The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Ye shall not have , &c. That it is possible to have spiritual life, by which the believing soul lives in the faith and love of God without the Eucharist is plain from the case of the newly baptised. Here however it is said that there cannot be life without It, because life cannot be long retained, nourished and fed without this food, especially since the precept of communicating, both by the natural and Divine law, as well as human law (for the Church has ordained that every one shall communicate once a year, at Easter), urges and obliges us to take It. Whence Ruperti says, A man is not considered to have not eaten, unless he be unwilling to eat, or has been careless and neglectful. And we commonly say that a man cannot live without food, meaning for long. Hence S. Basil says (lib. 1, de Bapt.), “ He who has been regenerated by Baptism, ought afterwards to be nourished by the participation of the Divine Mysteries.” Similarly Dionysius Carthusianus, “ As the body cannot be sustained without corporeal food, nor continue in natural life, so without this life-giving food the soul cannot persist in the spiritual life of grace.” So too Lyra, “As in bodily life food is necessary to preserve life, so is this Sacrament necessary to the spiritual life, because it is preservative of the spiritual life : for as Baptism is a certain spiritual generation , so is the Eucharist spiritual nutriment.”
From what has been said it is clear that the fruit and effect of the Eucharist may be gathered from the analogy of the benefits of bread and food. What bread and food do for the body the Eucharist does for the soul, and occasionally even for the body, in that it nourishes and quickens the body, yea, sometimes heals diseases, and drives away peril of death. Wherefore formerly some persons when going on board ship were wont to carry the Eucharist with them, that they might take It in case of danger ; yea, to ward off peril. Thus Gregory, the father of S. Gregory Nazianzen, being worn out by a protracted burning fever, and nigh unto death, was delivered from it, and restored to life and health by means of the Eucharist, received on Easter Day. Nazianzen relates this in his discourse on the death of his father. The same saint relates that his mother was restored to health from a severe and dangerous sickness through receiving spiritual nourishment from bread which he himself had consecrated for the holy Sacrifice. He also testifies in a sermon on the death of his sister Gorgonia that she was healed of paralysis of all her limbs, and excruciating pains, by partaking of the Eucharist. S. Ambrose in a discourse on the death of his brother Satyrus, relates that he being shipwrecked escaped certain peril of death and swam to shore, in consequence of the Eucharist being appended to his neck. S. Gregory relates a similar escape by means of the Eucharist of Maximianus, Bishop of Syracuse (lib. 3, Dial. c. 36). In the time of the Emperor Justinian at Constantinople, the son of a certain Jew received after the custom of that age, together with several Christian children, the remains of the Eucharist. For this he was thrown by his father, a glass-blower, into a burning furnace of glass. There by the virtue of the Eucharist he was preserved alive and unhurt. This happened a.d. 552. (See Evagrius, lib. 4, c. 24, Gregory of Tours , lib. 1, Mirac. c. 10.) Finally listen to Cyril summing up the fruits and effects of the Eucharist : “ It drives away not only death, but all diseases. For it calms down, while Christ abides in us, the raging law of our members : It strengthens godliness : It extinguishes the perturbations of the mind: nor does It make question of our sins : but It heals the sick, It restores the bruised, and like the good Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep, It raises us from every fall.”
Ver. 55. — He that cometh, &c. Eateth, i.e., says Ruperti, worthily, with due preparation and purification, with a previous act of contrition and sacramental confession, if a man have any mortal sin upon his conscience. For if, after examination, a man be not conscious of any mortal sin, even though he may really be in some mortal sin unknown to himself, the communion of the Eucharist will blot out that sin, and restore the communicant to the grace and love of God. This is the teaching of Suarez, and Theologians, passim. Moreover, the sixth General Council (Act 8) understands this verse of the Eucharist, and asserts that in it the Flesh of Christ is called life-giving, because It is the proper Flesh of the Word, and hypostatically united to the Word.
Hath life eternal; because by the Eucharist he receives grace to preserve him, and bring him unto life eternal. As Dion. Carthusianus says, “ He hath eternal life, because he hath Me : and he hath the life of grace which is continued by this Sacrament, until he arrive at the life of everlasting glory.” S. Cyril gives the reason —“ Because the Flesh of Christ is the Flesh of God, which is united to the Word of God, who is, by His nature, Life, and thus is made life-giving. The Eucharist therefore quickens the soul, because It preserves, feeds, augments grace. Also It blots out venial sins, and even mortal sins, if a man has forgotten them. And It will raise up the body from death. Wherefore it follows, And I will raise him up. Moreover, S. Bernard thus explains these words of Christ tropologically (Tract, de Diligend. Deo). He that eateth , &c., “ That is, he who recalls to mind My death, and after My example mortifies his members which are upon the earth, hath eternal life.”
And I will raise him up at the last day , in which the passion of Christ and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, will gain their ultimate and perfect fruit and reward in the saints. I, who am really contained and eaten in the Eucharist, will raise up him that eateth Me, that as I give its own glory to the soul, so I may bestow upon the body its glory. For the glorified soul requires a glorious body that the whole man may be beatified. Hearken to S. Cyril, “ ‘I,’ He said, that is, My Body which shall be eaten, will raise him up. For Christ is no other than His Flesh. I do not say so because It is not different by nature, but because since the Incarnation He can by no means be divided into two Sons. I, therefore, He says, who am made man, will raise up those who eat Me by means of My Flesh at the last day. Assuredly it is altogether impossible that death and destruction should not be overcome by Him who by nature is Life.”
I will raise up , to immortal glory. “ Lest they should suppose,” says S. Augustine, “that by that food and drink life eternal was promised in such a manner, that those who received it should not die in the body, He condescended to meet such a thought by immediately adding, and I will raise him up at the last day, that meanwhile he should live according to the spirit, in the rest which the spirits of the saints enjoy : and as concerns the body, not even the medicine of immortality, his flesh should be defrauded of life eternal, but should possess it at the resurrection of the dead at the last day.”
Wherefore the Council of Nice calls the Eucharist “ the symbol of the resurrection.” And S. Ignatius ( Epist. ad Ephes.) calls It the “ medicine of immortality.” S. Cyril in this verse calls It “ food nourishing for immortality and eternal life.” Hence S. Chrysostom (lib. 6, de Sacerdot.) asserts that the souls of those who receive this Sacrament at the end of life are by reason of having received It carried direct by the angels into heaven ; and that their bodies, the angels like attendants surrounding them, are guarded for eternal life. Nyssen indeed adds (Orat. Catechet. c. 37), “that our bodies cannot win immortality, unless they have been united to this immortal Body of Christ.” S. Cyprian has a similar remark (Serm. de Cana Dom.), also Tertullian (de Resurrec. Carn.) Yea, S. Irenseus (lib. 4, c. 34), from the truth that we communicate of the Flesh and Blood of an immortal Christ proves the resurrection, that is to say, that we shall rise to life immortal. Understand all these sayings, not that by the Eucharist there is confined in the body any physical quality, as a cause of its resurrection, nor any supernatural gift, which in the way of grace and glory is not due to the holy soul, but because the resurrection due to grace is given also to the saints title, which peculiarly and specially belongs to the Eucharist, that is to say, on account of that special union with the glorified Body which takes place in the Eucharist because of the institution and promise of Christ. So Suarez. Let me add that the Eucharist preserves, nourishes, and augments grace, which is the seed of glory. The Eucharist therefore is the instrumental cause of the resurrection (a moral, that is, not a physical cause), because of which Christ will cause us to rise again. Wherefore He saith not, “ the Eucharist shall raise him again,” but, “ I will raise him again.”
Ver. 56. — For My Flesh , &c., truly , i.e., not parabolically nor figuratively, as Euthymius says from S. Chrysostom, but really and properly, according to the plain meaning of the words. Hence S. Chrysostom (Hom. 61 ad Pop.) teaches that we in the Eucharist are united and commingled with the Flesh of Christ, not only by love and consent of will, but also really and substantially. “ Wherefore ,” saith he, “ He hath commingled Himself with us, and united His Body to ours, that we should be made one whole, even as a body is connected with its head. This is the desire of ardent lovers. It is this which Job hinted at, saying to his servants, to whom he was beyond measure desirable, because they showed their desire, saying, ‘Who will give us to be filled with his flesh?’” (Job xxxi.) “Not only does Christ afford Himself to be seen by those who desire Him, but even to be handled and eaten, to have our teeth fastened in His Flesh, and to fulfil every desire. As lions therefore breathe out fire, so let us depart from that Table, made terrible to the devil, and contemplating our Head in our minds, and the charity which He has manifested towards us.”