CHAPTER XXXIII. THE HOLY EUCHARIST. I. Cor. xi. 23-30; Matt. xxvi. 26–28; Mark xiv. 22-24; WE have already considered the question whether our Lord's extended discourse at the Last Supper was all delivered before the institution of the Eucharist or all after it; or was given in part as a preparation for the supper, and afterwards resumed and finished. We follow the opinion of those who divide the discourse, placing the first section-that treated of in the preceding chapters-as introductory to the great Sacrament of the New Law. The sentence, "Arise, let us go hence," according to this view, is not taken as the signal of departure to the Mount of Olives, but rather to mark a removal to another room arranged for the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. It seems to us highly probable that some portion of our Saviour's discourse, so redolent of love, was given as a preliminary to the institution of this His sacrament of love. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in 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. In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the 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 unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep. The bread used in the institution of the Eucharist was the unleavened bread of the Passover supper. The Latin Church always uses the same kind at Mass, both in order to be more exact in the imitation of our Lord's first Mass, and to typify the absence of the leaven of sin from our hearts at the heavenly banquet. The breaking of the bread was, we are led to think, made easy by the loaf being partially divided beforehand. The consecration probably took place after the Redeemer had thus carefully prepared for an act so solemn and so touching, perpetuating to the end of time His true presence and His loving remembrance everywhere among the children of men. The words changing the bread and wine into the Lord's body are explicit: "This is My body," "This is My blood." For fifteen hundred years Christendom held universally to the literal meaning and to the miraculous change which these words proclaim; up to the Reformation only two feeble attempts were made at denial of the Real Presence, one in the ninth and the other in the eleventh century, and both were instantly and unanimously rejected and condemned by the Church, her people and her ministry. A year before the institution the Redeemer had promised His real flesh and blood for a mystical banquet, and had insisted sternly on acceptance of the literal meaning of His words. The promise is now fulfilled. The substance of the bread and wine is separated from their outward forms, and these forms are assumed by the substance of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. A change of substance, transubstantiation, has taken place behind the veils of the external appearances of bread and wine. Otherwise, Christ, alike in St. John's account of His promise of the Eucharist and in this fourfold account of St. Matthew, St. Luke, St. Mark, and St. Paul of the fulfilment of the promise, has hopelessly deluded and bewildered His entire Church, including the Apostles themselves; which is beyond all possibility of belief. This most solemn event was the perfecting of the design of God in the Incarnation. It extends the divine union of Creator and creature to each individual disciple of Christ unto the end of time. As the Godhead joined our human nature, as nature, and as represented by that of the Man-Christ, so now does the God-Man join every one of us to Himself and to each other in this banquet of union and communion. Accordingly St. Paul teaches (I. Cor. x. 16, 17): "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." Upon the Redeemer's words, "Do this in commemoration of Me," is placed the institution of the Mass as a sacrifice. There is a commemorative as well as an actual identity of the perpetual Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass with that of Calvary. For the Eucharistic blood of Christ as now offered upon our altars is the same that was offered up on Calvary, being in both cases "shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins." Jesus as commemorated in Holy Mass and Communion is the same Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by His sacrifice on the Cross. Hence St. Paul: "As often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until He come." Therefore, the command, "Do this in commemoration of Me," makes the Apostles priests-that is to say, sacrificial ministers of Christ's new law, ordained to offer Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice which is the perpetual renewal of that of Calvary. The offerer is the same High-Priest represented by His apostolic priesthood, the Victim is the same, the purpose the same, the efficacy the same. The differences between "This chalice is the new testament in My blood." Calvary and our daily Mass are not essential-lapse of time, separation of place, and the present unbloody consummation of the act of sacrifice. None of these differences affect the real act and its eternal purpose, for time is naught to the Deity, nor is it aught to His immortal children, nor is separation of place a hindrance to divine love and power, nor is the Christ of to-day, who dies no more, any less a Redeemer than He who once for all was slain upon the altar of the Cross. Here then is the essence of Christ's religion: The perpetuation of Himself both physically and spiritually into every moment of time, the localization of Himself into every place, changing the entire world into a holy of holies, the personalization of Himself into every human being, enabling each one to live with Him in a union like that whereby He lives one life with the Father. Truly the Eucharist has made a religion of divine wonders. CHAPTER XXXIV. JESUS RESUMES HIS DISCOURSE: UNION WITH HIM IS THE CONDITION OF ALL SPIRITUAL LIFE. THE IDENTITY OF JOY AND LOVE And obedience.— "LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU." -THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT. John xv. 1-27. IN various places of the Old Testament God called the people of Israel His vine. He had planted the race and fenced it about as a gardener plants the nursery of a vineyard, for it was God's purpose that Israel should finally overspread the earth with divine fruitfulness. Jesus now proclaims the fulfilment of this in His own person, teaching thereby the abso lute need of mental and moral union with Him by faith and love. That union is like the oneness of a vine and its branches. As the sap in a dead branch is incapable of fruitfulness, so all the life of a Christian in mortal sin is that of a dead member of Christ. And all the fruitfulness of one who is not a Christian is that of a wild vine, insipid and useless. Jesus gives us a further exposition of His everrecurring theme in this discoursethe qualities of Holy Love, especially as related to joy and obedience. His measure of love for us is the same as that of the Father for His Son; His standard of our obedience to Him is His own obedience to His Father's will; His gift of joy to us is the fulness of His Father's gift of joy to Him. "As the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father's commandments and do abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you that My joy be in you, and your joy may be filled." I am the true vine; and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me, that beareth not fruit, He will take away and every one that beareth fruit He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me: and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you the branches : he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing. If any one abide not in Me: he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you. In this is My Father glorified: that you bring forth very much fruit, and become My disciples. And then He gave His Apostles, and through them He gives to us, a most touching explanation of His love; how of His own initiative He had chosen them to be His friends, had made His heavenly wisdom their common property, His own fruitful influence for good their own, His power of prayer their own prerogative. As they were Jews, and therefore men of law, He begins and ends with the emphatic statement that all commandment is love; and as their |