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A<bT SCI. 1'1 

THE EUCHARIST 
THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH 

REV. BEDE LEBBE, D.S.B. 





POPULAR LITURGICAL LIBRARY 

SERIES I No . 9 

THE EUCHARIST 
THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH 

BY REV. BEDE LEBBE, O .S.B. 

MONK OP THE A BB EY OF MARED SOUS 

THE LITURGICAL PRESS 

ST . JOHN'S ABBEY 

Co llegev i ll e, Minnesora 

1945 



NIHIL OBSTAT 

BASILIUS STEGMANN, O .S. B . 

Censor Librorum 

IMPRIMI POTEST 

+ALCUINUS DEUTSCH, O .S.B . 

Abbas S . ] oallllis Bapl . 

IMPRIMATUR 

+JOSEPHUS F . BUSCH 

Episcoptts S . Clodoaldi 

DIE 29 NOV EMBRIS, 1944 

COPYRIGHT 1945 

THE ORDER OF ST . BENEDICT, INC. 

COLLEGEVILLE, MINNESOTA 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION. THE PURPOSE OF THIS WORK 
How Can We Live by the Eucharist?-v 

CHAPTER I. THE EUCHARIST 

A. ITs INSTlTUTION- 1 
1. Its Connection with the Cross-1 
2. " In Memory of Me"-2 

3. The Eucharist, Means to an End-3 
4. The Sacrifice to the Father-4 

B. ITs PLACE IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH---6 
1. A Communal Act---6 
2. A Center of Unity- 7 
3. The Great "Means"-7 

CHAPTER II. THE EUCHARIST IN OUR LIVES 

A. THE SACRIFICE-9 
l. The Covenant- 9 
2. " By Him and with Him and in Him"-l0 

B. COMMUNION-lO 
l. Its Fundamental Work-ll 
2. Union- 12 
3. Spiritual Food- 22 

C. How IT OPERATES WITHIN Us- 24 
l. The Sacramental "Obex," Removal of 

the Obstacle-24 
2. Our Positive Work- 28 

D. THE EUCHARIST, LIFE OF THE CHURCH- 33 
l. The Church and Divine Worship- 33 
2. The Common Life of the Church-34 
3. The Church and the Sacraments-34 

CHAPTER III. SECONDARY ASPECTS OF EUCHARISTIC WOR-
SHIP 

l. The Worship of the Eucharist-37 
2. Its Manifestation- 39 
3. Its Usefulness-40 

CONCLUSION. A PLEDGE OF FUTURE GLORY-45 
I . 

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THE EUCHARIST, THE LIFE 

OF THE CHURCH 

INTRODUCTION 

There is no lack of books, and of good books, on the Eucharist. 

This little work does not seek to repeat what these have said; it is 

intended rather to serve as a supplement, or better still, as a preface. 

Ie is not a theological treatise, although I have felt obliged to 

make more frequent appeal to theology than is usual. We can never 

have toO much doctrinal precision at the basis of our piety, and , to 

maintain the healthy balance of our life, we must accustom our-

selves to put into practice and into love, what the Church makes 

known to us in her teaching. I shall , therefore, try to show how the 

doctrine of the Church on the Holy Eucharist can, and indeed must, 

guide, support and animate our devotion. 

It is not a treatise on the Mass, nor on Communion. Why should 

we so often separate what Christ has united in the institution of 

His Sacrament of Love? In dealing with the Eucharist, let us take 

it as it is, Mass and Communion, welded into one whole which con-

stitutes the food of our spiritual life. 

The need of giving a clear explanation of some of these points 

will lead to rather extensive developments, and perhaps to repeti-

tions; but there is, I think, no better way of throwing light on 

truths which are perhaps unfamiliar, than to look at them repeated-

ly, from varying angles . 

The remarks on some points of theory may appear rather sharp . 

Ie seems necessary to adopt this tone in order to accentuate the dif-

ferences . This does not mean that I take upon myself the right to 

stand in judgment of what the Church approves. Nor do I neces-

sarily condemn that which seems to me to call for some criticism. 

The Holy Spirit, who watches over the Church and over each one 

of her children, preserves pious souls from error, and the funda-

mental truths which lie even at the points of divergence have al-

lowed piety to find pasture where the direct simplicity of the divine 

Institution has been obscured by exaggeration or omission . The 

purpose of these remarks is, then, only to point out where piety 

may lead some souls to stray into paths diverging from the right 

road along which the simple and fruitful truths of our Catholic 

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faith should lead them. I think that, if these deviations were avoided, 

certain manifestations of adoration and of love (of whose sincerity 

there can be no doubt), would be rendered more pure and more con-

formed to the spirit of the institution of Jesus Christ. 
The whole aim of this work is to enlighten our souls and to 

draw practical conclusions from our beliefs; that is, to strengthen 

the logic and order of our piety, and so to make our spiritual life at 

the same time more comprehensive and more one. To do this, we 

must always come back to the essential thing: the Mass. It is true 

that we are left quite free as to our practices of devotion, our methods 

of preparation for, and of thanksgiving after, Communion. There 

are numberless manuals, full of helpful thoughts and prayers, and 

from this treasury each one may draw what he finds most useful. 

The effort of our prayer outside the Eucharistic sacrifice is good 
(visits to the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Hour, etc.), and for S€lme it 
may be necessary, as we shall show later. Nevertheless, the point 

I wish to stress is the fundamental disposition, the necessary char-
acter which our devotion towards the Blessed Sacrament must as-

sume. Before anything else, we must think qf union with Christ 
and His Church. Instead of making the Eucharist a matter of private 
devotion, a means of personal sanctification, we must venerate it, 
receive it, incorporate ourselves with it, that we may enter through 
it into the great stream of Catholic life, the life of the Church; it 
must be the consecration of our life, by each one in his own measure, 

to her interests, which are those most dear to God. It is during Mass 

that our prayer is directed towards union with God, and it is sup-
ported by this union in Communion; it then becomes a divine prayer, 
accepted by the Father as being the prayer of His Son. We are united 
by grace to His Spouse, the Church, and to our brethren; in a word, 
to His Mystical Body: "In His light we shall see light,"! and we 
are enabled to offer to God a worship ever more really based on our 

Faith- "your reasonable service. " 2 

1 P s. 35. 
2 Rom. 12, 1. 

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CHAPTER I 

THE EUCHARIST 

In order to get a true and complete idea of the fundamental 

role of the Holy Eucharist in our lives , we must first of all realize 

what it is . A simple statement of the facts which every Catholic 

believes and professes is enough, it seems to me, to make us under-

stand the place of the Eucharist in the whole of that New Order 

which our Lord came to establish on this earth, and whose organi-

zation and government He has entrusted to His Church. We shall 

thus at one and the same time establish our devotion on a solid basis 

and prepare for ourselves the way to a true Eucharistic life .' 

A. THE DIVINE INSTITUTION 
Let us first ask ourselves how our Lord instituted the Holy 

Eucharist, so that we may be able to grasp His whole idea and in-

tention, and thus understand the value of the Sacrament. 

Naturally, we shall make no deep study of the exegesis and 

theology of the Last Supper . Certain characteristic points suffice to 

show the direction of our thoughts . 

1. ITS CONNECTION WITH THE CROSS 

The Sacrament of the Bread and Wine has not its full meaning 

if we take it alone, apart from its context. The words: "Take and 

eat, this is My Body ... . this is My Blood ..... , even if explained by 

some verses from the sixth chapter of Saint John's Gospel, do noth-

ing more than offer us a support, an enrichment of our spiritual life, 

but with no definiteness, and no clear purpose . We must listen to 

the end: "Do this in memory of Me." At once the direction changes . 

We had thought the Holy Eucbarist to be for us, and now our Lord 

turns it towards Himself. It is for Him, according to His intention, 

that we must venerate it, and use it . The horizon has widened . This 

holy act is bound up with another, with the memory of the Master, 

which will set its seal upon it and give it all its value . The Euchar-

ist is a memorial, commemorating a definite act . In order to parti-

cipate in it to the full, we must turn our thoughts from ourselves to 

fix them on Jesus Christ and on the memory He has just recalled. 

When we receive Holy Communion apart from the Mass, at some odd 

I For a clear and solid explanation of this point see the splendid work of Ahhot 
Vonier: A Key Jo the dootrine of the Euchari8t. 

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hour of the morning, and follow it by a short thanksgiving which 

we make under the flag , so to speak, of the love of God, but still 

with an eye in the first place to our own little secondary human 

concerns, we are bound to forget that we must "do this in memory 

of Him." Can we even see, in this isolated act, what it is we are re-

calling? 

2. " IN MEMORY OF ME" 

The Apostles themselves did not understand this at once, be-

cause the event had not yet taken place . But we have no excuse for 

not recalling it, for not making it the governing principle of our 

whole attitude towards the Holy Eucharist. This remembrance 

must be, no doubt, that of our Savior's august Person itself, the 

memory of His life, spent for us, of the benefits which flowed un-

ceasingly from His Holy and Venerable Hands l and still more from 

His heart . But , above all, we remember the consummation of that 

life, the moment of His death, which He called " His Hour. " All 

His life had been consecrated to spreading the knowledge and love 

of His Father. His mission was and still is , to lead us to the Father. 

He wished to stress this ye t more at the solemn moment of His death : 

"That the world may know that I love the Father, and that I do 

the will of the Father . . . " CSt. John, 14, 31). And this is the love 

which has enkindled the world. Saint Paul, writing after the truth 

had shone forth for the Apostles, expressed it well in his simple 

but all-embracing phrase: "As often as you eat of this Bread and 

drink of this Chalice, you will show forth the death of the Lord 

till He come" (l Cor. 11, 26). 

The Apostles could not see this on the night of the Last Supper. 

But today we can see why, in order to recall the memory of His 

Death, in a symbolic but visible manner, to be easily understood, 

our Lord divided the gift of Himself, separating the giving of His 

Body from that of His Blood, at the same time pointing out their 

redeeming and life-giving properties. " This is My Body , given for 

you . . . My Blood, shed for the remission of sins." This act of Re-

demption was to be accomplished, once for all, upon the Cross; but, 

in memory and in imitation of the Master, the Apostles and their 

successors would represent His Death (in the true sense of the Latin 

word reprasentare- to make present again). They would gather its 

fruits, and at the moment of receiving that Body, given for them, 

they would give themselves to Him with ever more ardent love. 

1 Words accompanying the Consecratioll , in the Roman ri te: 

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In the works of God there are no conflicting interests . The 

Scripture says that "God has done all things for Himself" ( Prov. 

16, 4) ; yet Saint Paul could write to the Corinthians: "All the works 

of God are for you" ( 2 Cor. 4, 15), because our happiness is derived 

from the glory of God, and can be found only in Him. 

" By Thee, 0 Lord, may this sacrifice be hallowed, which 

Thou hast appointed to be in such wise offered up to the glory 

of Thy name, that it may remain to us for a healing medicine 

in all our ills " (Secret for 10th Sunday after Pentecost). 

The Holy Eucharist is offered for the glory of God, to render Him 

the homage which is His due, in memory of the offering of His Son, 

through which He received "all honor and glory." But this offer-

ing of the Son redeemed us, and through the Eucharist it continues 

to nourish our new life. 

The link between these two ends is our union with Christ, 

which is brought about by the Eucharist . In order to glorify His 

Father, not only without neglecting 'our happiness, but indeed by 

causing it, our Lord draws us to share His divine work and so makes 

of this Sacrament the sovereign good of our souls, the most perfect 

gift of His love . In it He has " loved us to the end" (St . John 13, 1). 

3. THE EUCHARIST, MEANS TO AN END 

The Last Supper cannot be explained without the Cross. Of it-

self it concludes nothing. It looks forward into the future, just as 

our celebration of it looks back into the past. It is a commemora-

tion, complete in itself only by what it represents. It is not the Pas-

sion, but it tends to the same purpose. It repeats it and continues 

to apply its divine efficacy. It would be nothing of itself, but it 

offers to the Church, and to each of us, a marvelous means of keep-

ing united to that source of life which is the Cross , and of maintain-

ing in our hearts those dispositions with which Jesus Christ offered 

for us, and in our name, His sacrifice to the Father. 

I have insisted on this point, because it has happened that, in 

order to celebrate the great gift of the Eucharist with more grati-

tude and fervor, some have fallen into dangerous excesses. "The 

Eucharist," it has been said, "precedes Calvary in point of time, 

and even of importance, and follows it up forever; so that Calvary 

is an episode of the Eucharist, and is inside the Institution ." This 

last assertion could with difficulty be cleared of the charge of heresy, 

and I hasten to add that the anonymous pamphlet in which it oc-

curs bears no editor's name and has never been put into public cir-
f 

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culation. I have, however, thought fit to quote it as one can see in 
it a reflection, magnified and distorted perhaps, of certain exaggera-
tions, which, in exalting the Mass, seem to put it in some way above 
the sacrifice of the Cross. 

There are contemporary authors who give to the Mass an almost 

exclusively sacrificial value and show, intentionally or not, a tend-

ency to lessen the value of the immolation of Calvary; to subordin-

ate Calvary to the Last Supper, even going so far as to assert that 

without the Last Supper the sacrificial character of the Cross would 

not be understood. But the Scriptures, the Liturgy and Tradition of 

the Church are unanimous in giving the first place, the uncontested 

supremacy, to the bloody sacrifice of Christ, by which He merited 

for us Redemption and grace. The effects and the constant applica-

tion of this sacrifice are quite another matter. This work is pro-
longed throughout the ages, from the Cross into Eternity, when, 

after the Judgment, the Son will restore to the Father the Church 

of His elect, so that henceforth "God may be all in all." 

The Eucharist, the supreme effort of Christ's love for us, is 

therefore, if we may so speak, but a preliminary step. It remains 
always a human benefit; I mean one adapted to the present condi-

tion of man; a material means, destined to supply our needs in this 

world. It will end with time. There is no place for the Eucharist in 

heaven . It has therefore but a relative value. It is a divinely ordained 

means to an end, but it is still only a means, and therefore must not 
be sought after for itself. Its purpose is to guarantee our complete 
and definite life, which is our return to our beginning-the Father. 

And how is this done? By uniting us to the Son, so that we take as 
our own His thoughts and feelings, abandoning all into His Hands, 
living as He did, "propter Patrem," for His Father and our Father 

(St. John 6). 

4. THE SACRIFICE TO THE FATHER 

We must now make more clear what were these dispositions of 

Christ of which we have spoken. His whole life was one act of adora-

tion and submission to the Father. Saint Paul, in the tenth chapter 

of the Epistle to the Hebrews, shows Him coming into the world 
and proclaiming His program. "Behold, I come; in the head of the 

Book it is written of Me, that I should do Thy Will, 0 God; sacri-
fice and oblation and holocaust for sin Thou wouldst not, neither 

are they pleasing to Thee . .. then I said: Behold I come to do Thy 

Will, 0 God" (Heb. 10, 7. 9). 

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One would like to recall here the visions of Saint Gertrude, so 
rich in imagery, and at the same time so profound in doctrine. She 

sees the Sacred Heart of our Lord, not yet as later visions will re-

present it, sadly inviting us to prayer and penance, but showing us 
how to adore. She sees it as a golden altar whereon is offered to the 

Father an acceptable sacrifice; as a harp, which, moved by the Spirit 

of God, sings His praises; a lamp, shining for His glory; a censor 
from which rises the perfume of adoration. 

All His life He was thus united to the will of His Father . We 
were already in Him, through His love, and He drew us with Him 

in His obedience. But this was still invisible, hidden in the intimacy 

of His life with the Father . The moment came when this offering 
became concrete, when He could prove to the world His obedience 

by immolating Himself to atone for the offences offered to the Fa-
ther ; when, at the same time, His holiness would be poured out 

upon us ; when His love for us would go to the extreme limit; when 

He would admit us into the sanctuary of His love, there to live and 

act as He did, to the glory of the Father. It was to sanctify us that 
He offered His Body and shed His Blood upon the Cross. " The will 

of the Father," says Saint Paul again, "has sanctified us forever by 
the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ" (Heb. 10, 10). The Cross 

was the sacrifice, the one sacrifice, visible and material- for all 

sacrifice must be material, it cannot be merely interior and personal, 
being of necessity a corporate and ritual act. He associated His 

Church with His sacrifice on the eve of it: " priusquam pateretuj ·. " It 

would have been too late to do so afterwards. While He offered us 
His Body and Blood to be our nourishment, all His love was poured 

out upon us, all His Will was to sanctify us, to identify us with 
Himself as co-sacrificers and co-sharers . And that there might re-

main no doubt, He willed that, as on Calvary, there should be an 
immolation, an anticipated manifestation of His Body offered and 

His Blood shed . He offered the representation of this Sacrifice, at 

once both symbol and reality, to which He gave all its value in 
commanding that it should be repeated after Him in memory of 
Him .l 

It is, therefore, only with reserve that we should make use of 
such expressions as: " Our Lord comes upon our altars to give Him-

self to us." This is true, but were we to stop there, the truth would 

not be complete, it would be but half a truth . It would seem to 

1 See Abbot Vonier, Skpwhes and Studies in The% "y, Lor.don 1940: Concepts of 
Commemoration and Immolation, pp. 62-72. 

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make of mankind alone the sole object of the Eucharist and to limit 

the marvels of Christ ' s love to the special personal benefits we de-

rive from it . He loved us, miserable sinners, with a boundless love . 

In spite of our unworthiness He comes to us, to pour into us the 

treasures of His Heart . It is our right and our duty to have recourse 

to this love in this Sacrament which He has so marvelously adapted 

to our human needs, and in which our heart's desire for love can 

find full satisfaction. But do not let us set limits to His divine in-

tentions; let us enter wholeheartedly into them and associate our-

selves generously with His work .l He comes to give Himself to us 

indeed, but it is that we may, with Him, give ourselves to the Fa-

ther. He does not come merely to form with us a contract of friend-

ship whose only effect would be the enjoyment of that friendship, 

and perhaps some personal benefit to our own soul. His intentions 

are far higher, and more beneficent. He comes to take possession of 

us, to di vinise us, to quicken and to steady our progress in the spi-

ritual life. He comes to teach us how to make of ourselves a sacrifice 

of adoration, a constantly repeated act of donation and of conform-

ity to the Father's will . Thus He will lead us to our true life, that of 

eternal glory. His work is not completed, and the Eucharistic offer-

ing is not a final res ting place. He comes to continue working with-

in us, that He may one day offer us with Himself to the Father. 

B. THE PLACE OF THE EUCHARIST IN THE 
LIFE OF THE CHURCH 

If, at the time, the Apostles were not able to understand the 

full significance of the great act, we can see nevertheless how, after 

our Lord had ascended intO heaven, they carried out what He asked 

them, with a sureness of tOuch which has fixed the practice of the 

Church for all time. 

l. A COMMUNAL ACT 

From the very first they gathered the faithful around them for 

the " Breaking of Bread." This was the repetition of the solemn 

meeting in the Cenacle . There is no ground for supposing that they 

ever celebrated in private. The Eucharist was the natural assembly 

of the young community. As the numbers of the faithful increased 

they grouped themselves 'by houses', but it was always among 

them, and for them, that the Apostles re-enacted the Sacrifice of 

Christ. 

1 See Abbot Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, pp. 362-365, and t he whole chap-
ter on the Sacred Heart (Sands & Co., 1924) . 

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2. A CENTER OF UNITY 

And this was natural. The Eucharist was the bond of their 

union . If, when but just converted, the first Christians formed a 
community welded together as a mutual affection and devotedness 

hitherto unknown, and if, for several centuries, this co=unity 

remained faithful to its traditions, so that even the pagans marveled, 

it was because they had taken as their rule of life the command-

ment of the Master: "Love one another as I have loved you." Now 

the great act of the love of Christ had been, and was still each day, 

His sacrifice offered for them, and now offered with them. Their 

union was the outcome of their union with Christ, which made 

them live for each other as He had lived for all. The same life ani-

mated the whole body, and this life was sustained by the Eucharist. 

3. THE GREAT "MEANS" 

And this it was that fixed the place of the Eucharist in their 

lives and continues unbroken the work of Christ-to lead us to the 

Father : "I am the Way." 

The early Christians understood this. Their love of Jesus Christ 

was full of the ardor of youth, their belief in His divinity clear and 

unshakable . But never in their Eucharistic piety do we see anything 

that could be considered as worship of Christ. I mean a worship 

which turned their thoughts and their practice principally and 

finally to the adoration of Christ as the end and purpose of the Eu-

charistic sacrifice . The name of "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" 

given to God is already frequent in the writings of Saint Paul. Prim-

itive Liturgies give thanks to the Father for the gift of His Son. 

"We give Thee thanks for Thy Holy Son . .. for the holy Vine of 

David." They thank Him for having united, in Christ, mankind, 

who had been scattered like the grains of wheat of which is made 

the Eucharistic Bread . But these prayers which breathe forth such 

love for the Son always end by recalling the incommunicable glory 

of the Father. "For Thine, 0 Father, is the glory .. .. .. They can-

not tarry on the road. Christ is the Way; their journey, sustained 

by the Sacrament, must end by bringing them to the Father. 

And, on the other hand, how well the early Christians under-

stood that Christ gave Himself to them under this simple form to 

facilitate their intimacy with Him. With what loving familiarity 

do they not treat the Eucharist . Not only do they take it into their 

hands, they kiss it, they lift it to their eyes before partaking of it, 

they carry it to their homes for the days when they will be unable 

to assist at the celebration of the holy Mysteries. Later they will 

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adopt the practice of bearing it about with them or on their persons 

as a protection . Saint Benedict ordered the sacred Host to be placed 

as a sign of forgiveness and blessing upon the body of a young monk 

WHO died outside his monastery in an act of disobedience. The old 

French epic of the Aliscans tells of the first Communion of little 

Vivien, during the terrible battle against the Saracens . His uncle, 

the noble COUnt William of Orange, has carried the boy, mortally 

wounded, to the shade of a tree, and kneeling beside him he says: 

"I have here in my wallet some of the Bread, consecrated by the 

priest at the Mass; wouldst thou not taste of it?" 

No, they did not look upon the Eucharist only as an object of 

adoration, nor as the end or termination of anything whatsoever. 

It was theirs, given to them that they might sanctify themselves 

through Christ. It was to accompany them throughout their lives 

and afterwards open to them the gates of the kingdom of heaven . 

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CHAPTER II 

THE EUCHARIST IN OUR LIVES 

I should like to return to this fundamental idea concerning the 

Eucharist, to show that it is the life of our life. "Vivere D eo de Deo," 

to live for God by God; by the God of the Eucharist for the God of 

heaven to whom the Eucharist, that is to say, the Mass, renders a 

perfect worship. 

A. THE SACRIFICE 
Just as sacrifice is the supreme and principal act of all religion, 

so the Holy Mass is the most important act in the life of the Church 

and of all Christians . Its influence would, therefore, be felt through-

out our whole life. It is not enough to assist with respect and devo-

tion when it is offered in our churches, and then to draw near to the 

Holy Table in another supremely important act, but one which is 

after all, quite different. It cannot but be harmful thus to break the 

unity of the Institution. It turns us aside from the right road. 

There are two moments of the Mass I should like to stress, as 

they lose their full value for us when we look upon Mass and Com-

munion as two distinct actions , even if we do succeed in including 

one within the other in point of time. 

1. THE COVENANT 

At the most solemn moment of the Consecration, the Church 

puts upon our lips words which seem full of mystery . Although 

inspired by the Gospels and the Epistles of Saint Paul, they do not 

form part of the actual Gospel narrative, and this very fact shows 

how gn;:at is the importance which the Church, our Mother and 

Mistress, attaches to them. "This is the Chalice of My Blood, of the 

new and eternal Covenant ." 

We cannot doubt that these last words refer to the first Mosaic 

Covenant made by God with the Jewish people and sealed by the 

blood of the sacrifices offered on Mount Sinai. To assist at Mass is, 

therefore, to be witness to an act of alliance, and that not merely as 

a spectator. It is to accept the new and eternal alliance which, through 

Jesus Christ, the Father concludes with redeemed man, a Covenant 

which is to last forever. 

Now the making of the alliance includes two fundamental ideas: 

the agreeme!1J: to work for the common good of the contracting 

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parties, and a guarantee given by some accepted pledge. The common 

interest here is God 's glory. To assist at Mass is to assent to the act 

of Christ who sanctifies mankind by consecrating it to the service of 

the Father. As for the pledge, God has already given it. As in the 

first Covenant, He has given the pledge of blood, the Blood of His 

only Son. But we, we have nothing. We can but receive Christ, and 

unite ourselves with Him, and then offer Him, and ourselves with 

Him, so that we can give a pledge equal in value to that of our 

Partner. 

The Mass thus requires Communion to give it its meaning as 

an act of religion, as an act of divine worship. 

2. " BY HIM AND WITH HIM AND IN HIM" 

The Canon of the Mass ends on a note of triumphant and joyful 

homage . We, poor creatures, finite and imperfect, using the words 

th e Church puts on our lips , declare with assurance that we give to 

God , "to Thee, 0 Father Almighty . .. all honor and glory." How 

is this possible? Solely as the Church says: "By Him and with Him 

and in Him"- in Him, the Christ, the Eucharist which the pries t 

holds in his hands as he utters these bold words. 

Who , then, does not realize that in or4er to pay this homage 

in order to fulfill, as we now see we can fulfill, our last end, which 

is to render to God a fitting honor and worship, we must be really 

one with Christ? 

And here again the Church leads us to Communion. What we 

say with the priest, we must realize in ourselves, we must unite 

ourselves to Christ by communion in the same sacrifice. l 

B. COMMUNION 
And now we have reached the moment for which every loving 

heart has been longing, the consummation of the Sacrifice. All that 

we have said and heard and seen during the Mass is about to take 

place in our souls . The Mystery of Redemption and Sanctification is 

about to enter into our life. 

S ancti, venite, Christi corpltS s1lmite 

Sanct1lm bibentes q1l0 redempti sang1linem. 2 

What, then, are the fruits, what the significance of Communion? 

I The prayer after the Consecration, "Supplices te rogamus," is very clear on 
t his point : "We most humbly beseech Thee ... that so many of us as a t t his Altar 
shall partake of and receive the most holy Body and Blood of Thy Son m ay be filled 
with p.very benediction and grace." 

2 Come, saints of God (that is, t he faithful ), receive the Body of Christ, drink 
the precious Blood which has ransomed you (Hymn of t he old Irish Church before 
Communion). . 

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1. ITS FUNDAMENTAL WORK 

We receive the Eucharist in the form of food . Throughout the 

ages the Fathers of the Church and all spiritual writers have vied 

with one another in emphasizing the difference between this food 

and material food; whereas we assimilate the latter, transforming 

it into our substance, the Eucharist transforms us into itself. 

Let us try to grasp this doctrine in its simple and literal mean-

ing . 

The natural utilitarianism of our piety often makes us see in 

this assimilation to Christ a reception of grace with a view to the 

helping on of our spiritual life. But this life is looked upon chiefly 

as a system of virtues to be acquired by a laborious asceticism . In 

this view, one would communicate in order to become more perfect, 

or to remain fervent . Is it an exaggeration to say that this perfec-

tion, although subjected to God's commandments, is nevertheless 

considered as on a human plane; that it is chiefly the human virtues, 

justice, chastity, courage, which we put in the forefront and which 

we seek to strengthen by means of divine grace (when indeed we 

do not give the first place in our minds to petitions for temporal 

favors)? 

Naturally, these virtues are far from negligible things, and the 

Eucharist remains the most powerful means of strengthening us in 

our struggle to obtain them. But to begin by that, often to limit 

oneself to that, is to make of it a means analogous to prayer, spring-

ing, no doubt, from a source of infinitely superior efficacy, but still 

a means towards the same kind of effect . 

The action of the Sacrament is far deeper. The special graces we 

seek from it, and which we are justified in expecting from it, are 

but the overflow from an outpouring of more essential grace; they 

are the final effect, but not the cause which produces them. By Bap-

tism we have been raised to a new nature, to the supernatural order. 

We have been brought into the divine life through our adoption in 

Christ Jesus. This first sacrament obliges us to live "as gods"; that 

is to say, for God, and in a manner worthy of God. But it gives us 

the right to find in the other sacraments the graces which sustain, 

form , develop and restore the new nature according to which we 

should think and act. In this sacramental system the Eucharist is a 

divine help given to our divinised life . This help is in itself but an 

infusion of sanctifying grace such as every sacrament produces . The 

Eucharist rq ches the inner depths of the soul; our life is intensified 

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and strengthened, our transformation into Christ is furthered, and 

grace produces in us acts conformed to His life. 
Now let us understand this by turning our thoughts towards 

the Sacrifice during which we have received the Eucharist. In it 

Jesus offers Himself to God for us . He makes it the supreme act of 
His life for the Father. Our participation, made complete by Com-

munion, must make us live by Christ and for Christ-that is, it must 
enable us to accomplish His mission with Him by making us cap-

able of " divinised" acts, acceptable to the Father, whose children 

we have become, and by giving us the strength to put into practice 
our firm resolution of living for Him, of seeking "first the kingdom 
of heaven . ", 

2. UNION 

(a) Twofold Fruit of the Sacraments. 

It is well to remind ourselves here that, in the soul that puts 

no obstacle in the way, every sacrament produces, ex opere operato, 

that is, of itself, a double effect. 
First, it confers or increases sanctifying grace, as we have just 

shown. We have explained how, in the Holy Eucharist, this is as 

much as to say that it perfects in us the likeness of Christ, the divine 
nature infused into us by Baptism, and enables us to act ever more 

conformably to our dignity as members of Christ. 
But the Sacrament has also a second effect. The first is common 

to all the sacraments, the second special, differing for each. It is the 
very purpose of its institution; for, if there are seven sacraments, 

and not one only, it is precisely with a view to these specific graces 

destined to help us in the various aspects of our Christian life. It is, 
therefore, often called sacramental grace; but it is in fact the same 

sanctifying grace, but producing a special effect. A fresh air cure 

1 The words of our Lord, quoted hy Saint John (6, 58), are given in the Douai 
version as: propter me, thus making the almost inevitable choice between the two 
causalities which the Greek preposition dia includes: the efficient cause, "by Me," 
as well as the final cause "for Me." The Westminster version renders the words "be .. 
cause of Me" which com hines the two meanings. So also does the English transla -
tion of the commentary of Cornp.lius a Lapide, though the explanation given by 
the latter (avors the idea of "by Me," i.e., the efficient cause. The comparison which 
precedes these words in the Gospel: "As the Father has sent Me, and I live for (or 
by) the Father" (di'auton in the Greek), can, and must, in some measure, be taken 
in both ways. Christ lives t he life of His Father by His Father, but He lives also 
to do His Father's will, for His Father. It seems to me that we are justified in con-
cluding from this fact that the effect of the Eucharist is in the same manner to as-
similate our lives to that of Christ in relat ion to the Father. Henceforth we live by 
Him, and sbould live for Him. But if the choice has absolutely to be made between 
the two renderings Hby Me" or "for Me," the context would lead us to prefer "(or 
Me," because the comparison used by our Lord refers to the mission He has re .. 
ceived from the Father, which is to procure the Father's glory. He came into this 
world and lived in it, only Hfor" His Father. 

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strengthens the general health; but in one district it is more bene-

ficial ro the heart, in another ro the nerves. All who have profited 

by the fresh air experience a general improvement; but the one re-

turns with a sounder heart, the other with calmer nerves . Is this 

particular effect an habitual grace entitling the soul ro receive the 

special helps offered by the sacrament? Or is it simply a succession 

of actual graces? The question is disputed by theologians, and I 

think that, for the development of practical devotion, it has little 

importance. 

(h) Graces of Charity Produced hj- the EttCharist. 

What is important here, and it is a point ro which we can never 

give roo much attention, is that the special effect of the most blessed 

Sacrament of the Eucharist is an increase of charity; that is, of the 

love of God. It is in very truth the sacrament of love, the supreme 
proof of the love of Christ for us, and the most powerful means of 

enkindling in us a return of love. 

Divine charity is always present in our souls ( though often 

more or less dulled) , whenever we are in a state of grace. It follows 

necessarily on sanctifying grace, and it increases by the infusion of 

this grace at each Communion . But more than this, the Sacrament 

makes it operative within us, enabling us ro perform acts of love. It 

is no more a question of a simple general disposition ro will what 

God wills; by this wonderful grace, if we are ready to cooperate 

with it, our soul is lovingly directed towards God, it sees better 

His beauty and goodness, it seeks His friendship. It finds in Him 

its repose and happiness . Each well-made Communion is thus fol-
lowed by acts of love, of gratitude, submission, of desire and of de-

light in God. God is nearer to us, and our life is illuminated and 

strengthened by what Saint Thomas calls " the enjoyment of spi-

ritual sweetness." 

This expression, however, must not deceive us. There may be 

in all this none of that sensible sweetness for which we are so eager 

and to which we attach too great a value. We may sometimes think 

-perhaps often-that we are cold and indifferent, that our commun-

ion has not been fervent, and yet we have made these acts of love 

of which we have just spoken . The fervor of this love does not con-

sist in feelings, although it may flow over into them, and so become 

'sensible'. It lies essentially in the will which tends more strongly 

and ardently towatds God, it longs for Him above all else, and rests 

peacefully in Him as one rests when one has found a treasure . The 

soul desires nothing better than to abide with Him, to enjoy Him, 

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that is, to use for God the graces received, to live henceforward in 

conformity to God's will as a true child and friend of God. It is, 

therefore, by its fruits- by the greater purity and docility of our 

lives, by our zeal in the fulfilment of our duties, by our placing God 

above all else-that we can judge of the reality of the love within 

us. Acts of virtue are made more easily, and the most ordinary ac-

tions of the day are performed for God , who has thus enkindled in 

us the fire of His love. 

ee) Union. 
This transformation by love into the likeness of Christ whom 

we have received in the Sacrament is also called by another name: 

Union-·Union with Christ . 

Whatever may be the material oneness resulting from the act of 

Communion, we must nevertheless understand this union in its 

spiritual sense. The word too easily awakes in our minds the pic-

ture of two friends who rejoice in each other 's company, who spend 

their hours of work and of leisure together, and is never thought of 

apart from the joyful emotion of friendship. But between Christ and 

ourselves all is spiritual, and if this spiritual union may, as it often 

does, bring about a sensible joy, this is merely a secondary thing . 

It may not be felt, but this does not make the union less real or less 

fruitful. The essential thing is the spiritual union by which we de-

liberately will to think and act as Christ thought and acted. To be 

united to God and to His Christ means, therefore, to feed our minds 

on the truths He has revealed to us; to form our thoughts to a life 

of Faith; to meditate on the divine perfections, on the marvels of the 

divine life unv ei led for us by Christ in the mystery of the Trinity; 

on the unfathomable goodness of God shown in our creation, in the 

Incarnation, in the whole life of the Church. It means , to fill our 

hearts with the contemplation of His beauty, of His glory, of His 

greatness. It is to think as Christ thought on all the questions of 

public and private life, on religion, family, justice, on all human 

intercourse, on happiness and sorrow, on our duties and on our joys . 

It is to will what He willed, to approve of that which He has told 

us is good, and to seek and to spread His kingdom; to love those 

He loves, to interest ourselves in them, to overcome ourselves daily 

in order to serve Him better. In a word, it is to seek and fulfil the 

will of God in all things. 

All this can be done, and is often done, in our souls without 

our experiencing any sensible joy. Father Mateo Crawley-Bovey, 

in a book which is the echo of his burning eloquence, complains : 

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"I protest angrily against those who say that all love is sentimen-

tality. "1 It is by our works that our love is to be recognized, not 

by the joy which that love may bring us . 

It would be well , then, to explain this word sentimentali~y once 
and for all. Its meaning is clear, but its application is often elusive. 

Without wishing to define it, one could reach a fairly accurate ex-

planation by saying that a sentiment or feeling is the movement of 

sensibility (fear, love, etc.) confronted by a real object presented to 

it by reason. Sentimentality, on the other hand, flings itself into 
emotion without seeking to justify itself by either reality or reason. 

This distinction is especially marked- but with most important 

results-in matters of religion. True sentiment must rest on Faith. 

Sentimentality, without definitely excluding Faith, has no recourse 

to it, but feeds itself on side issues appealing to the senses and to 

human emotions. Sentiment needs truth to enable it to develop; 

sentimentality prefers the striking picture, the exciting exaggera-

tion. On the subject of the Eucharist, with which we are here con-

cerned, we find a harassing insistence on its sensible and human 

aspect . " The Mass," we are told, " does not speak to the heart"-

we want to go back to the human Christ, to His human heart, to 

His natural affections, to the sufferings of His mortal life which we 

look upon as being lived through again in the Tabernacle, and it 

is on such ideas that we base our love and our devotion. 2 

This is to take the wrong road. We cannot love God, nor even 

Jesus Christ, in the same way as we love men . The latter have pas-

sible bodies through which their impressions pass to the soul. They 

suffer, they are hurt by other men and by exterior circumstances . God 

is pure Spirit and the glorified Christ cannot suffer either in His 

body or in His soul. The remembrance of His past sufferings must 

arouse our emotions, make us feel our unworthiness and our ingra-

titude; but our love for Him must go beyond this . From the feelings 

we must pass to the oblation of the will, and not forge t the latter 

in the tumult of our sighs and groans. 

If our love afterwards finds an outlet in the feelings and takes 
hold of our heart of flesh , so much the better; there is no danger in 

1 F. Mateo Crawley-Bovey: Jesus, King of Lv.<. Third edition, 1939. 
2 See, for instance, the chapter beaded : "Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament" in 

Father Mateo's The King of Love. In it the author represents our Lord as suffer-
ing and humiliated in the Tabernacle. (There is no question of Holy Mass.) " The 
Tabernacle is still the prison of H oly 'Thursday. Surely the darkest and most ter-
rible amongst the darkest hours of J esus are those He spent during t he Agony in 
the Garden, and those of His Eucharistic life." (The italics are mine.) And yet next 
to t his are such excellent chapters-for example, on Faith and the Spirit of Truth. 
If only this latter doctrine were applied throughout the whole book! 

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that . But sentimentality tends to make us stop at the emotion of 

human love for the Man, Christ Jesus. 

It may be thought that certain theologians, such for example 

as Dam Graham,' are too dry and cold; but one can understand the 

reactions of a serious mind against the floods of sentimentalism. 

There is enough in self-oblation, in th e need to lose ourselves in God, 

to render Him love for love, in the contemplation of His greatness 

and of the ineffable mercy of the intercession of Jesus Christ , and in 

the grand and simple yet complete memorial of His Passion-to 

satisfy a heart hungry for love, a heart which longs only to love and 

to make love its li fe. 

We can say in another way that this union, effected by the Sac-

rament, is brought about hy an increase in the theological virtues 

of Faith and Charity. They are called theological, that is divine, 

because, unlike the moral virtues, which a momen t ago I called 

. human' , they ha ve God Himself for their object. They unite us 

directly to Him. The moral virtues perfect our human qualities and 

only enter into our new life, our supernatural life, when attuned to 

that life; that is, when made fruitful by grace and directed towards 

God as a means of imitating our Savior, and of forming His image 

in ourselves. 

The first thing, then, that we must do in our Communions is to 

unite ourseh 'es to Christ by Faith and Love . We must make these 

two virtues our chief aim and seek with a firm will and ardent love 

to adhert to God hy Faith and to increase in Charity . To soul s thus 

united to Him, God will naturally give the special graces of th e vir-

tues, the particular help and support called for hy our dai ly needs . 

This, then, is the union brought about by the Eucharis t. It 

gives grace to will and to und erstand as Christ did, to know and 

love Him better . Proofs are not wanting to show that this is the 
special purpose of the Sacrament. There is, in the first place, the 

outward sign itself. The Eucharist is given to us in the form of food; 

that is , by assimilation, which is the most perfect form of union be-

tween natural substances. Hence its name: Communion. Then there 
is the ceremonial rite. Into the liturgical setting of each sacrament 
the Church has introduced prayers and ceremonies which open the 

mind and dispose the heart for the reception of each special grace . 

In the case of the Eucharist, the abbreviated ceremonies of a Low 

Mass, and still more, of Communion distributed apart from the 

I Dom FIred Graham, The Love oj God. London, 1935. 

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Mass, do not always enable us to see these signs. But of old, th e full 

Eucharistic rite included the offering by the faithful of the bread 

and wine destined for the Sacrifice. In this act the people showed 

that their gift, representing themselves, would be changed into 

Christ. Even today, the mingling of the water with the wine and 

the marvelous prayer which accompanies this act express still more 

clearly the truth of our union with Christ. The kiss of peace which 

precedes the Communion, the movement of the worshippers advanc-

ing side by side to the Holy Table, all remind us that we must , by 

and in this Sacrament, unite ourselves to our brethren, as we shall 

later explain at greater length. 

Cd) Duration of the Sacramental Action in the Soul. 

At what moment does the Sacrament produce grace in our souls? 

How long do the special effects of this grace last? These may seem 

to be but idle questions; but they have a repercussion in practice 

which should not be overlooked. Inaccurate ideas may lead either 

to scruples or to superstition. These inaccuracies may not be import-

ant in themselves; they do not endanger our piety; but they do pre-

vent us from co-operating with grace as fully as we could do if our 

judgment were more sound. We commit no fault; but we fail to ga-

ther from the Sacrament all the fruit we could. 

The grace of the Sacrament is produced in our souls at the mo-

ment we "eat" the sacred Host, since the complete sign is the feed-

ing of our souls. The objection has been raised that just as the mere 

fact of eating does not suffice to nourish us, so, in the spiritual order, 

the production of grace must continue so long as the Sacred Species 

remains within us . This comparison, however, does not hold good. 

To press home an analogy between material and spiritual life often 

leads to impossible consequences . It is true that our material food 

does not nourish us at the moment we eat it , but only after a long 

period of digestion. To compare the action of the Eucharist to this 

physiological process would lead us to say that the action of grace 

is only felt after the destruction of the species, that is, after the dis-

appearance of the Rea l Presence- a view which no one would admit. 

We say we have eaten or received food when we have not only taken 

it into our mouths but have swallowed it. 

It is clear, then, that if the Sacred Host had been placed into 

the mouth, but could not be swallowed, and had been rejected, there 

would be no Communion , and no production of sacramental grace. 

Therefore it is a mistake, or should I say, merely childish, to wish 

to keep the Host a long time in the mouth, as though some special 
( 

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grace were thus prolonged. To show their respect and their love for 

the Eucharist, the early Christians, as we have said, held the Host 

to their eyes and their lips; but directly afterwards they put it into 

their mouths and swallowed it. 

We must now see the counterpart of this doctrine . Once pro·· 

duced in the soul, how long does the sacramental grace remain? 

We are not here speaking of the profit we derive from Com-

munion in the fervor, the grearer fidelity, which has been its fruit. 

It is with a view to such things that we approach all the sacraments, 

for which we undertake any work of piety; they constitute our spi-

ritual progress. They are not sacramental grace, but the result of 

co-operation with that grace . Neither are we dealing with the in-

crease of sanctifying grace. By its very nature this is infused into 

out souls without limit of time, and can be lost only by mortal sin. 

The point upon which all do not agree is the duration within 

us of th e special grace of the Sacrament, its particular effect, which 

consists chiefly in establishing a living union between ourselves and 

Jesus Christ. r think that, even here, there would be little hesita-
tion if some theologians had not wished to ser up a certain relation 

of casuality, arising from coincidence of nme, between the Real 

Presence and sacra mental grace. It is not possible, they say, that 

this intimate contact with the sacred humanity of our Savior should 

not be for us a source of grace. Therefore they think that as long as 

the sacramental species remain within us, they continue ro produce 

grace. I cannot but see in this opinion a confusion between actual, 

ordinary and accidental graces on the one hand, and sacramental 

grace on the other, and even between the Real Presence and this 

same sacramental grace. Yet all agree that the Real Presence is 

Christ, God and Man, Body and Soul, substantially present under 

the species. It is brought about by the words of consecration; begins 

as soon as these have been pronounced, and ends with the disap-

pearance or destruction of the species. The grace or action of the 

Sacrament is a quite different rhing: it is the divine action of Christ, 

that is the communication of the divine life to the soul in greater 

or less measure, and not simple accidental or actual graces of in-

creased fervor. It is effec.ted when we receive the Sacrament, and 

only then. The accidents or species which are the necessary support 

of tbe Real Presence are the means by which the sacramental grace 

is given to us . But that this grace may be produced, the complete 

reception of the Sacrament is necessary; we must communicate. It is at 

the moment we receive the Eucharist, and only by this very definite 

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and limited action, that this grace is conferred . Mere contact with 

the sacred species, however close it may be, has no power to pro-

duce sacramental grace. 

And this is the point on which the theologians disagree. It 

seems, however, perfectly clear to me, that at the very moment we 

receive Communion the sacramental grace is given us in full. The 

species remain within us only as a consequence of natural laws. They 

have fulfilled their essential role, and could disappear without de-

priving the soul of the graces of sanctification it has sought in the 

Eucharist, that spiritual presence of Christ which is the sacramental 

grace. This, of its nature, once received remains with us always . If 
we regulate the time spent within us (and we little know how long 

that is), we risk being drawn into mere imagination and sentimen-

talism . This contact with the species does not differ from that of 

the Host upon our tongues; there is no essential difference between 

it and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, or, if we prefer, the great 

privilege enjoyed by the priest who can hold the sacred Host to his 

breast as he carries it to the sick; and still more, when he takes it 

in his hands at the Mass, or when he distributes Holy Communion. 

This contact, tbis nearness of the sacred humanity, cannot, if we 

are attentive and devout, but bring us actual and passing graces; 

but it does not constitute the reception of the Sacrament . These 

actual graces consist especially in a greater recollection, due to the 

tbought of God so close to us; they act chiefly on the imagination, 

but they are not the sacramental grace, which, we repeat, is only 

produced by the act of communicating. Therefore, to attach too 

much importance to the preservation of the sacred species in us is 

to think more of an accidental, sensible and material contact than 

of the vital grace with which we must co.1laborate, and which is 

purely spiritual. 

Therefore, to put tbe matter in another way, we may consider 

the special fruit of the Eucharist to be either a habitual grace, or a 

succession of actual graces. If we reduce it to the latter, we must 
say that they are bestowed upon us according to our needs, and they 

are bestowed in virtue of the Sacrament; that is, of the outward 

sign, as Christ instituted it. "Take and eat, this is My Body." Why, 

then, should the prolongation of the Real Presence be their cause? 

One might as well attribute them to a visit to the Blessed Sacra-

ment, or to the carrying of a consecrated Host. The Sacrament is 

received by eating, not by a mere contact, even interior. The dura-

tion of the grace in the soul depends only upon its own nature . If, 
I 

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on the other hand, sacramental grace is nothing else than sanctify-

ing or habitual grace but producing a special effect, it cannot be lost 

except by sin, and is not limited by time or by any other agent than 

the will of man. l 

There are, to my mind, other strong reasons for denying that 

the duration of the sacramental grace is connected with that of the 

Real Presence in our souls. 

(1) If the effect of this grace is not indefinite and unlimited in 
duration, what is true of the Eucharist must be true of the other 

sacraments. But what sets the limits for these? Is it the character, 

that ineffa hle mark upon the soul, which gives us a perpetual right 

to the graces of the Sacrament? But only three sacraments set this 

seal on the soul. What can pllt a limit to the special grace of Matri-

mony, or of Extreme Unction, and especially of Penance, which can 

be so frequently repeated? 

(2) One is often led to absurd conclusions. The strength or 

weakness of digestion of the communicant and also the size of the 

hosts would of themselves determine the duration of grace in the 

soul.2 In the rather frequent case of an invalid who rejects the sacred 

species almost immediately after communion, the patient would be 

deprived of the special grace of the Sacrament. 

0) Finally, the effect of the Eucharist would be limited to 
showing us the way, to clearing the path, imparting to our life of 

union its first movement only. The rest would be our own work, 

and would no longer come under the causal influence of the Sacra-

ment. Our Eucharistic life would be confined to the passing acts of 

the morning, to the time of preparation, reception and thanksgiving. 8 

After this the sacramental grace would be withdrawn until the next 

Communion . 

How mllch more worthy of Divine Providence, how much more 

in keeping with the very nature of the sacraments, is that full sacra-

mental life of which we have been speaking. Springing from a living 

fountain, it is ever in contact with the permanent "deifying" action 

of grace in our souls. 

I shall, for the moment, only point out one result of this. "Spi-

ritual Communion," a practice so fruitfuJ and so often recommended 

to us, should be not merely an act of our will, a desire, a longing; 

1 Dom Marmion Christ the Li/e 0/ the Soul. "Panis Vitae," p. 281. 
2 Tanquerey, Synopsis, t . III de Eucharistia, does not hesitate to admit this. 
a In fact, sacramental union has been spoken of as consisting of "a few fleeting 

instants." P. Canice, Mary, a Study of the Mother o/God," p . 172. 

-2cr-



it can and should be a renewal of the grace of the Eucharist still 
living in us. Its efficacy is divine, arising from our participation in 

the Passion of Christ, through our reception of the Sacrament. Would 

not this thought urge us to multiply our spiritual communions? 

We are, it is true, encouraged to receive Communion daily. 

This may make us think that it is necessary to give, as it were, some 

new impetus to sanctifying grace, to enable it to renew in us the 

special effects of the Eucharist. The expression must be forgiven, 

for how can I define what tomorrow's Communion has to renew in 

the soul that has communicated today, since it is recognized that 

the fundamental grace of the Sacrament is still present? I do not 

speak of the analogy so often drawn with our daily meals . It has 

always seemed to me defective, for who is content with but one 

meal a day? The reasons for frequent Communion must be sought 

elsewhere, and I think that they are not hard to find. 

(1) Sanctifying grace is still ours, indeed, but it is increased 
by each Communion, and at the same time the special effects of which 

we have spoken are increased. Although there may be no necessity, 

no pressing need to multiply our Communions, surely our love would 

urge us to draw ever more close the bonds of our union with Jesus 

Christ, and so to develop His life within us. 

(2) We must collaborate with grace in order to receive its 

specific fruit. But our fervor soon grows cold, it evaporates, our 

good dispositions are apt to wither away. The external act of Com-

munion reanimates them, and with the active co-operation comes a 

renewed influx of grace . 

(3) The Real Presence of Christ in our souls after Communion 
revives our reverence and our devotion, just as we pray hetter before 

the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar. It is not for nothing that 

the sacraments are sensible sings. Our piety often needs a stimulant, 

and we can derive great profit from such. They are only harmful 

when used to excess, or when we stop there, when we consider that 

the sensible joy we experience is the real fruit of the sacrament, or 

that our Communions are good in proportion to the happiness they 

bring us. 

(4) In this sense, too, our devotion, which Saint Thomas 

calls a "spiritual delectation" and which in his opinion is one of 

the effects of the Sacrament, is greater in the moments after Com-

munion, during our thanksgiving. We must not neglect this, for it 

may be an efficacious help in our spiritual life. , 
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(5) Finally, one of the effects of the Sacrament is to remit 

venial sins . As we fall into these every day, this alone should make 

us eager for our daily Communion. 

From these few points, it is clear that the arguments in favor 

of frequent Communion are chiefly on the side of man, not on that 

of God, nor drawn from the efficacy of the Sacrament itself. Hence 

arises the paradox, so often noted by spiritual writers, that a fervent 

soul who continues to co-operate with the grace received has less 

need of frequent Communion than one who is tepid. Saint Theresa, 

too, says somewhere that a single Communion should suffice to 

make one a saint, not taking into consideration the increase of 

sanctifying grace produced by each repeated Communion, as has 

been said. 
If Christ had not bidden us: " Do this in memory of Me," we 

would scarcely understand why the Church so insistently urges us 

to daily Communion . But Communion is part of the commemorative 

Sacrifice, an act which must be often renewed, to perpetuate the 

memory of Christ's Passion . For us, in our human life, cut up as it 

is into "days," to renew often has come to mean daily. We might 

even wonder why Communion is not allowed more than once daily, 

for example, during each Mass we hear.l The Council of Trent urged 

that all who assist at Mass should communicate, not merely spirit-

ually, but by the actual reception of the Sacrament' This recom-

mendation must naturally be taken in conjunction with the restric-

tion upon priests to celebrate but one Mass a day, which, for most 

people, settles the question. Nevertheless, I have often wondered if 

there were not a certain inconsistency in the Christmas celebration 

of three different Masses, at two of which the faithful may not com-

municate . 

3. SPIRITUAL FOOD 

We must now say a word about the different effects of the Sac-

rament in what is called the work of our spiritual life, although the 

subj ect is fully dealt with by all Catholic spiritual writers, who 

usually follow Saint Thomas, and treat of them under the analogy 

of material food. 

We have often repeated that, in practice, it is a good thing to 

remember the origin of these effects. Instead of seeing in them so 

1 From another point of view, Canon Law recommends all the faithful who are 
in danger of death to recei ve Holy Viaticum, even if they have communicated in 
the morning. 

2 Sess. XXII, Chap. 6. 

-22-



many separate benefits, let us rather seek to draw from the Eucharist 

an increase of life, a stronger and more vital union with Christ, 

raising our thoughts to a higher plane that we may the better up-

root our vices and increase the growth of our virtues. 

The special effects of the Eucharist may be grouped under three 

heads: 

(a) Purification. 

Whether it be a question of our personal sins, or of evil inclina-

tions more or less inherent in the soul, the contact with the most 

pure Body of the Son of God must be a purifying force, detaching 

us from all that is base as well as from what is actually blameworthy, 

and enabling us to unite ourselves with Christ, entering into lasting 

and efficacious relations with Him : "that no stain of sin may remain 

in me, who have been refreshed by this pure and holy Sacrament. "I 

The sound good sense of our Mother the Church, as far removed 

from the spirit of the Pharisee who will not recognize his sin as 

from that of the Jansenist who will not believe that he can be cleansed 

from it, has filled the Post-Communions of her Masses with prayers 

for purification. Let us remember that this Sacrament, through the 

acts of love it arouses in us, has the power of remitting venial sins 

( provided that we keep no attachment to them), and of blotting 

out our debt to God by canceling something of the temporal punish-

ment due to them. It also lessens the influence of bad habits and sin-

ful inclinations, and accustoms liS to dwell in an atmosphere of 

greater purity of soul. 

( b) Strength. 

With the grace of Jesus Christ within us, we must affront life 

with courage, face it in all its grandeur, and accept its difficulties, 

whether these be temptations from within or trials from without. 

A Christian is a man whose whole life is dedicated to warfare, and 

he cannot, as long as he remains in this world, carve out for himself 

a life of ease. It is because of this that the Eucharist is called the 

Food of the Strong . The best way we can envisage the special helps 

we can expect from it, is to confide to Him our needs and to lean on 

His strength in our frequent weaknesses and discouragements. 

(c) Joy. 

Saint Thomas gives the name of " spiritualis dulcedo" to that 

overflowing joy of which more modern writers are afraid to speak. 

Nevertheless, joy is a true need of the soul. Man cannot live without 

I Words of tpe Ordinary of the Mass. 

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happiness, and this he gathers in full measure from the Eucharist. 

Jesus Christ Himself brings it to us, in the full development of our 

life informed by His . "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet. ", We 

should not make this spiritual sweetness the one object of our efforts, 

the sole barometer by which to judge of our fervor; but we may en-

joy it, so that ' 'moderating our earthly desires we may learn to love 

the things of heaven.' '2 

Let us, then, thank God who bestows this joy upon us , and let 

us try to live with that purity, uprightness and generosi ty which 

will enabl e it to flower in our souls. God is good and He will not 

fail us; but let us not fail Him. Spiritual joys must withdraw us from 

false joys, the fleeting joys of this world: " Terrena desideria miti-

gantes .. . . " May this joy, deep and holy, strengthen our union with 

God, and our longing for the good things that do not pass away. 

C. COLLABORATION WITH SACRAMENTAL 
GRACE 

Before going on to speak of how we must live by the Eucharist, 

let us briefly recall the way in which grace and the human will must 

collaborate in this life. Grace is infused into our souls by the Sacra-

ment, but partly escapes our grasp, if I may speak so; that is to say, 

by our own activity we can further or hinder this infusion-its effects 

must be made practical within us before we can count its fruit as 

really ours. 

1. THE SACRAMENTAL " OBEX" 

(a) Doctrine of the Council of Trent . 

There is one point of the sacramental doctrine laid down by the 

Council of Trent, whose importance and practical significance Dom 

Marmion so often emphasized. 

The Council did not develop the general doctrine of the sacra-

ments . It was content to give but a very summary enumeration in 

the form of a prologue ( proiEmittm) to the deta iled decrees concern· 

ing each sacrament in particula.r. This summary opens the seventh 

session and is followed by canons fixing certain essential points . 

Now the sixth Canon says: " If anyone should say that the sac-
raments of the New Law do not contain what th ey signify and that 

IPS. 33, 9. 
2 Secret of third Sunday after Easter. See also Post-Communion for the feast of 

t he Sacred H eart: "May Thy holy gifts, 0 Lord J esus, endue us with a d ivine fer-
vor, so t hat thereby, having tasted t he delights of t h e most sweet H eart, we may 
learn to despise the things of earth and love those of heaven." 

- 24-



thev do not coruer (and the eighth Canon adds 'ex opere operato,' that 

is by the application of the sacrament alone) grace to those who 

put no obstacle to it (non ponentibus obicem), let him be anathema." 

If we put this condemnation in the form of a positive doctrine, 

we must say that, according to Catholic teaching, the sacraments, 

by the mere fact of their reception, confer grace on all who, in re-

ceiving them, put no obstacle to their action. 

Neither the Council nor the Cathechism, published by its orders 

to explain its teaching, speak further of this obex or obstacle. But 

we can deduce from it results of the utmost importance. 

All the grace of the sacraments comes from God alone; but man 

must dispose himself for it. He must make some effort which will 

enable grace to be received, to take possession of him, and to act 

in him. We cannot, of ourselves, love God as He wishes to be loved, 

nor blot out our sins; that is the forgiveness, the divine charity 

which must be God's gift to us . But our soul must be so disposed 

that it may be forgiven, that it may love God above all things. 

The first thing to be done, then, the most efficacious is to re-

move from our soul all that is opposed to these graces of God; feel-

.ings of hatred, of indifference, attachment to sin and so on. That is, 

in th e first place, what the Council means when it speaks of the 

obex. If we put no obstacle-that is, if we turn our will away from 

them and do what is in our power to correct them- then the grace 

of the Sacrament will find free access, and of itself, by its own power, 

will sanctify us. 

Doubtless, this is not nIl. Our co-operation should not stop 

there; but the first step has been taken and sacramental grace has 

been received . To see that it bears fruit, we must now mnke use of 

all the means put at Ollr disposal by Christian asceticism; above all, 

we must be on the watch that the obstacle does not crop up again 

on our path (non ponentibus obicem) to hinder or check the stream of 

divine life . 

(b) The' obex' of the Eucharist. 

Just as the Sacrament bestows grace in two different ways, as 

we have seen, so there are two 'obstacles' to be considered.! 

(1) Mortal sin is opposed to sanctifying grace. It is not op-
posed in the same way, for example, to the Sacrament of Penance, 

which was instituted for its remission . The obstacle to grace in the 

sacrament of Penance is attachment to sin, not its mere presence. 

I Dom Mannion, ChTist the Life of the Soul. Pan is Vitae, p. 267. 

- 25-



But, as regards the Eucharist, the presence of a mortal sin in the 

soul is the fundamental obex. As long as we are conscious of such a 

fault we can receive no grace from the sacrament of the Eucharist; 

more than that, Communion under such conditions is a sacrilege. 

In a different degree, infidelity, that is la.ck of Faith, bars the way 

to the infusion of sanctifying grace, for the Eucharist is the supreme 

Sacrament of Faith, M)'sterium fidei . 

(2) It is, however, more important perhaps, in considering 

the increase of our devotion towards the Eucharist, to enter with 

some detail into the question of the special obex to the Sacrament . 

We have seen tha't the particular grace of the Eucharist is union 

with Christ. There is no doubt that our own efforts in prayer and 

meditation may help to bring our thoughts into line with those of 

Christ, and make us conform our lives to His will. But they cannot 

-no human agent can- bring about that intimate, reciprocal, 

strong, living union which is necessary for real life with Him, under 

His immediate control. Although it was not of the Eucharist that 

Saint Paul was then speaking, we may take as a very just expression 

of this union the word in which he resumes his own life: "Not I, 

but Christ liveth in me." 

By the obex; then, is implied all that prevents union, all that 

separates us from Christ, all that tends to turn our interests else-

where. How wisely the Church makes us ask (in the second prayer 

before the Communion of the Mass): "fac me tuis semper inhaerere 

mandatis, et a te nunquam separari permittas"-that we may always 

do His will and never be separated from Him. 

Accumulated infidelities lead to indifference; and eagerness for 

pleasure, and especially for human affection, little by little absorbs 

us, and separates us froin Christ. A too great preoccupation with 

worldly interests, affairs and ambitions reverses the axis of our lives 

so that instead of living for Heaven as a Christian should, by means 

of, and if necessary, in spite of, temporal things, we stop at this 

life and its attractions as if they were our only good. We shut our 

eyes to our immortal destiny and live as though there were no here-

after. Such things constitute obstacles to the development of Euchar-

istic grace within us. So long as we live thus attached to pass ing 

things, thinking as the world thinks, having all our desires and our 

actions controlled by worldly considerations, any true union with 

Christ is out of the question. We can feel no real desire for the Eu-

charist, nor can we taste its strength and its sweetness. Our Com-

munions are most probably limited to the minimum prescribed by 

-26-



the Church; they are tepid and bear no fruit. We are here speaking 

of a tOtal servitude; but what we have said holds good, in all due 

proportion, to any degree of attachment to the world and to its 

pomps . 

Frequent Communion will no doubt be the most efficacious anti-

dote to these dispositions; but if, by a steady application of our 

own will , we do not remove the obstacle and disentangle ourselves 

from these bonds, our Communions will never be fervent; grace will 

not be able to penetrate into our souls , and we will never enjoy the 

full benefits of union with J esus Christ, the true good of our hearts . 

But there is another aspect of this union with Christ which we 

must not overlook. The Fathers of the Church constantly remind us 

of the social character of the Eucharist. Since the Son of God as-

sumed our human nature, He has made us His brethren, members 

of His Body . It is through this Mystical Body in its entirety that He 

now acts, and by it He wishes to be loved . We cannot offer Him an 

acceptable homage if we do not include our fellowmen. This truth 

was ever present to the early Christians. One Bread, one Banquet, 

unite us to one another, and so to Christ. 

To wish to be united to Him, and at the same time to nourish 

feelings of hatred or even of contempt for our brother, is a vain de-

sire . We must remember the Master's warning: "If, therefore, thou 

offer thy gift at th e altar .. .. " 1 This, for th e Jews, evidently referred 

to some sacrificial act of the Old Law; but to us Christians it applies 

to the New Covenant, to the complete and pure offering which we 

bring to the altar at Mass, and which will be consummated when 

we are united to Christ in Communion. " If then thou offer thy gift 
at the altar and there thou remember that thy brother hath something 

agains t thee, leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first 

to be reconciled to thy brother; then corning, thou shalt offer thy 
gift . " 2 

Now, it is surely worthy of note that this commandment of our 

Lord is made in reference to the Sacrifice only, as being the condition 

of its acceptance by God; it is not given to the man who is about to 

give up all to follow Him, nor to the poor man who comes to beg 

for a cure, nor to him who comes to be forgiven; and it is the only 

condition imposed . No doubt, the fundamental dispositions of faith 

and self-abnegation are necessary; but the Supreme preparation, the 

" pass" so to speak, which we must present before being admitted 

1 Matthew 5, 23. 

2 Ibid. I 

- 27-



to the Holy Table, is Charity-" go and be reconciled." Our Lord 

Himself prepared His Apostles at the Last Supper by the washing of 

the feet, a symbolic act which He immediately explained to them 

by giving "His Commandment" : "Love one another as I have loved 

you." Hence the insistence of the Fathers upon unity. For them, 

nothing is more opposed to the spirit of Christianity than division. 

The name given to the Eucharist, not merely " union" but "Com-

munion"; the name of the penalty which cuts off an unworthy 

member from the society of his brethren, "excommunication" -

these things emphasize the fact that it is above all by the Eucharist 

that we are brought together, and that, therefore, the Sacrament of 

Love cannot bear its fruit unless we are united in fraternal charity. 

Let us think of this when we go to Communion. The union 

with Christ which we seek in the Sacrament is not individualistic. 

It is, indeed, effected in the depths of each soul, and sealed by the 

contact of the grace of Jesus Christ; but it is a union with the' 'whole 

Christ"; that is to say, all His members with Him. 

Let us think of it in our intercourse with our brethren, who, 

like us, live by the sacramental grace of the Eucharist, and who are 

united to us by the same ties which unite them to Christ, who are 

loved by Him, as we are loved, because they are members of His 

Mystical Body. 

This is easy during the liturgical celebration of the Mass, where 

all together take part in the Sacrifice. But we should not forget it 

when we communicate apart from the Mass; for, although our breth-

ren are then unseen by us, it is nevertheless united to them that 

Christ comes to us. If we wish to make our Communions fervent and 
to feel the benefits of these repeated visits of our Lord, we must re-

move all obstacles on the part of Charity; then will grace be given 

to us in full measure, we shall be carried along by it, and our progress 

will be greater than we could have imagined . 

2. OUR POSITIVE WORK 

This is in fact but a repetition, in positive form, of what we 

have just said; but 1 do not think it waste of time to dwell a little 

longer on so important a point. The object of these notes is above 

all to sketch the main lines of a life nourished by the Eucharist . 

(a) A certain immediate preparation for Communion is neces-

sary. Ever since the piety of the faithful has been in large measure 

separated from the Liturgy; it has been found necessary to multiply 

these " methods" and these prayers . Some of them are excellent, and, 

- 28-



if time permits, one may make use of them with advantage as a pre-

paration before Mass . A number of these are to be fonnd in the 

Roman Missal. 

There is, however, one characteristic of most of these prepara-

tions to which I would draw attention . They are composed of what 

we call acts. 

I do not refer to their often exaggerated form , "0 my soul," 

nor to the fervid exclamations which exceed by far what one might, 

in fact what one should, expect in the ordinary Christian. To make 

people recite these formulas is to accustom them to pretence, to 

insincerity in their intercourse with God .1 

But in addition to this, the principle underlying these formulas 

is that our piety should be based on categorical assertions according 

.to established rules of thought. Faith is not enough; there must be 

an explicit and reasoned "act of Faith." According to a frequent 

complaint, the love of the Church, living and throbbing all through 

her Liturgy, speaks no longer to the heart; such love, they would 

have it, is not sufficient. The soul must assert its love, and base its 

assertion on the theological grounds which inspire our love. 

It will be said that these acts are but a form of those aspirations 

by which in general we express our feelings . This may be true; but 

is it wise to multiply them, to make our prayer consist almost exclu-

sively of them, to force our souls perpetually up to this pitch when 

we are preparing to receive the Master, who is Himself Sincerity 

and Truth? Our most intimate and vital feelings, those which belong 

to our religious life, are thus compressed for rapid use and for im-

mediate effect, as if we had no time to steep ourselves in them by 

following the harmonious unfolding of the Liturgy, and no idea of 

putting them into practice throughout the day. 

Once more, I repeat, these remarks refer only to an exaggeration, 

an excess. The assertion of our convictions may strengthen our 

Faith, the declaration of our affection may deepen our feelings for 

those we love; this expression of them is almost equivalent to a reso-

lution to persevere in them. Our Lord Himself at times called for 

such acts; but these public declarations were usually for the profit of 

the bys tanders as much as for those who made them. From many 

sick people He demanded an act of Faith; and was it not after a 

1 Compare t he prayers of preparation and of t hank'giving of t he Roman Missal. 
Most of these have been composed by saints, whose love wa s certainly mote ardent 
than our own. But how measured is the expression of their reelings! And what can 
one say of the prayers of the Litur'ty itsp.lf, so sober, yet so rich in meaning and in 
intensity of devot ion! 

I 

-29-



triple act of Love that He invested Saint Peter with the government 

of His Church? But these protestations were rarely called for; they 

should not absorb the whole attention of those about to communi-

cate . 

How far more intense, more eloquent and more captivating, is 

the " method" followed by the Church . In the Mass, she prepares 

us by awakening our whole Christian life. She recalls the Gospel 

teaching and the preaching of the Apostles. She makes us praise the 

greatness and the goodness of God. She offers our prayers to Him, 

not omitting the act of Faith in the Credo. Today, one mystery of 
Christ's life is brought before us; tomorrow it is the lives of the 

saints and the thought of their intercession that encourage us . And 

when the essential moment of the Consecration draws near, the 

Church brings us back to the heart of the Eucharist mystery. She re-

calls the facts; she re-enacts them before us. She makes us breathe 

the very atmosphere of faith and love of the Cenacle . And then she 

leaves grace free to sink into our hearts , there to arouse those feel-

ings which will bes t enable us to respond to the call of Christ . 

Neither are our personal needs forgotten; but even there she 

continues to be our guide. At the moment of Communion she lays 

aside the plural forms she has been using so far . After the great Com-

mon Prayer comes the quiet and recollection of our private speech 

with God , and she resumes for us our essential needs; peace and union 

in the Church, inviolable union with Christ, and His purifying and 

life-giving influence; finally , the hea ling and protection of which 

the precarious condition of our souls makes us always stand in need. 

As Saint Thomas insists, every sacrament, but more especially 

the Eucharist, is a reminder of, and an appeal to, the Passion of 

Christ . Did not Saint Paul say: " As often as you shall ea t this Bread 
. .. you shall show forth the death of the Lord "? Although he does 

not exclude the idea of sacrifice, he here accentuates that of com-

munion . Can there be a better preparation for the reception of the 

Eucharist than that Sacrifice in which we live again through the 

moments of the Last Supper and of the Passion, in memory of Christ? 

( b) Remote preparation. Yet more important is our remote 

preparation; that is , the constant effort to maintain in ourselves 
those dispositions which will enable us to draw the greatest fruit 

from the Sacrament. The immediate preparation is but passing and 

may even be rather superficial; the remote preparation must of neces-

sity be deep and lasting . It consists in fact only in what is called 

" living the Eucharistic life," a life nourished on the sacramental 

- 30-



grace of the Eucharist . Now the activity of this grace is not limited 

to the few moments which follow the reception of the Sacrament; 

it remains in us as a perennial spring, flowing ever more abundantly, 

as we give it free course in our lives . 

According to what has been said about the obex, this Eucharistic 

life will mean, in practice, the continual removal or lessening of this 

obstacle; that is to say, to strengthen by our habitual thoughts and 

our actions the opposite virtues. Then grace will be able to act freely, 

inspiring and sustaining our efforts; it will become the vital prin-

'ciple acting in us and transforming us. Not only the few happy mo-

ments of our "thanksgiving, " but our whole life will be lived for 

God and by God: "vivere Deo de Den." How consoling and how en-

couraging it is for us to know, even if we do not feel it, that the 

love which inspired the " acts" of our morning's Communion, con-

tinues in our hearts throughout the day with the same intensity 

and efficacy, because the same grace flows into us at every attempt 

we make to remove the obstacles in its path. 

What , then, are the acts or the dispositions which will allow 

the grace of the Sacrament to act within us? The chief are : 

(1) The spirit of Faith. To live by Faith, and, in all that 
touches the Eucharist, a Faith joined to reverence and love. 

( 2) Desire of spiritual Good. This is a special form of Charity 

or the Love of God . It means: an efficacious longing for all those 

things which unite us to Him; a spirit of prayer, showing itself in 

recollection and affective prayer and i~ attention to all that concerns 
th e service of God, and, in the midst of the occupations and attrac-

tions of the world, a gaze ever fixed on the fuller joys of the world 

to come. 

0 ) Besides this divine Charity, there is required a true and 
practical love for our neighbor. This is not the place in which to 

develop this point and to show what ought to be the role of true 

fraternal charity in the various circumstances of life. Dam Marmion 

used to say that anyone who was faithful in this respect, not merely 

to the extent of not sinning against charity, but in a positive way, 

really and sincerely living for the advantage of his brethren, was 

always in a fit state to receive holy Communion, without further 

preparation . 

(c) Thanksgiving. A word must be said about this most im-

portant duty. I am thinking here rather of the disposition of the 

soul than of any special "exercise ." 

-31-



In many places the Church, following Saint Paul, makes us 

ask for the grace to be always " giving thanks."l After having re-
ceived the Sacrament of Love, it is fitting that we spend some time 
in prayer, thanking God for the ineffable gift of Himself which we 

have received. We should do the same after th e reception of any of 

the sacraments; but none calls for more recollection and prayer than 

the Eucharist. Without such, we could not enter thoroughly into 

the union which God has once again effected in us : It is the special 
moment in which we should yield ourselves to Him, in which our 
souls can be steeped in a supernatural atmosphere, acclimatising us 

to the life of the children of God, which should be our life . 
But this prayer is only a starting point. The Church makes it 

very short; so short indeed that some people have been surprised at 

the simplicity of the end part of the Mass . It has even been said 
that the Church seems in a hurry to set the priest at liberty, that 

he may be able to open out his heart to God in private prayer. Such 

an idea is in direct opposition to the Church's attitude of respect 

and to the spirit of the Liturgy. If it were true for the priest, it would 
be true also for the faithful, who should then stop "assisting at 

Mass," to busy themselves with mental prayer alone. 
Here, as in so many parts of the Liturgy, we cannot fairly judge 

by the abbreviated and hurried ceremonies of the Low Mass. 

At the High Mass, the ordinary Mass of the early ages, where 

all the faithful communicated, the greater number of them had plenty 

of time for quiet prayer while the rest were still going up to the 

Holy Table . "When you have received the Eucharist," Saint Cyril 
of Jerusalem exhorted his newly baptized, "as you await the mo-
ment of the Prayer (i.e. the Post-Communion), thank God who has 

deigned to make you a sharer in so great a mystery ." And for the 

priest himself, what a consoling thanksgiving it is to be able to 
carry to his brethFen the Christ whom he has just received. 

The Church does not hurry; her thought is far wiser and more 
profound. The thanksgiving does not consist, strictly speaking, in 

the few words of gratitude we are able to say to God during the 

quarter or half hour. It must be both longer and more complete; it 

should continue throughout our whole life. Let us, indeed, open our 

hearts to God during those few moments; but let us keep them open, 

and continue, during the ordinary occupations of our day, that life 

with Him to which the Sacrament has just given new vigor . It is 
not only at the moment of Co=union, even including a short pre-

1 See Post-Communion of Sunday within the Octave of Ascension. 

-32-



paration and thanksgiving, that we must give our Lord free access 

to our souls, that He may penetrate them with His grace and act in 

us. We receive this grace that we may live by it, not during a few 

moments of intimacy, but in the performing of our daily duties for 

God. That is the proof we can give Him that we understand the gift 

He has given us, and that we are grateful to Him for it . 

D. THE EUCHARIST, LIFE OF THE CHURCH 

We have now reached the main point of this study. All that I 

have so far tried tQ say of the splendor of this Sacrament, of its place 

in our lives, of its effects, has been with a view to this thought: by 

the Eucharist, Jesus Christ contracts on earth (while awaiting its 

full consummation in heaven) a union with His Church, to which He 

imparts His own life. He applies to her the merits of the Sacrifice 
He offered for her to the Father, and He continues the mission con-

fided to Him by the Father, unceasingly gathering us all into this 

unity which is modeled on the life of the Most Holy Trinity itself. 

He draws His Church towards the final consummation, in which 

God will be all in all. 

1. THE CHURCH AND DIVINE WORSHIP 

The Church is the society made up of the souls whom Christ 

has redeemed by His blood, in order to bring man back to his one 

essential end: the worship of God. Now the Eucharist is the supreme 

and most expressive act of this worship; the perfect Sacrifice, whether 

we consider the Offerer, Jesus Christ, or those who share in it, and 

whose adoration it expresses; that is, mankind. For us it is the great 
comprehensive act which gathers into one all the efforts of our pro-

gress towards God . By it we are enabled to fulfil perfectly our calling 

of "rational creatures." This Sacrifice gives adequate answer to man's 

double duty and need; the adoration and service of God, and his 

own personal sanctification by the imitation of God. We may apply 

to it, with reference to our piety, our spiritual life, that which Saint 

Paul says of the whole Christian life: "Other foundation no man can 

lay but that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus" (1 Cor. 3, ll). Our 
Divine Founder has enriched His Church with this marvelous means 

of leading us in Truth. She is the Mystical Body of Christ; and it is 

from her, in her doctrine and in her practice, that we must learn how 

to act. It is she who must teach us, that we may be caught up into 
the vital action of Christ, our Head. All His life was a preparation 

for "this Hour"; the hour of the Sacrifice of the Cross, which we 

re-enact in the Eucharist. The life of the mystical Body is, tben, most 

-33-



intense and perfect in the Eucharist, which, in memory of Christ, 

repeats His action and each day shows forth His death , in expecta-

tion of His coming. Perhaps we forget this coming; our expectation, 

because it is for something so far distant, has lost its keenness and 

its love. The Eucharist reminds us that we are not here for ever; it 

warns us that the order in which we now live, in which others will 

live after us, is passing, and that we are made to desire and love above 

all that Kingdom where Christ shall reign for ever at the right hand 

of the Father. 

2. THE COMMON LIFE OF THE CHURCH 

Although our priests seek to unite and to gather together the 

members of their particular flock , as often as possible, for prayer, 

for preachIng, for good works, and also to multiply for them the 

different helps, spiritual and temporal, of which they stand in need, 

there is one act which they do not perform alone. There is one act 

which cannot be the possession, the special property of any par-

ticular group alone; one act which is, of its nature, the act of all, 

performed by all together, for one single purpose; that is, the Eu-

charist. It is, as it were, the congregation, acting as the Church. 

There is nothing which gives us a better idea of oneness of life than 

a parochial Mass fittingly celebrated. Its notes ring out louder, more 

vibrant, more clear, than any congress, pilgrimage, or other reli-

gious manifestation. Any well organized work in full activity may 

give us the same impression; but there it is the harvest that we see; 

the root , the seed is in the Eucharist. 

In order to participate in it to the full, we must do so, not as 

individuals, but as members of Christ's mystical Body, in the unity 

of the Communion of Saints, each acting with and through the 

others. 

3. THE CHURCH AND THE SACRAMENTS 

The work of the sanctification of th e Church is carried on by 

the sacraments, of which she is at once the guardian and the minis-

ter . These are all centered in the Eucharist. 

Apart from Baptism, which is as it were the entrance gate, the 

condition sine qua non of sacramental life, they are all special graces 

corresponding to special aspects of Christian life. The Eucharist 

gives and supports this life and enables us to praise God as He wishes 

to be praised . 

On the other hand, as Saint Thomas teaches, the sacraments 

incorporate us into Christ from different aspects, drawing us into 

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His priesthood, and so preparing us to take an ever greater part in 

His Sacrifice. This Sacrifice entrusted to the Church is the crown of 

the edifice built up by our Lord in which He continues His mission . 

By it the Church is rounded off, complete . All converges to this 

point . By means of the Eucharist we are made one, all subj ected to 

Christ as His possession; and He will be able, at the end of time, to 

give us back, all together, to His Father. 

When I say that the Eucharist is the crown of the edifice, I do 

not mean to imply that it is a termination, an end. On the contrary . 

The whole edifice has a purpose. The Church is Christ on earth to 

be "our Way." To stop at the building would be to make of "The 

Way" a "No thoroughfare." In the Eucharist Jesus Christ leads us 

to the Father. To refuse to go so far with Him, to suggest, as did 

Saint Peter on Thabor, that we pitch our tent there, because "it is 

good to be there," would be to have misunderstood everything. 

"For he knew not what he said ." The Church leans on the Euchar-

ist that she may go forward . She draws from its unfailing fountain 

for all her needs . She calls us together round the Altar, that we may 

share in it, and find there the strength necessary for each day 's work, 

that we may grow daily in the divine life, as the Apostle says, 

" until we reach the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ" 

(Eph. 4, 13): that is , until we have perfected in ourselves, as far as 

in us lies, the likeness of Christ, and are ready to pass from the 

labors of a life of faith to the glory of the vision of God . 

Let us then broaden our piety . Let us have recourse to the Church 

that she may lead us to God. Let us keep ever before our eyes her 

full life-giving doctrine, which our own individualism will always 

seem to contract to its own private advantage . Let us unite ourselves 

with the Church who draws from it her joy and her glory. Let us 

be proud to belong to this Eucharistic society, to live the same life 

as our brethren, to feed on the same Bread received at the same 

Table, in a spirit of indissoluble brotherhood. 

This point seems to me so important that I venture to repeat 

it in another form. 

The aim of the Church is to unite us all to Christ, to build us 

up into His mystical Body (Eph. 4, 12) , to lead us to the Father. 1 

Now this union and this movement is effected by the Eucharist . 

This is so clear from the whole doctrine of the Eucharist, Sacrament 

of life and of incorporation into Christ, that is to say, of the union 

1 Cf. Eph. 2. 10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good 
works which God hat h prepared that we should walk in t h em ." 

- 35-



of the Head and the Members, that it does not seem necessary to 

develop this teaching further .1 

The Eucharist, therefore, is the essential means in the present 
order of our Redemption, and our spiritual life, by which the Church 

iives, and it is at the same time its crowning glory. 

This Sacrament would suffice (Baptism being presupposed), for 

the whole of our divine life, its maintenance, its development and 
its increase. We can see, then, how important-dare I say again?-

how essential for us is a full understanding. It cannot bear its fruit 

if it is not accompanied by the normal conditions of its institution. 
All that we add or modify, even the narrower spirit in which we 

receive it,2 all must react upon its sacramental efficacy; that is, " wor-

ship" of the Eucharist, and the separation of Communion from Mass . 
That is, to speak plainly, to turn aside from the idea of sacrifice, to 

see only the good of the soul; putting in practice, and often in theory, 

our own perfection before the honor and glory due to God. The'Eu-
charist should be for us a participation in the life of the Church. We 

are one Body; we feed upon one Bread. To communicate should be, 
above all, to share in the celebration of the Eucharist by the Church. 

Whatever may be said of other methods of preparation felr Com-
munion, it will always be by this divinely ordained channel that 

grace will flow most abundantly into our souls and increase in us 

the fruits of devotion and of Charity . 

o SACRAMENTUM FIET ATIS! 0 SIGNUM UNIT ATIS! 0 
VINCULUM CARIT A TIS! 

1 "That we may in all things grow up in Him who is the Head, even Christ . . . 
who maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in Charity" (Eph. 12, 
15-16). 

2 I refer to the pre-eminence given to what is only secondary~ the "WorRhip" of 
the Eucharist, and the separation of Communion from Mass. That is, to sppak plain-
ly, to t urn aside from the idea of sacrifice, to sec only the good of the soul ; putting 
in practice, and oCten in theory, our own perfection before the honor and glory due 
to God. 

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CHAPTER III 

SOME SECONDARY ASPECTS OF 

EUCHARISTIC W ORSHIP 

1. THE WORSHIP OF THE EUCHARIST 

The Eucharist is our life, and this life is imparted to us solely 

by our participation in the Eucharistic mysteries: Mass and Com-

munion . These constitute the Eucharist, in the full and true sense of 

the word, the Sacrament instituted by J esus Christ. 

Nevertheless, the piety of the faithful has overstepped these 

limits; outside the essential Eucharistic worship it has expressed 

itself in accessory devotions, which to many have assumed an ever 

increasing importance. The Church has not opposed these manifes-

tations of piety in her children. Making use of the authority over 

the sacraments conferred on her, she has admitted and sanctioned 

many pious practices which in the end have grown into a sort of 

Eucharistic cultus, parallel, as it were, to the Sacrifice of the Mass. 

Some have even gone so far as to think that these different proofs 

of adoration and love given to the Blessed Sacrament were the im-

portant, if not the principal thing . Eucharistic worship would seem 

to them to be centered round the adoration of the Sacred Host; a 

public profession of faith in the Real Presence. The end of institu-

tion of the Eucharist would have been to offer to th e Second Person 

of the Blessed Trinity, our Savior and our Head, of whom the Old 

Testament knew nothing, the homage due to His Divinity . The 

Jews adored God in general; we would specially adore Jesus Christ . 

Such an idea is contrary to the whole economy of the New Tes-

tament . Our Savior did not come to found a new religion, of which 

He was to be the object . The revelation He has given us of the Trin-

ity, and of the relations of the Three Divine Persons among Them-

selves and with us, was to bring about a new form of worship indeed, 

and above all a more exact hierarchy of values for the different acts 

through which that worship was to be paid. Of course, the whole 

Trinity is the object of the worship of Latria or Adoration, which 

is expressed by sacrifice; but the pre-eminence of the Father, Source 

and Origin of all that exists, even in the bosom of the Trinity, makes 

of Him the first to whom all honor and adoration must be shown. 
I 

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There is no truth upon which our Lord has more insisted. We could 

justly say of Him that He came to bring the Religion of the Father 

out of the darkness of th e Old Law , into the brightness of the New. 

It is to the Father that the homage of the Mass is addressed. "It is 
truly meet and just, right and salutary that we should always give 

thanks to Thee, Father Almighty . . . through Christ our Lord." 

On the other hand , it seems evident that Transsubtantiation, 

making, as it does, Jesus Christ really present under purely alien 

species, is not an adequate means to offer to Him our adoration. 

Christ did not make Himself Bread that we might adore Him, but 

that He might give Himself to us, to transform us into Himself, and 

to provide us with simple yet efficacious means (If worthily adoring 

the Father by uniting our adoration with His own. 

Do not let us, therefore, revetse the order of things . Christ is 

present, really and substantially present in the Eucharist. Let us 

adore Him, then, with all our faith, give Him this special worship 

which is His due; but let us remember that this last is not the wor-

ship of the Church, less still the Sacrifice which He has confided to 

His Church that by it we may fulfil our essential obligation of adora-

tion and submission before the Majesty of God. We have not paid 

our full debt to the Eucharist when we have adored it. Christ chose 

to come in this sacramental form that He might work in us and with 

us; and this work is our sanctification and the glorification of the 

Father . This is the real purpose for which the Eucharist was insti-

tuted . 

And even in the Sacrifice let us respect the scale of values. We 

should not say, for instance, that the Elevation is the culminating 

point, the most august moment of the Mass. This short instant of 

adoration, however solemn we may make it, is none the less only a 

secondary ceremony. It was only introduced into the Mass in the 

eleventh century, and does not figure at all in the Eastern liturgies . 

The end of the Consecration is not to give us the Real Presence that 

we may raise It on high; but we elevate It, and we adore the Host 

because we long to adore Jesus Christ in the first moment of His 

coming amongst us. However closely allied the Elevation may be 

to the Consecration, it is the latter which is the culminating point 

of the Mass . 

In the same way, it is right and just to surround the Blessed 

Sacrament exposed with every sign of honor and devotion . Never-

theless, this presence of our Lord does not in itself differ from that 

of the Tabernacle. It should attract our devotion far less than the 

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Real Presence on the Altar during Mass, where in the person of His 

ministers our Lord is fulfil.ling His great priestly office. To give to 

this secondary devotion the primary importance, to make it the 

apogee of our worship is a failure of proportion, which in the end 

turns to the disadvantage of true and solid piety in many souls. We 

will never make real progress if we base the whole work of our 

Christian life on these "Eucharistic Devotions"; if for them we neg-

lect the Way pointed out by Christ; that is, those acts which nour-

ish our spiritual life, and enabl e us to fulfil our duty to the Father: 

a real participation in the Eucharist, Mass and Co=union. 

2. DIVERS MANIFESTATIONS 

This worship has assumed three principal forms : 

(a) The Tabernacle and Exposition . 

In spite of recent a ttempts to prove the contrary, 1 the cult of 

the Tabernacle docs not date from the earliest times . Nor is it likely 

that it should be a Christian adaptation of the Jewish Shekinah . 

After the Exile, the Jews had adopted, as the center of their devo-

tion, the presence of God among them. This they had localized, not 

only in the Temple but in every Synagogue, and gave to this the 

name of Shekinah, Inhabitation. Many Rabbis made it more or less 

the equivalent of the universal presence of God. 

The primitive Christians, who had no fixed place of worship, 

knew that however real the Shekinah might have been, it had ceased 

with the abrogation of the Ancient Covenant, and they never showed 

any tendency to adopt the beliefs and practices of the Jewish teachers . 

The Reservation of the Eucharist after Mass had for them the same 

meaning, at once loving and familiarly utilitarian, which marked 

all their devotion to the great pledge of their Master's love. It was 

made solely with a view to the Communion of those who could not 

assist at the divine Sacrifice and especially of the sick and prisoners. 

When they began to build churches, in which the Sacred Host was 

specially but not exclusively reserved, there were no more Jewish 

converts to revive the idea of the Shekinah . 

But adoration was due to the Blessed Sacrament thus reserved, 

whether in some annex or coffer in the church, in the houses of the 

priests, or even of the laity. In spite of the familiarity with which 

our ancestors treated the Eucharist (of which we have already spok-

en), a certain exterior worship grew up from the very nature of things. 

1 Canon Freeland in Catholic Faith in the Holy Eucharist, 1928, R eservation of 
t he Blessed Sa rament. 

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It took shape with the tendency to a more sensible devotion; a wish 

to gaze upon the Host, which led later to the introduction of the 

Elevation at Mass. They had a longing to remain near it , under its 

protection, which brought about the custom of carrying it on their 

persons. Prayers and ceremonies began to surround the place where 

the Blessed Sacrament was reserved . A door of open work was made 

through which the sacred vessels could be seen, and soon they be-

gan to enclose the Host itself in a vessel with a glass covered open-

ing ·so that It also might be seen. To look upon th e Blessed Sacra-

ment was the great devotion of the Middle Ages; it led in fact to 

certain exaggerations, not untinged with superstition, which the 

Church was obliged to condemn. 

(b) Benediction . 

The practice of giving a blessing with the sacred vessels con-

taining the Eucharist was only introduced much later, in the four-

teenth or the fifteenth century. It originated in certain confrater-

nities, when it closed their devotional exercises, as it now closes 

our "Benediction" service. 

(c) Processions . 

Still greater honor was paid to the Eucharist, and that already 

in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, when It began to be 

carried processionally through the streets . We see here the same idea, 

the same wish to associate the Eucharist with the ordinary daily 

life of the people. They loved to see It surrounded by the crowd, to 

enjoy the illusion of seeing our Lord pass through their towns and 

villages, as when He walked through Palestine laying His hands on 

the little children and scattering graces and miracles upon all. 

3. BENEFIT OF THESE DEVOTIONS 

And it is not all illusion. Doubtless it would be an illusion to 

think that our Lord suffers and feels in the Tabernacle or during a 

procession . He cannot stretch out His hand to us, nor even, strictly 

speaking, look out on us from the monastrance. These oratorical 

expressions are only metaphors, and we should be carefnl not to 

take them for realities . Let us cling firmly to what our Catholic 

Faith teaches us . The Christ of the Eucharist is not the same as the 

Christ who dwelt among men for more than thirty years in Pales-

tine . There is the same Person with the same two natures, but the 

state is different . He can only be the glorious and impassible Christ. 

Therefore those expressions signifying emotion, suffering, weak-

ness, or any state or action which belongs only to His human nature 

-40-



as it was on earth, are unsuitable. They can be used at the most as 

images, but are usually erroneous and often dangerous . More than 

this, our Lord 's state under the veil of the sacramental species is not 

the state in which He now reigns in heaven . We cannot say that in 

the Eucharist He performs the exterior actions which He might 

have performed in His Humanity, moving, feeling, etc. Christ in 

the Tabernacle is not solitary and humiliated; He is not powerless, 

not wounded by our ingratitude; He does not suffer His passion anew 

upon the altar, nor come to seek rest in our hearts . 

He is there under new conditions, in a completely different state, 

whose mystery we cannot fathom . We have had to find a new word 

to express it, and we call it His "sacramental" state or presence. 

This does not explain how Christ is present, nor how He acts. How 

could it? But it enables us to speak of Him intelligibly. We know 

from this word that He does not act as an ordinary man, nor even 

as the glorified Christ would act in His own person. The expression 

marks the difference very clearly--our Lord is present as Sacrament-

but it does not attempt to describe the condition in which, in His 

infinite mercy towards us, He has placed Himself. He is among us, 

nor to be our companion, but to be the Sacrament; that is, the visible 

sign of the invisible graces which He wishes to shower upon us. 

And at the same time He is surrounded by adoring angels. He en-

joys unalterable happiness; He adores His Father and offers for us 

His merits, all in the serene calm of His infinite love. 

Why do we not meditate more on this truth? Cannot our love, 

our gratitude, our adoration go out to the Risen Christ, to that 

glorious life which has been given to us as our model by t~e inspired 
word? Is not the reality more wonderful than all our imaginings? 

Why must our piety always seek the extraordinary, the unreal? Is 

there in the Eucharist, as we dramatise it, anything to be compared 

to the Sacramental Grace which really unites us to Christ and di-

vinises us with Him? 

If we must absolutely "console" our Lord, it can only be in re-
trospect. The Liturgy prays in this manner for the Faithful De-

parted, asking God to save them from hell. Strictly speaking, it is 

toO late. In the same way we cannot console Christ who suffers now 

no more; but we can experience sorrow and remorse for our own sins 

and for those of the world which caused His very real sufferings in 

the past; and, by analogy, we give to these acts of love the name of 

Consolation. This is what the Church does . In the Liturgy of Good 

Friday, in mourning and in sorrow, she commemorates the anni-
I 

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versary of the sufferings and death of her Spouse; but even then she 

cannot refrain from mingling with her grief accents of joy and tri-

umph at the thought of the immutable state of blessedness which 

He acquired by His death .1 

What is certain, however, is that good must follow from the 

contact or association with the sacred humanity of our Savior, even 

when hidden und er the species of the Eucharist. It is still the in-

strument of the graces bestowed by the Divinity. But it would be 

h ard to say in what exactly this influence consists. We must leave 

that to the free dispensation of Divine Providence. 

There are other effects of encouragement and stimulus to our 

piety which we can more easily understand, of which I would like 

to add a word . If our Lord has allowed this growth of devotion to 

the Sacrament, it is surely with a view to the good of souls. 

In the first place, we must notice the great difference between 

the development of Christian piety and the passage from the Old 

Law to the New . Our Sa v ior a bra ga ted th e old worsh i p and es ta b-

Ii shed another, purer, higher, and more true. We needed a form of 

worship more in keeping with the Divinity, whose true nature 

Christ had revealed to us : the Holy Trinity whose origin was the 

Father, source of all things; and one which would also be more in 

keeping with the needs of man, redeemed and raised to the divine 

Sonship. After the institution of the Eucharist and the organization 

by the Church of essential lines of Eucharistic devotion, nothing 

need he added. No more modern devotion should or indeed could 

replace that which was founded by Jesus Christ; nothing else can 

bring about th e salvation or renovation of the world . Christian 

piety, under the watchful eye of the Church, has developed certain 

practices: corollaries, corr ~sponding to local needs . These may be 
ei ther passing waves or movements, or a more gener.ll current of 

ideas and feelings, arising often from the very nature of the Eu-

charist . Their only effect can be to rekindle our fervor in respect to 

the essential thing. If they were to turn us from tcat , they would 

be a danger instead of a help to our spiri tual life. 

When the laity began to leave off assist ing at M~ss and to neg-
lect Communion; when the multiplicity and exaggeration in the 

invocation of the saints threatened to challenge th e sovereignty of 

the worship of God, devotion towards the Tabernacle grew more 

ardent to affirm th e truth that the Eucharist was always the sover-

eign good of souls. 

I See the Hymns V exiUa Regis and Pange Lingua gloriosi or Pas.oiontide. 

- 42-



When heresy began to deny, in whole or in part, the real pres-

ence of Christ in the Eucharist, processions and exposition of the 

Blessed Sacrament were multiplied . When the modern world showed 

itself pleasure-loving and indifferent, our Lord revealed His love 

for us under the image of His Sacred Heart. 

But all this should serve only to bring us back to the one thing 

necessary. Whatever may be the justification for these practices of 

piety; the essential thing cannot be changed. It is always through 

the Eucharistic sacrifice that our Lord infuses into us His love and 

His life. 

In defense of what we may call these side-tracks, it has been 

said that people take pleasure in them, and find profit in them . But 

pleasure is not the purpose of piety, still less of religion. And I doubt 

if souls really profit. A child who works only for a reward, whose 

efforts are thus subordinated to pleasure, will never develop into a 

strong character. He may learn the rules of grammar and arithmetic, 
but he will not be really educated. To forget the essential and cling 

to the accidental, the more human, checks the forward progress of 

souls. They are thus perhaps saved from certain dangers, but they 

have not in them enough good-real good. 

The devotion of ordinary people, unless carefully formed and 

guided, tends naturally towards the accessory. Human instinct does 

not of itself attain the heights; divine things alarm us a little; we 

cling to what appeals to the senses, to the marvelous, and at first 

find only dryness in "adoration in spirit." Hence come exaggera-

tions in illumination and decoration, sentimental hymns, and exu-

berant expressions; hence the popularity of such practices as "speak 

to the heart " or to the imagination: Holy Hours, night watchings, 

consecrations, etc. 

On the other hand , simple upright souls, souls of faith and de-

sire, such as are the majority when they have been taught to under-

stand what it is that God gives us to lead us to Himself, are usually 

quickly won over by the greatness of the truth . They see its import-

ance, its wonderful adaptation to the needs of man; they realise, 

easily and joyfully, how much better it is to go to God by associat-

ing themselves with the mysteries of Christ, than along the by-

paths and circuitous routes of mere "practices." 

I do not mean to condemn Bened ictions and visits to the Blessed 

Sacrament, Eucharistic Congresses and midnight vigils. All these 

are good things; but there are others which should not be forgotten .1 

1 Haec oportuit r«cere et ilia non omittere. Mt. 23, 23. 
( 

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All I desire is to bring back our piety to the royal, but somewhat 
neglected, road of Catholic doctrine, and to draw from these second-

ary and supererogatory exercises the best advantage possible, in 

view of the necessary and primordial good. 
But they have one benefit which must not be overlooked. They 

are for the most part more within the reach of the majority of the 
faithful. We cannot receive Holy Communion at all hours; there are 

necessary conditions of fasting, parish services, and even of purity 

of conscience which we may have temporarily lost; whereas the 
Tabernacle is always accessible, and that with no restricting condi-

tions. Expositions and Benedictions of the Blessed Sacrament take 

place at more frequent and variable hours than the Mass; and, above 
all, they are often held in the evening, at hours when the greater 

number of working people are free. So long as the Mass continues to 

be celebrated only before midday, the majority of people, at work 
all day, are practically incapable of regular assistance. These will 

gladly avail themselves of the opportunity offered by these evening 

services, in which their devotion towards the Blessed Sacrament 
can find expression. 

Let us then see how these Eucharistic devotions can foster our 

piety . 

1. They stimulate and support our Faith. It is because we know 

and believe Him to be present that we love to draw near as often as 
possible to our Lord. These exercises help to keep up in us the dis-

positions which will best enable sacramental grace to influence our 
activity . 

2. They help our prayer. Not to speak of the influence spoken 

of above, which the sacred Humanity of our Lord must exercise when 

we approach Him in Faith, it is only natural that the thought of His 
near presence must aid our devotion, which so often needs just such 

a sensible support. 

3. They help us to think of the Eucharist, to long for it, and 

so they help prepare us to receive it. Beside this, they are an effica-
cious means of keeping up our fervor and stimulat.ing our cO-CDpera-

tion with the sacramental grace of our Communions .l 

4. On the other hand, they make certain demands upon us. 
We have to take trouble. We have to go and seek our Lord, and by 

1 In the book by Dom Vonier already referred to, Sketches and Studies, etc., there 
are excellent passages on prayer before the BleEsea Sacrament exposed. Anotber 
article on tbe relations between Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and the Mass 
is, to my thinking, a vain attempt at incorporating, so to speak, Benediction in 
tbe Mass. 

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making the effort necessary to go to church, we recognize God 's 

sovereignty, and ,th e importance of spiritual things in our life. We 

acquire the habit of giving someth ing of ourselves, and even this 

small sacrifice does not go \.lnrewarded . 

CONCLUSION 

There is one fruit of the Euchar is t to which I have scarcely 

alluded, and Oil which Saint Thomas dwells with special predilec-

tion. Ie is the pledge and the seed of eternal life. 

Futurae glol i:Jr nobis pignus datur . 

What would our li fe be, w hat \\'ould be the most spiritual of 
joys, if th ey did not help u~ on our way to the boundl ess happiness 

which will know no end? Whar are the gleams of light which our 

Faith shows us? What even is the revelation of t he immeasurable 

love of Christ in the Eucharist , if there IS to be ne tom orrow; if we 

are never to see that light unveiled ; if the sign is not one day to pass 

away, leaving us the full and unfadi ng enjoyment of infinit,; love? 

Bue, God be thanked, our life is one. What with th e help of 

grace we build up so laboriously 0 11 earth will not be destroyed nl'r 

fo rgotten; it will be completed and perfected . The Eucharist is t he 

pl edge of this life of glory. 

The Gospel spea ks of th e Kingdom of God, sometimes as being 

the Church here below, sometim es as th e City of the Blessed in heaven. 

It is both the one and the other; but only because these two are one. 

From the possession of God, in life eternal will fl ow, as from a never-

failing spring, th e happiness of th e Christian brotherhood, which 

is but begun on earth . The Eucharist begins the work ; day by day 

through it is developed the life of the M yr.tical Body of Christ, as 

the bonds uniting us to our brethren are strengthened . 

How often, when we recall those who are dear to us and who 

have gone b~fore ll~ to God, we think of the happiness of those 
families which will be reunited, of tht;: friends who will meet again . 

The Church, toO , .thinks of her fam ily which is being formed again 

in heaven ; she feeds us on the Bread of Life which prepares the end-

less Banquet of Eternity; she does not want her children to leave 

this world unprovided with this Viaticum which will be, as it were, 

the sign by which they are known in heaven . What will be the joy 

of those meetings, when we enter th e circle of th e Blessed on whose 

lips shines the sign of the Euchar ist- not oue merits, not even our-

selves, bue the' Christ, the same in all , the bond of ullion . An indi-

- 45--



vidualism will be incomprehensible in that kingdom where all live 

the same life, into which one enters only because one Bread has 

made of us one Body. 

Let us never ask ourselves anxiously : " What will become of 

me after death?" Let the heathen worry about the uncertainty of the 

ocher world. They have no faith to guide them , they do not know 

the love of God . We know what that blessed life will be-the life 

we have already begun here below . By grace we have received the 

adoption of God; by grace we enjoy Him, though imperfectly as yet 

in this state of trial. When the trial is ended , grace, henceforth un-

impeded in us , will break forth into vision, and without fear of loss, 

we will possess in unchangeable love that which we have longed 

for, which already we seem to see, which indeed we hold . 

The Eucharist is the link between these two phases of our life. 

By sacramental grace we are so united to God that our souls are 

transformed; we do but await the liberation of death in order to live 

by God alone . 

What more is there to say? The little I have said is enough, I 

think, to show that we must approach the Eucharist with our eyes 

fixed on eternity. There must be nothing of this earth in our hearts, 

nothing which keeps us shut up within ourselves with our own 

desires and interests, nothing which seems to exclude our brethren . 

Naturally we shall think of the needs of our soul, and of other needs , 

tOo; but our chief desire must be to free ourselves from what is pass-

ing, faulty and imperfect , from the errors and limitations of egoism, 

that we may be transformed, that we all meet in the unity of Faith 

so as to be but one in the sight of God,l and that we may love as 

we are loved . 

That is a first step in immortality . The Eucharist will develop 

this seed, by sanctifying even our bodies, in making God our life, 

in giving us " divine manners," so that, made ready in body · and 

soul, we may stand before God in the likeness of His Son, one with 

Him, and never to be separated from Him. 

"Quid mihi est in caelo, et a te quid volui super terram? Deus cordis 

mei, et pars mea Deus in aeternum--What is there for me in Heaven 

and what have I asked of Thee on earth? Thou art the God of my 

heart and my portion fOf eve-f ... • 

1 DOll ec OCC14.rram1t8 omnes in ullitatem fidei. Eph. 4. 3. 
' Ps.72. 

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