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XIX

THE REAL PRESENCE IN HOLY

COMMUNION

'HE doctrine of the Real Presence expresses

the conviction of the Church that our Lord Jesus Christ is really present in the Blessed Sacrament. This presence is due to the fact that the bread and the wine, when the words of consecration are said over them by a priest, become the Body and Blood of Christ. Nobody pretends that this change is one that is easily explained or understood. It is one of the most profound mysteries of the Christian religion, and must be taken on faith. We are to believe that the consecrated bread is the Body of Christ, and the consecrated wine His Blood because of His words, "This is my body" and "This is my blood"; not because it is intelligible to the natural reason.

Of course nobody believes that the Body and Blood of Christ are present in the Sacrament in a carnal, local, physical sense. He is not present in the same way as our bodies are present in a definite place at a particular time. We are not

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told to believe that we press with our teeth the carnal flesh of Christ as we do our material food. As the Twenty-eighth Article of Religion says, The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner." Nevertheless the sacred Humanity of our Lord is really present. That Humanity, which hung upon the Cross and rose from the tomb and is now enthroned in glory in heaven, is present wherever the Blessed Sacrament is on earth.

It is important to remember that it is the risen, glorified Body of Christ which is present on our Altars. The presence of His natural body in the bread and wine at the Last Supper can only be explained as miraculous. His glorified Body is no longer subject to the laws of material bodies in our three-dimensional world. It is conceivable that the Body of Christ may now be a fourdimensional Body; but how such a Body can be present in our three-dimensional world is entirely beyond our present comprehension. If we lived in a flat world and knew only the two dimensions of length and breadth, we should be at a loss to understand the presence in our midst of a body that possessed length and breadth and thickness; and yet its presence would be very real. So in our world the presence of the risen, spiritual Body

of Christ may be very mysterious, but at the same time very real.

There is in our daily sense experience a simple phenomenon which is parallel to the presence of our Lord's Humanity in the Eucharist. Take any object in the natural world: a bright star in the heavens, for example. It becomes present on the retina of the eye of each one of us at the same time, without being divided into fragments. It becomes a present reality in each separate consciousness. And yet if anyone made the state. ment that any star could be present in many places on earth at the same time, we would be inclined to regard it as an absurd assertion. In somewhat the same way as the star becomes present in the mental consciousness of each one of us, the Body of Christ becomes present on every Altar, and in each particle of the consecrated elements, for us to offer to God as our Sacrifice, and to receive into our souls and bodies as our spiritual food.

M. Bergson has said, "A body is present wherever its (attractive) influence is felt." The human bodies we now possess can make their influence felt only where they are locally and corporeally present; but the risen Body of Christ can make its influence felt wherever a few of the faithful are gathered together and a priest utters

the sacred words of consecration over the bread

and wine.

The alternative to belief in the Real Presence is belief in a real absence. Of course all Christians believe that the Divine nature of Christ,His Eternal Godhead,- is present everywhere. The presence of His Divine nature is not here in question. What we are considering is, whether we may believe that the human nature of Christ, -comprising His Body and Mind and Spirit,is really present amongst the assembly of the faithful, as it was among the disciples in Galilee, or only that it is far away in some distant heaven. One or the other must be true. We cannot have

it both ways.

Now it is not of much consequence what any individual in the Church believes on this subject,

be he layman, priest, or bishop. The important question which we are trying to answer is, what does the Church authoritatively teach on this matter in the Prayer Book? That is very easy to find out. We are in fact troubled by an embarrassment of riches, there are so many phrases in the Book of Common Prayer that bear precisely upon this question. We have space to look at only a few of them.

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Let us first turn to the Church Catechism. To

the question" What is the inward part, or thing signified?" this answer is given: "The Body and Blood of Christ, which are spiritually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper." Then the further question is asked: "What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?" And the answer is: "The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine." If the Church intended to make it clear that she believes in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it is difficult to see how she could have used any plainer words. If the Church did not mean that, these answers in the Catechism are most confusing and mystifying.

In the Prayer of Consecration we pray, "that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood." And later in the same prayer we pray "that we may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ." This must be very uncomfortable language for both priest and people to use, if they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence.

In the sentences which are pronounced by the priest when he communicates the people he is

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