Part I Chapter IV: The Permanence of the Real Presence and the Adorableness of the Eucharist

Chapter IV: The Permanence of the Real Presence and the Adorableness of the Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER IV THE PERMANENCE OF THE REAL PRESENCE AND THE ADORABLENESS OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST From what we have said in the three preceding chapters we may deduce two important corollaries, viz.: (i) the Permanence of the Real Presence, and (2) the Adorableness of the Holy Eucharist. 128 SECTION i THE PERMANENCE OF THE REAL PRESENCE i. Heretical Errors vs. the Teaching of the Church. — Luther at first defended the Real Presence against Carlstadt and Zwingli ; but later, in his controversy with Butzer and Melanchthon (1536), he arbitrarily restricted it to the moment of reception (in usu, non extra usum). This erroneous teaching was adopted into the Formula of Concord, A. D. 1577.1 The Catholic Church, on the contrary, holds that Christ is present immediately after the consecration,2 ante and post usum as well as in usu, • — and that His presence consequently does not depend upon the act of eating or drinking in Communion. The Council of Trent defines: “If anyone saith that, after the consecration is completed, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the admirable Sacrament of the Eucharist, but [are there] only during the use, whilst it is being taken, and not either before or 1 * Extra usum, dum reponitur aut 2 Cfr. Cone. Trident., Sew. XIII, asservatur in pyxide aut ostenditur cap. 3: … statim post consecrain processionibus, ut fit apud pa pi- tionem xstas, sentiunt [Lutherani] corpus Christi non ad esse.* 129 THE REAL PRESENCE after; and that in the hosts or consecrated particles which are reserved or which remain after communion, the true Body of our Lord remaineth not; let him be anathema/’ 8 This teaching can be convincingly proved from Sacred Scripture and Tradition. 2. The Permanence of the Real Presence Proved from Revelation. — In the deposit of faith the Real Presence and the permanence of that Presence are so closely bound up that in the mind of the Church both are one undivided whole. a) Christ promised to give His Body and Blood to His followers as meat and drink, i. e., as something permanent, something existing before the act of eating and drinking.4 When, in instituting the Eucharist, He said, ‘Take ye, and eat, this is my Body,” His meaning clearly was, ‘That which you are about to eat is my Body,” and not, “That which you are about to eat will become my Body at the moment when you eat it„. No matter how short the interval of time between consecration and communion, it is certain that the Body 8 Seas. XIII, can. 4: “Si qui* reservantur vet jupersunt, non re* durerit, peractA consecratione m manere verum corpus Domini, an§admxrabili Eucharistiae sacramento thema sit.” (Denxinger-Bannwart, non esse corpus et sanguinem Domini n. 866). nostri Iesu Christi, sed tantum in 4 John VI, 50 tqq. usu, dum sumitur, non autem ante • Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa TheoL, vel post, et in hostiis seu particulis 3a, qw. jB, art 6. consecratis, quae post communionem PERMANENCE OF of Christ, which the Apostles received at the Last Sup* per, was really and truly present before they received it. The Council of Trent says: “The Apostles had not as yet received the Eucharist from the hand of the Lord, when nevertheless He Himself affirmed with truth that to be His own Body which He presented [to them].“6 That the Real Presence does not depend upon the actual consumption of the Eucharist is clearly manifest in the case of the Chalice. Christ said : * Drink ye all of this; for (enim, ydp) this is my Blood.* 7 The act of drinking is here evidently neither the cause nor an indispensable condition of the presence of His Blood.8 b) The argument from Tradition is so strong that even Calvin was constrained to admit that the Catholic teaching has in its favor the example of the ancient Church. • ) The belief of the Fathers may be gathered from the texts quoted above in support of the Real Presence.10 We shall add a few others which expressly assert the permanence of that Presence. St. Cyril of Alexandria says : ” I hear that there are others who assert that the Eulogy profits nothing for sanctification if a portion thereof remains over for the following day. But they who speak thus, speak foolishly ; for neither is Christ altered, nor His sacred Body i StM. XHI, cap. $i 44 Nendutn • For % more exhauptiYe dUctu«Qn 0nim Eueharisiiont d$ manu Domini of this point tee BclUnnine, susceperant, quum vere tamtn ipss Euchar., IV, 2; Tepe, pp. 250 toq. offirmarft, corpus suum ess, quod 9 Instit., IV, 17, | 39 : * Qui sic praebebat.* (Denzinger-Bannwart, faciunt, haboni vttsris Ecclesiat n. 876). extmplum, fatter,” 7 Matth. XXVI, 27 sq. 10 Supru, Cfc I, Sect. 9, Art * 132 THE REAL PRESENCE changed, but the virtue of the blessing as well as the life-giving grace remain permanently therein.” 11 St. Jerome regarded as fortunate those who were permitted to carry off the Body of Christ in a plaited basket and His Blood in a glass.12 St Chrysostom compares the altar on which the Eucharist reposes, with the manger in which the Infant Jesus lay at Bethlehem.18 St. Optatus of Mileve (+ about 400) refers to the altar as “the seat of both the Body and the Blood of Christ,” and to the chalice as ” the bearer of the Blood of Christ.” 14 P) The official practice of the Church was in perfect harmony with this teaching. In the early days the faithful frequently carried the Blessed Eucharist home15 or took it with them when they travelled,16 a custom which continued in some places to the twelfth century.17 The deacons were accustomed to bring the Blessed Sacrament to those who were unable to attend divine service,18 as well as to the martyrs, prisoners, and the infirm.10 The ” Apostolic Constitutions,” which were probably composed in the eighth century, instruct deacons to place the particles remaining after Communion in specially prepared receptacles called Pasto11 Ep. ad Calosyr. (Migne, P. G„ LXXVI, 1075). is Ep. 123 ad Rustic., n. 20: * Nihil illo ditius, qui corpus Domini canistro vimineo, sangumem portat in vitro.” 18 In S. Philogon., n. 3. 14 De Schism. Donat., IV, 1 sq. (Migne, P. L., XI, 1065, 1068). Cfr. Bellarmine. De Euchar., IV, 4. liCfr. Tertullian, Ad Uxor., II, 5; St Cyprian, De Lap sis, n. 26. ie Cfr. St. Ambrose, D Excessu Fratris, I, 43 and 46. 17 Cfr. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Vol. Ill, 2nd ed., pp. 583, 752, Freiburg 1877. is Cfr. Justin Martyr, Apolog., I, n. 67. 19 Cfr. Eusebiua, Hist. EccL, VI, 44. PERMANENCE OF phoria.” 20 Furthermore, as early as the fourth century,21 it was customary to celebrate the ” Mass of the Presanctified,” 22 which the Latin Church now restricts to Good Friday, while the Greeks, since the Council in Trullo (692), celebrate it daily during the whole of Lent. c) The Permanence of the Real Presence may be further proved and illustrated by the following philosophical considerations: a) The fundamental reason is found in the fact that some time necessarily elapses between consecration and communion. This is not the case with the other Sacraments. Baptism, for instance, lasts only as long as the baptismal act or ablution lasts, and is therefore called a sacramentum transitorium. The Holy Eucharist, on the contrary, is a permanent Sacrament (sacramentum per manens). “The other Sacraments,” says the Council of Trent, “begin to have the power of sanctifying [then] only when one uses them, whereas in the Eucharist, before being used, there is the very author of sanctity.” 23 And again: ” If anyone saith that, after the consecration is completed, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are not in the admirable Sacrament of the Eucharist, but [are there] only during the use, whilst it is being taken, and not either before or after; and that in the hosts or consecrated particles which are reserved or which remain after communion, the true Body of the Lord remaineth not ; let him be anathema.” 24 20 Cfr. Constit. A post., VIII, 13: sacramenta tunc primum sancti/icandi 01 di&KOvot rd TtpicatveavT* vim habent, quum quis Wis utitur; at tla

No doubt Christ might have made the Eucharist a merely transitory Sacrament had He so willed. But this was evidently not His intention. It is inconsistent and arbitrary to say, as Chemnitz does, that Christ is truly present whilst the Sacrament is taken to the sick, but that His presence ceases as soon as the Eucharist is reserved for other purposes.28 Leibniz, though a Protestant, was keen enough to perceive that either the words of consecration pronounced by the priest are false, or that which is blessed is necessarily the Body of Christ, even before it is eaten.26 /}) The Permanence of the Real Presence, however, is limited to a period of time, the beginning of which is determined by the instant of consecration, while the end is rather difficult to ascertain. The only thing that is theologically certain is that Christ continues to be present under the appearances of bread and wine as long as these appearances are apt to contain within themselves the substances of bread and wine. When corruption (corruptio specierum) sets in, e. g. when the host becomes mouldy or the contents of the Chalice sour, Christ is no longer present. The cessation of the Real Presence must not, however, be conceived as a ” retransubstantiation,” 27 for while Christ may be the terminus ad quern of a substantial conversion, He can never become its terminus a quo. S5 Cfr. Bellarmtne, De Eucharistia, tV, x. fSyst. Theol., c 48. We quote the passage in its context: ” Certum est antiquitatem tradtdisse, ipsd con’ iteration* fieri conversionem, • . • neque unquam veteribus auditum est novum quorundam dogma, quod in momento perception!* demum adsit corpus Christi. Certum enim est, nonnullos sacrum hunc cibum non statim consumpsisse, sed aliis misisse et tecum domum, imo in itinera, in deserta tulisse eumque morem altquando fuisse commendatum, quam* quam postea abrogatus sit maioris reverentiae causa. Et profecto, aut falsa sunt, quae a sacerdote pronuntiantur verba institution is, quod absit, aut necesse est, quod benedictum est, esse corpus Christi, etiam antequam manducetur” 27 Oiwald seemi to favor this view (Die hi Sakramente, pp. 409 sqq.). V PERMANENCE OF THE REAL PRESENCE 135 The simplest explanation is that the process of corruption brings back those elementary substances which correspond to the peculiar nature of the changed accidents. Thus the miracle of the Eucharistic conversion does not abolish the law of the indestructibility of matter. SECTION 2 THE ADORABLENESS OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST i. State of the Question. — If Christ is really, truly, and substantially present in the Holy Eucharist, the adorableness of the Blessed Sacrament requires no further proof for anyone who believes in His Divinity. As we have shown in Christology,1 the same worship (cultus latriae) is due to the God-man Jesus Christ that is due to the Triune God. Now, it is Jesus Christ who is truly present in the Eucharist ; consequently the Eucharist is adorable. This truth is not affected by the circumstance that the Eucharist was primarily instituted as a sacrificial meal (Communion). It is always the God-man Himself who is offered in the Mass and consumed in Communion. The Council of Trent says: “For not therefore is it [the Holy Eucharist] the less to be adored on this account, that it was instituted by Christ the Lord in order to be received : for we believe that same God to be present therein, of whom the Eternal Father, when introducing Him into the world, says : ’ And let all the angels of God adore Him.,,,, In other words, the Eucharistic 1 Pohle-Pretiss, Christology, pp. quod futrit a Christo Domino, ut 7& tqq.v 2nd ed., St Louii 19x6. sumatur, institutum; nam ilium tun 2 Sets. XIII, cap. 5: ” Neque dem Deum praesentem in 90 ad esse snim ideo minus est adorandum, crsdimus, quern Pater aetemus fc Vfi \ ADORABLENESS OF THE EUCHARIST 137 Christ is substantially identical, and therefore equally adorable, with the Lord Christ who sitteth at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven. Because of this identity the Tridentine Council solemnly defines: “If anyone saith that, in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored with the worship, even external, of latria, and is, consequently, neither to be venerated with a special festive solemnity, nor to he solemnly borne about in processions, … and that the adorers thereof are idolaters; let him be anathema.” 3 In the absence of Scriptural proof this proposition must be demonstrated from Tradition. 2. Argument From Tradition.— A broad distinction must of course be made between the dogmatic principle of the ?tdorableness of the Holy Eucharist and the varying discipline with regard to the outward form of worship given to it. Though the principle was recognized from the beginning, there has been, at least in the Latin Church, a gradual development in the external pomp with which the devotion to the Eucharist was surrounded. troducens in orbem terrarum dicit: urn non fin cultu latriae etiarn exEt adorent eum omnes angeli.” terno adorandum atque ideo nee fe(Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 878). stivd pecultari celebrttate veneran8 Scat. XIII, can. 6: Si quis dum, … et eius adoratores esse direrit, in ss. Eucharistiae sacra- idolat’ras. anathema sit. (Denzinmento Christum unigenitum Dei Fili- ger-Bannwart, n. 888). 138 THE REAL PRESENCE a) The principle itself was clearly enunciated by the Fathers. The early Patristic writers quite naturally speak of the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in connection with the Mass and Communion. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) exhorts his neophytes as follows : ” When thou approachest, do not come with outspread hands and fingers, but make thy left hand as it were the throne of the right, which is destined to receive the King, and receive the Body of Christ into the hollow of thy hand and say, ‘Amen.’ After thou hast purified thine eyes by cautiously applying them to the sacred Body, be careful, in consuming it, that no particle falls to the ground… . Having partaken of the Body of Christ, step forward to take the Chalice of the Blood ; 4 do not stretch out thy hands, but drop them and, assuming an attitude of adoration and homage,5 say 4 Amen/ and sanctify thyself by participation in the Blood of Christ. And whilst the moisture thereof still adheres to thy lips, touch it with thy hands and sanctify therewith the eyes, the forehead, and the other senses. Finally, awaiting the [concluding] prayer, give thanks to God, who has vouchsafed thee such great mysteries.” 6 St. Ambrose says : ” By ’ footstool 9 [Ps. XCVIII, 5] is understood the earth ; by the earth, the Flesh of Christ, which we adore to-day in the mysteries, and which the Apostles adored in our Lord Jesus.” 1 * VpOfftpXOV Kal 7TOT7lpl

Commenting on the same Psalm, St. Augustine says: ” No one eats this Flesh unless he has previously adored [it].8 A passage in the Syriac Liturgy of St. James reads: * Let us adore and praise the living Lamb of God, who is offered upon the altar.” 9 b) In the early Church, the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was for the most part restricted, as it still is among the Greeks, to the Mass and Communion. However, as late as 1672, a schismatic synod held at Jerusalem declared : ” We likewise [believe] that the same Body and Blood of the Lord should be treated with supreme honor and adored with the worship of latria, since there is one adoration of the Blessed Trinity and the Body and Blood of the Lord.” 10 In the West the way was opened to a more exalted veneration of the Blessed Sacrament when the faithful were allowed to receive holy Communion apart from the liturgical service. After the Berengarian controversy, in the twelfth century, the present practice of reservation was introduced for the express purpose of enabling the faithful to adore the Sacred Host outside of the Mass. In the thirteenth century, the so-called ” theophoric processions” came into vogue, and the Feast of Corpus 8/n Ps., 98, n. 9: “Nemo Mam lb” Item {credimusl et supremo carnem manducat, nisi prius ado- colendum honore cultuque latria raverit* (Migne, P. L., XXXVII, idem Domini corpus et sanguinem 1264). esse adorandum, quippe ss. Trinitatis 9 * Adoremus et laudemus Agnum et corporis sanguinisque Domini una vivum Dei, qui offertur super al- est adoratio.” (Hardouin, Condi, tare.’* (Renaudot, Liturg. Orient., Collect., Vol. XI, p. 254). 2nd cd., Vol. II, p. 29, Frankfort x847). I4Q THE REAL PRESENCE Christi was instituted by Urban IV at the solicitation of St. Juliana of Liege. Henceforth the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament became general among the faithful. Beautiful hymns, like the ” Pange lingua” of St. Thomas, were composed in its honor. In the fourteenth century it became customary to expose the Blessed Sacrament for public adoration. Of the Corpus Christi processions the Council of Trent declares “that very piously and religiously was this custom introduced into the Church, that this sublime and venerable Sacrament be celebrated with special veneration and solemnity every year on a certain festival day, and that it be borne reverently and with honor in processions through the streets and public places.” 11 A new impetus was given to the adoration of the Eucharist when St. Alphonsus de’ Liguori introduced the custom of paying regular visits to our Lord hidden in the tabernacle. Since then numerous orders and congregations have devoted themselves to the unceasing adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the devotion of ” Perpetual Prayer ” has been introduced into many dioceses, Eucharistic Leagues have been established among the clergy, Eucharistic Congresses are regularly held, and all these agencies conspire to keep alive an ardent and devout faith in Him who said : ” Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” 12 liSess. XIII, cap. 5: ” Declarat sancta Synodus, pie et religiose admodum in Dei Ecclesiam inductum fuisse hunc morem, ut singulis annis peculiari quodam et festo die praecelsum hoc et venerabile sacramentum singulari venerotione ac solemnitate celebraretur, utque in processionibus reverenter et honoriUce illud per vias et loca publico, circumferrefur,” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 878). 12 Matth. XXVIII, 20.— Cfr. Jacob Hoffmann, Die Verehrung und Anbetung des allerheiligsten Sakramentes des Altars geschichtlich dargestellt, Kempten 1897; T. £. Bridgets History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain, new ed., London 1 9 10; F. Raible, Der Tabernokel einst und jetst, Freiburg 1908. ADORABLENESS OF THE EUCHARIST 141 .3. A Theological Question. — Theologians are wont to discuss the question whether and to what extent the sacred species participate in the worship rendered to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The adoration which Catholics give to Christ under the appearances of bread and wine is not separate and distinct from that which they give to the sacred species as such. The one sole and total object of the Eucharistic cult is our Eucharistic Lord Himself, that is to say, Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, or the Sacrament as such.18 We do not “adore bread ” (adoratio panis, apToXarpeia) , because, according to Catholic teaching, the substance of bread is no longer present in the Holy Eucharist and we give no separate adoration to its accidents. The object of our adoration is the totum sacramentale.1* If one were with idolatrous intent to adore the species apart from their contents (. e. Christ), he would commit a greater sacrilege than if he would give divine worship to the Sacred Heart, as a creature, and apart from the Hypostatic Union; for, unlike the Sacred Heart, the sacramental species are not a part of the Hypostatic Union. It follows that the sacred species, as such, are not entitled to latreutic but only to dulic, or, more accurately speaking, to hyperdulic worship,15 though in practice neither the Church nor the faithful pay any at18 Cfr. Cone. Trident, Sess. XIII, i Cfr. on this point Suarez, De cap. 5: ” Omnes Christi fideles Eucharistio, disp. 65, sect. z. pro more in catholica Ecclesia re- is On the notions latrio, dulia, cepto latriae cultum, qui vero Deo and hyperdulia, see Pohle-Preuss, debetur, huic ss. sacrament 0 in Mariology, pp. 140 sqq., St Louis veneratione exhibent” 1914* 142 THE REAL PRESENCE tention to this subtle distinction, but simply adore the Blessed Sacrament as unum morale.1* 16 Cfr. Vasquez, Comment, in S. De Myst. Incarn., disp. 26, »ect. 5, Th., Ill, qu. iott, c. 12 1 Dc Lugo* n. 73.