I fear a vast number of Church people do not know what to believe. A great multitude of poor honest people believe the Eucharist to be nothing but a simple ceremony, and not a few, even of the clergy, believe the very contrary to the truth.
Formerly, in my recollection, to believe in the Real Presence, was universally held to be the distinguishing and erroneous doctrine of Catholics, in opposition to Protestants. We have now advanced so far as to teach a Presence, which however no one can understand to be a Presence, obscured as it is with terms of “a spiritual presence,” and “the means of apprehending it being faith.”
And thus in our Communion, the great service of the Church is almost entirely forsaken of the masses of the people, the great bulk of the people are uncommunicated, and have substituted for the Catholic faith and religion, a system of mere sermon hearing.
But in reality the true doctrine of the Church is plain enough. The commanded Elements of Bread and Wine are placed on the Altar, they are then, simply Bread and Wine; in virtue of the words of Institution or Consecration they become, and, are Christ’s Body and Blood; present, not indeed in an ordinary, natural, physical manner, such as our external senses can take cognizance of, but in a special, mystical, supernatural manner, as we sometimes call it spiritual; not meaning hereby, mere spirit, in opposition to body, but as the Apostle tells us, “there is a spiritual Body.” It is not Christ’s natural Body, subsisting according to the ordinary operation of what we call the Laws of Nature, but it is His glorified Body, that Body, which came suddenly, and stood in the midst of his disciples when the doors were shut; which vanished out of their sight; which was seen of S. Stephen, and appeared to S. Paul; the archetype of that perfection, in which our bodies were first created in the image of God, and to which they shall be restored and made like when He shall subdue all things to Himself.
The Holy Elements having thus become Christ’s Body, they are the source of life, and grace, and blessing of every kind, to those who, to use the divine language, “eat,” become partakers of,—are united with them.
In discoursing of, and admitting the supernatural, we at once put aside the consideration of physical laws; we at once admit that things supernatural pass the limits of our finite intelligence. But, as the Holy Scriptures describe the operations of God to us, in terms of human comprehension, such as eyes, hands, arms, &c., so in the word “eat,” we understand not alone a physical perception, but far more. To describe the divinely appointed method, the external means, the connecting link, (so to speak) by which the Divine agency is pleased to operate on Christians, we are bidden to Take, eat, and by it we understand soul-feeding, a uniting of the glorified Body of Christ with ours.
“He that eateth me shall live by me,” saith our Lord. There is a deep meaning here; “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” In this full sense of eating therefore, we understand, not only the act of “carnally pressing with the teeth, the Sacrament of Christ’s Body,” as S. Augustine saith (for it is Christ’s Body that all do so press), but those further dispositions of mind, which enable Christians to unite with Him, and which are described in the language of the Church as “a true and lively faith.”
And thus it follows, that they who have not the due dispositions of mind, obtain not that full and perfect union of Christ’s Body with their own, which is appointed by our Lord, to be the great Christian source of life and grace. John vi. 53, 54.
After the elements have been consecrated, they become Christ’s Body. The “Faith” or qualifications of the receiver have nothing to do with the Real Supernatural Presence of Christ in the Sacrament; and this point cannot be too strongly insisted on, when, as at present, the most solemn and positive doctrines of the Church of all ages and nations, are concealed, avoided, or explained away, in deference to a miserably short-sighted policy of expediency, under the name of moderation.
That therefore which has been consecrated—which is “given, taken, and received” by all communicants, is, as the 28th Article, and the solemn words of delivery expressly declare—the Body of Christ—and this is to be understood in the simplest, plainest sense of language without a shadow of ambiguity or refinement.