The Promise Of Our Divine Saviour to give to men His very Flesh to eat and His very Blood to drink. part 19.

FROM JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST BY REV. FERREOL GIRARDEY, C.Ss.R.

The same apostle, St. Paul, writes thus to the Romans: " Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord (says the prophet Joel 2:32), shall be saved. How, then, shall they call on Him, in whom they have not believed ? Or how shall they believe Him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher ? And how shall they preach unless they be sent? . . . Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word (the Gospel) of Christ" (Rom. 10: 14, 15, 17). No one may therefore undertake to preach the Gospel, to teach the doctrines of Christ, unless he is sent by Christ, unless he has his mission to do so from Jesus Christ Himself. The Catholic Church alone has her mission to do so from Jesus Christ and His apostles, and therefore, the Catholic Priesthood, the mouth piece of the Church, is alone entrusted with that mission. Whence, then, had the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century the mission to preach a gospel different from that preached by the Catholic Church, which Christ commissioned to preach to mankind? They could not have it from Christ who is ever with His Church, as He solemnly promised, and whose teaching is as unchangeable as truth itself. If not from Christ, it must be from " the gates of hell," vainly attempting to prevail against the Church Christ founded on Peter!

Therefore, let us firmly believe in the Real Presence and in the other mysteries the Catholic Church teaches, and let us thank God for the inestimable gift of faith, and especially for His personal, though invisible, Presence among us in the Blessed Eucharist. There in our churches we can visit Him, pay Him our homages, thank Him, beseech Him to forgive our sins and to assist us in our wants, temp tations, and trials, with the confidence of being heard. Protestants cannot find Jesus Christ in their churches, for they have no Real Presence; and they have no Real Presence because they have no Priest hood, no one empowered to do what Jesus did at the Last Supper, to change bread and wine into His Very Body and His Very Blood. Some of the pious among the Separated Brethren, when they wish to pay their homage to Jesus Christ and beseech His assistance, are accustomed to come to a Catholic Church to find Jesus and pour our their hearts to Him! May He deign to bestow on them the gift of the true faith!

Finally, we have had, of late years, tangible proofs of the Real Presence in the Catholic Church. Lourdes, a small town in France, not far from the Pyrenees, is a renowned place of pilgrimage in honor of the Blessed Virgin, who in 1858 several times appeared to a little peasant girl, and gave her her name, saying: " I am the Immaculate Conception "; and told her that she wished that people should henceforth come there in crowds to honor her and receive favors. Every year people afflicted with various incurable diseases beyond all medical (or magical) skill, or with spiritual and other trials, come from almost every country in the world to implore help, health, etc., through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. Every year miraculous cures, proved beyond all shadow of doubt, more or less numerous, take place, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin; but the majority of them at the general pilgrimages are directly performed by Jesus Christ Himself in the Holy Eucharist, thus proving the Real Presence of Jesus Christ therein. A few days before the breaking out of the terrible war now going on in Europe, that is, on the 25th of July, 1914, the International Eucharistic Congress was in session at Lourdes, listening to the great Dominican preacher, Rev. Father Janvier. The following lines are taken from his sermon: " For us," says Father Janvier, " the miracles, which take place at Lourdes, have an important bearing. They confirm and facilitate our faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. . . . The miracles which have taken place before the tabernacle, after a Holy Communion, during the passing by and at the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, confirm our faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. This faith, in fact, is for the sick, the inspiration of their supplications. They believe that Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the Host; that He is hidden therein with His Body and with His Blood, with His Mind and His Heart, with His Humanity and with His Divinity. This is the reason why they go to Him as if they touched Him with their hands; as if they heard Him with their ears; as if they actually beheld Him in His physical body. From Him they expect consolation, their cure, health, and life, and their expectation is based on the words pronounced by the Prophet of Nazareth over the first consecrated bread and wine: 'This is My body! This is My blood'; in a word, it is based on His positive Presence in the ciborium, in the chalice, in the monstrance. And God, by choosing His intervention, for performing a miracle, the very moment when he receives Holy Communion, the very moment when the Blessed Sacrament passes near him and blesses him, God Himself, I say, by these very facts, adheres by a sensible sign, to the words of Jesus (instituting the Eucharist); He adheres indirectly, it is true, but, at the same time, He implicitly and truly approves them and holds Himself responsible for the teaching of the Church proclaiming the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, in our tabernacles. Is God mistaken in this? No, my brethren, for He possesses in a transcending degree the science of facts, of things and their essences. No, my brethren, for He is infallible, not only in His thoughts, but He is infallible also when He speaks; He could not betray the truth without ceasing to be God. There fore the miracles of Lourdes bring fresh security to our faith. By their means God guarantees that our faith in the Majesty of the Altar has a solid basis, that the Savior really dwells in the Sacred Host, and that we can safely offer to the Host the adorations, the prayers which the Israelite's addressed to Jesus, the Son of the heavenly Father."

The Promise Of Our Divine Saviour to give to men His very Flesh to eat and His very Blood to drink. part 18.

FROM JESUS IN THE EUCHARIST BY REV. FERREOL GIRARDEY, C.Ss.R.

The history of the Church most clearly proves that no novel doctrine opposed to, or different from, that of Jesus could be broached either in the early ages of the Church or in later times without causing great opposition and horror among the faithful and without being at once condemned. Faith was held dearer than anything else, and worthy of the sacrifice of all goods and life itself for its preservation, as is attested by millions of martyrs who died in its defence. The horror of heresy, of false and novel doctrines, can be seen from numberless examples, a few of which are given here. "If any man come to you and bring this (novel) doctrine, receive him not into the house, nor say to him, God speed you" (2 John 10). It is St. John, the apostle of charity, who says this; and what he said he also practised; for when he was told that the heretic Cerinthus had entered the house he was in, St. John at once left it, for he did not wish to remain under the same roof as a heretic. The heretic Arius was explaining his heresy in an assembly; but the hearers showed their horror by closing their ears and would not listen to the blasphemies. One day the heretic Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, whilst preaching to his own diocesans, said that Mary was not the Mother of God, but only the mother of the man called " Christ," the people were so horrified that they all at once left the church. On another occasion a member of his clergy, by his order, was preaching the same heretical doctrine, to the horror of the people, when a certain Eusebius, a prominent lay man, could no longer stand such heretical preaching, arose and proceeded to protest and to refute him, to the delight and applause of the people.

The charge that the Church of Jesus Christ fell into errors and corrupted His doctrine, is an insult to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, for He repeatedly asserted that His Church would never in the least swerve from the truth, and would always triumph over error. In the first place, the angel Gabriel, the messenger of God to the virgin Mary, expressly declared to her that the kingdom of the Son, who was to be born of her, would have no end: "And of His kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:33). The kingdom of Jesus Christ is His Church, and had His Church fallen into error, it would no longer be His kingdom and the divine prophecy of its lasting forever would have failed of fulfilment; but what God Himself foretells must be fulfilled, for He is Truth itself, and not a liar or a deceiver, as such a charge would make Him!

In the next place Jesus Christ said to Peter: "Thou art Peter (that is, the rock), and on this rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her" (Mat. 16:18). History shows how "the gates of hell,'* that is, errors and earthly power, have fought against her, to subdue her, to enslave her, to crush her, but all in vain. Hence St. Jerome says: " As long as the world shall last, the strength of the Church shall be tested and shall abide the test. This shall be so, because the Lord God almighty, who is the Lord God of the Church, has promised that so it shall be, and His promise is an unchanging law." Had the Church ever fallen into error or into idolatrous practises, as Protestants charge, our divine Savior would have proved a false prophet! To say this is clearly a blasphemy! Moreover, did not our divine Savior also promise to be with His Church until the end of the world, saying: "Behold, I am with you all days until the consummation of ages "? (Mat. 28: 20). Did He not also make this promise to His Church (apostles) on the eve of His death, saying: " I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever, The Spirit of truth. . . . The Paraclete the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name; He will teach you all things and bring all things to your minds, whatsoever I shall have said to you" (John 14:16, 17, 26). Had the Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, which is the only Church He founded, ever fallen into error and idolatrous practises, or taught any thing different from the doctrine of Christ, He would not have kept all these promises. To assert this is nothing short of blasphemy. Christ made and destined His Church to be " the pillar and ground of truth" (i Tim. 3: 15), and surely kept His promise.

Moreover, let us remember that God does not change, cannot change, for He is infinitely perfect; only that changes and can change, which is imperfect and is liable to grow better, to improve, or to grow worse, to deteriorate. God does not change and " the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance " (that is, unchangeable) (Rom.11: 29). Therefore, the Catholic Church, once founded and established by Jesus Christ as His Church, as assisted by Him, as taught and directed by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, is always to remain so, and is therefore and shall ever be the true and infallible Church of Christ, and her teaching and doctrines shall ever be the teaching and doctrines of Jesus Christ, in which there neither is nor can be any error. To assert the contrary is to charge God with error! No other church can have the least claim to being the Church of Jesus Christ. Listen to the words of St. Paul: " But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. . . . For I give you to understand, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal. i: 8, 9, 11, 12). Here St. Paul anathematises all those who preach a gospel different from that which he had preached to them and which Jesus Christ Himself had specially revealed to him. And his anathema would extend to himself and even to an angel, were he or the angel to preach a gospel differing from that which he had preached to them. This is a terrible condemnation of those pretended
reformers of the sixteenth and other centuries who dared to preach a gospel, that is, doctrines differing from that preached by St. Paul and the other apostles on the Real Presence and other doctrines which the Catholic Church received from Jesus Christ Himself!