E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
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CONSECRATION <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> BREAD. 103<br />
We must distinguish between two actions of our<br />
Lord, giving thanks and blessing. Thanksgiving was<br />
offered to His Father, the author of all good ; blessing<br />
was intended only for the bread and wine about to be<br />
changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Break,<br />
our Lord is thought to have broken the portion of<br />
unleavened bread into twelve or thirteen different<br />
pieces, saying : Take and eat ye all of this :<br />
FOR THIS IS MY BODY.<br />
EXPLANATION <strong>OF</strong> <strong>THE</strong> WORDS <strong>OF</strong> CONSECRATION.<br />
For gives the reason why Christ asked His Apostles<br />
to eat. The words that follow must be taken in<br />
their plain meaning. The word this means, what<br />
I show you at this moment in My hands and what<br />
I give you is My Body. But the Body of Christ is<br />
not bread, and to verify our Lord s words the meaning<br />
must be, this is bread no longer but the Body of<br />
Christ. To say that the expression this is My Body<br />
means the figure of My Body, is the same as saying<br />
this is My Body, means this is not My Body. For<br />
the figure of the Body is not the Body<br />
itself. There is<br />
made by virtue of the words, this is My Body, the<br />
conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the<br />
substance of the Body of our Lord, the species or<br />
outward appearances alone remaining, and this con<br />
version, the Council of Trent teaches, is suitably<br />
called Transubstantiation. But as the Body of our<br />
Lord cannot exist without His Blood (for a bloodless<br />
body is dead, and Christ can die no more), the Body<br />
necessarily brings with It the Blood, and the Body
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