a perfectly pure love of God, without any admixture, or de- fect, as requisite on the part of those who wished to approach the holy table, was condemned. 7. Yet the poison of Jansenism, which, under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Holy Eucharist, had infected the minds even of good men, did not entirely dis- appear. The controversy as to the dispositions requisite for the lawful and laudable frequentation of the Sacrament sur- vived the declarations of the Holy See; so much so, indeed, that certain theologians of good repute judged that daily Communion should be allowed to the faithful only in rare cases, and under many conditions. 8. On the other hand, there were not wanting men of learning and piety who more readily granted permission for this practice, so salutary and so pleasing to God. In accord- ance with the teaching of the Fathers, they maintained that there was no precept of the Church which prescribed more perfect dispositions in the case of daily than of weekly or monthly Communion; while the good effects of daily Com- munion would, they alleged, be far more abundant than those of Communion received ' weekly or monthly. 9. In our own day the controversy has been carried on THE REAL PRESENCE 29 with increased warmth, and not without bitterness, so that the minds of confessors and the consciedces of the faithful have been disturbed, to the no small detriment of Christian piety and devotion. Accordingly, certain distinguished men, themselves pastors of souls, have urgently besought His Holi- ness Pope Pius X to deign to settle, by his supreme authority, the question concerning the dispositions requisite for daily Communion; so that this usuage, so salutary and so pleasing to God, might not only suffer no decrease among the faithful, but might rather be promoted and everywhere propagated-a thing most desirable in these days, when religion and the Catholic faith are attacked on all sides, and the true love of God and genuine piety are so lacking in many quarters. And His Holiness, being most earnestly desirous, out of his abun- dant solicitude and zeal, that the faithful should be invited to partake of the sacred banquet as often as possible, and even daily, and should profit to the utmost by its fruits, committed the aforesaid question to this Sacred Congregation, to be looked into and decided once for all. 10. Accordingly, the Sacred Congregation of the Council, in a Plenary Session held on December 16, 1905, submitted this matter to a very careful scrutiny; and, after sedulously examining the reason adduced on either side, determined and declared as follows: ( 1) Frequent and daily Communion, as a thing most earnestly desired by Christ our Lord and by the Catholic Church, should be open to all the faithful, of whatever rank 30 THE REAL PRESENCE and condition of life; so that no one who is in the state of grace, and who approaches the holy table with a right and devout disposition, can lawfully be hindered therefrom. (2) A right disposition consists in this: that he who ap- proaches the holy table should do so, not out of routine, or vain-glory, or human respect, but for the purpose of pleasing God, of being more closely united with Him by charity, and of seeking this Divine remedy for his weaknesses and defects. (3 ) Although it is most expedient that those who com- municate frequently or daily should be free from venial sins, at least from such as are fully deliberate, and from any affec- tion thereto, nevertheless, it is sufficient that they be free from mortal sin, with the purpose of never sinning in future; and if they have this sincere purpose, it is impossible but that daily communicants should gradually emancipate them- selves even from venial sins, and from all affection thereto. (4) But whereas the Sacraments of the New Law, though they take effect ex opere operato, nevertheless produce a greater effect in proportion as the dispositions of the recipient are better, therefore care is to be taken that Holy Communion be preceeded by careful preparation, and followed by a suitable thanksgiving, according to each one's strength, circumstances and duties. (5) That the practice of frequent and daily Communion may be carried out with greater prudence and more abundant merit, the confessor's advice should be asked. Confessors, however, are to be careful not to dissuade anyone from fre- THE REAL PRESENCE 31 quent and daily Communion, provided that he is in a state of grace and approaches with a right disposition. (6) But since it is plain that by the frequent or daily reception of the Holy Eucharist union with Christ is fostered, the spiritual life abundantly sustained, the soul more richly endowed with virtues, and an even surer pledge of everlasting happiness bestowed on the recipient, tl).erefore parish priests, confessors and preachers-in accordance with the approved teaching of the Roman Catechism 5-are frequently, and with great zeal, to exhort the faithful to this devout and salutary practice. (7) Frequent and daily Communion is to be promoted especially in religious Orders and Congregations of all kinds; with regard to which, however, the decree Quemadmodum, issued on December 17, 1890, by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, is to remain in force. It is also to be promoted especially in ecclesiastical seminaries, where students are preparing for the service of the altar; as also in all Chris- tian establishments, of whatever kind, for the training of youth. (8) In the case of religious institutes, whether of solemn or simple vows, in whose rules, or constitutions, or calendars Communion is assigned to certain fixed days, such regulations are to be regarded as directive and not preceptive. In such cases the appointed number of Communions should be regarded as a minimum, and not as setting a limit to the devotion of 5 Part II, cap. iv., quest. 58. 32 THE REAL PRESENCE the religious. Therefore, access to the Eucharistic table, whether more frequently or daily, must always be open to them, according to the principles above laid down in this Decree. And in order that all religious of both sexes may clearly understand the provisions of this Decree, the Superior of each house is to see that it is read in community, in the vernacular, every year within the octave of the Feast of COlpus Christi. (9) Finally, after the publication of this Decree, all ec- clesiastical writers are to cease from contentious controversies concerning the dispositions requisite for frequent and daily Communion. All this having been reported to His Holiness Pope Pius X by the undersigned Secretary of the Sacred Congregation in an audience held on December 17, 1905, His Holiness rati- fied and confirmed the present Decree, and ordered it to be published, anything to the contrary notwithstanding. He further ordered that it should be sent to all local ordinaries and regular prelates, to be communicated by them to their respec- tive seminaries, parishes, religious institutes, and priests, and that in their reports concerning the state of their respective dioceses or institutes they should inform the Holy See concern- ing the execution of the matters therein determined. Given at Rome, the 20th day of December, 1905. ffi VINCENT, Card. Bishop of 'Palestrina, Prefect. L. ffi S. Cajetan De Lai, Secretary. ~1I1 832659-001 832659-002 832659-003 832659-004 832659-005 832659-006 832659-007 832659-008 832659-009 832659-010 832659-011 832659-012 832659-013 832659-014 832659-015 832659-016 832659-017 832659-018 832659-019 832659-020 832659-021 832659-022 832659-023 832659-024 832659-025 832659-026 832659-027 832659-028 832659-029 832659-030 832659-031 832659-032 832659-033 832659-034 832659-035 832659-036