attested by the immediate followers of our Lord's disciples, Catholics firmly hold that in the sacrament of the altar Christ is truly present, and indeed in such a way, that Almighty God, who was pleased at Cana, in Galilee, to convert water into wine, changes the inward substance of the consecrated bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.* We therefore adore the Saviour mysteriously present in the sacrament;† rejoice in his exceeding condescending compassion; and express, in canticles of praise and thanksgiving, our pious emotions, as far as the divinely enraptured soul of man can express them.‡ "Quoniam autem Christus, re *Concil. Trid. Sess. XIII. c. iv. demptor noster, corpus suum id, quod sub specie panis offerebat, vere esse dixit; ideo persuasum semper in ecclesiâ Dei fuit, idque nunc denuo sancta hæc synodus declarat, per consecrationem panis et vini, conversionem fieri totius substantia panis in substantiam corporis Christi Domini nostri, et totius substantiæ vini in substantiam sanguinis ejus. Quæ conversio convenienter et proprie a sanctâ Catholicâ ecclesiâ transubstantiatio est appellata." † L. c. c. v. "Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur, quin omnes Christi fideles, pro more in catholicâ ecclesiâ semper recepto, latriæ cultum, qui vero Deo debetur, huic sanctissimo sacramento in veneratione exhibeant. Neque enim ideo minus est adorandum, quod fuerit a Christo Domino, ut sumatur, institutum. Nam illum eundem Deum præsentem in eo adesse credimus, quem Pater æternus introducens in orbem terrarum dicit: 'et adorent eum omnes Angeli Dei,' quem magi procidentes adoraverunt, quem denique in Galilæa ab apostolis adoratum fuisse, scriptura testatur." The well-known Christian hymn saith :— "Lauda Sion salvatorem, Lauda ducem et pastorem, Nec laudare sufficis. Out of this faith sprung the mass, which, in its essential purport, is as old as the Church, and even in its more important forms can be proved to have been already in existence in the second and third centuries. But to unfold more clearly the Catholic doctrine on this point, it is necessary to anticipate somewhat of our reflections on the Church. The Church, considered in one point of view, is the living figure of Christ, manifesting himself and working through all ages, whose atoning and redeeming acts, it, in consequence, eternally repeats, and uninterruptedly continues. The Redeemer not merely lived eighteen hundred years ago, so that he hath since disappeared, and we retain but an historical remembrance of him, as of a deceased man: but he is, on the contrary, eternally living in his Church; and in the sacrament of the altar he hath manifested this in a sensible manner to creatures endowed with sense. He is, in the announcement of his word, the abiding teacher; in baptism he perpetually receives the children of men into his communion; in the tribunal of penance he pardons the contrite sinner; strengthens rising youth with the power of his spirit in confirmation; breathes into the bridegroom and the bride a higher conception of the nuptial relations; unites Laudis thema specialis In another we find the following: "Pange lingua gloriosi himself most intimately with all who sigh for eternal life, under the forms of bread and wine; consoles the dying in extreme unction; and in holy orders institutes the organs whereby he worketh all this with nevertiring activity. If Christ, concealed under an earthly veil, unfolds, to the end of time, his whole course of actions begun on earth, he, of necessity, eternally offers himself to the Father as a victim for men; and the real permanent exposition hereof can never fail in the Church, if the historical Christ is to celebrate in her his entire imperishable existence.* The following may perhaps serve to explain the Catholic view on this subject, since it is a matter of so much difficulty to Protestants to form a clear conception of this dogma.+ Christ, on the cross, has offered the sacrifice for our sins. But the incarnate son of God, who hath suffered, died, and risen again from the dead for our sins, living, according to his own teaching, is present in the Eu * Conc. Trid. Sess. xxII. c. 1. "Is igitur Deus et Dominus noster, etsi semel seipsum in arâ crucis, morte intercedente, Deo patri oblaturus erat, ut æternam illic redemptionem operaretur ; quia tamen per mortem sacerdotium ejus extinguendum non erat, in cœna novissima, qua nocte tradebatur, ut dilectæ sponsæ suæ ecclesiæ visibile, sicut hominum natura exigit, relinqueret sacrificium, quo cruentum illud, semel in cruce peragendum, repræsentaretur, ejusque memoria in finem usque sæculi permaneret, atque illius salutaris virtus in remissionem eorum, quæ a nobis quotidie committuntur, peccatorum applicaretur," etc. C. ii: "Et quoniam in divino hoc sacrificio, quod in missâ peragitur, idem ille Christus continetur, et incruente immolatur, qui in arâ crucis semel se ipsum cruente obtulit, docet sancta synodus, sacrificium istud vere propitiatorium esse, per ipsumque fieri, si cum vero corde et rectâ fide, cum metû et reverentiâ, contriti ac pœnitentes ad Deum accedamus,” etc. † See note B in Appendix. charist, the Church from the beginning hath, at His command (Luke xxii, 20), substituted the Christ mysteriously present, and visible only to the spiritual eye of faith, for the historical Christ, now inaccessible to the corporeal senses. The former is taken for the latter, because the latter is likewise the former-both are considered as one and the same; and the eucharistic Saviour, therefore, as the victim also for the sins of the world. And the more so, as, when we wish to express ourselves accurately, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is put only as a part for an organic whole. For his whole life on earth-his ministry and his sufferings, as well as his perpetual condescension to our infirmity in the Eucharist-constitute one great sacrificial act, one mighty action undertaken out of love for us, and expiatory of our sins, consisting, indeed, of various individual parts, yet so that none by itself is strictly speaking the sacrifice. In each particular part the whole recurs, yet without these parts the whole cannot be conceived. The will of Christ, to manifest His gracious condescension to us in the Eucharist, forms no less an integral part of his great work, than all besides, and in a way so necessary, indeed, that, whilst we here find the whole scheme of Redemption reflected, without it the other parts would not have sufficed for our complete atonement. Who, in fact, would venture the assertion that the descent of the Son of God in the Eucharist belongs not to His general merits, which are imputed to us? Hence the sacramental sacrifice is a true sacrifice-a sacrifice in the strict sense, yet so that it must in no wise be separated from the other things which Christ hath achieved for us, as the very consideration of the end of its institution will clearly show.* *In Theophilus L. S. register. Annæ Comnenæ Supplementa VOL. I. 22 In this last portion (if we may so call it) of the great sacrifice for us, all the other parts are to be present, and applied to us in this last part of the objective sacrifice, the latter becomes subjective and appropriated to us. Christ on the cross is still an object strange to us: Christ, in the Christian worship, is our property, our victim. There He is the universal victim-here He is the victim for us in particular, and for every individual amongst us; there he was only the victim; -here He is the victim acknowledged and revered: there the objective atonement was consummated ; (Tub. 1832, c. iv. pp. 18-23) a fragment from the still unprinted panoply of Nicetas is communicated in reference to Soterichus Panteugonus the oldest document, to our knowledge, informing us of any doubt being entertained, whether the mass be really a sacrifice. Soterich lived in the twelfth century, under Manuel Comnenus, and maintained the opinion that it was only in an improper sense that Christ in the Eucharist was said to be offered up as a victim to God. But the Greek bishops assembled together rejected this view, and Soterich presented a recantation, which is not contained in the above-named writing, but which I printed in the Theological Quarterly Review of Tübingen. (See the Tubinger Quartalshrift, 1833, No. 1, p. 373.) The recantation runs thus: “ ὁμοφρονῶ τῇ ἁγιᾳ καὶ ἱερᾷ συνόδῳ ἐπὶ τῷ τὴν θυσίαν καὶ τὴν νῦν προσαγομένην καὶ τὴν τότε προσαχθεῖσαν παρὰ τοῦ μονογενοῦς καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντος λόγου, καὶ τότε προσαχθεῖσαν [it stands so written in the Paris codex, but it ought evidently to be προσαχθῆναι) καὶ νῦν πάλιν προσάγεσθαι, ὡς τὴν αὐτὴν οὖσαν καὶ μίαν, καὶ τῷ μὴ οὕτω φονοῦντι ἀνάθεμα. Κἄν τι πρὸς ἀνατροπὴν εὑρίσκηται γεγραμμένον, ἀναθεματί καθυποβάλλω. Η υπογραφή Σωτηρίχος ὁ Παντεύγονος.” TRANSLATION. "I agree with the holy synod herein, that the sacrifice now to be offered up, and once offered up by the only-begotten and incarnate Word, was once offered up, and is now offered up, because it is one and the same. To him who doth not so believe, anathema: and if any thing hath been found written in refutation hereof, I subject it to the anathema. |