Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume IV

CHAPTER XIV -- THE BREAD OF LIFE(Q. 73-78)

1. The way to a man's heart:    (a) An open road -- by the need of man.    (b) A double road -- by reason of double need.    (c) Roads that are thoroughly mapped	-- man's interest in food.2. A contrast in foods:    (a) The body nourished by inferiors.    (b) The soul nourished by superiors.    (c) Process of corporal and spiritual nourishment.3. A case of spiritual indigestion and its history:    (a) The regretful renouncement of food.    (b) The progress of starvation.    (c) Reasons for the starvation	  -- the predispositions of the mystery.4. The fact of the mysterious food:    (a) Essence and existence of the Eucharist.    (b) Fittingness of its institution.    (c) Its necessity.    (d) Its prefigures.5. The mystery itself:    (a) The mystery of the matter:     (1) Ingredients of the mystery -- bread and wine.     (2) Process of the mystery:         a. Passing of the substance of the bread:	     1) The change itself -- transubstantiation.	     2) Its effects in relation to substance,		  accidents and substantial form.         b. Existence of Christ in the Eucharist:	     1) As to subject.	     2) As to quantity.         c. Continuation of the accidents.    (b) The power of the form.Conclusion:1. What men live by.2. Hunger strike of the twentieth century.3. The Angelic Doctor and the Bread of Angels

CHAPTER XIV -- THE BREAD OF LIFE
(Q. 73-78)

THE explorer of the virgin regions close to a man's heart whoreported his findings with such classic brevity was either theperpetrator or the victim of a great injustice. He might havesupposed that all the world would understand his "The way to aman's heart is through his stomach" was no more than aninadequate metaphor for a truth too long to be fully told; or hemight really have thought he had reached the end of the road whenhe had come to the outer boundaries of the physical nature ofman. In the first case, he deserves the sincere sympathy of allthe millions of misunderstood authors; in the second, well, atleast he has plenty of companions who stop with him at thehalf-way station thinking it is the end of the road.

The way to a man's heart: An open road -- by the need ofman

In actual fact, catering to a man's stomach has more immediateeffect on his waist-line than on his heart. Let us give theauthor the benefit of the doubt and accept his metaphor. Then theroads he points out are really the highways of beneficence. Whenit is pity that is being kind, there is a certain tendernessawakened; but pity rarely leads to love because by its nature itemphasizes the superiority of the benefactor, and love cannot butbe humble. Sheer generosity, on the other hands is such aselfless thing as to be of the immediate family of undying loveMan is grateful for gifts; in his gratitude, he is prepared tostart gratitude's endless circle by giving gifts in return, evengiving himself in return.

The degree of the recklessness of his return gifts will depend toa great extent on the bright flame of generosity that inspired itand the need to which that generosity ministered. A man isgrateful for the small beneficence of a match with which to lighthis cigarette, but not exuberantly grateful; he is more gratefulfor a roof to keep off the weight of the world, for clothes tomaintain his dignity, and friends to buoy up his heart. When theministrations are to his radical needs, when he is given thethings by which he lives and without which he dies, his gratitudecan easily be turned into the earth-shaking force we call love.

No question about it, a man needs food. A comfortably linedstomach, too, is unquestionably a necessary disposition toromantic moods; at least, the perfume of a bakery shop willrudely interrupt the most romantic protestations of a starvingman, and fasting has always been more closely allied to penancethan to romance. Of course, the thing must not be carried toofar; an overstuffed lover will be hard to keep awake. But beyondthe matter of predisposition, the ministration of food evokes asingularly child-like gratitude from the most robust adult. It isalmost as though he were not only grateful that his life was notallowed to flicker out for want of fuel, he is a little surprisedthat so lethal a weapon of food has been used to such beneficentpurposes. Ignorance can work marvels of destruction with food;unskillfulness easily surpasses those marvels; it is only in ourtime that governments have discovered they can break the spiritof a man, mold his disposition, and determine his political andeconomic future by the simple device of depriving him of theproper vitamins. No wonder a man is surprised and grateful torise from a meal not only unharmed but positively nourished.

A double road -- by reason of double need

Man, however, does not live by bread alone; he has a mind and aheart that are nourished by truth and goodness. If he is gratefulfor the things by which he lives physically, he s uncriticallydevoted, exorbitantly grateful for truth and goodness. Becausethere are none of the immediate protests of nature againstpoisonous or half-cooked fare in this order, charlatans andhypocrites have reaped a harvest of gratitude and love with noneof the labor of truth and goodness. But aside from that, in ourtime there is more than sufficient confirmation that the road ofphysical food is only one road, and not a through one at that, toa man's heart; the other, truth and goodness, is a wide open roadthat leads straight to the depths of a man's heart. Why else doesthe most mediocre of university professors move before his pupilsin a pillar of cloud by day; or the major professor slightlyobscure the sun for his graduate student?

Roads that are thoroughly mapped -- man's interest in food

If the original explorer meant that the road to a man's heart wasby the things which support his life, he was quite right. Thereis nothing obscure about the fact, nothing hidden about theroads. Man's thirst for truth is amply testified to by his naivetrust of the learned, his unquestioning sacrifice in theinterests of education, his high honor for those who haveprofessedly amassed a supply to distribute to others. Hisinterest in physical food -- well, there has never been muchquestion of that; though there has been, perhaps, no greater,more detailed interest than in our time when vitamins, calories,carbohydrates and starches roll off the tongues of children likea litany of old friends. In a sense, anyone can find the way to aman's heart, because he wears the directions written boldly onhis whole nature.

But there is much more to the nourishment of a man's soul thanthe truth he can discover from other men, or the goodness he cansee glinting, now and then, in the sunlight of his ownpenetrating glance. Perhaps we can understand that best bycontrasting the character of the food of the body and of thesoul. That there is a considerable difference should be apparentto our times, of all ages. Not so long ago in America, when adepression made skeletons of strong men, we saw many a mightyspiritual feat from men who had scarcely strength to lift theirfeet: thoughtfulness , sacrifice, refusal to stoop to waysunworthy of man to avoid the spectre of starvation. We know then,that it is possible to have a well-nourished soul in a starvingbody; as if that evidence would not be enough for our scepticalminds; the world has since been filled with millions of thestarving who nourish the world with their heroism. It should notbe too hard, then, to understand the possibility of a starvedsoul in a comfortably nourished body. These two do not flourishon the same diet.

A contrast in foods: The body nourished by inferiors; the soulnourished by superiors

The body needs the support of things beneath it. It feeds onthem, destroying them, changing them into itself; and prospers inthe process of bestowing a destructive nobility on the animal,plant, and mineral world. The soul needs the support of asuperior; it feeds on truth, goodness, above all on God, notdestroying these things, not assimilating them into its ownsubstance, but rather being changed by them, and even, in thecase of God, in some sense being changed into Him. The body isalways losing something that must be replaced; the soul is alwaysgaining something that need never be replaced but that soincreases its capacity that only the infinitely inexhaustiblecould possibly keep it alive. Men are indeed interested in food,food of body and of soul, for men are interested in life.

Process of corporal and spiritual nourishment

Since a breach has been made in the walls of nature and man hasslipped out into the fields of God, it is more than ever truethat he does not live by bread alone. To live the divine lifethat is now his, he needs divine nourishment: truth that isproper to God; goodness that is God's own; yes, even the verybody of God, the food of angels that yet has never graced anangelic table. When that food was first offered to men, manyturned away in doubt and distaste; it was a hard saying, thatpromise, and the food was altogether strange to the diet of men.The saying is still hard for men who measure love by their ownlimits, generosity by their own check-book, and power by theirown strength. The food is still strange to those who have yet totaste it; for one must taste and see the sweetness of thedelights of divinity which are not to be imagined from theexperiences of men.

A case of spiritual indigestion and its history: The regretfulrenouncement of food

Those who did taste it became enamored of it; they knew somethingof the truth of the promises: "He that eateth my flesh anddrinketh my blood abideth in me and I in him." "I am the bread ofheaven; unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drinkHis Blood, you shall not have life in you." They tasted andlived, lived as men had never dared hope to live; lived by thelife of God. Little wonder, then, that men cherished the gift.For eleven hundred years, it never occurred to men to challengeit directly; it was too close to dreams, too wholly reality, toovibrant with life to leave room for a doubt. When, at last, therestless mind of a man struck out at this gift, it was with anundertone of the regret and shame a man feels when his fit ofdistemper aims barbed words at those he loves most. Berengariusdenied the real presence of Christ, but with the proviso that thesymbol moved man to create his own heavenly food for thenourishment of the life without which there was nothing to livefor. Before he died, he knew the emptiness he had introduced intohis own life, admitted it, and received again the Bread of Life.

The progress of starvation

He had shown a dark path to the human mind, irritated in theobscurity of faith. Still, men would have none of it. For men donot easily surrender the things by which they live; and more thantime is necessary to teach men to see light in darkness, life indeath, plenty in starvation. It was five centuries before theEucharist was challenged again; and, again, the challenge was aregretful, even a half-hearted one in its beginnings. Luthercould not bring himself to deny the divine prudence in theEucharist; Calvin slithered, rather than plunged, into it; it wasZwinglius who dared to step as far off the path of life asBerengarius had.

Reasons for the starvation -- the predispositions of themystery

From then on, men steadily lost the taste for this divine food.In a way, it was inevitable. As men lost interest in Christ, howcould they keep interest in His constant presence; as they losthope for things beyond the stars, what point was there in feedingon the Bread of Angels; as they forgot Calvary, what meaning hadthe living memento of that gesture of friendship? The thing wasinevitable as men lost sight of the far horizons of divine life.To eat this Bread, a man must approach humbly to a food that ishis Master, falling down in adoration; he must be stripped of thefundamental selfishness that puts himself before God, or he eatsit to his damnation; he must have courage, the courage to face ahuman life divinely lived. This is too much to ask of a worldwhose prescription for life is rather pride in self-sufficiency,satisfaction at whatever cost, and escape from life rather than achallenge to it. Men have become so hungry that the food isdistasteful; but they nonetheless starve for lack of it.

The fact of the mysterious food: Essence and existence of theEucharist

Yet, the food is there for men to eat; on the word of God, it wasgiven to men, is still given to them. If that is not securityenough, men must go hungry: for the mind of man, because it isnot the mind of God, cannot encompass the supreme act of divinegenerosity. The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, thedivine food of man's supernatural life, was instituted by Christat the Last Supper when He took bread, blessed it, and gave it toHis disciples saying: "Take ye and eat. This is my body"; andtaking the wine, in the same manner, saying: "Drink ye all ofthis. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall beshed for many unto the remission of sins." By these words Hefulfilled the promise which had sounded so incredibly hard to theears of so many, the promise that He would give them His body toeat and His blood to drink. The fulfillment of that promise wasin the sensible sign of the accidents of bread and wine,instituted to give grace, not, as in the case of the othersacraments, by the power of the Holy Ghost in them, but bycontaining the very body and blood of Christ Himself.

The promise should not have been so hard to believe, the food notdifficult to take. After all, we do not expect an earthly fatherto give a child life, generating it, and then do nothing toconserve that life; why, then, suspect the heavenly Father of oursupernatural life to bestow that life on us, generating us inBaptism, and not provide nourishment for the conservation of thatlife? Indeed He did provide, and much more than nourishment. Forif we take the internal physical perfections of a man, that whichhe attains by growth, as paralleled in the spiritual orderthrough Confirmation, then the whole gamut of externalperfections are paralleled in the spiritual order through theEucharist: it is a man's food, his clothes robing him in newdignity, the house to which he flies to shelter, his companion,friend, his treasure, even, in a very real sense, his goal.

Fittingness of its institution

While Our Lord had promised all this long before, had had it inmind from the beginning of His human life, and eternally in Hisdivine mind, He saved its actual institution until the lastmoments of His life. It was to be a souvenir of His passion anddeath, indeed, in its accomplishment as sacrifice, the veryrenewal of that precious death; what more fitting than that itshould stand touching shoulders in the memory of men with thedeath of God that men must not forget? That Last Supper was a sadfarewell which the silent gloom of the disciples showed they wellunderstood; He was taking leave of them, yet would not leavethem; He would no longer live among them in his proper humanform, but He would never be absent from them under thesacramental veils. They were His friends. He was leaving them agift; given at any time, it would be cherished by those who lovedHim, given as His last gift it would be doubly dear, indeliblychiseled on the memories of those who would bring the story ofHis life and love to all ages.

Its necessity

Obviously, the Eucharist is by no means a divine superfluity, aflamboyant touch to the already divine perfection of humanity.Men need this Bread of Life. Indeed, if we look at it from theside of the unity of the Mystical Body which it signifies, mensimply cannot get along without it; for to reach the goal of hislife, man must at least belong to the soul of the Church.Considered in itself, however, it is not one of the utterlyindispensable means to heaven. A moment's comparison withBaptism, with which we are now familiar, will serve to bring outclearly the exact degree of the necessity of the Eucharist.Baptism is necessary as the very beginning of spiritual life, theprinciple of it; the Eucharist is rather the end, theconsummation of it. Just as it is sufficient to have the end inview, in desire, to accomplish an action that leads to it, so itis sufficient to have the Eucharist in desire to lead the lifethat goes to the goal of union. Baptism of desire does remove theimpediments that bar a man from eternal life, but it is possibleonly to an adult; for, clearly, as Baptism is the first of thesacraments, it cannot be had implicitly, in desire, in thereception of any of the other sacraments. Quite the contrary withthe Eucharist: for all the sacraments are ordered to it as totheir end, Baptism included; so that even an infant, receivingBaptism with the faith and intention supplied by the Church, alsoreceives the Eucharist in desire, implicitly.

Its prefigures

Having received God Himself in the sacrament, men lovingly tracedthe long history of its promise through the patient years of theOld Testament. There was, for instance, Melchisedech's sacrificeof bread and wine, foreshadowing the outer sign of the Eucharist;all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, particularly theexpiatory sacrifices, prefigured the expiatory death of Christwhich is signified and renewed in this sacrament; while itsnourishment, sweetness, and heavenly delights were foretold inthe manna, the heavenly-sent food that fell upon the Israelitesfacing the long years of life in the barrenness of the desert.But more than all others, it was the paschal lamb that foretoldto men the fullest story of the Eucharist. The lamb was eatenwith unleavened bread; it was perfect, spotless, and immolated bythe whole people; its immolation was a sacrifice by which theIsraelites were preserved from the destroying angel and deliveredfrom the captivity of Egypt. The parallel is so perfect as almostto have torn away the veils of a figure to show an explicitpromise of the Lamb of God.

The mystery itself: The mystery of the matter:
Ingredients of the mystery -- bread and wine

Coming down to a more detailed examination of the Eucharist, wemust look for the matter and form that constitute it, not at themoment of its reception by the faithful or the priest, but at themoment of consecration in the Mass. From one angle, this sets theEucharist apart from the other sacraments, for all the others areperfected, or accomplished, in their use, whereas the Eucharistis already in existence before it is administered; thus, forinstance, it is not the blessing of the baptismal water or theconsecration of the oil for Confirmation that constitutes thesetwo sacraments, but rather the use of this material, the pouringof the water and the anointing with chrism. There is this commonnote, however, in all the sacraments; they are perfected,accomplished, at the precise moment when the form is joined tothe matter, the words to the thing, to produce the perfect sign;this is no less true of the Eucharist than of the othersacraments, for it is at the moment of consecration that thewords of the form are applied to the bread and wine.

In the determination of the matter of the Eucharist, the primaryquestion to be asked is: "What did Christ Himself use?" As wehave already seen, the determination of these channels of graceis entirely God's work; that Christ used this or that materialsettles the question of the matter of a sacrament. Yet, the mindand heart of man insist upon going further, searching for thereasons of the peculiar fittingness of this matter rather thanthat. In the course of these tentative explorations into thewisdom of divinity, the saints have come upon reasons much toorichly beautiful to be lightly cast aside.

Certainly, then, the matter of this sacrament is bread and wine;for it was bread and wine that Christ used at the Last Supper.That it is beautifully fitting material is clear from a number ofconsiderations. After all, this sacrament was instituted by wayof nourishment, and bread and wine was the ordinary nourishmentof the men of the time of Christ; God has a way of conferringawful dignity on simple, ordinary things. Then, too, this was thesacrament of Christ's passion, a truth beautifully brought out bythe separate consecration of bread and wine, the separateconsumption of the body and blood of the Lord. It was fittingthat this sacrament, as the type of the unity of the Church whichis made up of many faithful, should be wrought from bread, madeup of many grains, and wine, pressed from many grapes. Just asthere are no determined number of the faithful in the Church, sothere is no determined quantity, large or small, for the matterof this sacrament.

Christ consecrated wheaten bread, and unleavened wheaten bread.No other than wheaten bread, then, will suffice for the validityof the sacrament. The leavening, or lack of it, does not pertainto the essential validity of the sacrament; in actual fact, theGreek Church uses leavened bread as a protest against the heresyof the Nazarenes and its confusion of the legalism of the OldTestament with the sacraments of the New. What is necessary, thatthe consecrating priest avoid sin, is that he follow the rite ofthe Church to which he belongs; and, in the Latin Church, thebread to be used must be unleavened as the sign of the incorruptbody of Christ and the uncorrupted sincerity of the faithful.

The wine used in the first institution was wine of the grape; noother will do for the validity of the Eucharist. A little wateris to be poured into the wine before the consecration as that wasprobably what Christ did in accordance with the custom of thecountry. This touch of water signifies the people sharing in thissacrament; for as the water, mingling with the wine, becomes onewith it, so the people, by the use of this sacrament, are madeone with Christ. As we have seen, this sacrament is notconstituted in its use by the people but in the consecration ofthe Mass; consequently, this matter of the water mixed with thewine does not pertain to the validity of the sacrament.

Process of the mystery: Passing of the substance of thebread:
The change itself -- transubstantiation

There is little difficulty in determining the matter of thissacrament. Where the eyes of the mind go blind and the eyes offaith must take up the work is when we come to the revealed truththat the body and blood of Christ are truly present. By the wordsof Christ, repeated by the priest, the whole substance of thebread is changed into the substance of the body of Christ, andthe substance of the wine is changed into the substance of theblood of Christ. That change of substance to substance,completely unique in the whole field of change, is calledtransubstantiation. If that term is understood, all elsethat will be said about the sacrament will have nothing of thevague or indistinct about it; if the content of that term isbelieved, the whole truth of the Eucharist is known.

From the side of the fittingness of the thing, the truth of thissacrament has all the simple perfection of a supreme work of God.This is the full perfection of all the shadowy figures of the OldTestament, the reality come to dissipate the mist of its promisesand prototypes. Christ Himself had declared again and again thatthe disciples were His friends; and what is more strikinglycharacteristic of friendship than a joyous and constant union offriends? Men had not been cheated of the merit of faith withregard to His divinity; why should they not be given theopportunity to accept His humanity in this sacrament on the samedivine authority?

That there be no misunderstanding about the precise meaning ofthis mystery of the Eucharist, many questions may be asked,questions that are necessary only because of our human capacityfor obscuring the obvious. There is, for example, the question ofthe substance of the bread and wine; do they remain in thissacrament after the consecration? Obviously not: what is changeddoes not remain, and the body of Christ is here, not by localmotion, not by pushing the substance of bread into a littlesmaller space, like a last-minute customer edging his way into aseat on a crowded subway; it is here by way of change, by thesubstance of bread and wine being changed into the substance ofthe body and blood of Christ. Christ did not say, "Here is mybody," He said, "This is my body"; and this was no time forinaccuracy of expression. Moreover, the faithful would be trappedinto idolatry, adoring a sacred host that was still bread.

Well, what happens to the substance of bread and wine in theconsecration? Is it annihilated? Does it return to its componentelements? The answer to both questions is no, because thesubstance of bread and wine are changed info the substance of thebody and blood of Christ. The whole effect must be measured bythe sign of the sacrament, for the words produce precisely whatthey signify; "This is my body" does not signify annihilation nordecomposition, but change.

Existence of Christ in the Eucharist: As to subject

To the restless human mind, still protesting at the mystery ofthe sacrament, there seems to be at least one avenue of escape:how can the substance of bread be changed into the substance ofthe body of Christ? Perhaps the best answer to that question is:Figure out some other way! We know, on the authority of God, thatthis sacrament contains the true body of Christ; and there simplyis no other way to get it there. If one demands that Christ comethere by local motion, in His own proper species, then He mustleave heaven, and take up His residence in just one host, not inthe millions that are preserved in tabernacles throughout theworld; for the body of Christ does not, cannot, enjoy theubiquity of God.

There is reason for the restlessness of our minds. Certainly, wecan effect no such change as this; our efforts do not revolvearound the change of a whole substance, but of one or the otherof its essential elements. We can produce changes in the matterof things, trimming them down, building them up, molding theirshape and so on; we can produce formal changes, driving out onesubstantial form by the introduction of another to the goal of asubstantial change. The power of God is quite another thing. Ifit did not extend to the whole of things nothing would ever haveexisted, for the first production had to be by way of creation,producing the whole of being; some power must extend to bothmatter and form, or there would be neither matter nor form for usto work on. It is this whole change, of substance to substance,that is transubstantiation.

That the accidents of bread and wine, in the philosophical senseof "accident," remain in this sacrament is something we canverify by our own senses. There is no deception here. What oursenses tell us is true: there is whiteness, roundness, theredness of the liquid, the odor of wine; if error is introduced,it is because we conclude from the presence of the accidents tothe presence of their natural subject, the substance of bread andwine, pitting our minds against the faith that preserves us fromerror. After the consecration, these accidents exist without asubject, supported by nothing in the natural order but by thesolidity of the power of God. They are not subjected in the bodyof Christ or His blood; He does not begin to look like bread andwine, to be as fragile as a host, as fluid as wine. This sort ofthing cannot be done any more than we can transfer a smile fromthe face of a man to the leaves of a tree. What is done hasnothing of impossibility; obviously, if God could give thesubstance of bread the power to sustain its accidents, He cansupport those accidents directly, which is what He does.

With this divine support, the accidents retain all their normalcharacteristics. They can nourish, be destroyed, corrupt, and soon; not because these characteristics are flowing from theirproper substantial form, for if that were still present therewould have been no change at all, but because it is God Who ismiraculously keeping them in existence. The change by which thestatus of these accidents has definitely passed into themiraculous is not a slow tortuous thing of strained muscles,sharp explosions, or long, careful periods of preparation; thisis God at work directly, and infinite power works in an instant.There is no period between the presence of Christ and the absenceof the bread and wine; but in the one instant, bread is no longerthere and the Savior of men has taken up His secret abode amongmen.

He had lived among men before, not secretly but openly, yet eventhe dullest had recognized there was a wonderful secret aboutthat human life in Palestine. They recognized it by theirrebellious or awestruck questions, spoken and unspoken: how couldthis Man forgive sin; how could He give His body to be food; howcould He feed the hungry multitude, heal the sick, give sight tothe blind, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead? His divinity hidbehind the veil of His humanity; some men believed what theycould not see. Returning to His Father, He would not leave Hisown alone; so both His humanity and His divinity were hiddenbehind the veil of the sacrament where men could see Him with theeyes of faith, and not see Him with the eyes of the body or theeyes of the mind.

The comfort this doubly secret presence brings to men is not lessbut greater than the divine works of Palatine; and, again, men'squestions are rebellious or awestruck: how can the whole Christbe in this sacrament, under each species, under each particle ofeach species; how can the physical quantity of Christ's body becontained in a wafer; how can He be in millions of places atonce; how can a mere man move the Son of God from place to placewith no more difficulty than he finds in carrying a tiny vessel?

The mind of man will not find adequate answers to these questionsany more than it did to the ones posed during the three years ofChrist's public life; but it can remove the appearance ofimpossibility that clings to the very form in which thesequestions are posed. Just as the notion of the entirety of thechange of substance to substance removes the apparentimpossibility in the questions about the substance of bread andwine and their accidents, so the notion of the substance of thebody and blood of Christ being present by the words of thesacrament brings out the truth that it is the mysterious, not theridiculous, that thwarts the mind of man in the Eucharist. Inother words, a literal acceptance of the meaning oftransubstantiation is really the intellectual foothold granted toour feeble minds by the graciousness of God: in this sacramentthere is a change of the whole substance of bread and wine intothe substance of the body and blood of Christ.

To appreciate the full significance of this, we must rememberthat our approach to the substance of anything is normallysomewhat indirect. The substance of bread, for instance, is gotat from the outside. We see the color, the shape, the quantity ofthe bread; our eyes certainly do not see its substance. Yet weknow that the smallest crumb is as substantially bread as thelargest loaf; we know that the substance of the bread pervadesthe whole loaf and every piece cut from it. The precise point is,that we have approached that substance through the accidents ofbread. Let us suppose, now, that by a miracle, this order wasreversed, that the substance was the outer fortification throughwhich we must pass to get at the accidents; obviously, our senseswould be completely helpless for the substance is not to be seenor touched, our minds would fare no better for they would nothave the prerequisite sense knowledge from which to begin theirown operation. But, granted the knowledge of this state ofaffairs through the word of someone who could know, then we couldunderstand that the accidents would enjoy all the intangiblecharacteristics proper to the substance itself, since they wouldbe existing there in the mode proper to substance

In the case of the Eucharist, the substance of the body and bloodof Christ is present, all of it, as the proper effect of thesacramental sign which produces what it signifies: "This is mybody, this is my blood." The words of consecration of the bread,then, produce the substance of Christ's body; those of thewine, the substance of His blood. But because, in actualfact, the substance of the body of Christ in heaven, and thesubstance of His blood, are not separated from their accidents,nor from His soul and His divinity, all these are also present inthe sacrament; for the words of consecration, as we have seen inan earlier chapter, produce the body of Christ as it exists atthe time of consecration. The point to notice here is that thewords produce the substance; all else follows on that substancebecause of natural union, or natural concomitance, with it.Whatever else, beyond the substance, is present must be presentin the way substance is present; the natural order of ourapproach to the accidents has been reversed.

As to quantity

Is the whole Christ present in this sacrament? Of course. Isn'tthe whole substance of bread present in bread? Is the wholeChrist present both under the accidents of bread and those ofwine? Of course. For the words produce the body and blood as theyexist outside the sacrament: to the body, then, there is joined,by natural concomitance, the blood, the soul, and the divinity ofChrist; to the blood, the same natural concomitance assures thepresence of body, soul and divinity. Is the whole Christ presentunder every particle of the host and every drop of theconsecrated wine? Of course. Isn't the whole substance of breadpresent in every crumb whether the crumb be separated or joinedto the loaf?

Still, it seems ridiculous to maintain that a perfect man besomehow compressed into the dimensions of a tiny wafer. Thestatement can be made in this way only if we have pushed asidethe statement of transubstantiation; and then we are not talkingabout the Eucharist at all. It is not a question of compressionor shrinking. The substance of the body is present by the powerof the words of consecration; all else, then, is present in themode proper to substance, as intangible, invisible, asindifferent to the limitations of space as substance itself. Thewhole physical body of Christ is present, with all its properdimensive quantity, but in the mode of substance, that is,as substance is present.

Continuation of the accidents

Obviously, a priest cannot take Christ by the hand and lead Himto the Communion rail; all that is tangible in the sacrament isthe remaining accidents of bread and wine. These the priest cantouch, these he can carry, and, carrying them, He is movingChrist, not directly, but by moving that under which thesubstance of Christ exists. Christ, then, is in the tabernaclebecause the accidents of bread and wine are there; not becauseliving quarters have been assigned to Him as a kind of alternateto the diving quarters of heaven. Substance, by its own nature,is not properly in this or that place; it is located rather bythe accidents which are in contact with the surrounding world.Here, the accidents in such contact are the accidents of breadand wine. Christ's body is not broken when the host is broken; itis not disfigured when the host is profaned; it does not corruptwhen the host corrupts. None of these things happen either to thesubstance or to the proper accidents of Christ; there is no wayin which they can happen to a substance, and the accidents ofChrist exist here by way of substance. Our Lord, then, does nothave to leave heaven to be present sacramentally on our altars;He does not rush from church to church to give a little time toeach one. Substance is not in place except through its accidents;the substance of Christ is present wherever the accidents ofbread and wine remain after consecration, and this without anyprejudice to His continued presence in His glorified body inheaven.

We cannot see Him, either with bodily or intellectual eyes, anymore than we can see the substance of bread if the substanceveils the accidents rather than the accidents veiling thesubstance. We see Him by the eyes of faith, and in no other way.Not even an angel or a devil can see Christ in this sacrament;His presence here is entirely supernatural, entirely beyond thenatural powers of a mind, even so powerful a mind as that of anangel or a devil. He can be seen in this sacrament by thoseblessed in heaven who enjoy the vision of the essence of God.

Now and again, to bolster a wavering faith, to shock a scepticout of his smugness, or to give particularly vivid consolation toa saint, things have miraculously appeared in this sacrament:perhaps a few drops of blood, the face of Christ, the image of achild, and so on. Sometimes these visions have been accomplishedin the eye or the mind of the individual for whom they weremeant; at others, the appearance has been external, objective,seen by many. In no case, has it been Christ Himself in Hisproper physical presence Who appeared. The objective appearanceis no more than a change in the accidents of the bread or thewine; in both the subjective and the objective vision, a sign hasbeen given of the truth of the sacred presence of the Son of God.

The accidents of bread and wine, once transubstantiation hastaken place, remain without their proper subject. The substanceof bread or wine is no longer present, these things cannot nowtake root in the substance of Christ; they exist miraculouslysupported by the hand of God, the First Cause, doing directlywhat He normally does through a second cause -- the substance ofthe bread and of the wine. There are then two miraculousoperations in this sacrament: the change of the substance ofbread and wine into the substance of the body and blood ofChrist; and the maintenance of the accidents by the directoperation of God.

These are not ghostly apparitions of accidents. They have notbeen weakened, changed, frozen in some strange condition. Theyhave been maintained exactly as they were. Consequently, anythingthat could normally happen to accidents of bread and of wine --be broken, spilt, trampled on, corrupted, used for nourishment --can happen to these accidents. In other words, our senses do notdeceive us when they report the presence of real accidents ofbread and wine; we deceive ourselves when our intellect, pushingaside the supernatural revelations of faith, concludes from thisreport that the substance of bread and wine are present, as ifthis whole affair were entirely in the natural order.

The power of the form

It has been noted earlier that the Eucharist differs from theother sacraments in that it is perfected or accomplished, not inits actual use, but in the very consecration of the material; andthat, unlike the other sacraments, the consecration of itsmaterial is not in a blessing by which the matter receivesinstrumental power, but in the miraculous conversion of thesubstance. Necessarily, then, there is a difference in the doubleform of this sacrament compared to the forms of the others. Allthe others contained the notion of the use of the sacrament --baptize, confirm, anoint, and so on -- while this one implies nomore than the actual consecration; as a result, the forms of allthe others are expressed in the person of the minister, by way ofcommand, or by way of prayer; the words of this form proceed asfrom the person of Christ Himself speaking, giving us clearly tounderstand that the minister does nothing but speak the words.

A momentary glance at this double form will help to avoid somerather serious misunderstanding. Thus the form of consecration ofthe bread is: "This is my body." Notice that it is not said that"This is made my body," or "This is becoming my body"; for thischange is instantaneous and must be expressed in terms of anaccomplished fact. In the expression of such a change, the word"this" cannot refer to what is no longer present but to what iscontained under the species or accidents, while "my body" refersto the proper nature of the substance now present. It is to beparticularly noted that these words are to be taken not only assignificative but also as causative, for the sacraments are signswhich produce what they signify; consequently, these words do notpresuppose a change already taken place and merely express it,they cause that change. And, since this change is instantaneousyet must be expressed in the necessarily successive medium ofwords, these words are not to be cut up, separated, but the wholeexpression must be understood with reference to the last instantof the words being spoken. Notice, too, that Christ did not say"This bread is my body," nor "My body is my body," but "This ismy body," i.e., what was formerly bread and contained under thesespecies is now the body of Christ. All of this is, of course,equally true of the form of consecration of the wine.

Both parts of this double form have the fundamental fittingnessof perfect signs, that is, they clearly signify consecration. Theform for the consecration of the wine is considerably longer thanthat of the bread: "This is the chalice of my blood, of the Newand Eternal Testament, the mystery of Faith, which shall be shedfor you and for many unto the forgiveness of sins." Thus, overand above the fundamental fittingness of this sign, there is theadded expression of the triple purpose of the shedding ofChrist's blood: that we might receive the heritage of theTestaments, that we might come to justice through faith, and thatour sins might be forgiven us.

Like the forms of all the other sacraments, the form of theEucharist is an instrument; in the very words, then, there is aninstrumental power making possible the accomplishment of aneffect totally above the natural power of words. Each part of theEucharistic form, that is the words of consecration of the breadand those of consecration of the wine, has this instrumentalpower and independently. So that, if it should happen that onlythe words of consecration of the bread were said, Christ would bepresent under the accidents of bread even though the wine werenever consecrated. Otherwise, the words themselves would not, infact, produce what they signify, indeed, they would be quitecompletely false.

Once the words of this double form are said by the priest overthe proper matter, the Bread of Angels is prepared and ready forthe tables of men. Possibly it will always be true that men willnot throng the banquet hall where such a meal is served. Theyknow well that they cannot hold to life and neglect the things bywhich a man lives; the difficulty for the men of all ages hasbeen the complexity of life which is open to every man. That hisanimal life cannot be sustained without the nourishment offeredby the things beneath him which exist to serve him has been clearto every man; a wrong diet, or complete abstinence from food inthis order, has immediate and unmistakable results that refuse tobe ignored. But man has not been nearly so keen in his perceptionof the vital needs of his rational life; he has been too oftencompletely dense about the divine life that is his for thetaking.

Conclusion: What men live by

All ages have seen what truth will do for a man, and whatgoodness will do both for a man and all those with whom he comesinto contact; the scholar and the saint, the two who have notneglected the nourishment of rational life, are signally honoredin the history of men. In our own times, we are furnished withfirsthand knowledge of what a diet of lies and error can do to aman, for we have seen more than the perversion of the minds ofmen, the twisting of their lives, and the convulsion of theirworld; we have seen them commit intellectual suicide by denyingthemselves all basis of rational life. We are as familiar as anyother age with the corroding effects of evil; we are morefamiliar with the convulsive death of things human brought on bya professed ignorance of any distinction between good and evil,or, indeed, of the very existence of one or the other.

Hunger strike of the twentieth century

If men can make such mistakes about their own rational life, itis understandable that the divine life to which they have beeninvited should suffer no small neglect. Originally rejected withan air of regret, that food has become a vague echo from historyto millions of men today. Perhaps, originally, it was too muchfor the pride of men to accept a food that was so far above themthat they must fall down in adoration before it even as they ateit; certainly it was much too rich in the demands it made ontheir minds and their hearts, too rich, that is, for comfort. Itis not easy to live on the body of God, however sweet theheavenly food; and ease is one of the fondest illusions of thechildren of men.

Yet the fact remains that, spiritually, a man is what he eats;that he cannot keep his soul alive on the things beneath him, normangle the things above him for spiritual nourishment as he doesthings beneath him for physical nourishment. Because no manwelcomes death, all sorts of substitutes have been concocted forthe Bread of Life. Man cannot live without a superior to nourishhim; the death of starvation was not warded off but made to looklike a banquet when men made their own superior thing for theirown nourishment. Sometimes it took the form of a class, a race, aparty, a political ideal, the vague future of humanity; but inall these cases, it was men who were food for the absolute andwho were destroyed by it, not the absolute that was food for men,perfecting them.

In other words, man dies whether he attempts to content himselfwith things beneath him or whether, realizing their inadequacy,he attempts to create his own superior; in the one case, he isaccustoming himself to the husks of swine, in the other he ismunching on his own self. In both cases, there is notnourishment, not life, but degradation and death awaiting thediners. It is still true: "unless you eat the flesh of the Son ofMan, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you."

The Angelic Doctor and the Bread of Angels

Thomas, then, had a double reason for pouring his heart out onhis Eucharistic treatises: his grateful love of the God Whonourishes men, and his restless, sympathetic love for themillions of men who were nauseated by the heavenly food becausethey had not tasted it. At any rate, the Angel of the Schoolsoutdid himself in writing of the Bread of Angels. His theologicaltreatise in the Summa, the divine Office of CorpusChristi , his Eucharistic poems are masterpieces, fusions ofmind and heart smelted by all the pent-up fury of Thomas's love;and the precious metals poured into the melting pot were noordinary mind, no ordinary heart, but the mind of a genius andthe heart of a saint. Since his time, the world has echoed withhis music, in every church in the world his O Salutaris andTantum Ergo say for all men what every man must say as hebows in adoration before the Bread which came down from heaven.

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A Companion to the Summa Vol. IV

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