Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 34
Second Sunday After Pentecost.
The Blessed Eucharist.
"A certain man made a great supper and invited many." — Luke xiv. 16.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Choicest gift. II. Scriptural figures. III. Comparisons.
I. Protestant unbelief: i. Heresy. 2. Catholic doctrine. 3. Meaning of parable.
II. Doctrine proved : 1. Scripture. 2. Teaching and practice of Fathers. 3. Character of doctrine's friends and enemies.
III. Causes of infidelity: 1. Pride and avarice. 2. Conceit. 3. Sensuality.
Per. : Exhortation to approach Lord's banquet-board.
SERMON.
Brethren, God has endowed and enriched His Church with many and singular prerogatives, but the greatest of them all, the most precious gift she has or could have received from His hands, is the adorable Sacrament of the Lord's body and blood. Compared with that, all the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Old Law seem empty and valueless. " Beggarly elements," St. Paul calls them. " For if," he says, " the blood of goats and of oxen served to sanctify the defiled unto the cleansing of the flesh, how much more does the blood of Christ cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God." As the shadow is to the reality, so was the Synagogue to the Christian Church, so the manna of the desert to the heavenly bread Christ gives, so the water that gushed forth from the rock stricken by Moses to the blood that flows from the Saviour's transfixed side. The Holy Eucharist, by reason both of its intrinsic nature and its blessed effects on mankind, is unspeakably superior, not only to the Mosaic rites, but also to all the other sacraments of the New Law. Among them the Eucharist is what the seraphim are among angels, what the arch of heaven is to the heavenly bodies, what the sun is among luminaries, fire among elements, man among animals, the pine among trees, gold among metals, charity among virtues, and theology among sciences. No wonder the Church, in commemorating the institution of this Blessed Sacrament, arrays herself in joyous apparel and calls into play the full splendor of her ritual.
But alas, Brethren, short of heaven there is no joy undimmed by some small sorrow, and the one spot on our feast of charity is that so many Christians persistently deny the real presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Eucharist. Christ's words, "This is My body," are interpreted by the entire Protestant world to mean: " This signifies My body." In their creed the Eucharist is a mere figure, in dignity less than the Jewish Passover, and in usefulness inferior to the manna. But the Catholic Church, by her choice of this passage for to-day's gospel, clearly indicates her belief. " A certain man made a great supper and invited many." Who that man but God? What that supper but the Eucharist? Who the invited but all mankind? A great supper, indeed, is the Eucharist, for whereas it has been partaken of throughout the whole world and for ages by millions and billions of human beings whose spiritual hunger has been thereby abundantly appeased, its bounty is still as exhaustless as that of the loaves and fishes which Christ blessed and brake and gave to the multitude. In the richness of its delicacies it infinitely surpasses all other banquets, for it is He Himself who is the living Bread that came down from heaven, having in Himself all sweetness.
Brethren, how any one at all conversant with the New Testament can in good faith deny Christ's real presence in the Eucharist is wholly unintelligible. In their account of the Last Supper, the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record Christ's words when He handed the bread to His Apostles: "Take ye; this is My body." These are plain words, and to understand or explain them in a metaphorical sense is to do violence to all the known rules of interpretation. For the wording of a law or decree should not be ambiguous, but so simple and direct that all may easily understand and obey. Now, Our Lord, when He instituted the Blessed Eucharist, decreed also that His disciples should perpetuate that miracle. " Do this," He says, " in commemoration of Me." Either, therefore, we must conclude that Christ the Lord God was the most inexpert of lawgivers, or else that His words must be taken in their absolutely literal sense. Why, see at what pains lawyers are, when drawing up a will, to express beyond the shadow of a doubt the testator's wishes, and thus to avert possible contention among the legatees. And was Christ, in making His last will and testament, less solicitous for His Church? " This," He says, " is My blood of the New Testament which shall be shed for many unto the remission of their sins." Did He mock her with metaphors, and leave her the shadow for the reality? Did He purposely sow in her the seeds of dissension for all time — He who said: " My peace I leave you; My peace I give you "? Certainly, if some wealthy man were to promise to leave you a splendid palace or a vast heap of golden coin, and afterwards you discovered that his promise was but a figure of speech, and your legacy but a photograph of the hoped-for riches, you might well feel that you had been deceived and derided. And if Christ, when He said: " The bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world," meant not His real body, but bread which figuratively might be called His flesh, He would have been guilty of having deliberately deceived mankind — He who can neither deceive nor be deceived — He who is truth and justice and goodness itself. "This," He says in unmistakable terms, " this is My body; this is My blood," and " My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed."
Brethren, a favorite argument of unbelievers against the real presence is, that the primitive Christian Church knew nothing of such a doctrine, for, say they, it is not found in the writings of the Fathers of the early centuries. That this assertion is in a measure true is owing partly to the excessive veneration of the early Christians for the Blessed Eucharist, and partly to the uniformity and universality of their belief in the real presence. Mindful of the double admonition, that it is good to conceal the king's secret, and that pearls are not to be cast before swine, the primitive Christians instituted what they called the " Discipline of the Secret," according to which no sacrament, and least of all the Eucharist, was to be administered or discussed in the presence of Pagans. Nevertheless, when occasion demanded, we find even the earliest Fathers using this doctrine as a first and universally accepted principle of belief whereon to base their proofs of other dogmas or their refutations of heresy. St. Irenaeus, for example, book 4, chapter 4, convicts Valentine and his followers of inconsistency in that, while admitting that Christ changed bread into His body, they denied His divinity and His power to make all things out of nothing. St. Cyril, also, arguing against the same heretics, asserts the capability of our bodies for immortality on the ground that in holy communion they are so assimilated to the incorruptible body of Christ that, even as the Eucharist consists of corruptible accidents and an incorruptible substance, so our bodies, corruptible by nature, are rendered by hope incorruptible. Three things are here assumed: first, that the consecration effects a real change; second, that corruptible bread becomes the incorruptible body of Christ; and third, that this belief was common alike to the faithful and to heretics. Without this threefold assumption the arguments of the Fathers would be valueless. Again, SS. Hilary and Cyril disprove the contention of the Arians that God the Father and Son are one not by nature but by love, from the fact that in holy communion Christ's body is united to ours not by affection only but really and substantially. "The Father and I are one," says Christ, " and whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood, abides in Me and I in him." The basis of the argument is the same, viz., the common belief of all in the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. Again, St. Epiphanius declares that we should no more deny from appearances man's likeness to God than we should from lack of resemblance deny Christ's real presence in the Eucharist, " and," he adds, " whoever denies that, as He said, it is really He, falls from grace and hope of salvation." Finally, St. Augustine, book 3, chapter 10 on the Trinity, speaking of the earthly forms in which angels have deigned at times to appear to men, says, that although we cannot understand how those forms were assumed, we still believe most firmly on the word of God in Holy Writ that angels they were; just as for the same reason, though we cannot comprehend the manner of His presence, we still are certain that Christ is really and substantially in the Eucharist. The belief of the primitive Church, so clearly evidenced in the teaching of these Fathers, is further proven by their practice. Out of reverence for the Eucharist they received it fasting, as is attested by St. Augustine and Tertullian. "The utmost care was taken," says Origen, homily 13 on Exodus, " that no particle should fall to earth." It was preserved in golden vessels, and St. Victor reprobates the horrible sacrilege of the Arians in having trampled it under foot, while St. Optatus relates how certain Donatists, in attempting to feed it to the dogs, were torn in pieces by the infuriated animals. According to St. Basil, to pray to the Eucharist was deemed right and proper, and not to pray to it was sinful, and St. Augustine testifies that the charge of having worshipped Ceres and Bacchus brought by the Pagans against the Christians was due to the adoration paid by the latter to the body and blood of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. Nothing but belief in the real presence could justify, or can explain such practices. If the primitive Church held that the consecrated species still continued to be mere bread and mere wine, it should have chosen water used for baptizing as a far more sacred object of veneration. But nowhere do we read of such a choice having been made. The Eucharist alone received the honor and adoration due exclusively to Christ and to God.
Brethren, if the Fathers of the early Church have little concerning a dogma which had not yet been called in question, the same cannot be said of the later defenders of the faith. In a.d. 1045, Berengarius first attacked the doctrine of the real presence, and thereafter we find it explicitly asserted by nine general Councils and copiously defended by all the Fathers. Now, is it reasonable to contend that that trinity of heretics, Berengarius, Wycliff, and Zwinglius, were in matters of faith a safer guide than the entire teaching body of the Church; that they alone represented the true Church of Christ, while all the Councils and Fathers and writers and faithful who clung to the belief in the real presence had turned from the true faith to the rankest heresy and idolatry? If apostates and idolaters these latter were, how came it that they attained such eminent sanctity and wrought such stupendous miracles? How comes it that the histories of their opponents are stories of arrogance and self-seeking, or biographies of men who shocked the world with the scandal of their lives? This is heaven's own proof of the doctrine of the real presence, and if on the last day at our final judgment the impossible should occur, and God should arraign us Catholics on a charge of heresy and idolatry, we shall be able to answer boldly: " Not guilty." Not guilty, Lord, for Thou Thyself didst say: " This is My body; this is My blood." Thy great Apostle Paul taught us to discern in the Eucharist Thy body and Thy blood. At Thy bidding the priests of Thy Church continued to do as Thou hadst done, in commemoration of Thee. Thy saints proved this doctrine to us by Thy miracle-working power, and by the holiness of their lives. Not guilty, O Lord, not guilty, for if error there be, Thou Thyself hast misled and deceived us. Turn rather to our opponents and ask them why they doubted Thy words and abandoned Thy faith; why they allowed a few unworthy pastors to drive them from Thy Church, when Thou hadst said that such were to be obeyed but not imitated; why they preferred to follow Calvin and his fellow apostates rather than Thee, when Thou hadst commanded that if even an angel from heaven were to teach other than Thou hadst taught, he should be anathema?
Brethren, the causes of defections from the faith and from the practices of religion are set forth in today's gospel. A certain man made a great supper and invited many. But they began all at once to make excuses, the first, because he had bought a farm and must go see it, another, because he had purchased five yoke of oxen and must go try them, and a third because he had married a wife; and each said: " I pray thee hold me excused." Pride and avarice and conceit and sensuality: these are the forces which keep men away from Church and the sacraments. How many individuals and families there are who, though when in humbler circumstances they were good Catholics, are now grown rich and have achieved a position in society and are ashamed of, and have abandoned, the faith of their fathers! History records that most of the great heresiarchs were men of inordinate ambition and vanity, who, because they could not attain the honors they considered their due within the Church, left her and sought them among her enemies. Ah! these proud, vain souls acquire a grand villa, it may be, and they must needs go out to see it, but the price they pay is excessive, for in exchange they give their priceless faith and their hope of one of the many mansions in their Father's house. Or perhaps to pride they add avarice, and are so absorbed in the game of profit and loss that they have no time to listen to, much less to accept, the Lord's invitation. " Pray excuse me," say they, " I must needs go see the farm I have bought." Aye, go see it, feast thine eyes upon it, take mayhap thy last look at it, for neither thy riches nor thy glory shall descend with thee into the grave. Poor souls; the devil deals with them as the hunter does with his hounds. When the game breaks cover he shows it to his dogs and cheers them on, but no sooner have they brought it down than he snatches it from them and plies the heavy lash. So is it with worldlings in their race for riches and honors; no sooner are they attained than death steps in and bids that all be dropped — then woe to him who is not rich with God. How differently God deals with men, checking them all through life with warnings such as: "Be not solicitous," and "Blessed are the humble," and at last compensating their self-denial ten thousandfold in the words: " Enter ye into the joy of your Lord."
Brethren, another class of persons who decline the invitation to the Eucharistic banquet are those who, wise in their own conceits, reject as false whatever cannot be explored with their five senses. The consecrated species still appear mere bread and wine, therefore, say they, such they are, and therefore, also, we pray you hold us excused. Their five senses, each really a pair, are their five yoke of oxen to which they are so devoted, which they are so proud of and so anxious to exercise, that with them the Lord's summons is of no avail. What a pitiable conceit to suppose that the ineffable nature and unsearchable ways of God can be comprehended by a human mind, whose powers of understanding do not transcend even the nature of a fly! When a heretic named Eunomius boasted of having penetrated with his mind's eye the divine essence, St. Basil, to show the absurdity of his contention, sent him twenty-five questions on insect life, not one of which he was able to answer. For God, to be God, is necessarily incomprehensible, but a truth for which we have His word, is just as necessarily infallible.
Finally, the sensual have no time or appetite for the Lord's Supper. " I have married a wife," says such a one, " and therefore I cannot come." These are they who live according to the flesh, whose highest dream of happiness is carnal pleasure, who so receive even holy matrimony as to shut out God from their minds, and to give themselves to their lust as the horse or the mule. These are they over whom the devil prevails, and who reject the proffered invitation because its acceptance would run counter to their vices. " Amen, I say to you," saith the Lord, " that none of these men, these proud and worldly or self-wise or carnal men, that were called shall taste of My supper." For, sooner or later they will knock at the Lord's door and beg to be admitted to His nuptial feast, but He will answer: "Amen, I know you not. All through your day of life I held out My hands to you while you disbelieved and contradicted Me, and now I pray you hold Me excused." Then will He send His servants, His angels, into the highways and byways, to the neglected and the blamelessly ignorant, and many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down to the Lord's banquet whence many of His ungrateful children shall have been cast out. The poor shall be there; that is, the humble, the unworldly, the poor in spirit. The blind shall be there; that is, those who though 'they saw not Christ in the Eucharist still believed Him to be present. The feeble and the lame shall be there, viz., those who by the spirit mortified the deeds of the flesh, believing it better to enter into life blind and maimed rather than to be cast with all their members into unquenchable fire. Like the Patriarch Jacob they wrestle all through the night of time with the Lord and, though they come out of the contest broken and lame, still they attain the blessing of God and achieve their souls' salvation.
Brethren, let it not be said that Christ instituted for you in vain the Sacrament of His love. Let it not appear as though the Church was obliged to force you to that heavenly banquet by her holy commandment. Come to it rather with strong faith and eager love and deep gratitude, that the body and blood of the Lord may be for you indeed a remedy unto the remission of your sins and an earnest of your future entrance into life everlasting.