The Holy Communion was ordained, and Our Blessed Lord is present in
that Holy Sacrament, in order that He, the true Bread from Heaven, may
feed us with the Spiritual food of His Body and Blood. In the language
of the Prayer Book itself "it is our duty to render most humble and
hearty thanks to Almighty God our Heavenly Father, for that He hath
given His Son Our Saviour Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but
also to be our Spiritual food and sustenance in (this) Holy Sacrament."
Whilst our Catechism asserts that "The inward part or thing signified
in the Lord's Supper is the body and Blood of Christ which are verily
and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper."
The seeker after the truth must read and compare very carefully the
following passages of Holy Scripture. St. John VI., the whole Chapter;
St. Matthew, XXVI. 26-30; St. Mark XIV. 22-26; St. Luke XXII, 15-21; 1
Corinthians X. 15-22; 1 Corinthians, XI. 23-end.
If this be done there will remain no doubt but that Our Blessed Lord
proclaims Himself to be the Bread of Life, the food of man's spiritual
nature and being, which needs food quite as much as his physical and
mental nature and being; that He ordained the Holy Communion to be the
means and channel whereby we receive His flesh and blood, that is His
very perfect life and nature, according to His promise as recorded in
St. John VI. verses 48-58; and that St. Paul so understood its purpose
and meaning.
Realizing that we are moving in the realm of the Spiritual and
meditating upon the words of the Incarnate God, the very truth who can
neither deceive or be deceived, we will not ask with the unbelieving
Jews how can this man give us his flesh to eat, we will leave all
questions as to the manner how where Christ Himself has left them, and
with a most thankful heart will make the words of Hooker, the great
Elizabethan Divine, our own, "What these elements are in themselves it
skilleth not, it is enough that to me which take them they are the body
and blood of Christ, His promise in witness hereof sufficeth, His word
He knoweth which way to accomplish; why should any cogitation possess
the mind of a faithful Communicant but this, O My God thou art true, O
My Soul, thou art happy."