Augustine of Hippo on the hidden mystery of the Eucharist
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
St Augustine (354-430), Bishop Of Hippo Regius
WE continue in this morning’s second reading with the “bread of life” discourse in St John’s Gospel (Jn 6:41-70).
When Jesus tells his disciples that to eat the bread of his flesh is to eat everlasting life, they are understandably revolted. But he calms their fears.
HE said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Jesus appears to be saying, that the idea of eating his flesh and blood will be less disgusting, when he has ascended to his Father and the disciples realise that his presence is not grossly carnal, but by quickening Spirit.
BUT doth the flesh give life? Our Lord Himself, when He was speaking in praise of this same earth, said, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.” … But when our Lord praised it, He was speaking of His own flesh, and He had said, “Except a man eat My flesh, he shall have no life in him” (Jn 6:54).
Some disciples of His, about seventy, were offended, and said, “This is an hard saying, who can hear it?” And they went back, and walked no more with Him. It seemed unto them hard that He said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you:” they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, “This is a hard saying.”
It was they who were hard, not the saying; for unless they had been hard, and not meek, they would have said unto themselves, He saith not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learnt that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learnt.
For when twelve disciples had remained with Him, on their departure, these remaining followers suggested to Him, as if in grief for the death of the former, that they were offended by His words, and turned back. But He instructed them, and saith unto them, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (Jn 6:63).
Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.
St Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Expositions On The Psalms, Ps XCVIII §8.
"[Politicians] are employed in framing laws and statutes for preventing crimes, and keeping the disorderly multitude within bounds; and at the same time, by personally discountenancing public worship, they are weakening, they are even abolishing, among the multitude, that moral restraint which is of more general influence upon manners than all the laws they frame."
I FIND, by experience, that by often seeing her Portrait, & that of her Dearest Son, I many times recall Him & His Merits, her & her Perfections, to my mind, which before was void of such Heavenly Guests.
I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty,