"Amen, amen, I say to you: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him."

   It is important to know that this sacrament was instituted on the occasion when priestly functions were conferred upon the Disciples, in fact the Eucharist is part of it. It was during the Passover feast, called the Last Supper, because it was the last true Passover of the Old Law; it was the last meal that Christ had with His Disciples. It took place on the night before He was betrayed. This sacrament (which as a Sacrifice is to be dealt with under the heading of Holy Orders) was instituted thus,

"Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke, and gave to His Disciples, and said, `Take and eat: this is My Body.' And taking a cup, He gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, `All of you drink of this: for it is My Blood of the new covenant (which took the place of the old covenant, foretold in Jer. 31:31), which is being shed (the completion of which was to take place next day upon the Cross) for many unto the forgiveness of sins...'" (interpolations mine; St. Matt 26).

   After this inauguration of the Sacrament, Christ gave to the Disciples the power to do what He did, change the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, in these words, "Do this in remembrance of Me" (St. Luke 20:19). This power to transubstantiate (to change one substance into another), that is to do what Christ did at the Last Supper, which was given to the Disciples, who were the first bishops of Christ's Church, was continued in the succeeding bishops, and through them in the priests, ever since apostolic times.
   Belief in this Great Sacrament is based upon belief in the incarnation, which is the assumption of a human nature by the Second Person of the Triune God. By the incarnation, Christ united Himself with human nature; in the Holy Eucharist, Christ entered into personal union with the faithful, individually. Catholics believe this spiritual soul-satisfying food to be the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ upon the authority of Christ as interpreted by His infallible Church. The record of it is in the paintings on the walls of the catacombs; in the New Testament; in an unbroken tradition that dates to the first century of the Christian era; and in the hearts of millions of lay Catholics, beginning with the three thousand Jews converted by St. Peter, who have received Holy Communion at the altar rail of the Catholic Church.
   God has fed man miraculously in the past, and He continues to do so today. On the first occasion the physical man was fed on the manna which fell from the skies. With it over a million of the children of Israel were fed during the whole forty years of their journey through the wilderness (Exod. 16). On the second occasion, Christ Himself, having compassion on the hungry multitude, miraculously fed five thousand persons in the desert (St. Matt. 14:14). But necessary as is physical food, it has no eternal value, as has the Holy Eucharist, the spiritual food with which Christ has fed the souls of thousands of millions of persons of all races and nationalities since the Last Supper. Christ feeds, as He said, "not" with the food such "as your fathers ate the manna and died," but with His Body and Blood, with "the Bread that came down from heaven" (St. John 6:59).
   The Eucharistic God abides in the tabernacle of every Catholic Church, and is exposed, at times, for the adoration of the faithful in a monstrance, a vessel containing the Host. Hence, when you see Catholic men reverentially removing their hats while passing Catholic churches, remember, please, that they are not saluting the building, as some of my Jewish friends believed. They do so to pay reverence to Christ Jesus, their Lord and God, who is present in the tabernacle of the Church building. The same reason prompts all Catholics to genuflect when they enter the Church, or go into their pews. Israel Zangwill, the noted Jewish novelist, was so deeply impressed with the reverence he witnessed, due to the love of Catholics for Christ in the Eucharist, that he said,

"There are two torrents that amaze me, the one is Niagara, and the other the outpouring of reverent prayer falling perpetually in the Catholic Church. What, with Masses and the exposition of the Host, there is no day or moment of the day in which the praises of God are not being sung somewhere--in noble churches, in dim crypts and underground chapels, in cells and oratories. Niagara is indifferent to spectators, and so the everlasting stream of prayer. As steadfastly and unremittingly as God sustains the universe, so steadfastly and unremittingly is He acknowledged, the human antiphony answering the divine strophe" (Italian Fantasies).

   The Mass; the reverence for the Host; receiving the Bread of Life in Communion; the genuflections; the reverential removal of hats when passing Catholic churches; the "everlasting stream of prayer" that Israel Zangwill saw coming from the hearts of Catholics in the most humble as well as "noble churches," are all based upon confidence in the actual presence of Christ in the Sacrament of His love. This Eucharistic Bread is unending evidence of the divinity of Christ; it causes the Catholic heart to sing out,