St. Augustine: “It is the Spirit that quickens"

"IN another passage of the Scriptures it is said, “The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.” (Is 66:1) Does he then bid us worship the earth, since in another passage it is said, that it is God's footstool? How then shall we worship the earth, when the Scripture says openly, “You shall worship the Lord your God”? (Dt 6:13) Yet here it says, “fall down before His footstool:” and, explaining to us what His footstool is, it says, “The earth is My footstool.” I am in doubt; I fear to worship the earth, lest He who made the heaven and the earth condemn me; again, I fear not to worship the footstool of my Lord, because the Psalm bids me, “fall down before His footstool.” I ask, what is His footstool? And the Scripture tells me, “the earth is My footstool.” In hesitation I turn unto Christ, since I am herein seeking Himself: and I discover how the earth may be worshipped without impiety, how His footstool may be worshipped without impiety. For He took upon Him earth from earth; because flesh is from earth, and He received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because He walked here in very flesh, and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation; and no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped: we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord's may be worshipped, and not only that we sin not in worshipping it, but that we sin in not worshipping. But does the flesh give life?

"Our Lord Himself, when He was speaking in praise of this same earth, said, “It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits 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 you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you 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 says not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learned that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learned. 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 says unto them, “It is the Spirit that quickens, but the flesh profits 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; you are not to eat this body which you 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: Expositions on the Psalms, 99:8.

Communion of the Apostles, by Luca Signorelli.

Panel, 1512; Museo Diocesano, Cortona.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem: "The Bread and Wine of the Eucharist"

● For as the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the Holy and Adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the Bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the Wine the blood of Christ, so in like manner such meats belonging to the pomp of Satan, though in their own nature simple, become profane by the invocation of the evil spirit.

● Even of itself the teaching of the blessed Paul (1 Cor 11:23) is sufficient to give you a full assurance concerning those Divine Mysteries, of which having been deemed worthy, you are become of the same body and blood with Christ. For you have just heard him say directly, “That Our Lord Jesus Christ in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it, and gave to His disciples, saying, ‘Take, eat, this is My Body’; and having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, ‘Take, drink, this is my Blood’” (Mt 26:26ff.). Since then He Himself declared and said of the Bread, ‘This is My Body,’ who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has affirmed and said, ‘This is My Blood,’ who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His Blood?

~St. Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures, 19:7; 22:1.

Last Supper, Tree of Life and Four Miracle Scenes, by Taddeo Gaddi. 

Fresco, c. 1360; Refectory, Santa Croce, Florence.

St. Gregory the Great: "This sacrifice doth especially save our souls"

Of the virtue and mystery of the holy sacrifice

"AND HERE also we have diligently to consider, that it is far more secure and safe that every man should do that for himself whiles he is yet alive, which he desireth that others should do for him after his death. For far more blessed it is, to depart free out of this world, than being in prison to seek for release: and therefore reason teacheth us, that we should with our whole soul contemn this present world, at least because we see that it is now gone and past: and to offer unto God the daily sacrifice of tears, and the daily sacrifice of his body and blood. For this sacrifice doth especially save our souls from everlasting damnation, which in mystery doth renew unto us the death of the Son of God: who although being risen from death, doth not now die any more, nor death shall not any further prevail against him: yet living in himself immortally, and without all corruption, he is again sacrificed for us in this mystery of the holy oblation: for there his body is received, there his flesh is distributed for the salvation of the people: there his blood is not now shed betwixt the hands of infidels, but poured into the mouths of the faithful. Wherefore let us hereby meditate what manner of sacrifice this is, ordained for us, which for our absolution doth always represent the passion of the only Son of God: for what right believing Christian can doubt, that in the very hour of the sacrifice, at the words of the Priest, the heavens be opened, and the quires[1] of Angels are present in that mystery of Jesus Christ; that high things are accompanied with low, and earthly joined to heavenly, and that one thing is made of visible and invisible?"

~St. Gregory the Great: Dialogues, Bk. 4, Chap. 58. (593 A.D.)

1. Archaic. choir.

St. Gregory the Great, by Tiziano Vecellio
(Titian; c. 1488/1490–1576).

Oil on oak panel; Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.

The Eucharist: Transubstantiation

• “The bread and wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the holy and adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine; while after the invocation bread becomes the Body of Christ, and wine the Blood of Christ.” ~St. Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Discourses, 19, 7.

• “Having learnt these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to the taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ: and that of this David sung of old, saying, ‘And bread strengthens man’s heart, to make his face to shine with oil’ (Ps 103:15), strengthen your heart by partaking thereof as spiritual, and make the face of your soul to shine.” ~St. Ambrose: Catechetical Discourses, 22, 9.

• “The word of Christ could make out of nothing that which was not; can it then not change the things which are into that which they were not? For to give new natures to things is quite as wonderful as to change their natures.” ~St. Ambrose: On the Mysteries, 9, 52.

• “In that sacrament [of the Eucharist] is Christ, because it is the Body of Christ, it is therefore not bodily food but spiritual. Whence the Apostle says of its type: ‘Our fathers ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink’ (1 Cor 10:3, 4). ~St. Ambrose: On the Mysteries, 9, 58.

• “‘My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink’ (Jn 6:56). You hear Him speak of His Flesh and of His Blood, you perceive the sacred pledges (conveying to us the merits and power) of the Lord’s death, and you dishonor His Godhead? Hear His own words: ‘A spirit has not flesh and bones’ (Lk 24:39). Now we, as often as we receive the Sacramental Elements, which by the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed into the Flesh and the Blood, ‘do show the Lord’s Death’ (1 Cor 11:26).” ~St. Ambrose: To Gratian, On the Christian Faith, 4, 10.

• "Now we, as often as we receive the Sacraments, which by the mystery of holy prayer are transformed (transfigurantur) into Flesh and Blood, proclaim the Lord's death." ~St. Ambrose: Concerning Faith, 4, 124.

• “You say perhaps, ‘My bread is of the usual kind.’ But that bread before the words of the sacraments; when consecration has been added, from bread it becomes the Flesh of Christ. Let us therefore prove this. How can that which is bread be the Body of Christ? By consecration. But in what words and in whose language is the consecration? Those of the Lord Jesus.” ~St. Ambrose: On the Sacraments, 4, 4, 14.

• “He washes us from our sins daily in His Blood, when the memory of His blessed passion is repeated at the altar, when the creature of the bread and wine is transferred into the sacrament of His Flesh and Blood by the by the ineffable sanctification of His Spirit: and thus His Body and Blood is poured out and killed, not by the hands of infidels unto their destruction, but is assumed by the mouth of the faithful unto their salvation.” ~St. Bede the Venerable: Homilies, 1, 14.

• “Just as in nature the bread by the eating and the wine and the water by the drinking are changed into the body and blood of the eater and drinker, and do not become a different body from the former one, so the bread of the altar (prothesis) and the wine and water are supernaturally changed by the invocation and presence of the Holy Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ, and are not two but one and the same.” ~St. John Damascene: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4, 13.

• “The bread and the wine are merely figured of the Body and Blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified Body of the Lord itself, for the Lord has said: This is My body, not, this is a figure of my body; and My blood, not, a figure of my blood.” ~St. John Damascene: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 4, 13.

The Victory of Eucharistic Truth over Heresy, by Peter Paul Rubens.
Oil on panel, c. 1626; Museo del Prado, Madrid.