Eucharistic host

“ Such of our churches as have already, week by week, a fairly attended Celebration, to which all the faithful are heartily invited and urged to come,—such churches exhibit [35] a spectacle of really Apostolical Eucharistic Service, such as the whole world beside cannot produce. Neither in East or West, but in the English Church only, is weekly Communion, as the bounden duty of all Christians, so much as dreamt of; so utterly has the apostolic model, throughout Christendom, faded from the memory of the Church of God. ”

“ When is the Holy Eucharist a Sacrament, and when is it a sacrifice? A. The Holy Eucharist is a Sacrament when we receive it in Holy Communion and when it remains in the Tabernacle of the Altar. It is a sacrifice when it is offered up at Mass by the separate Consecration of the bread and wine, which signifies the separation of Our Lord's blood from His body when He died on the Cross. ”

“ Our baptism is a purification from all error. Our church is built on the divine Principle, Love. We can Spiritual Eucharist unite with this church only as we are newborn of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love, — casting out error and healing the sick. Our Eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God. Our bread, “which cometh down from heaven,” is Truth. Our cup is the cross. Our wine the inspiration of Love, the draught our Master drank and commended to his followers. ”

“ The Lord's Supper (1 Cor. xii. 10) , a name perhaps originally used for the Agapé, or love feast, which preceded the Eucharist, and then given to the Eucharist itself. It is an old English name, used in the story of St. Anselm's last days, where it is said: "He passed away as morning was breaking on the Wednesday before the day of our Lord's Supper".
The Holy Communion (1 Cor. x. 16) , in which our baptismal union with Christ is consummated, and which forms a means of union between souls in the Church Triumphant, at Rest, and on Earth. In it, Christ, God and Man, is the bond of oneness. ”

“ This effect He chiefly produces in the Holy Eucharist, for in that sacrament, when worthily received, He gives the soul strength to overcome every fear and difficulty, and to undertake and succeed in every enterprise, however great when it has for its object the glory of God. Hence the Eucharist is called by the holy Fathers, " the bread of the strong, the food of the great, the bread that confirms and strengthens the heart of man." ”

“ And so, finally, the Eucharist is a MEANS OF GRACE. The Altar becomes a Table, and the Sacrifice ends in a Feast. We are bidden, not only to ‘do this,’ but to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ the Body and Blood. Here it is that we reach250 the most mysterious aspect of all. Christ died and rose again for us that we might live by Him. In this holiest fellowship He fulfils His promise to be with us; in this highest worship we are made partakers of His very self. How the blessing is bestowed we are unable to explain. ”

“ Whoever shall affirm that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is not to be adored, even with the external worship of latria, and therefore that the Eucharist is to be honored neither with peculiar festive celebration, nor to be solemnly carried about in processions according to the laudable and universal rite and custom of the church, or that it is not to be held up publicly before the people that it may be adored, and that its worshippers are idolaters ”

“ The opinion that by the appointment of a proper Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, for any day, there is indicated an intention that the holy Eucharist shall be celebrated on that day, cannot be justified. At no time should the holy Eucharist be celebrated unless the priest have present with him at least one other person who will assist at the mass. For a priest to celebrate entirely alone is contrary to the letter and the spirit of the mass-rite, and is "a reprehensible custom worthy of meet correction." ”

“ II. The sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist shall be freely administered in the two kinds, that is bread and wine, to all the faithful in Christ who are not precluded by mortal sin—according to the word and disposition of Our Saviour. ”

“ And so at the close of the Holy Eucharist celebrated in the sanctuary, after the "memorial" has been made before God which His Son "hath commanded us to make," and we have been "partakers of His most blessed Body and Blood," this is the Blessing with which the Church lets us depart—a blessing which carries the thought up to what, in its fullness, waits for us in heaven: "The Peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." ”

“ Moreover, not only is the Mass our Christian Sacrifice; but in the Holy Eucharist we have the food of our souls and the proper sustenance of our spiritual life in this world. We hold and truly believe that in Holy Communion we receive really and in fact, and not in any mere figurative sense, our Blessed Lord Himself—Body, Soul and Divinity. This is our faith to-day as it was the unbroken belief of the Catholic Church from the earliest tunes. ”

“ In the West it has been used in other ways. A portion of the consecrated Bread from one Eucharist, known as the “Fermentum,” was long made use of in the next, or sent by the bishop to the various churches of his city, no doubt with the object of emphasizing, the solidarity and the continuity of “the one Eucharist”; and amongst other customs which prevailed for some centuries, from the 8th onward, were those of giving it to the newly ordained in order that they might communicate themselves, and of burying it in or under the altar-slab of a newly consecrated church. ”

“ As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me."
And so we pray in the Holy Eucharist: "Grant us, ... gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh, of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us."
It all speaks of a foretaste here, in a Sacrament, of what heaven shall give in its fullness.
The sanctuary tells us of heaven in another way. ”

“ The Most Holy Eucharist is indeed the Sacrament of Love; it is in truth a miracle of love. Simply for love of us poor human beings is Jesus Christ really and truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. ”

“ For as the bread which comes from the earth, receiving the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but Eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly and a heavenly, so also our bodies, partaking of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity. ”

“ The Holy Eucharist.—All adults of every parish were bound to receive the Holy Communion at least once a year under pain of being considered outside the benefits and privileges of Holy Church and of being refused Christian burial, if they were to die without having made their peace. Besides the Easter precept, all were strongly urged to approach the Holy Eucharist more frequently, and especially at Christmas and Easter, and, as has been already pointed out, there is some evidence to show that, in point of fact, lay people did communicate more frequently, and especially on the Sundays of Lent. ”

“ In the second prayer, Domine Jesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi, the priest asks Jesus Christ, by virtue of his adorable body and blood, to deliver him from all evils, and to keep him always united with him.
In the third prayer he beseeches the Lord that this Communion may not turn to his condemnation, but may be for the salvation of his soul and body.—The Holy Eucharist protects the soul against temptations and passions; it extinguishes the fire of concupiscence that burns in our bodies, and is a powerful remedy against the death of the soul. ”

“ It is of the very essence of what is meant by being a Christian. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” The sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel is not a mere prediction of the Eucharist. It is the revelation of that principle of which the Eucharist is an illustration. Our Communions are the supreme moments, the crises, in a process which is for ever going on, the feeding of us, by the Spirit, with the flesh and blood, the holy and victorious manhood, of the Redeemer. ”

“ Holy Thursday.—I have come back all fragrant from the chapel of moss, in the church where the Blessed Sacrament is reposing. It is a beautiful day when God wills to rest among the flowers and perfumes of the springtime. Mimi, Rose, and I made this reposoir, aided by M. le Curé. I thought, as we were doing it, of the supper-room, of that chamber well furnished, where Jesus willed to keep the pasch with his disciples, giving himself for the Lamb. Oh, what a gift! What can one say of the Eucharist? I know nothing to say. We adore; we possess; we live; we love. ”

“ There is no doctrine on which plain unmistakable language is more necessary, than that of the Holy Eucharist.
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. ”

“ Since Jesus Christ is whole and entire under the form of bread, as well as under the form of wine, the practice of the Catholic Church of giving holy communion under one form is reasonable.
Good Christians frequently receive their Lord and their God in holy communion. He inspires them with feelings of love, gratitude, and adoration. He reminds them to think frequently of their Creator—to give Him their first thoughts in the morning and their last in the evening. He gives them strength to restrain their guilty passions. ”

“ Reservation of the Eucharist
The practice of reserving the sacred elements for the purpose of subsequent reception prevailed in the church from very early times. The Eucharist being the seal of Christian fellowship, it was a natural custom to send portions of the consecrated elements by the hands of the deacons to those who were not present (Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 65) . ”

“ It will be said, the Holy Eucharist is celebrated in these parishes from time to time, only less frequently than of old. But who has told us that we may safely celebrate it less frequently? How can we possibly know but that such infrequency is direfully injurious? Take the analogy of the human body, which ever serves to illustrate so well the nature of the Church's life. Take pulsation, take respiration, or even food. Is not the frequency of every one of these mysterious conditions of life as certainly fixed, as their necessity to life at all? ”

“ To Receive the Holy Eucharist by Faith and Purity.
I. How necessary it is to prepare beforehand for the worthy receiving of holy communion; lest by approaching with a conscience loaded with mortal guilt, you convert the food of life into poison, or by communicating with indevotion and tepidity, you receive but little grace! Fearful of these evils, St. Paul exclaims to all Christendom, " Let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread." (1 Cor. xi. 28.) He that presumes to come to the marriage feast without the wedding garment, will be cast into utter darkness. ”

“ A weekly Eucharist is really a continual Eucharist, because it makes our whole life to be nothing else than a living over again and again, with perpetual application to our own practice, of those events and memories which are the staple of the Ordinance. In this respect the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist, viewed as crowning the week, possesses a fitness, because a close following in the steps of Christ, in his Incarnation and Passion, his Death and Burial and Resurrection, which no other day can lay claim to. ”

“ On Maundy Thursday, several particles of the Blessed Eucharist, consecrated at the Mass sung that day, were reserved—a larger one for the celebrating priest on the morrow, Good Friday; the smaller ones for the viaticum of the dying, should need be, and carried in solemn procession all round the church, from the high altar to a temporary erection, fitted up like a tomb, with lights, and the figure of an angel watching by, on the north side of the chancel. ”

“ In the words of institution they "hear His voice;" when the elements are presented to them, they perceive as it were "the smell of His garments;" with their hands they "handle of the Word of Life;" and they "taste and see that the Lord is good." But some of the early Christian writers were by no means satisfied with such representations. They appear to have entertained an idea that Christ was in the Eucharist, not only in richer manifestations of His grace, but also in a way altogether different from that in which He vouchsafes His presence in prayer, or praise, or any other divine observance. ”