269. How complete is Christ’s disguise in the Eucharist?
269. HOW COMPLETE IS CHRIST’S DISGUISE IN THE EUCHARIST?
If we put consecrated bread or wine under a microscope, or in a test tube, will it look and act exactly like ordinary unconsecrated bread and wine? Will the “appearances” act as if they had a natural subject (real bread and wine) under them? Will the “bread” (which is not bread any more!) go moldy? Will the “wine” intoxicate?
Whether the species (appearances) remaining in this sacrament can change external objects?
If they could not change external bodies, they could not be felt, for a thing is felt from the senses being changed by a sensible thing . . .
Because everything acts (activity, operation, “second act”) in so far as it is an actual being (actuality, existence, “first act”), the consequence is that everything stands in the same relation to action as it does to being. Therefore, because . . . it is an effect of divine power that the sacramental species (appearances) continue in the being which they had when the substance of the bread and wine was present (before the change, before the transubstantiation), it follows that they continue in their action. Consequently they retain every action which they had while the substance of the bread and wine remained, now that the substance of the bread and wine has passed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Hence there is no doubt but that they can change external bodies (III,77,3).
The consecrated elements of the Eucharist behave in every way exactly like unconsecrated bread and wine physically. The bread nourishes the body. The wine satisfies thirst. If a large amount is drunk, it will intoxicate.
There are at least two reasons, two causes, for this. One is an efficient cause—an ontological origin—and the other is a final cause—an end, a good, a purpose.
The efficient cause is that the accidents—the appearances of bread and wine—continue to act according to their nature (“species”) since no miracle intervenes to stop them. The nature of any thing is the efficient cause of its characteristic activities. “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly” because fish are fish and birds are birds. That’s the nature of Nature. God does not perform two miracles in the Eucharist, only one, at the Consecration.
The final cause is that Christ deliberately hides Himself, disguises Himself, gives no physical sign of His Real Presence in the Eucharist, for a crucially important purpose: to test and elicit and strengthen our faith. If we saw miraculous signs in every Eucharist, or if the Eucharistic bread and wine had no taste, like other bread and wine, or even if we felt unique feelings each time we received the Eucharist, our faith would be less strong because it would have sensible or emotional crutches to lean on. Like Christ on the Cross, where there was no miraculous rescue and not even any comforting feeling of His Father’s presence (“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”), we believe and receive in blind faith, pure faith.
What He does in the Eucharist is like wearing a disguise, or like holding up a shield in front of Himself (the shield is the appearances of bread and wine) so that we cannot see Him there behind it. He deliberately hides from us so that we may pursue Him. It is like foreplay among the higher animals, especially dogs and cats. They will run away from each other so that they can be chased. Paradoxically, part of the strategy of the “Hound of Heaven” Who chases us is to make us chase Him.
We should thank God that He so rarely gives us special graces of pious and loving feelings during the Eucharist. The essence of love is not a feeling but a choice, a willing. We must learn to live by this deepest of the muscles of our soul. And to do that, we must exercise it. All Christians, not just great mystics, must live through a “dark night of the soul”.