Chapter 21

THE HOLY EUCHARIST

If you enter the Catholic Church you will have returned home into the Church of Christ, into the Church of your fathers.  There an almost unbelievable privilege is in store for you.  From that day forward, yours it will be to take your place at God's banquet table, to be nourished upon the living Body and Blood of Christ Himself, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.  This is the greatest of all the Sacraments of the Church for in it the faithful have the inestimable privilege of receiving the author of all grace, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity under the appearances of bread and wine.

Christ knew that men need food to preserve the life of the body.  He knew too that men would need just as badly spiritual food to preserve the life of the soul.  Hence the night before He died, He prepared a divine banquet for His children. Christ was the lover of men, who loved them with an inexhaustible love.  Now the desire of the lover is to be with and be united with the object of his affection.  Christ was the divine lover of the souls of men.  Hence loving them, He loved them as the Scripture says 'to the end', and though returning to His Father in heaven, He determined to remain in reality with His children upon earth.  In order to do this, He left His living Body and Blood upon our altars, that He, the living God, might always dwell in our tabernacles, that we might receive Him into our hearts in Holy Communion.

Let us listen to St. Paul speak of the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  Writing to the Corinthians he says "Brethren, I have received of the Lord that which also I have delivered to 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 a commemoration of me."  In like manner He also took 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." Taking Christ at His word, the Catholic Church rejoices in having the living Body and Blood of Christ upon her altars, and the same living Body and Blood of Christ as heavenly food for the souls of men.  This is by virtue of Christ's own command who said:  "Unless you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood, you shall not have life in you." (Jn. 6.54) God in His infinite love of men, exhausts the very possibilities of His power in giving us Himself. That is why Catholic Churches are temples of the living God, because the living Christ dwells in the tabernacle on her altar under the appearances of bread and wine.  This is why Catholic priests are priests, because they offer up this same sacrifice for the people.  

Certainly since Christ was God, He had the power to change bread into His Body.  What nature by its ordinary powers could do, certainly He, the Author of nature, could do.  And if God could create the world out of nothing;  if Christ could turn water into wine, as He did at the marriage feast of Cana, why could He not if He so willed, change bread and wine into His own Body and Blood?  On the occasion of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the desert, the multitude that was there, having witnessed the great miracle, were in admiration at what Christ had done.  On that occasion Christ promised them that He would later on give them an even better food to feed upon.  "The bread which I shall give you," He said, "is my Flesh for the life of the world.  Unless you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood, you shall not have life in you." Many of the Jews that were there found this hard to believe.

"This is a hard saying," they said, and they walked away.  Christ knew what was in their minds.  He knew that they did not believe He had the power to do what He said He would do, give them His very Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink.  But though, He read their hearts and knew what was in their minds, He did not call them back.  He did not say: "Come back, my friends, I do not mean that I will give you my real Flesh to eat and my real Blood to drink.  I mean only that I shall give you bread that shall be a sign of my Body and wine that shall be a sign of my Blood."  No!  Christ did not call them back.  He allowed them to walk away.  Then turning to His Apostles, He asked: "Will you also go away?"  The Apostles however gave Him the answer that is the only answer mankind can give to Christ the Son of God:  "Lord, to whom shall we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal life."

The Jews themselves knew well what Christ meant. They understood them so well that they said:  "This is a hard saying.  How can any give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink?"  They would not believe that Christ was God, and even if He were God, He would be so good to men that He would give them His own Body and Blood for nourishment.  But the Apostles believed, and after the death of Christ, they did as He had commanded.  They took bread into their hands, and through the power He had given them as His ordained priests, changed it into the Body of Christ, pronouncing over it the exact words of Christ:  "This is My Body."  Taking wine in turn, they changed it into His Blood, saying the same as Christ had said:  "This is My Blood, which shall be shed for you unto the remission of sins."

From that day forward, on every Catholic altar from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the priest consecrates bread and wine and offers Christ's  living Body and Blood up to His heavenly Father, just as Christ had offered up that same Body and Blood on the Cross.  On the Cross Christ offered Himself up to His Father in a bloody manner;  on the altar Christ is offered up in an unbloody manner.  On the Cross Christ was offered up in reality and under the appearance of His own Body and Blood; on the altar under the appearance of bread and wine Christ is offered up as a sacrifice for man's sin but in the same reality of His own Flesh and Blood.  

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass after the priest has performed the consecration, the faithful approach the communion rail.  Communion for them does not mean however merely receiving a sign of Christ.  It means they are receiving Christ. It does not mean they are receiving an imitation of Christ, a type of Christ or a symbol of Christ.  It means they are receiving the living Body and Blood of our Lord in one exquisite moment of union with God, when the Son of God stoops down from the high heavens to give Himself as the kiss of peace to His earthly children.  The Church does not let the overwhelming generosity of the gift paralyze her faith in the Giver.  The goodness of God and the generosity of God should not be a stumbling block in the way of Man's salvation.  It becomes a stumbling block only when man with his small mind refuses to believe that God is so good and so generous.  We should rather expect an overwhelming gift from a divine lover, from Him of whom it was truthfully said:  "Greater love than this no man hath, than that he lay down his life for his fellowman."

You a non-Catholic and I a Catholic have similar tastes and similar needs because we are both human.  We do not want to be fed upon signs and symbols and figures and imitations.  We want and we need what the good God has been willing to give us, His own Flesh and Blood.  "Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you shall not have life in you," said Christ.  Hence when He further says:  "This is My Body;  this is My Blood.  Do this in commemoration of Me,"  the Church joyfully accepts the gift of Christ, she dispenses the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to the faithful and she adores the real presence of Christ upon her altars.  

The Holy Eucharist is rightly called the 'wine of virgins and bread of martyrs,' since millions of faithful Christians, nourished on this food, have risen to the heights of sanctity, millions have gladly endured the pains of martyrdom.

This then will be your privilege if you reenter the Church of your fathers.  Once again you will be able to approach and partake of the divine banquet God Himself has prepared for you.  This, the incredible gift of God to man, will again be yours. If there were naught else for you to receive, this in itself should be enough to urge you to hasten back home.