Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/645

 EUCHARIST

573

EUCHARIST

and popular treatises. This extensive nomenclature, describing the great mystery from such different points of view, is in itself sufficient proof of the central position the Eucharist has occupied from the earliest ages, both in the Divine worship and services of the Church and in the life of faith and devotion which ani- mates her members.

The Church honours the Eucharist as one of her most exalted mysteries, since for sublimity and incom- prehensibility it yields in nothing to the allied mys- teries of the Trinity and Incarnation. These three mysteries constitute a wonderful triad, which causes the essential characteristic of Christianity, as a relig- ion of mysteries far transcending the capabilities of reason, to shine forth in all its brilliance and splendour, and elevates Catholicism, the most faithful guardian and keeper of our Christian heritage, far above all pagan and non-Christian religions. The organic con- nexion of this mysterious triad is clearly discerned, if we consider Divine grace under the aspect of a per- sonal communication of God. Thus in the bosom of the Blessed Trinity, God the Father, by virtue of the eternal generation, communicates His Divine Nature to God the Son, "the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father" (John, i, 18), while the Son of God, by virtue of the hypostatic union, communicates in turn the Divine Nature received from His Father to His human nature formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary (John, i, 14), in order that thus as God-man, hidden under the Eucharistic Species, He might de- liver Himself to His Church, who, as a tender mother, mystically cares for and nurtures in her own bosom this, her greatest treasure, and daily places it before her children as the spiritual food of their souls. Thus the Trinity, Incarnation, and Eucharist are really welded together like a precious chain, which in a won- derful manner links heaven with ear'.h, God with man, imiting them most intimately and keeping them thus united. By the very fact that the Eucharistic mys- tery does transcend reason, no rationalistic explana- tion of it, based on a merely natural hypothesis and seeking to comprehend one of the sublimest truths of the Christian religion as the spontaneous conclusion of logical processes, may be attempted by a Catholic theologian.

The modern science of comparative religion is striv- ing, wherever it can, to discover in pagan religions " religio-historical parallels", corresponding to the theoretical and practical elements of (Ihristianity, and thus by means of the former to give a natural explana- tion of the latter. Even were an analogy discernible between the Eucharistic repast and the ambrosia and nectar of the ancient Greek gods, or the haoma of the Iranians, or the soma of the ancient Hindus, we should nevertheless be very cautious not to stretch a mere analogy to a parallelism strictly so called, since the Christian Eucharist has nothing at all in common with these pagan foods, whose origin is to be found in the crassest idol- and nature-worship. What we do par- ticularly discover is a new proof of the reasonableness of the Catholic religion, from the circum.stance that Jesus Christ in a wonderfully condescending manner responds to the natural craving of the human heart after a food which nourishes unto immortality, a crav- ing expressed in many pagan religions, by dispensing to mankind His own Flesh and Blood. .\11 that is beautiful, all that is true in the religions of nature, Christianity has appropriated t-o itself, and like a con- cave mirror has collected the dispersed and not unfre- quetitlv distorted rays of truth into their common focus and again sent them forth resplendent ly in per- fect beams of light.

It is the Church alone, "the pillar and ground of truth", imbued with and directed by the Holy Spirit, that guarantees to her children through her infallible teaching the full and unadulterated rcvchitioii of (Icid. Consequently, it is the first duty of Catholics to adhere

to what the Church proposes as the " proximate norm of faith" {regula fidei proximo), which, in reference to the Eucharist, is set forth in a particularly clear and detailed manner in Sessions XIII, XXI, and XXII of the Council of Trent. The quintessence of these doc- trinal decisions consists in this, that in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of the God-man are truly, really, and substantially present for the nourishment of our souls, by reason of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and that in this change of substances the unbloody Sacri- fice of the New Testament Ls also contained. Since the Eucharistic Sacrifice is to be treated in the article Mass, there remain here for a more detailed considera- tion two principal truths: (I) The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist; and (II) The Eucharist as a Sacrament.

I. The Reail, Presence op Christ in the Eucha- rist. — In this section we shall consider, first, the fact of the Real Presence, which is, indeed, the central dogma; then the several allied dogmas grouped about it, namely, the Totality of Presence, Transubstantia- tion, Permanence of Presence and the Adorableness of the Eucharist; and, finally, the speculations of reason, so far as speculative investigation regarding the au- gust mystery under its various aspects is permissible, and so "far as it is desirable to illumine it by the light of philo.sophy.

(1) The Real Presence as a Fact. — According to the teaching of theology a revealed fact can be proved solely by recurrence to the sources of faith, viz. Scrip- ture and Tradition, with which is also bound up the infallible magisterium of the Church.

(a) Proof from Scripture. — This may be adduced both from the words of promise (John, vi, 26 sqq.) and, especially, from the words of Institution as re- corded in the Synoptics and St. Paul (I Cor., xi, 23 sqq.). By the miracles of the loaves and fishes and the walking upon the waters, on the previous day, Christ not only prepared His liearers for the sublime dis- course containing the promise of the Eucharist, but also proved to them that He possessed, as Almighty God-man, a power superior to and independent of the laws of nature, and could, therefore, provide such a supernatiu-al food, none other, in fact, than His own Flesh and Blood. This discourse was delivered at Capharnaum (John, vi, 26-72), and is divided into two distinct parts, about the relation of which Catholic exegetes vary in opinion. Nothing hinders our inter- preting the first part [John, vi, 26-48 (51)] metaphori- cally and under-standing by "bread of heaven" Christ Himself as the object of faith, to be received in a fig- urative sense as a spiritual food by the mouth of faith. Such a figurative explanation of the second part of the discourse (John, vi, 52-72), however, is not only un- usual but absolutely impossible, as even Protestant exegetes (Delitzsch, Kostlin, Keil, Kahnis, and others) readily concede. First of all the whole structure of the discourse of promise demands a literal interpreta- tion of the words: "eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood". For Christ mentions a three- fold food in His address, the manna of the past (John, vi, 31, 32, 49, 59), the heavenly bread of the present (John, vi, 32 sq.), and the Bread of Life of the future (John, vi, 27, 52). Corresponding to the three kinds of food and the three periods, there are as many dispen- .ser.s — Moses di-ipensing the manna, the Father nour- ishing man's faith in the Son of ( Ind made flesh, finally Christ giving Ilis own Flesh and Blood. .'Vlthough the manna, a tj^pe of the I'^ucharist, was indeed oaten with the moiith, it could not, being a transitory fond, ward off de.ath. The second food, that offered by the Heavenly Father, is the bread of heaven, which He tlis- penses hir el nunc to the Jews for their spiritual nour- ishment, inasmuch as by reason of the Incarnation Fie holds up His Son to them as the object of their faith. If, however, the third kind of food, which Christ Him-