The Cathedral Close

The Teaching of the Church on the Holy Eucharist as Gathered from Her Official Documents by the Reverend Dr. Pusey, Canon of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford, and Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford.

“There now remains only to sum up the teaching of the Church of England on the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. She teaches, then that ‘sacraments ordained by Christ Himself’ are means ‘God doth work invisibly in us’ ‘means whereby we receive the inward part or thing signified’ by ‘the outward and visible sign’; and that they are ‘pledges to assure us thereof’; (these passages are quoted from the Twenty-fifth Article and from the Catechism). She teaches that ‘the inward part or thing signified’ in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is ‘the Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received in the Lord’s Supper’; (this is quoted from the Catechism). She teaches that ‘Almighty God our Heavenly Father hath given His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that holy Sacrament’; and that this is ‘a divine thing to those who receive it worthily’; (these passages are from the first warning Exhortation for the Celebration of the Holy Communion). She teaches that then ‘we spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood; then we dwell in Christ and Christ with us, we are one with Christ and Christ with us’; (this is from the longer Exhortation at the time of the Celebration of the Communion). She teaches that we ‘come’ there ‘to the Body and Blood of Christ.’ (This is quoted from S. Basil in the second part of the Homily concerning the Sacrament). She teaches that we ‘receive His blessed [37/38] Body and Blood under the Form of bread and wine’; (this is from the Notice at the end of the First Book of Homilies). She teaches that ‘at His table we,’ if we would be faithful, ‘receive not only the outward Sacrament but the spiritual thing also; not the figure only but the truth; not the shadow only but the Body’; ‘spiritual Food, nourishment of our souls, a heavenly refection, an invisible meat, a ghostly substance’; that ‘Christ’ is our ‘refection and meat’; that that Body and Blood are present there; for ‘in the Supper of the Lord, there is no vain ceremony, no bare sign, no untrue figure of a thing absent’; (these passages are from the First Part of the Homily concerning the Sacrament). She teaches that ‘the Bread’ which is ‘blessed’ or ‘consecrated’ with our Lord’s words, ‘This is My Body’ is ‘the Communion or partaking of the Body of Christ’; that the Cup or wine which ‘is blessed’ or ‘consecrated’ with His word, ‘This is My Blood of the New Testament,’ ‘is to such as rightly worthily and with faith receive the same,’ ‘the Communion or partaking of the Blood of Christ’; (these passages are from the rubric immediately following the words of administration, and from the Twenty-eighth Article). She teaches that if we receive rightly ‘we so eat the Flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and drink His Blood, and our sinful bodies are made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most Precious Blood’; (this is from the Prayer of Humble Access in the Eucharistic Liturgy.) She teaches that, if we rightly receive, we are made ‘partakers of His most Precious Body and Blood’; and so, ‘partakers of Christ’; (these passages are from the Prayer of Consecration and the Twenty-ninth Article). She teaches that ‘God Himself vouchsafes to feed those who duly receive these [38/39] holy Precious Mysteries with the spiritual Food of the most Precious Body and Blood of His Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’; (this is from the second Thanksgiving after Communion). She teaches that ‘The Body and Blood of Christ which were given and shed for us,’ when received by us, do, if we persevere, ‘preserve our souls and bodies unto everlasting life’; (this is from the words of administration). She teaches that they are ‘a salve of immortality, and sovereign preservative against death’; ‘a deifical Communion’–‘the pledge of eternal Health, the defence of faith, the hope of the Resurrection’; ‘the Food of immortality, the healthful grace, the conservatory to life everlasting’; (these passages are from the first Part of the Homily concerning the Sacrament).”

(E. B. Pusey, The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ The Doctrine of the English Church, edit. 1869, pp. 234-237.)