“Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed
and have known that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.” Jn 6:69 & 70
How many begin to
walk the path with Our Lord and when the first wind of trouble is felt, like
sheep they are scattered ? One of the core beliefs of our Religion, that the
Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity is present in what appears to be bread,
is now so universally disdained by nominal Catholics (literally Catholic in name
alone) that they have ceased believing a dogma of Faith, the denial of which
puts them outside the Church.
The late John
Paul II in calling this the Year of the
Eucharist wished to draw to our Catholic minds that God is always with his
Church in Holy Communion. Benedict XVI stated that he wants to make the
Eucharist the heart of his pontificate. Depend upon it, unless Catholics come to
know and love the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament again, they will have
ceased to believe a central point of our Faith. The goal that Martin Luther
sought, the denigration of the Blessed Sacrament has already been achieved in
many places and so our Catholic Faithful have ceased to believe the Faith.
Faced with the
doubts of many, where do we begin as a Church, to find the source of our Faith
again ? We can turn as always to Mary. She with her husband St Joseph once had
the misfortune to lose Our Lord for three days. St Luke records the words of Our
Lady at the event:
“Behold
thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing” Lk 2:48
Now juxtapose the
sorrow of his parents with the advancement of Our Lord in knowledge:
“And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men.” Lk 2:52
The absence of
Jesus is a source of sorrow for us. The knowledge and love for God which we all
need is acquired in the presence of the School of Mary.
In addition to
its being the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13 was also the Feast of Our Lady
of the Blessed Sacrament. Catholics, then, if they wish to re-discover love for
Christ in the Blessed Sacrament can do no better than to place themselves in the
school of her virtues and under the title Our
Lady of the Blessed Sacrament re-learn their Faith. What does this title of
hers teach us ?
We
invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of “Our Lady of the Most
Blessed Sacrament” because she is the Mother of Jesus who lives in the
Eucharist. All of Mary’s prerogatives, privileges and titles ultimately refer
in some way to her Divine Maternity. The council of Ephesus which condemned
Nestorianism spoke to a double and mutually upholding dogma: first, Jesus is
both God and Man (not just a man) – two natures and that consequently,
secondly, Mary who provides the enfleshment of Christ the Man (hypostatically
united or glued to his Divinity) is also the Mother of the Son of God,
the Word made flesh. The devotion to Our Lady under the title of the Blessed
Sacrament speaks of her intimate union as Mother of the one who will feed his
sheep with his own Body and Blood.
From
her He assumed the Flesh and Blood with which He nourishes us. One must be very
careful here for some devotional literature on the Blessed Sacrament would seem
to give us the idea that the flesh and blood we consume are the physical and not
sacramental Body and Blood of our Divine Lord. Physical body is that body with
corporeal extension – that is the very Body that walked and talked 2000 years
ago on earth now located in heaven; Sacramental Body is Our Lord’s Real and
substantial Presence in the Eucharist whereby he is not multiplied or diminished
by the consecration or the consumption of consecrated hosts. This is the
miraculous nature of the doctrine that God substantially inheres under the
accidents of bread and wine and which is not increased or decreased ! No wonder
that the great St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in his great hymn to the Blessed
Sacrament (the last two verses of which we sing at Benediction in the Tantum
ergo) “If senses fail, faith supplies”.
In
regards to the same title: Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament we remember
that through her we receive every grace, and consequently those graces contained
in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. This aspect of Our Lady’s
relationship to the Blessed Sacrament is closely tied in with the teaching that
Mary is Mediatrix of all graces. This is, in itself, an interesting dogma.
Before 1955 there was a beautiful feast that existed in the supplement to the
Roman Missal that was allowed to be celebrated in various places. The feast in
question promoted the belief that all the graces that we receive come from
Christ’s Passion and death through the mediation or hands of Mary. The reason
for this originates in Mary’s divine Motherhood – Jesus physically entered
the world for the purpose of saving us by the means of his Mother. Next, at the
foot of the Cross, Mary’s silent witness and co-offering of her Son’s
sacrifice places her directly in union with the sacrificial action by which the
way of grace is offered to mankind. Finally, in the words:
“When
Jesus therefore had seen his mother and the disciple standing whom he loved, he
saith to his mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that, he saith to the
disciple: Behold thy mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his
own.” Jn 19:26 & 27
we
are entrusted in the person of St. John the Apostle to the tender care of
Jesus’ own Mother: “Behold thy mother” and from this moment on Mary has
always exercised her maternal care by distributing the graces merited for us by
her Son as the “Mediatrix of all graces”.
After
Our Lord’s Ascension, when the celebration of Holy Mass became to be the
normal expression of Christian worship of God
“And
they were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles and in the
communication of the breaking of bread and in prayers.” Acts of the
Apostles 2:42 (My emphasis)
She
was the first to practice the duties of a truly Eucharistic life, showing us by
her example how we ought to assist at Mass, receive Holy Communion and visit the
Most Blessed Sacrament.
Thus
dear friends, love Mary and you will love the Eucharistic Christ. Love the
Eucharistic Christ and you are not far from Mary, for the Mother and the Son are
inseparable. +TF
