The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle to the Corinthians
But the better answer is that Christ applied the name “fruit of the vine,” not to what was in the Eucharistic chalice, but to that in the cup of the Passover Supper. For, as He said of the lamb (S. Luke xxii. 16), “I will not eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God,” so of the cup of the lamb, “ I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God shall come.” For S. Luke plainly makes a distinction, not observed by S. Matthew and S. Mark, between the lamb and the cup of the Passover supper, and relates that Christ spoke of both before the Eucharist (xxii. 17). Christ simply meant to say that He would not afterwards live with them, or take part in the common supper, as He had hitherto done, because He was going to His death, as Jerome, Theophylact and others say in their comments on the passage.
You may perhaps object, secondly, that the words, “This is My body ” are a sacramental mode of speech, and are, therefore, typical and figurative.
But I deny that this follows ; for this is a sacramental mode of speech, because, by these words, a true sacrament is worked, viz., because, under the species of bread and wine as the visible signs, there is present the very body of Christ. The words are not sacramental in the sense of being typical or figurative, for sacraments properly speaking signify what they contain and effect. For a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible reality which it causes and effects, as, e.g., when we say, “I baptize thee,” “I wash thee,” the meaning is not, “ I give thee a sign or figure of washing,” but strictly, “ By this sacrament I wash thy body, and by this I wash thy soul from the stains of thy sins.” So when we say, " I absolve thee,” “ I confirm thee,” “ I anoint thee,” there is signified, not a figurative but a real and proper absolution, confirmation, and anointing of the body and soul.
If Christ, therefore, when He said “ body,” had meant “ figure of My body,” He ought to have explained Himself, and said, “I am speaking, not only sacramentally, but figuratively,” otherwise He would have given to the Apostles and to the whole Church an evident occasion for the most grievous error. The conclusion then has no basis that Christ is in the Eucharist as in a sacrament, that is, figuratively or typically, as the commentary ascribed to S. Ambrose says, in which it is followed by some of the Fathers, and that therefore He is not really there, but only figuratively; the contrary should be inferred. Christ is not, therefore, there figuratively, but truly and properly ; for a sacrament signifies what is really present, not what is falsely absent. As, then, the conclusion is valid that where there is smoke there is fire, because smoke is the sign of the presence of fire; and again this body breathes, therefore life is present in it, because breathing is a sign of life, so also it rightly follows that the body of Christ is in the Eucharist as in a Sacrament ; therefore, He is really there, because the Sacrament and the sacramental species signify that they, as the true sacraments of Christ's body, truly contain it.
You will object perhaps, thirdly, that Christ said (S. John vi. 63) : “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing ; ” therefore the flesh of Christ is not present, and is not eaten in the Eucharist.
3. I answer that it cannot be said without impiety that the flesh of Christ, suffering and crucified for us, profits us nothing. Indeed, the very opposite of this is taught by Christ Himself throughout S. John vi. 35-65. He says in so many words that His flesh greatly profits us. His meaning therefore is, as S. Cyril points out, (1.) that the flesh of Christ has not its quickening power in the Eucharist from itself, but from the Spirit, that is from the Godhead of the Word, to which it is hypostatically united. (2.) That this manducation , as S. Chrysostom says, of Christ's flesh in the Eucharist is not carnal : that we do not press it with our teeth, as we might bull's flesh, but that we eat it after a spiritual manner, one suited to the nature of spirit, viz., mysteriously, sacramentally, invisibly. For you here eat the flesh of Christ in exactly the same way as you would feed on and appropriate the substance of an angel, if he lay concealed in the sacrament. The opposite of this was what was understood by the unspiritual people of Capernaum, and it is against them only that Christ says these words. Hence He proceeds to say :
“ The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”
In other words, “ They are spiritual, and must be understood spiritually : you will not eat My flesh in the carnal sense of being bloody, cut into pieces, and chewed, but only in a spiritual way, as though it were a spirit couched invisibly and indivisibly beneath the Blessed Sacrament. In the same way, “ My words are life,” that is full of life, giving life to him that heareth, believeth, and eateth My flesh.
4. You will perhaps again urge that it seems impossible that Christ, being so great, should be in so small a Host and at so many different altars, and that it seems incredible that Christ should be there, subject to the chance of being eaten by mice or vomited, &c.
I reply to the first, " With God all things are possible.” Hence we say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” God can do more than a miserable man, nay, more than all the hosts of angels and men can conceive, else He would not be God. Moreover, faith transcends human capacity: these mysteries are matters for faith, not for reason. “Faith,” says S. Augustine (in Joan, Tract, 27 and 40), “is believing what you see not.” And S. Gregory (in Evang. Horn, xxvi.) says : “ Faith has no merit where human reason supplies proof.” S. Thomas, therefore, well sings of this sacrament —
“ Faith alone, though sight forsaketh,
Shows true hearts the mystery.”
Moreover, it can be shown by a similar case that it is not impossible for the body of Christ to be in so small a Host ; for the body of Christ was born of the Virgin, i.e., came forth from her closed womb ; He therefore penetrated the Virgin’s womb in such a way that when He was born He was in the same place as His mother’s womb was. Similarly, Christ rose from the closed sepulchre , and entered to His disciples when the doors were shut:
He was therefore in the same place as the stone before the tomb and the door of the upper room.
Now I argue thus : If two whole bodies can be at once in the same place, e.g., Christ and the stone, so also two parts of the same body, e.g., the head and feet of Christ, can be in the same place, as, e.g., in the same Host. If two can be, then can three or four or five, or as many as God shall see fit to put in the same place. Christ says the same in S. Matt. xix. 24, in the words, “ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” But God can absolutely draw a rich man to heaven, therefore He can make a camel go through the eye of a needle, and therefore the body of Christ through so small a Host.
Now, if two bodies can be in the same place, so, by parity of reasoning, the same body, viz., that of Christ, can be in different places and different Hosts ; for both are of equal difficulty and of equal power.
We can show, thirdly, the possibility of this by another example; for God can make an angel, nay, an angel can make himself expand from filling a single point to fill a whole room; and on the other hand He can make a body that is spread through some extent of space contract to a single point. If He can do that, why not this, especially since He is Almighty? for both belong to the same order and present the same difficulty, nor does one involve more contradiction than the other.
Further, not only does God do this in the case of an angel, who is spirit and not body, but He does it also to bodies in the world of nature. For fire will rarefy and expand water to ten times its volume, nay, make it boil over and escape ; and, again, cold can so condense this same water, when the heat of the fire is taken from it, as to contract it to its original volume. Why, then, cannot God, who infinitely surpasses the workings of nature, reduce the body of Christ, which is but of six feet, to the dimensions of a single Host, nay, of a single point ? As God can increase anything indefinitely, so can He diminish it in the same way ; for both the infinite power of God is requisite and sufficient.
Lastly, Christ compares Himself and His Gospel to a grain of mustard-seed (S. Matt. xiii. 31), which, from being of small dimensions , attains great size by its inherent vigour, and spreads itself out into wide-spreading branches, and becomes a large tree. If God does this to a grain of mustard-seed by natural agencies, why can He not do the like in the Eucharist according to His promise ?