There is another purpose why Our Blessed Lord is present with us in
Holy Communion. He is present as the Great Head of the Church, in
order that we His members with Him and in Him may offer ourselves a
living Sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable
service (Romans XII. 1). We have sadly forgotten the real essential
meaning of worship. What is worship? Surely self oblation. It is the
offering of ourselves, our bodies, souls and spirits, our talents, our
gifts, all we have and all we are to God for service. But this is just
what we poor sinners cannot do of ourselves, it if only _in Christ_
that we can give ourselves to serve God and humanity. And so Our
Blessed Lord comes to us as the Head of the Church which is His Body,
the living organism in which He lives and through which He carries on
His work. He comes and pleads on our behalf the merits of His atoning
death and Sacrifice once offered, He comes and applies to us the saving
efficacy of His atonement, He feeds us with His Body and Blood, making
us one with Himself so that He dwells in us and we dwell in Him, so
that we are one with Him and He one with us; and then, in Him, in union
with His eternal oblation of Himself, He offers and presents us, His
Body, as living Sacrifices to the eternal Father, and sends us forth to
do service for Him and our brethren, not in our own strength and power
but in His to whom all power in Heaven and earth has been given.
The present era in the history of the Church and the world is one which
calls for great power if Christ is to be brought to a distracted
disorganized sin-laden, sin-weary world,--and if the world is to be
brought to Christ its one and only possible helper and Saviour, its
Saviour from present and future evils in the age that now is as well as
in the ages to come. That power is in Christ and is made over to His
followers when in simple faith they come to Him in a receptive attitude
and with the determination to use it. The fundamental importance of
the Holy Communion is, that it stands forth preeminently as the
principal channel through which this power is bestowed.
May all those who bear His name and desire to do Him service realize
what an inexhaustible treasury of Divine strength and power the Master
has provided for us in this Sacrament of His Love. Just a few words in
conclusion as to our use of it.
It is food, therefore, it must be received frequently and with
regularity. It is food, therefore it presupposes life and at least a
degree of health in those who take it. A corpse cannot receive food,
the sick have no desire for it. The Holy Communion is for those who
are Baptized and have received the life of the Risen Lord. It is for
those who have been forgiven and who long to show their gratitude by
becoming strong through the assimilation of Christ the Bread of Life to
do Him service and perform His will.
It is food, therefore not a Spiritual luxury for good people, but the
ordinary necessary food for us all, poor weak pardoned sinners, God's
Children reconciled in Christ, who are trying to become good and to
love Him who first loved us.
The realization of our own nothingness and the all sufficiency of
Christ is the condition of heart and soul requisite for a good
Communion. Repentance for the fact that it should be so with us, faith
that He will supply all our needs, because He alone can and because He
so wills, is the attitude of those who would really know what this
Sacrament was meant to be and can be to those who come to Him "as sick
to the Physician of Life, as unclean to the Fountain of Mercy, as blind
to the Light of Eternal Splendour, as needy to the Lord of Heaven and
earth, as naked to the King of Glory, as lost sheep to the Good
Shepherd, as fallen creatures to their Creator, as desolate to the kind
Comforter, as miserable to the Pitier, as guilty to the Bestower of
pardon, as sinful to the Justifier, as hardened to the Infuser of
Grace."