XXI. Eucharist. "Oh, show Thyself to me, Or take me up to Thee! He did; He came. Oh, my Redeemer dear, "So many years baptized, and not appear,-- Oh, show Thyself to me, Or take me up to Thee!" HERBERT. HAT says Rome to the deep craving of WH man's heart for love and union with God? The Catholic Church has a full, adequate, and satisfactory answer to this inquiry;—an answer that no one can appreciate, unless he already has the highest conception of love. Love is never satisfied with loving, and is not content until the object loved is wholly in its possession. Love aims always at union. On the other hand, the object loved is never at rest till it has given itself wholly to its lover. God's love, therefore, for man, cannot be satisfied, until man wholly surrenders himself to God's love; nor can man's love for God be satisfied, until God gives himself entirely to man's love. God must not only give himself wholly to man, to satisfy his love, but he must give himself in such a way as fitly to be received by man. The Catholic Church presents to man the Blessed Sacrament as the answer of the deep cry of the soul after love. She tells us, that in Holy Communion is received God entire-the body and blood, the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ confirmed this: when instituting the Blessed Sacrament, he said, "Take ye and eat; this is my body. Drink ye all of this; for this is my blood.” * eateth me, the same also shall live by me."† "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him."† "He that Besides this, there is another reason why God should give himself to man. It is this; whatever is received as food, must in some way partake of the life it goes to support and sustain ; otherwise, starvation and death follow. This is a law of all attraction and life. Now, in the Christian soul, there is a divine life; a divine food, therefore, is necessary for its support, growth, and perfection. The Catholic Church tells us that we receive this divine food in Holy Communion. Jesus Christ again confirms what she teaches. He says: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall have no life in you." "I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me."* Thus, the Catholic Saviour is not an abstract Saviour, nor a dead Saviour, separated from us by nineteen centuries, but a real, living, personal Saviour, dwelling in the midst of us, even in our very hearts our heart's life! Let those, therefore, who look for, or dream of "a Church of the Future," first learn what the existing and present Church is, and teaches; * John. let them venture to believe her teachings, and dare to obey them. It is a want, on their part, of truthfulness and true courage, to look or ask for what is greater or better, before they know what the present is, and have practised the good it demands. Until they have done this, they have no right to ask or claim more. Until this is done, they have no right to utter a word of complaint. Until this is done, their place is that of an humble disciple; their duty, that of a faithful servant. When these dreamers of a "New Teacher," or a "Future Church," shall have the heroism to venture to believe what the simplest of two hundred and fifty millions of Catholics believes, then, and not until then, will they be rightly entitled to speak of the Future. Poor dreamers! God has done more for man, and loved him more, than you, in your highest flights of imagination, ever thought of; and know it, too, that in the heart of that poor Catholic girl in your kitchen, there dwells a heroism of faith and love, of which your heart never had even a faint conception. If there be aught better or greater to be ex pected in the future, it will come by those who fulfil all the conditions of the existing Church, and not through men who are too blind to see, or too cowardly to acknowledge her claims, and obey her divine truths. The real presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Communion, connected as it is with the great sacrifice of the Mass, is the central mystery of the Catholic faith. It is the complete, full, and adequate expression of God's love to man. cannot do more. God cannot give more. God God cannot love more. If it were not for this, to look for a fuller manifestation of God and his love to man, might be admitted; but now to think or dream of such a thing, is a mark of folly. When we consider that God is really and truly present on the altars of the Catholic Church,—that he is the guest of the Catholic heart, its life and its nourishment,-is it to be wondered at that this Church has given birth to so many heroes, saints, and martyrs, and still continues to do so? Oh, life becomes great, noble, divine, under the influence, and in the participation of so great mysteries! Is it not, |