Sermon X
The Real Presence.
(For The Feast Of Corpus Christi.)
St. Matt. i. 23.
"They shall call His name Emmanuel,
which, being interpreted, is God with us."
We conclude the seasons of Easter and Pentecost with the Feast of the Blessed Trinity, following in thought our ascended Jesus up to the right hand of His eternal Father. From Christmas to Ascension we commemorate the mission (as it is called) of the Second Person of the Trinity: how the Father sent the Son to become Incarnate, to accomplish our redemption, and found the Church. At Pentecost we celebrate the mission of the Third Person: how the Father and the Son together sent the Holy Ghost, to become incorporate in the Church, and abide with and in it through all time. Then, on Trinity Sunday, the Church, in her turn, bids us remember that, although the Son and the Holy Ghost were sent down to earth, yet they never left heaven; where they had dwelt from eternity, and will dwell to eternity, consubstantial and coequal with the Father.
But the Church is the kingdom of the Incarnation; and the Incarnation is God made visible. Therefore, as a true spouse, living only for her Beloved, she does not leave us contemplating the invisible God, but quickly sets before us the Incarnation again—the end of her yearly song no less than its beginning. For the feast of Corpus Christi is to Christmas as the end to the beginning of a chain of mysteries which centre in the Incarnation. It is, indeed, a sort of second Christmas—the sacramental life of our Lord bearing striking resemblance to His helpless infancy. Again, lest we should forget that our ascended Lord left behind Him the very body He carried into heaven, the Church does not let us stand gazing up after Him with the group on Olivet, but invites us to turn and rejoice with her in the mystery of His perpetual presence here below—a presence not the less real because supersensible, nor the less consoling because veiled.
I shall speak, then, of the Blessed Sacrament, first, as a reality; and, secondly, as a consolation.
First, as a reality. You are aware, my dear brethren, that no article of our faith excites so much the wonder of those who are not Catholics as the doctrine of the Real Presence. They are forced to acknowledge, too, that we actually do believe in it, and take it as a matter of course. Their wonderment is natural enough: for they judge of it only by the senses; and certainly we cannot conceive of any mode in which it would have more apparent unreality. If, however, they believe that the Christ who was born in a stable, lived in obscurity for thirty years, was rejected by the Jews as "the carpenter's son," and, at last, died a felon's death, was God, they must allow that the Godhead in Him had very much apparent unreality, and that its surprising concealment can only be accounted for by design. Again, if they are familiar with the Bible, they know that in several passages a certain adorable secrecy and shyness are ascribed to God as characteristic of Him. As, for instance, in the Psalms we are told that He "makes darkness His hiding-place." [Footnote 61] In Job it is asked, "Peradventure thou wilt comprehend the steps of God, and find out the Almighty perfectly? He is higher than heaven, and what wilt thou do? He is deeper than hell, and how wilt thou know?" [Footnote 62] while Isaias breaks out with the exclamation: "Truly Thou art a hidden God, Thou God of Israel, the Saviour!" [Footnote 63]