Chapter XXXIII: What the Holy Communion Is

THE Holy Communion is the greatest of all the sacraments, because it contains under the appearances of bread and wine the Author of all the sacraments, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Our Lord was not satisfied with giving us the other sacraments, though full of wonderful graces. He determined to put the crowning stone to His work by giving Himself to us. He ascended into heaven, but He is still with us in the Sacrament of the Altar, and will always remain with us until the end of the world.

I dare say you will be pleased to read a short explanation of the way in which our Lord has accomplished such great things.

On the very last night before he suffered death for us on the cross, He and all His Apostles were assembled in an upper room. They ate their last meal together, and our Saviour conversed with them about all that was to happen to Him. He bade them all farewell in the most affectionate and loving manner, as a father, about to depart on a long and painful journey, would do to his children.

When this was over, He solemnly took bread in His hands and blessed it, and gave it to them, saying these words: “Take, eat; this is My Body.” Then He took the cup containing wine, and said: “Drink ye all of this; this is My Blood.” When he spake these words, “This is My Body,” “This is My Blood,” that which He said really became a fact. What He held in His hands became His Body and His Blood. It was bread before, but on speaking the word it was bread no longer; it became His Body. It was wine before, but ceased to be wine at the Lord’s word, and became His blood. Such is now the faith of the Church, and such has been the faith in all ages.

Now you may ask: “What is meant by the Body of the Lord, and the Blood of the Lord?” By both these expressions is meant the true, living Body of Christ. That is, the Body of the Lord, together with His Soul and His Divinity. In short, the Lord Himself, perfect and complete. All the qualities of bread and wine, the look, the taste, the smell, remain just as they were before; yet there is no bread and wine; it is the Lord’s Body and Blood, the Lord Himself.

“How can these things be?” That is a question which will be often asked, not by the good Catholic, who believes simply on the word of the Lord, but by those who are strangers to the faith. I do not doubt many a good girl will be asked this question by a Protestant friend or acquaintance.

The answer is: It is by the power of God, who can do all things. We might ask those who put this question: “Please tell me how the Lord of heaven and earth can be contained in the little Babe of Bethlehem, crying and moaning on the straw?” But the Wise Men of the East did not ask the question: “How can it be?” They fell down on their knees and adored Him.

Or, “Tell me how it was that the Lord, with His Flesh and Blood, could pass through the closed doors and appear suddenly among His disciples?” He certainly did so, for they felt the wounds in His hands and in His feet, and found His body as solid and real as that of any other person.

The only answer they can make to these questions is: “It was by His divine, almighty power.” Just so; and by the same divine, almighty power He is really and truly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist under the appearances of bread and wine. Hear what St. Cyril of Jerusalem says so beautifully about it: “When He, therefore, pronounced and said of the bread, ‘This is My Body,’ who shall dare, after that, to doubt? And when He, the very same person, so clearly declared, ‘This is My Blood,’ who shall ever dare to hesitate to say that it is His Blood? He formerly at Cana of Galilee changed water into wine, which resembles, in some measure, blood, and shall we consider Him unworthy of belief in changing wine into blood?”

But I know every Catholic girl who loves her faith will have the same spirit that St. Jane Frances of Chantal had when she was a little girl. A Protestant gentleman came to her father’s house, and in course of conversation ridiculed the doctrine that the Blessed Sacrament is really our Lord’s Body. The little girl could not endure this. Indignation filled her heart. The blood reddened her cheeks. “What!” she said, “do you say the Son of God is a liar? Did he not say, ‘This is My Body,’ and how do you say it is not His Body?” He tried to pacify her by little presents, but she threw them into the fire. “So,” she said, “will all burn in the eternal fire who wilfully deny the truth of God’s word.”

What a blessed thing it is to believe that the Lord of Glory is, as the Council of Trent says, really, truly, and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament; to believe that we may go to see Him at the altar where He is; that we may lay all our wants before Him, talk with Him, learn to love Him; that he comes to us in Communion at the altar, and is brought to us at our homes to go with us through the pains of sickness and through the valley of the shadow of death.

I do not envy those who do not believe. They rob themselves of the greatest consolation it is possible to have in this dreary and miserable world. “Oh!” said a Protestant minister, not long ago, in a sermon to his people, “if we could only suppose that the Lord was in some way really and bodily present among us as we kneel in the church, how our hearts would leap with joy and glow with a fire of devotion!”

What his heart yearned for, that we know for certain we have in the bosom of the one, holy Catholic Church. Now let us see the effects of the Blessed Sacrament on the soul.