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BLESSED

By

Rev. James O’Dwyer, S. J.

Xavier College, Kew.

Mission Church Press,

Boston, Mass.

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THE BLESSED

EUCHARIST.
v

j

By

Rev. James O’Dywer, S. J.

Xavier College, Kew.

Published with kind permission of the

Australian Catholic Truth Society.

MISSION CHURCH PRESS,

St. Alphonsus Street,

Boston, Mass.



nihil Obstat.

PATRICK
J.

SUPPLE,

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur.

* WILLIAM CARDINAL O’CONNELL,

Archbishop ofBoston

OeucWWed



The Blessed Eucharist

A HOLT THURSDAY LECTURE*

“And He said to them,: With desire have I desired to eat

this pasch with you before I suffer.”— (Luke xxii., I5-)

Nothing leaves so deep an impression on the nor-

mally-constituted human being as the last solemn

scene with a dearly-loved friend. It is an impression

which time cannot efface. Every look, every word,

every gesture of the revered one is indelibly engraved

on the memory, and enshrined for ever as a sacred

treasure in the very sanctuary of the heart.

The scene and the words and the actions we have

met this evening to commemorate impressed them-

selves so vividly on the consciousness of the first dis-

ciples of Jesus, leavened so completely the religious

life of the early Christian Church, that all the revolu-

tions of the centuries have not obliterated their effect,

nor lessened their significance for us, His disciples of

to-day. For, like the Apostles in the supper-room, we

* Delivered at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, on Holy

Thursday, 1907.



4

have assembled, as followers of the same Master, to

commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with

the chosen twelve, and to meditate on His last will

and testament to the human race. And, as the Church

in her liturgy rehearses the first act in the second

drama of the Passion of the God-man, we recall the

words and actions which she has treasured up for us

—words and actions of awful import, which have de-
termined our relations to God for all future time.

When we cast our glance backward, what a strange

retrospect it is ! There is nothing like it in human his-

tory. We have met in this Cathedral, dedicated to

God in honor of St. Patrick, nineteen hundred years

after the event we are commemorating, and ten thou-

sand miles away from the scene. And for what pur-

pose? One in faith and in apostolic continuity with

the Church of St. Patrick in the fifth, and with the

Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch in the first, cen-

tury, we have met, in the spirit of gratitude, to per-

petuate the memory of a divine gift to man, a gift

which involves a historic divine fact and a mystery.

The historic fact involved is that Jesus Christ took

His last Paschal supper with His Apostles in Jerusa-

lem on the night before His death ; the mystery, that

at that supper He changed bread and wine into His

Body and Blood, and commanded His Apostles to do

the same for all time in commemoration of Him.

“One day with the Lord,” St. Peter tells us, “is as

a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.’*



5

With His Church it is the same, for she has a vivid,.,,

conscious memory of her own past career, reaching,

back to that supper-room on the hill of Sion,
and by

the living stream of her unbroken tradition she
unites

us across the centuries with the momentous events
of

that last Paschal meal. It is as real to her
to-day as

it was to John while he reclined on the bosom
of

Jesus, as it was to Peter when the Master washed
his

feet. She was present in that cenacle, and but re-

minds us to-day of what she saw and knows. For her

life is continuous with the life of the Apostles,
who

were consecrated ministers of Christ on that
first

Holy Thursday. She admits no breach in continuity,

no flaw in the title-deeds, no change in essential
doc-

trines, no forgetfulness of facts.

Hence, when we assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the

Mass, we know that it is our sublime privilege to wit-

ness the great reality from which the anniversary

commemoration of Holy Thursday derives its supreme-

significance. And yet, year after year, the wide world

over, true Christians meet on this day to quicken

their faith in, and kindle their love for, the heirloom

of Christ to His children, the Bread of Life, the Holy

Eucharist. “The love of Christ constrains us
” We

are drawn by the chains of love and gratitude to

dwell, in heartfelt devotion, on that scene “before the

festival day of the Pasch,” when “Jesus, knowing that

His hour Was come that He should pass out of this-

world, having loved His own who were in the world*.

loved them unto the end.”



6

As it is our privilege to share in that inheritance of

* Christ’s undying love, so is it our duty, as His fol-

lowers, to endeavor to realize in some feeble way—for
we can never fathom its infinite depth—the mystery of
the divine romance by which Jesus Christ died “for us

men, and for our salvation/’ and yet contrived, by di-

vine ingenuity, to satisfy the desire of His Sacred

Heart, to remain “with the children of men.”

If we know something of His Eucharistic life and

love we shall be morally constrained to love Him in

return, and imitate His Eucharistic self-sacrifice. For

knowledge is a condition of love, and love of imita-

tion.

(I.) I propose, then, to put before you, for your

pious consideration as true believers, God’s revealed

word from the New Testament, by which we can

prove historically:— (i) That Christ clearly promised
(John vi.), a year before His death, in the synagogue

* of Capharnaum, to give His body and blood to His

disciples as the food of their souls. (2) That a year

later, in the supper-room of Jerusalem, in fulfilment

* of His promise, He as clearly instituted the Blessed

Eucharist on “the very night in which He was be-

trayed. (Mat. xxvi., Luke xxii., Mark xiv., 1 Cor.

x. and xi.) (3) That St. Paul clearly teaches the

. same doctrine as an already existing Sacrament and

Sacrifice in the infant Church. (1 Cor., x. and xi.)

(II.) I shall try to point out how Christian tradi-

tion teaches us that Christ’s clear, literal promise and



7

institution, and St. Paul’s definite statement of the -

same doctrine was accepted in the plain, literal sense

by the Christian Church, with hardly a dissentient :

voice, for fifteen hundred years. For we shall find

St. Ignatius of Antioch, at the dawn of the second cen-

tury (about 107 A. D.), teaching exactly the same Eu-

charistic doctrine as Pius X. in the beginning of the

twentieth. And from St. Ignatius to Pius X. the.

Catholic Church has clung lovingly and tenaciously

to her Master’s richest and most cherished gift. She

has kept all His sacred words, ''pondering them in

,

her heart,” and evolving their full significance.

MAN’S SPIRITUAL CRAVING FOR GOD.

Before attempting to draw out the proofs from:.

Scripture and tradition for the Catholic doctrine of

the Eucharist, it may be profitable for us to dwell for

a brief space on the fitness of this stupendous gift for

man’s spiritual food. Without revelation the human,

mind could not possibly have conceived an idea of the
-

lavishness of God’s love in this mystery. But revela-

tion has taught us much about the ineffable love of

God for man, and the consequent elevation of man to *

a supernatural destiny. Viewed historically in the.

light of God’s revealed scheme for our eternal hap-

piness with Himself, man’s nature was constituted

with reference to the supernatural order. That is-

God’s design in his regard. Hence, man’s soul,

whether as created in grace, or as fallen from grace,.



8

*or restored to grace, has ever breathed a supernatural

atmosphere; man's heart has ever experienced an

exigency, a felt want, for God ; man's imagination has

ever been, haunted by ideals of a higher life, by dreams

of a happier land. From the long annals of the human

race, and the sad records of human sin and corrup-

tion, we can glean this consoling truth, that man can

rise superior to his environment. The “shades of the

prison-house" do not close completely around him.

In his better moments his soul is conscious of his di-

vine origin : “Thou hast made him a little less than

the angels
;
Thou hast crowned him with honor and

.
glory."

The noblest thing, therefore, in man's nature, that

which raises him above himself, is the craving of his

spirit, the yearning of his soul, for union, with God.

His spiritual nature, fashioned for God, and by God,

but imprisoned in “this tenement of clay," is ever

struggling to burst its barriers, ever . yearning for

something which the finite cannot give, ever aspiring

to soar aloft to regions where it can breathe a purer

. air. And all the ravings of Materialists, all the blas-

phemies of Atheists, cannot stifle that natural longing,

that divine discontent. “The fool says in his heart

:

'There is no God.' " The Agnostic would fain persuade

the Christian that “there is no salvation for him in his

God."

But a voice from out the depths of that spiritual

nature, created to breathe the breath of God’s nos-



9

trils, and bask in the sunshine of His favor, pleads,

trumpet-tongued, against such blasphemy, and gives

the lie to every crude attempt to bolster up material-

ism. The nations of the earth may wander for a time

in darkness and the shadow of death. The princes

and the peoples may meet together and “devise vain

things against the Lord and His Christ.” They may,

in the France of to-day, as in the France of one hun-

dred years ago, proscribe the worship of God, and

blot out His holy Name from their annals.

But the reaction must come, the infinite void will be

felt, the God-implanted instinct will clamor for satis-

faction. Man's spiritual nature has not changed, nor

God's goodness and love, nor the essential relations

between the creature and his Creator. The world and

the devil have not yet devised anything that can satisfy

the heart of man.

MAN’S CAPACITY FOR GOD.

St. Augustine’s diagnosis of the human heart is as

true to-day as it was fifteen hundred years ago:

“Thou hast made us, O Lord, for Thyself, and our

hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” And

St. Augustine is but echoing the sentiment of Royal

David fourteen hundred years further back in the

world’s history : “As the hart panteth after the foun-

tains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God.

My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God
V*

{Ps. 41.)



10

In fact, man has ever, in all his blind gropings after

truth, in all his crude attempts at religion, been striv-

ing after union with God. The wonderful, the mys-

terious, the supernatural he must have, for the simple

reason that his soul was created with that innate long-

ing—created with a capacity for God which nothing
short of God can satisfy, a spiritual void which noth-

ing else can fill. Or, to change the metaphor, the soul

is an instrument so delicately attuned that no touch

but the touch of God can wake its sweetest har-

monies. Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum in the

material order, and in the spiritual order of things

there is a vacuum in man’s soul which God alone can

fill.

“My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living

God.” Rob man of Christ and the true religion, and

he will seek an outlet for his spiritual cravings in

spooks or spiritualistic seances or revivalist excite-

ment. Deny him the Bread of Life, and he will feed

on the husks of faith-healing or the religion of hu-

manity. Break off his communications with the super-

natural, and he will attempt to re-establish communi-

cations by some unlawful channels, or rummage amid

the garbage of some degrading superstition. For man

has an incurable dissatisfaction with the material and

finite, a God-given hunger and thirst for the spiritual,

the divine. It is a law of his nature. Once elevated to

the supernatural order, he cannot rest satisfied with

the merely natural. Having once drunk at the “foun-



II

tain of living waters/’ he cannot slake his
thirst at

“broken cisterns.” Having once tasted the wine of

gladness, he has no relish, in his higher moments of

spiritual exhilaration, for the impure, unsavory
dregs.

Having once felt the gentle touch and healing balm of

the true Physician of his soul, the Good Samaritan

who poured oil and wine into his gaping wounds, he is

impatient with the ministrations of the spiritual quack.

THE INCARNATION A UNION WITH

HUMANITY.

For thousands of years the patriots and prophets

and saints of the Old Law sighed and prayed for this

union with God. “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from

above, and let the clouds rain the just.” (Isaias 45,

8.) “Let the earth open and bud forth a Saviour.”
It

was the constant burden of the Psalmist’s song. It as-

sumed definite form and shape in the visions of the

prophets. And, at last, it all but found complete

fruition in Simeon’s cry of exultation, the “Nunc

Dimittis.”

But how the great God was to condescend to satisfy

this craving for union, how this spiritual exigency of

the soul for the divine was to be sated, “eye had

not seen, nor ear heard, nor had it ever -entered

into the heart of sainted patriarch or prophet to con-

ceive.” The divine contrivance of the mystery of the

Incarnation, by which the Creator, Jehovah the All

Holy, was to become Emmanuel God in our midst,



12

exceeds our finite grasp. It was bound to be so, for

man could form no adequate conception of the in-

finite love of God. A God whom we could fully com-

prehend would not be God at all. A religion without

mysteries—a purely natural religion—is a mere hypo-
thesis. But once admit, on the authority of revelation,

the divine economy of love in the Incarnation
;
once

realize your belief that God’s Eternal Son clothed

Himself in our frail flesh, and has the blood of our

sinful humanity running sinless in His veins, and any

other manifestation of love divine, even the mystery

of the Blessed Eucharist, is but a corollary. For, with

such a revelation of God’s love and condescension be-

fore us, we can only say, in awful reverence: The

love of Christ could do all this! and what He could ,

He did.

Remember, however, that we must understand the

Incarnation in all the fulness of its revealed contents

as defined by Christ’s Church. It is an objective his-

torical fact, or stage, in God’s dealings with man-

kind. But it is infinitely more than a mere historical

fact—no matter how momentous and far-reaching in
its consequences—that took place nineteen hundred
years ago. It is the great abiding reality of our super-

natural existence. “Having loved His own who were

in the world, He loves them unto the end.” “Behold

I am with you all days.” Christ did not labor and

love for one generation. What He did He did for all

time.



13

THE EUCHARIST A UNION WITH THE

INDIVIDUAL SOUL.

Now, in the economy of divine grace and salvation,.

God’s dealings are with the individual soul. Conse-

quently, when the Redeemer’s earthly career was

drawing to a close, and men were to be deprived of

His visible personal influence, it does not surprise us,

once we grasp the meaning of the Incarnation, that the

love that contrived so intimate a union with poor fal-

len humanity should devise some divine plan for ever

abiding with the individual human soul. “His delight

is to be with the sons of men.” “For love is a force

that ever tends towards union.” And, besides, as we

have seen, man has a God-given capacity for union

with his Creator: “My soul hath thirsted after the

strong, living God.” (Ps. 41.) This scheme, by which

the graces of the Incarnation were to be applied to the

individual soul, Jesus Christ left us in the Sacraments

.

which He instituted, but particularly in the Sacra-

ment of the Eucharist, which is the continuation of

the Incarnation every day in our midst. In the In-

carnation God had united Himself directly with an in-

dividual human nature; in the Blessed Eucharist He

unites Himself directly with all men who will. For

“the Eucharist is the stretching forth towards each

one of us of the Incarnation of our God.” Accord-

ingly, Jesus, who knew how little the Jews, owing to

the hardness of their hearts, would realize the power

of His love and the nature of His greatest gift to man,.



14

took care to prepare their
minds beforehand for the

stupendous miracle.

A year before His Passion He was teaching
in the

neighborhood of Capharnum, as we read
in John vi.

Five thousand men followed Him into
the desert to

: hear His teaching. As they hung
enraptured on His

words they forgot the pangs of
hunger. But the

Lord of Life did not forget
them. He took five

loaves, blessed and distributed
them. And when the

- five thousand had eaten the
fragments filled twelve

baskets. Here was a striking type of
the multiloca-

- tion of Christ’s Body in the Blessed
Sacrament, and a

preparation for the great contest of
the morrow. If

- the dead bread could, by His mere
fiat, increase and

multiply to supply man’s animal
wants, why could not

- the living body of the God-Man be
in many places at

the same time to minister to man s
spiritual needs ?

THE SYNAGOGUE OF CAPHARNUM—

THE PROMISE.

(John vi.)

The scene of the great discussion on
the Real

Presence is laid in the Synagogue of
Capharnum.

“These things He said teaching in the Synagogue
of

• Capharnum,” presumably on the Sabbath.

After the multiplication of the
loaves the multitude

.. crossed over the Sea of Galilee to
Capharnum. Jesus,

to escape the plaudits of the
multitude, fled into



15

the mountain alone ; but by another prodigy—walking
on the waters—He joined His Apostles in their boat,
and showed His power over Nature in order to re-

assure His disciples. The multitude whom He had

fed in the desert were anxiously looking out for the

Wonder Worker, and when they questioned Him

:

“Rabbi, when earnest Thou hither ?” knowing that He

had not set out in any of the boats, Jesus opened the

ever-memorable discourse.

He promised that, as in the multiplication of the

loaves He had given the food that perisheth, so in the

future He would give them His Flesh and His Blood,,

a meat which should endure unto life everlasting.

Listen to His words, and see if plainer, simpler,

more direct language could possibly have been chosen

to express the Catholic dogma of the Real Presence?

He begins by insisting on the need of faith in

Him, and surely He had just given proof of His power

and His love ! “This is the work of God, that you be-

lieve in Him Whom He hath sent.” “He that be-

lieveth in Me hath life everlasting.” (V. 47.)

Then He proceeded to lay down His doctrine in a

series of startlingly clear statements—so clear that
His audience might refuse to believe in His divine

power, but could not possibly misunderstand His

meaning. He left no loophole, no need for further

elucidation, and they asked for none. The issue was

too clear—faith in His miraculous promise or rejec-
tion of Him Whom but yesterday they were ready to



i6

take by force and make King. And remark, He is

not dealing with captious enemies, to whom He might

speak in parables, but to hitherto enthusiastic follow-

ers, whom He would fain conciliate and win—but not
with sacrifice of His own doctrine or of their free

will.

NO COMPROMISE.

“I am the living bread which came down from hea-

- veil.” At this they murmured, saying: “Is not this

Jesus, the Son of Joseph?”

“If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever.”

“The bread that I will give you is My flesh.” Here

we have the real issue.

“The Jews therefore strove amongst themselves,

.- saying: How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”

(V. 53-)

Did Jesus, with all His intense desire to win their

souls, retract or soften or explain away the harshness,

to a Jewish ear, of the phrase: “Eat My flesh and

drink My blood?” On the contrary, in language royal,

imperative, unyielding, He replied, and in six several

ways insisted

:

“Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless 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 life everlasting, and I will raise him up on the

'<

last day.”



17

“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 I in him.”

“As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by

-.the Father, so he that eateth Me the same shall live by

.Me.”

This was, to Jewish ears, harsh language, and

Jesus knew that, but certainly not obscure or
dif-

ficult to understand. It admits of no compromise.

'There is no escape from its inexorable reiteration, no

•hope of explaining it away. They must face the issue,

and face it here and now. Their faith is challenged.

The critical moment for decision has arrived for them

—as so often happens in the lives of men of our day

—

•either to acknowledge Jesus Christ as God, or reject

Him.

He means it to be a crisis, hence His extraordinary

-miracles to prepare them. And they feel that it is the

parting of the ways, perhaps the final, irretrievable

step in life. They thoroughly realized the demand

made on their faith, as their murmuring shows : “How

can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” And with full

consciousness that that refusal to believe meant break-

ing with their Master and idol, they freely came to

their decision :
—

“This is a harsh saying, and who can

bear it?” Not “who can understand His Meaning?”

hut, seeing the drift of it, “Who can endure the

thought of it?”



i8

BREAKING WITH JESUS CHRIST.

Jesus, “knowing in Himself” that they were making

shipwreck of their faith, by a last effort of love, as if

throwing a last plank to men who were sinking, en-

deavors to kindle the dying embers of faith. “Doth

this scandalize you? What if you shall see the Son

of Man ascend up where He was before?” thus re-

minding them of His divinity and the need of faith.

“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth

nothing.” But it is too late. Their carnal hearts

blinded them to any but a temporal Messiah. The

flesh prevails. The spiritual faith that quickeneth is

dead. St. John sadly chronicles their fateful decision.

“After this many of His disciples went back and

walked with Him no more.” What a realistic picture

of the shallow, materialistic unbelief of our own days

!

What a harrowing, tragic parting of the ways ! What

an awful revelation of the power of man’s free will to

resist God

!

Now, I ask you a simple question. Is it possible for

any man to read this narrative, with its relentless

repetitions, its uncompromising reiterations, its dis-

regard of consequences, and assert that Jesus Christ

does not clearly, definitely, relentlessly, uncompromis-

ingly, and in the very plainest words teach the doc-

trine of the Real Presence and promise to give His

Flesh and His Blood as the food of our souls?

But Jesus Christ is God, and God’s promises must

needs be fulfilled. Hence, fro' \ His literal promise we



19

unhesitatingly argue a literal fulfilment.
For us, thank

God, there is no difficulty. When the
modern scoffer

or caviller puts the difficulty:
“How can this Man

give us His flesh to eat
?” we reply, with all the earn-

estness of our faith: Because this
Man is God.

Thanks be to God, Who hath given us the victory

through Our Lord Jesus Christ. “And this
is the vic-

tory that overcometh the world—your faith.

THE INSTITUTION. (Mat. xxvi., 26-8.)

Let us now advance from literal promise
to literal

performance, and try to picture to ourselves
another

scene, a further stage in the
manifestation of Divine

Love. It is a year later—the very
night on which He

was betrayed—-and the scene is laid in the guest-

chamber or cenacle on Mount Sion, in Jerusalem.
It

is the last Paschal Supper of Jesus with
the twelve

alone, for types and shadows are now fading away
be-

fore reality and substance. Judas is in
their midst,

at least during the legal meal, his
heart black with

treachery, his will hardened against Divine
Grace.

The coming events have cast their shadows back
on

the Apostles. There is a tense feeling of awe
and

sadness stealing over them.

Before the legal supper is ended Jesus rises
from

table and washes His disciples’ feet. The moment

has come that He desired with such intense desire.

The new Paschal Lamb is Christ Himself, the Lamb

of God. For He is going to change bread and wine



20

into His Body and Blood. “Having loved: His owm

who were in the world, He loved them unto the end:'

The dearest token of that love is reserved for last.

What is the evidence for the institution—for the
Real Presence? Besides the narrative of the promise,,

which we have already dealt with in the sixth chapter

of St. John, we have four distinct and substantially

concordant accounts in the New Testament, viz., the

narratives of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and

Luke, and the independent account which St. Paul

“received of the Lord/' in which he treats of the

Blessed Eucharist as an existing fact in the Church

—

a Sacrament and Sacrifice, with a ritual: in the course

of formation.

We shall follow the account of St. Matthew, an eye-

witness :

—

“And whilst they were at supper Jesus took bread,,

and blessed and broke 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 (is now being shed)

for many unto remission of sins.” (Mat. xxvi., 26-8.);

THE PLAIN LITERAL SENSE.

Whether we view this narrative on its own merits,,

or in the light of the previous promise, the conclusion/

is irresistible that Jesus Christ meant what He said.

Surely this is no time for trifling with His friends..



21

His hour is already come. For the Apostles the ques-
-

tion was already settled a year before in the Syna-

gogue of Capharnum—it was then closed once and
for ever. He spoke in the literal sense. They asked

no question, they raised no difficulty. They acquiesced

and adored. The Evangelists, in narrating the inci-

dent, add no explanation. The meaning is too evi-

dent.

“The bread that I will give you is My flesh ” He

had said a year ago. And now it is an accomplished

fact : “This is My Body.” Divine Power has but ex-

ecuted what Divine Truth had promised. It was

bound to be so, for it was the promise of God.

As to His literal meaning, no one had any doubt"

either in the promise or the performance. The hun-

dreds, or perhaps thousands, in and around the

Synagogue of Capharnum, who “went back and

walked with Him no more,” understood Him in the

literal sense. It was His divinity they doubted. The

Apostles and Evangelists understood Him in the

literal sense, and believed. The Christian Church for

fifteen centuries, with hardly a dissentient voice, un-

derstood Him in the literal sense. Even Luther was-

constrained to admit, in spite of his perverse ingenuity

and his eager desire to deny the Real Presence (in

order, as he says, “to injure Popery”), that “he was

caught without any way of escape.” The text of the

Gospel was too plain for any but the literal sense.

Hence, in his usual unmeasured language (which *.



22

lie did not always reserve for the Pope), he says:

“The devil seems to have mocked those to whom the

father of lies suggested so grotesque a heresy, and one

•so adverse to Scripture, as that of the Zwinglians,”

who denied the Real Presence. And in language too

ludicrous and too lurid for the Christian pulpit, he

‘Condemns those who tried to explain Our Lord s

plain words, “This is My Body/’ by “This is a symbol

«of My Body.”

When Protestants, in order to explain away the

literal sense, asserted that the Syrian language had no

phrase to express “symbol,” “type,” and so repre-

sented Our Lord as saying: “This is My Body,”

when He meant to say: “This is a symbol of My

Body,” Cardinal Wiseman replied by producing more

than fifty possible ways of expressing the phrase,

'“This is a symbol of My Body,” in the Syrian tongue.

THE EUCHARIST IN THE APOSTOLIC
CHURCH.

(i Corinth., x. and xi.)
s -

Thus far I have put before you the promise of the

Holy Eucharist in the Synagogue of Capharnum,

*and the fulfilment of that promise by the institution of

the Eucharist in the supper-room in Jerusalem. I can

do no more than make a brief reference to its use in

the early Church, and so shall confine myself to St.

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (ch. x. and xi.).

.St. Paul assumes the Real Presence and the use of the



23

Holy Eucharist as an established and
recognized in-

stitution among Christians—at Corinth he had estab-

lished it himself. Hence he argues from the
Real

Presence as from a central doctrine of Christianity,
a

revealed fact about which there was no dispute,
and

could be no doubt.

It will be sufficient to cite his words. He is writing

to some Christians at Corinth, whom a few years be-

fore he had converted from the worship of idols,
and

who are still living in the midst of the idolatrous

sacrifices and impurities of paganism. Take no part

in their sacrifices, he warns them; eat not of
the

meats, drink not of the wine offered to idols, you
who

are partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ. Lis-

ten to his clear, explicit words

:

“The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the

partaking 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 body, all that

partake of one bread. Behold Israel according to the

flesh : are not they that eat of the sacrifices partakers

of the altar? But the things which the heathens sac-

rifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God. And I

would not that you be made partakers with devils.

“You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and the

chalice of devils. You cannot be partakers of the table

of the Lord and the table of devils.”

His argument is :—You Christians, who are made
one with Christ by partaking of His Body and Blood,



24
•O

how can it be lawful for you to partake of the wine

and meat of the idols and thus be made one with

devils ?

THIS SACRIFICE—CHRIST THE REAL
VICTIM.

And he proves his case by a reason from analogy

which would have no force unless he supposes the

presence of a real victim.

With the Jews, he says, it was a real altar, a real

sacrifice, and, therefore, a real victim.

With the Gentiles, it was a real altar, a real sacri-

fice, and, therefore, a real victim.

Similarly with the Corinthians, it was a real altar, a

real sacrifice, and, therefore, a real victim.

Now this real Victim, Christ in the case of the

Corinthians, supposes the Real Presence of the Vic-

tim. For you cannot sacrifice an absent victim.

(B.) In chapter xi. St. Paul is condemning some

abuses that had crept into the Corinthian custom of

celebrating the Eucharist. “In this I praise you not.

For I have received of the Lord that which also I de-

livered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night

on which He was betrayed, took bread, and, giving

thanks, broke and said: Take ye and eat; this is My

Body which shall be delivered for you. This do for

the commemoration of Me.

‘Tn like manner also the chalice, after He had

supped, saying: This chalice is the New Testament



25

in My Blood; this do ye, as often as ye shall drink,

,

for the commemoration of Me. For as often as ye
0

,

shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, ye shall

show the death of the Lord until He come. There-

fore, 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

himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of

the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unwor-

thily eateth and drinketh judgment (damnation) to

himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord.”

Now (i), here we have St. Paul, writing about

twenty-five years after the Last Supper, laying down

the doctrine he “had received of the Lord” in per-

son, and already “delivered” to the Corinthians, and

stating in clear, plain, literal sense : “This is My

Body,” “This is My Blood,” without a hint of meta-

phor or symbol or figure. Either be assumes the Real

Presence, or he has entered into a diabolical conspir-

acy with the other four inspired writers, and is delib-

erately deceiving the Corinthians, or—impossible sup-
position for a Christian—St. Paul and the four Evan-
gelists are victims of their own diseased imaginations.

For (2) consider the awful denunciation iaunched

against the unworthy receiver
—

“Guilty of the Body

and Blood of the Lord”—a Deicide, a God-murderer^
a man with the guilt of God’s Blood on his soul l

Anything more terrifying we cannot conceive. Yet

what an exaggerated, unmeaning menace if Christ be



26

o
not really present ! Is the man guilty of high treason

against King Edward’s person who strikes or insults

the King’s image or symbol on a penny piece? Is

the man incurring damnation who takes holy water

unworthily? The Paschal Lamb was a type of

Christ. Would a man incur damnation by receiving it

unworthily ?

But if St. Paul is supposing the Real Presence this

denunciation is most apt.

(3) “Let a man prove himself, and so eat.” What

is the proof, the preparation, in the Catholic Church?

The Sacrament of Penance, as a rule, and fasting

from midnight. Why? Because, like St. Paul, we

believe the Eucharist to be the Body and Blood of

Christ. Where the bread and wine are but a symbol,

what is the preparation? What is the proof? There

is no need to ask. An empty, lifeless commemoration

needs no soul-searching preparation.

(4) Again, “He that eateth and drinketh unwor-

thily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not

discerning the Body of the Lord.” Are men to lose

their souls for not discerning the Body of the Lord

if it be not there? How can a man discern as really

present what is really absent? No! St. Paul sup-

poses the Real Presence, just as we do, as the clear,

undeniable, undisputed doctrine of Jesus Christ, and

hence the strength of his denunciation. For him, as

for us, the object ill-used

,

in an unworthy Commu-

nion, is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and hence



27

the high treason against Christ; and by that ill-use

the sinner incurs damnation by not discerning the true

Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the real Victim, who

is really and substantially present under the outward

forms of bread and wine.

There is no possible escape from the relentless logic

of this position. The carnal-minded Jews saw this*

and “walked with Him no more.” T.iey broke with

Christ. To accept the Incarnation and the Christian

revelation, and, at the same time, deny the Real Pres-

ence, is to stultify human reason.. It is almost un-

thinkable. When a Christian asks: “How can this

man give us His flesh to eat?” the answer is evident.

How did He give you life? How did He raise the

dead? How did He become man at all? Who will

say which is the greater mystery, the Incarnation or

the Real Presence? •
• • ’

j •
'

•••/ •

> .
- • ; .

’

:

'

-
.

CHRISTIAN TRADITION—THE FATHERS.

To set forth the teaching and practice of the

Church on the doctrine of the Eucharist, as we find
.

<
‘ -

it in the writings of the Fathers and the monuments

of antiquity, would be an impossible task in a brief

lecture. Nor is it necessary. The evidence down

along the centuries is so diversified and so well known

that no scholar can venture to deny the facts. The

Protestant tries to explain it away just as he tries to

eviscerate the clear words of Christ. He is logically



28

'bound to make the attempt. But his contention in-

volves the astounding implication that the whole of

•Christendom, for fifteen hundred years, erred griev-

ously in an essential of faith. He must hold that men

lived and iloved and worshipped Christ, and spread

His Gospel 'to the ends of the earth, and died, in many

cases, for their belief in His Eucharist, being all the

while under the huge delusion thct He had left them

His Body and Blood for their spiritual support, and

that this was the central dogma of Christianity, the

practical working out of the economy of the Incarna-

tion, the abiding reality by which our Incarnate God

is ever energizing in the midst of the sons of men.

This is, surely, a soul-killing supposition for any real

1

Christian to make. It must shake the foundations of

faith, and paralyze hope, and dry up the fountains of

'charity. “O ye of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Where was Christ during all the centuries when

His Church was teaching such grievous errors? What

‘of His promise: “Behold I am with you all days, even

\to the consummation of the world?” Who were the

depositaries of the true faith? Who handed on the

torch of truth from generation to generation? Doc-

trine, practice, ritual, sacrament, sacrifice—all con-
spiring to form the one supreme act of Christian wor-

ship—were they all an empty dream, or, worse, a lying
fable, a monstrous system of elaborated idolatry?

And did Christ accept all this idolatrous homage

without a protest?



29

THE SAINTS AND THE REAL PRESENCE.

Were the innumerable saints,
all down the ages to

Luther’s day, victims of the
same fond illusion? The

saints are the masterpieces
of God’s hand in this

world, moulded after their
model, the Divine Exem-

(

plar. The rationalist, Harnack,
tells us that “in all

ages the Catholic Church
has produced saints, and

that she still produces them
to-day.” The saints be-

lieved with all their strength,
and their union with

God—which is the very essence of religion—
was de-

rived from the reality of Christ’s
presence in the Eu-

charist and the Sacrifice of the
Mass. Was their be-

lief founded on a delusion ?
And, if so, was it

because of this illusion, or in
spite of it, that they be-

came moral heroes, and stood out
in bold relief above

the dark background *of
worldliness, as men of genius

in the spiritual order? No scientific
historian, be he

Christian or rationalist, will
deny that spiritual and

moral forces have been the prime
factors in true hu-

man progress. Now, it was on spiritual
and moral

leverage the saints relied to
move the world. And

they were convinced that the
forces they employed

were supplied from the inexhaustible
power-house of

Christ’s vitalizing energy in the
Eucharist.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, St.
Cyprian, St. John

Chrysostom, St. Augustin, St. Benedict,
St. Bernard

of Clairvaux, St. Catharine of Siena,
St. Francis of

Assissi, St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa
of Jesus, St.

Vincent de Paul, all left their mark on
the world ; all



30

were men and women of light and leading in their

times. All drank in sanctity at the breasts 01 tneir

mother, the Catholic Church. She fed them, and they

believed she fed them, on the Body and Blood of their

Redeemer. They are, confessedly, the finest products

of our Christian civilization, the highest types

that humanity can boast of, the clearest proof of the

spiritual potentialities of our race. Their deep and

Deautiful religion, their sublime moral elevation, the

sources of their mystic soarings they owed (so they

believed) to the living, concrete, authoritative Catho-

lic system which gave the tone and color and distinc-

tive characteristics to their sanctity. And the essence

of that Catholic system—by which alone saints are
produced—was, and is, and ever shall be, the Holy
Eucharist and the Mass. The saints, like all who be-

lieve in the Real Presence (in the sense of transub-

stantiation), bear testimony that it was in prayer dur-

ing Mass and at Holy Communion, or before the

Tabernacle, that they had their deepest spiritual ex-

periences, their highest “mystic soarings/' Were

they, one and all, victims of their own hallucinations

( r deceived by the “Father of Lies”? Did their spir-

itual instinct betray them? Was their union with

their Incarnate God in the Eucharist nothing more

than the vaporings of crazy mystics? Was their

heroic devotedn-ess founded on a lie? And did it re-

main for Luther and Calvin to find out the true re-

ligion of Christ?



3i

ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (107
A. D.)

Among the first uninspired
Christian documents we

possess are the pastoral
letters written by St.

Ignatius

when on his way to martyrdom
in the Colosseum at

Rome. No critic disputes
their genuineness,

lhe

writer testifies to the
apostolic doctrine of the

Eucha-

rist, for he was a disciple
of the Apostle St. John.

And the value of his testimony
is enhanced by the

fact that he is going to
lay down his life for the

Eucharistic faith that is in
him. A few citations from

this martyr-saint will
suffice to show that he taug

t

the same Eucharistic
doctrine in the year of

Our

Lord 107 as Pius X.
teaches in the year of Our

Lord

I9

(i) To the Smyrneans he
writes -.—“They (the

Docetae who denied that Christ
had a real body) ab

stain from the Eucharist
and oblations because they

consider not that the
Eucharist is the flesh of

Our

Saviour Jesus Christ, the
flesh which suffered for

our

sins, which the Father in
His mercy raised again.

They, therefore, who deny the
gift of God perish in

their disputing. Well had it
been for them to make

much of it, that they also might
rise again. Let that

be esteemed a secure
Eucharist which is either under

the Bishop or him to whom he may
commit it. Ad.

Smyrn., N.7.8.
.

,

There is no uncertainty or wavering
in this teach-

ing. The Smyrneans cannot fail
to recognize the

Lord’s teaching as recorded in
St. John (ch. vi.).



r\

3*

(2) To the Roman Christians he says: “I have no

taste for corruptible food, nor for the pleasure of this

life. I wish for God s bread, heavenly bread, bread

of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, who was afterwards of the seed of David and

Abraham. And I wish for God’s draught, His blood,

which is love without corruption, and life for ever-

more.” Ad. Rom., N.7.

This man, who is about to seal his faith with his

blood, is surely speaking of realities. In clear, un-

equivocal language he deals with the most august

mysteries.

(3) Similarly to the Ephesians:
—

“Obeying the

bishop and the presbytery with an entire mind
;
break-

ing one bread which is the medicine of immortality;

an antidote that we should not die, but live for ever

in Jesus Christ.” Ad. Ephes., N.20.

His hope of immortality is firmly grounded on his

Saviour's promise : “He that eateth My flesh . . .
hath life everlasting.”

(4) F°r the Philadelphians he lays down disciplin-

ary rules:
—
“Be careful, therefore, to us one Eucha-

rist, for there is but one flesh of Our Lord Jesus

Christ; and one cup for the uniting of His blood; one

altar
;
as also one bishop, together with the presby-

tery and deacons, my fellow-servants; that so, what-
ever ye do, ye may do it according to God.” Ad.

Phil, N.4.

These are illuminating passages, and inspiring for



33

a Catholic. They have the genuine ring of Christ’s

famous words in them. He neither dilutes, nor mini-

mizes, nor falters. He accepts the whole teaching of

Christ in the most literal sense. He leaves no doubt

i as to his belief in what we now call transubstantiation.

The first great Father of the Church does not find

metaphor or poetry or rhetoric or parable in Christ’s

promise and institution of the Eucharist. On the con-

trary, he shows that he is dealing with stubborn facts,,

written in plain prose, and so he employs the hard

logic of systematic theology in his famous pastoral

letters.

St. Justin Martyr (in his Apologies to the Roman

Emperors Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, in the

middle of the second century) is equally insistent on

the fact that we do not receive common bread and wine

in the Eucharist, but “the very flesh and blood of the

same Incarnate Jesus” who was made flesh for us.

But there is no need to quote further. As we come

down along the stream of Christian tradition the

waters do not become muddy. The doctrine of the

Real Presence is the central point of the whole Cath-

olic system of worship of our Incarnate Cod.

FREQUENT COMMUNION.

I began this discourse by a word of preface on the

fitness of the Blessed Eucharist for man’s spiritual

needs. Then, out of the New Testament, I reminded

you of the Redemer’s and institution of the



r\

34

Divine gift, and of its use among the first Christians,

as related by St. Paul. There was no need of mere

human words. The Word of God spoke for itself.

Finally, I stated very briefly that the universal tra-

dition of the Church in the East, as well as in the

West, from St. Ignatius of Antioch to Pius X., proves

without a shadow of doubt that the whole spiritual

life of the Christian Church centred round the Real

Presence in the Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Altar

—

the Sacrament being the very source of the Chris-

tian's life, his daily bread; the Sacrifice the supreme

act of divine worship, since in it God Himself is both

Priest and Victim.

It remains to say a word as to our own practical

esteem and use of this precious heirloom of our King,

this last and truly Godlike token of His bounty.

We believe with Divine Faith, and on Divine Au-

thority, that Jesus Christ, the God-Man, is “truly”

present in the Blessed Sacrament, under the appear-

ance of bread and wine

—

truly, and not merely by way

of sign or symbol, as Zwinglius taught.

We believe that He is
“
really

”

and objectively pres-

ent—not merely subjectively, not merely by virtue of
our faith or imagination in the art of receiving, as Cal-

vin, and many others since, taught.

We believe that He is “substantially

”

present, and

not merely by reason of His works or effects, but in

His very substance, as He was God-Man on earth, and

is now God-Man in heaven.



35

Further, we believp, as the logical outcome
of God’s

words, “This is My Body,” “This is My Blood,”
that

the substance of bread and wine
ceases to be the ac-

cidents miraculously remaining
—and that that sub-

stance is changed or converted into
the substance of

Christ’s Body and Blood. That is, we
believe, as a

dogma of our faith, that the presence of
the real liv-

ing Christ, and the absence of the
substance of bread

and wine, is effected by transubstantiation.
This,

which was bread, is now My Body by transubstantia

tion, cr change of substance, wrought by
the power of

Him Who created out of nothing, and raised the
dead

to life.

If any believer in the Incarnation should
ask: ''How

can this man give us His flesh to eat?” the
answer is

evident. Because this man is God. It is a
mysi°r .

It is a miracle of love. And who, that believes
in t. -

Incarnation, dare set limits to God’s love?

Again, Jesus Christ says, by way of threat :
Amen,

Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh
of the

Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall
not have

life in you.” He says, by way of allurement and prom-

ise : “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood

hath life everlasting, and I will raise him up
on the

last day.” And this He says to rich and poor, young

and old, married and single, parents and
children,

priests and layman, saint and sinner. There is no
ex-

ception of persons or states of life.

This is the Catholic belief in which you live,
and



rv
i

for which you are ready to die. This is your theory.

What is your practice? How does this threat, how

does this promise, affect your relations to Jesus Christ

in the Banquet of His love, and in the Tabernacle,

which is His audience chamber? The Church has

ever taught that the Blessed Eucharist is the ordinary

food of our souls. She has never ceased to encourage

her children to frequent Communion as the natural

interpretation of Christ’s words and the natural re-

sponse to Christ’s lavish giving of Himself in His

Sacramental life. Her children have been at times

timid, at times cold, at other times, and in other places,

zealous and responsive to the Redeemer’s love. Her

official teaching is on record. She has been faithful

to His counsels. She has never wavered in her sac-

ramental devotion. By her councils, and through her

saints, she has kept before her children the yearning

oi the Heart of Jesus for union with the sons of men.

;She has ever made the Eucharist the crown and glory

• of her sacramental system, and lavished all the splen-

dor of her ritual on the Sacrifice of the Mass as her

supreme act of worship.

The Council of Trent, in the middle of the sixteenth

century, sums up her position : “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.” (Sess. xxii.. cap.

vi.) The Synod realizes that it is “our daily bread,”



37

our source of spiritual
strength against temptation,

as

well as our guarantee of
life eternal : "He that eateth

this bread shall live for
ever." So that, in the mincl

of the Church, the
Sacrament is not primarily a

re-

ward of virtue, nor even a
means of securing due

honor and reverence to Our Lord.
It is all that. But

its primary purpose,
according to the Council

of

Trent, is to serve as "the
antidote whereby we are de-

livered from daily faults,
and preserved from deadly

sins." (Sess. xiii., cap.
ii.) And this is but the

practice of the first
Christians: "They were perse-

vering in the doctrine of
the Apostles, and in the com-

munication of the breaking of
bread,” to derive the

much-needed strength for the daily
Christian struggle.

St. Cyprian (A. D. 248)
brings out clearly the na-

ture of the Eucharist
as a daily help. “And, there-

fore," he says, “we ask that
our bread—that is, Christ

may be given to us daily, in
order that we, who

abide in Christ, may not depart
from His sanctifica-

tion and body.” We feed on his real body
as a means

of interior personal
union with Christ, and of external

communion with His mystic
body, the Catholic

Church. .

The advice of St. Ambrose of
Milan (A.D. 370) is

an answer to many imaginary
objections to frequent

Communion. “If it be ‘daily bread,’
why receive it

but once a year? Receive
each day that which profits

you daily. ... If one be not worthy to receive

it daily, neither is one fit to
receive it once a year.



3«

Again, he says: “There are people who fancy that the

duty of penance consists in their abstaining from

Communion. This is to deal too harshly with them-

selves
;

it is exposing themselves to punishment, and

refusing the remedy.”

St. Augustine of Hippo (429 A.D.) tells us em-

phatically that the Eucharist is “our daily bread,” and

so we rightly say, “Give us this day our daily bread,”

that we may not be separated from God.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century,

quotes St. Ambrose for his own view: “I ought al-

ways to be receiving, since I am always sinning.”

POPE PIUS X.

These are the views of Popes and saints and doc-

tors all through the centuries, and these are the sen-

timents that animate Pope Pius X. For, in the short

space of two years, the present Supreme Pontiff has

issued no less than six Papal documents insisting on

the frequent and daily use of the Holy Eucharist as

the specific heaven-sent panacea for the spiritual well-

being of all classes of the faithful in our age. And to

inflame our desire for the Holy Table, and revive the

spirit of primitive fervor, he has set before us as an

ideal the practice of the early Christians. In the lan-

guage of the Apostle to the Hebrews, the Holy Fa-

ther may say: “Having, therefore, so great a cloud

of witnesses over our heads, laying aside every weight

and sin which surrounds us, let us engage in the



39

struggle,” with the Body and Blood of God to sus-

tain us. The conditions required for entering the

banquet hall are always the same— (i) that you ap-
proach clad in the wedding garment of

sanctifying

grace, (2) that you have
a right intention. Or, as

St. Paul puts it : “Let a man prove himself, and
so let

him eat of that bread.” Christ’s Vicar has laid down

the essential conditions for
approaching the Sacred

Table fruitfully— (1) the state of grace
(secured by

the Sacrament of Penance if necessary), (2) a
right

intention in receiving. This is authoritative
and

final. It is an act of the immediate jurisdiction
of the

Supreme Pastor, as Christ’s vicegerent, over human

souls. Not even priest or Bishop, much less a parent,

is competent to impose other conditions.

Every argument, then, you can bring forward

against frequent and daily Communion, every argu-

ment the enemy of souls can suggest, is really an ar-

gument in favor of it, and carries its own condemna-

tion.

(a) You fear to receive frequently because you are

violently tempted.

The Eucharist is “the antidote . . . whereby

we are delivered from deadly sins.” (Council of

Trent.) How are you to resist if you receive not the

Bread of the Strong? “I can do all things in Him

that strengtheneth me.”

(b) You are frail, and afraid of a relapse.

“I would as soon hear you say that you do not call



40

in the doctor because you are too sick/’ (Cure d’Ars.p

The Eucharist is the bread that makes pure, the

support of the frail and tottering.

(c) You have sinned much in the past, and are un-

worthy.

Shall you be more worthy if you put it off for a

month, for a year? The Eucharist is the returned

Prodigal’s banquet, the consolation of the repentant

sinner. "There is no habit of sin, however deplor-

able or deep-rooted, which may not be diminished,

and ultimately extinguished, by frequent Com-

munion.” (St. Alphonsus Liguori.)

(d) You are troubled by family cares and sorrows

and bereavements.

Whither shall you fly for consolation if not to the

Heart of Jesus? "Lord, to whom shall we go?” Thou

art the bread of life and the wine of joy and gladness.

(e) You are living in the midst of worldliness and

sin.

"The oftener you communicate the better, living,

as you are, in the midst of coarseness and unchastity,

shamelessness and irreligion.” (Monseigneur de

Segur.) Was not the Redeemer the friend of publi-

cans and sinners?

(f) Children are giddy, and have many small

faults and imperfections.

Yes; but they are good and loving, and in the state

of grace. And Christ says: "Suffer the little ones to

come to Me, and forbid them not.” Our Lord does



41

not require of them more than they
can give. He un-

derstands them better than we can.
He knows that

innocence is the most precious of
treasures, and that

Satan seeks to rob them of it early.
Holy Communion

alone can protect them, and keep
them pure. The

Holy See says: “Let them be
impregnated with the

grace of Our Lord before the passions
have run riot

Tn their hearts.” In any case,
the judgment as to

fitness for the Sacraments lies, by
Christ’s ordinance,

with “the dispensers of the mysteries
of God,” under

the guidance of Christ s Vicar on
eaith.

(g) Finally,
you are even now in sin.

St. Paul answers : “Let a nian
prove himself, and

so let him eat of this bread.” And who will
say that

the conditions of probation, the
terms of reconcilia-

tion, are not easy ? No ! the difficulties raised against

frequent Communion are but the promptings of
sloth

or self-indulgence or passion, or the
well-known ruses

of the spirit of evil. Christ gives
them no sanction,

the Church gives them no sanction, the
saints give

them no sanction. Surely, then, for us the
touching

invitation of the Heart of Christ is irresistible :
“Come

to Me all you who labor, and are heavy burdened, and

I will refresh you.” The love of Christ constrains us.

His tender condescension draws us to Him by its

magic force. All our pleas against frequent Commu-

nion are vain. The Holy Eucharist is the last and

greatest effort of God’s love to satisfy all the yearn-

ings of man’s heo rt—the sovereign divine talisman



42

that converts every sorrow into joy. Man is tor-

mented and tortured, in his nobler moods, by an in-

satiable hunger, an unquenchable thirst, for infinite

truth and goodness. In the Eucharist he can satisfy

that hunger, and slake that thirst, on the very flesh

and blood of his God. What infinite condescension
:/ ^

f*

and contrivance of Love Divine ! “My soul hath

thirsted after the strong, living God,” says Royal

David. What rapturous psalms of praise and thanks-

giving would he not have sung could he have feasted

at this banquet and slaked his thirst with the blood of

the Lamb! Even Joseph and Simeon were not as

highly privileged as we are. For us was reserved the

promise, the divine guarantee : “He that eateth My

flesh and drinketh My blood hath life everlasting, and

I will raise him up on the last day.” Amen.