FROM JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST BY REV. FERREOL GIRARDEY, C.Ss.R.
Hence to change a bit of bread into His own body, He has only to will it, to declare it, saying: This is My body. Just as there are mysteries in nature, such as the intimate union of our soul and body, our physical life, the changes of substances into one another, the workings of electricity, so also, and even much more, there are greater and deeper mysteries in religion, in all that relates directly to God Almighty and infinitely perfect, and in the truths He has deigned to reveal to us through His divine Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, such as the Blessed Trinity, that is, one God in three equal and distinct divine Persons, the Incarnation of the Son of God, and other mysteries, especially that of the Blessed Eucharist or Real Presence.
Wherefore in matters pertaining to faith and revelation, the question is not and should not be, whether we understand the doctrines proposed to our belief, but whether these doctrines have been really revealed and taught by Jesus Christ. Our divine Savior, whilst calling Himself the Son of man because He was really man like ourselves, claimed to be the Son of God, to be true God and equal with God, His Father, and to be one with Him; this claim He upheld and proved to be true by numerous unquestionable miracles; the greatest of which and the most unquestionable and the most clearly proved of historical facts, was the raising of Himself to life the third day after His most cruel and public death. Jesus Christ, therefore, is true God, almighty, omniscient, and the infallible Truth itself. Wherefore, all that Jesus Christ said, declared, and taught, must be accepted as absolutely and infallibly true, how may be to us. To gainsay the words, the teaching of Jesus Christ is to charge God Himself with deception, ignorance, or impotence. Every man claiming to be a Christian, is bound to admit this without any qualification whatever. The writer of these lines has clearly and conclusively proved that at the Last our divine Savior actually changed bread and wine into His very body and very blood, and, at the same time, empowered the priests of His Church to do likewise in remembrance of Him; and, moreover, that Jesus Christ actually declared that the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood is necessary to salvation.
However incomprehensible all this is to our reason, we have no valid reason to doubt it or to hesitate in believing it firmly, for he who denies or doubts it, is not a true Christian, and practically charges Christ with deception, or with lacking the power to do what He wills and expressly declares; he practically joins the ranks of infidels, of unbelievers.
A man cannot be or consistently call himself a Christian, a believer in, a follower of Christ, unless he sincerely believes the words of Christ, who alone has the words of eternal life. (John 6:69)
We know that at the Last Supper Jesus Christ said, This is My body, which shall be delivered for you (i Cor. ii: 24). What He then held in His hands must have been His true body, though this was not apparently so; to doubt or deny it would be to charge Jesus Christ either with uttering an unmitigated falsehood, or with being unable to change bread into His true body, or with not knowing what He was actually holding in His hands. The true Christian who believes Jesus Christ to be God, to be truth itself, to be omniscient and almighty, will say; I firmly believe that after Jesus Christ had pronounced these aforesaid words over the bread He had taken into His hands: This is My body, which shall be delivered to you, He actually held in His hands, no longer bread, but His own body, which He sacrificed on the following day on the cross for the salvation of mankind. How the bread could become the true body of Christ, I do not know, I do not understand, but I know that Christ, being God, is almighty and can therefore effect all that He wills, and consequently, that He then by His almighty power, changed the bread He was holding into His true and real body. I know and believe that Jesus Christ willed, that all who desire salvation should partake of His very flesh and blood, and that He therefore instituted the priesthood in His Church, so that they should multiply His presence in the Blessed Eucharist all over the earth, to enable all men to partake of His flesh and blood and believe that Jesus Christ, being God and almighty, can do this and has actually done all this; although it is beyond my comprehension and that of all mankind, nevertheless, I believe it all most firmly, for Jesus Christ is the all-wise and all powerful God.
