Eucharistic Adoration - Carmelite Monastery Highway 1 Carmel
"The main purpose of this work is to trace elements of Eucharistic doctrine from the day our Lord Jesus Christ announced it for the first time in the synagogue in Capernaum (John, Chapter 6) down to our day." Rev. Roberto de la Vega, Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Eucharist Through The Centuries.
6th Century
St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, France (died 519)
Here is what St. Avitus, bishop and poet,-- wrote about the Eucharist:
"As an eternal and most pious father, our Redeemer, when about to complete the sacrament of the flesh he had taken, gave to the sons he had created and redeemed the hope of adoption. Before the day of his death he assigned to us heavenly goods and made a testament, by which he made us the inheritors of what he was giving us with such generosity. In this he proceeded as men usually do, although not out of necessity as men usually do in making their testament. For he was not going to lose what he destined for his children. Rather he was going to keep his sons along with the inheritance he had destined for them. This testament of his we call the New Testament. For all those who had been disinherited there was instituted one sole inheritor, the Christian people."
"But this inheritance (the Eucharist given by Christ at the Last Supper) is not divided up in a human way, nor is it reduced by being distributed among many as with a corruptible distribution. It embraces all; it invites all. Nor is anything taken from the portion of those who already have it in order to give it to those who are to be born. Let the desire for children grow and multiply as it will - the inheritance remains intact for all."
"Our ineffable Redeemer himself, using very trustworthy witnesses (the Apostles) wrote this Testament when he was handed over to death, sealed it when he suffered, and opened it when he rose. And since everything was done legitimately, with reason St. Paul says: 'If a will is drawn up in due form, no one is allowed to disregard it or add to it.'"
"Let us faithfully now recognize the sum of the inheritance we have received. It is that, while the Apostles were eating, he consecrated the order of the eternal offering...he gave himself, that is, the flesh and blood of his body."
St. Caesarius, Bishop of Aries, France (470 - 543)
St. Caesarius on not leaving Mass early:
"I plead with you, dearest brothers, and I admonish you that no one leave the church before the divine mysteries are ended...We rejoice at the faith and devotion of many of you. Yet there is a good number of you who are less attentive to the health of your souls; and after the reading of the divine lessons they promptly leave the church. Others, while the lessons are being read, engage in idle chatter with the result that they themselves do not hear the readings, nor do they let others hear them. We would hold such people less guilty, if they did not come to church."
"If you consider it properly, you will understand that Masses are not celebrated in the church when the divine readings are recited, but when the gifts are offered and the body and blood of the Lord are consecrated. The readings, be they from the Prophets, the Apostles or the Gospels, you yourselves can read in your homes or hear them read to others; but the consecration of the body and blood of the Lord you cannot hear or see in any other place than in the house of the Lord. therefore, anyone wanting to hear Mass entirely and with profit to his soul much remain in church with his body in a humble position and with a contrite heart until the Lord's Prayer has been recited and the blessing has been given to the people."
Cassiodorus, Roman Senator and Monk (480 - 570)
"He who approaches unworthily (the Eucharist) is doubly guilty. He is guilty of sin and of usurpation. He does not make proper discernment of the body of the Lord. He receives it as if it were ordinary food."
Primasius, Bishop of Hadrumetum, Africa (died c. 552)
"The hidden manna, that is the invisible bread come down from heaven (John 6:51), who became man precisely so that man might eat the bread of angels."
"The Church as received 'all power in heaven on on earth,' while she makes present the sacrifice of God, with the Lord offering himself in the first place and with the saints offering their bodies as a living and holy victim."
"St. Paul says: 'All these things (in the history of the Old Testament) were figures (warnings) for us, and just as God fed the Jews with visible manna, so now he feeds the Church with food from heaven.'"
7th Century
Pope St. Gregory the Great (died 604)
Pope St. Gregory the Great was born into a family of nobility in Rome. Soon he felt the call to religious life and sold all his possessions. He was the first monk to become a Pope. He wrote our Kryie Eleison and developed the exiting Roman liturgical melody into Gregorian chant.
"He did what he recommended; he demonstrated what he commanded. The Good Shepherd gave his life for the sheep even to the point of putting his body and blood in our sacrament and filling the sheep he had redeemed with the food of his own flesh."
"If after death one's sins are not unpardonable, that is, if one does not dies in mortal sin, it is usual that the sacred offering of the saving Host helps souls a great deal also after death. Indeed, it seems that sometimes even the souls themselves of the deceased ask for that offering (the Mass)."
"Now with these things in mind let us ponder what this sacrifice is for us, this sacrifice which always re-presents the passion of the Only-begotten Son for our forgiveness. For who among the faithful can doubt that at the very hour of the sacrifice the heavens are opened at the voice of the priest, that in that mystery of Jesus Christ the choirs of angels are present, that the things of earth are united to the things of heaven, and that things visible and invisible are made one?"
St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636)
"The Greeks call the sacrament of the bread and wine 'Eucharist', which in Latin means 'good grace.' And what better thing is there than the body and blood of Christ?"
"The sacraments are performed with benefit in the Church, because the Holy Spirit, who is in the Church, in a hidden manner produces the very effect of the sacraments. For this reason whether the sacraments be administered in the Church of God by good or bad ministers, the benefits of the sacraments are not increased by the merits of the good ministers, nor are they decreased by the merits of the bad ministers. The reason is that it is the Holy Spirit, who in Apostolic times manifested himself by visible works, now gives the sacraments life in a mystical way...For this reason the sacraments are called 'mysteries' in Greek, because they contain something secret and hidden."
"For thus it pleased the Holy Spirit through the Apostles that, in honor of so great a sacrament the Lord's body enter the mouth of a Christian before the other food; and therefore this custom is observed throughout the whole world. For the bread that we break is the body of Christ, who said: 'I am the living bread come down from heaven.' And the wine is his blood, and this is what is written: "I am the true vine.' But the bread, because it strengthens the body, therefore it is called the body of Christ; and the wine, because it produces blood in the flesh, therefore it refers to his blood."
"Now if there be no sins great enough that one be judged separated from Communion, he should not remain away from the medicine of the Lord's body; lest perhaps if he abstain from Communion for a long time, he be separated from the body of Christ. It is manifest that they live who receive his body. Therefore it is to be feared that, while one is separated from the body of Christ for a long time, he remain alien to salvation. For Christ himself says: 'If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.' Let him who has stopped sinning not stop receiving Communion."
8th Century
St. John Damascene, Monk and Priest (c 675-749)
"The body of Christ is truly united to the Divinity, that body that was born of the holy Virgin. It is united to the Divinity not because it ascended into heaven and comes down from heaven, but because the bread and wine themselves are changed into the body and blood of God. If you ask about the manner in which this is realized, be satisfied in hearing that it is realized by means of the Holy Spirit...By nature the bread by being eaten, and the water and wine by being drunk, are changed into the body and blood of the one who eats and drinks them; but they do not result in a body different from that of the eater and drinker. Likewise, the bread at Mass and the water and wine, by means of the epiclesis and the coming of the Holy Spirit, are changed in a supernatural way into the body and blood of Christ, and there are not two bodies, but one and the same body of Christ."
"The bread and wine are not a figure of the body and blood of Christ. But they are the very divinized body of the Lord."
"The Eucharistic oblation is called participation, because by means of it we participate in the Divinity of Jesus. It is called communion, and it really is, because by it we are united with one another and we communicate with one another, because by partaking of the one same bread we are all the one same body of Christ...and we become members of one another, since we are concorporate with Christ."
9th Century
St. Paschasius Radbertus, Abbot (786 - 860)
"Therefore, when Christ says: 'This is my body, or my flesh, and this is my blood,' as I see it, he does not mean to speak of another flesh that is not his very own, which was born of the Virgin Mary and nailed to the cross; nor of some other blood different from that which was poured out on the cross and until then circulated through his veins. In addition, if the Eucharistic mystery would contain some other flesh and some other blood, distinct from those of Christ when on earth, it would not bring us to remission of sins. And if it did not have life in itself, it would not be able to diffuse life in our souls."
"If you truly believe that this flesh was formed in the virginal womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, then also believe that what is realized on the altar by the word of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit is the body of Christ who was born of the Virgin."
12th Century
Guitmond, French Benedictine and Bishop of Aversa
"In the thousand Masses celebrated simultaneously there is present the same body of Christ, whole and entire and without any division...In each of the parts of the broken Host there is present the entire body of Christ. Nevertheless, the sum of the parts of the broken Host is not many bodies, but the one, sole body of Christ...just as the soul is present whole and entire in the thousand parts of the human body. And even when the soul is present whole and entire in each of those parts, there are nevertheless not many souls, but one soul."
13th Century
In 1215 the Ecumenical Lateran Council IV officially sanctioned the word, "transubstantiation," to describe the change of substances that happens at Consecration. The Council declared: "In the universal Church of the faithful Jesus Christ is the priest himself and the sacrifice. His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine. By divine power the bread is transubstantiated into his body and the wine into his blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity, we ourselves receive from him what he took from us (our human nature). And surely no one can perform this sacrament except a priest who has been rightly ordained and according to the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ himself gave to the Apostles and their successors."
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