SACRAMENTS
It is sometimes asked whether the sacraments of the Christian Church
are two or more than two in number. The answer depends in part upon
how the term "sacrament" is defined. But the wisest teaching is that
which recognizes in particular sacraments--such as Baptism and the
Supper of the Lord--the operation of a general principle which runs
throughout all human experience, in things both sacred and profane. "I
have no soul," remarked a well-known preacher on a famous occasion, "I
have no soul, because I _am_ a soul: I _have_ a body." It would be
difficult to express more aptly the principle of sacraments, or--what
comes to the same thing--the true relationship of the material to the
spiritual order.
We are accustomed, in the world as we know it, to distinguish "spirit"
from "matter": and we are tempted, by the mere fact that we draw a
distinction between them, to think and speak at times as though spirit
and matter were necessarily opposed. This is a great mistake. Matter,
so far from being the opposite or the contradiction of spirit, is the
medium of its expression, the vehicle of its manifestation. Spirit and
matter are correlatives, but the ultimate reality of the world is
spiritual. It is the whole purpose and function of matter to express,
to embody, to incarnate, the Spirit. The preacher, therefore, was
quite right. "I _am_ a soul": that is, I am a personality, a spirit:
and to say that is to give expression to the fundamental truth of my
existence: I _am_ a soul, and I am _not_ a body. But "I _have_ a
body": that is, my personality is embodied or incarnate: I have a body
which serves as the vehicle or instrument of my life as a man here
upon earth: a body which is the organ of my spirit's self-expression
and the medium both of my life's experience and of my intercourse with
other men. I think, and my thoughts are mediated by movements of the
brain. I speak, and the movements of my vocal chords set up vibrations
and sound-waves which, impinging upon the nerves of another's ear,
affect in turn another's brain: and the process, regarded from the
point of view of the physiologist or the scientific observer, is a
physical process through and through: yet it mediates from my _mind_
to the mind of him who hears me a meaning which is wholly spiritual.
This principle of the mediation of the spiritual by the material is
the principle of sacramentalism. It is the principle of incarnation,
which runs throughout the world. The body is in this sense the
sacrament of the spirit, sound is the sacrament of speech, and
language the sacrament of thought. So in like manner water is the
sacrament of cleansing, hands laid upon a man's head are the sacrament
of authority or of benediction, food and drink are the sacrament of
life. All life and all experience are in a true sense sacramental, the
inward ever seeking to reveal itself in and through the outward, the
outward deriving its whole significance from the fact that it
expresses and mediates the spirit: so it is that a gesture--a bow or a
salute--may be a sacrament of politeness, a handshake the sacrament of
greeting and of friendship, the beauty of nature a sacrament of the
celestial beauty, the world a sacrament of GOD.
It is in the light of this general principle of sacraments that the
specific sacraments of Christianity are to be understood. In Baptism
the water of an outward washing is the sacrament both of initiation
into a spiritual society, and also of the cleansing and regenerating
power of GOD. In Confirmation the Church's outward benediction, of
which the Bishop is the minister, is the sacrament of an inward gift
of spiritual strength. In Absolution words outwardly pronounced by
human lips are a sacrament of Divine forgiveness and a pledge to
assure us thereof. In the Eucharist the outward elements of food and
drink are the sacramental embodiment of Christ and the vehicles of His
outpoured life. Other sacraments, or rites commonly reckoned
sacramental, we need not here particularly consider. [Footnote:
Matrimony and Holy Orders are discussed in different connexions
elsewhere in this book. The sacrament of Unction, by which is meant
the Anointing of the Sick with oil in the name of the Lord with a view
to their recovery (to be distinguished from the mediaeval and modern
Roman use of "Extreme Unction" as a preparation for death), has been
revived sporadically within the Church of England in recent times, but
is not usually for the plain man of more than academic importance or
interest.]
_Baptism and Confirmation_
Baptism is the sacrament of Christian initiation, whereby a man is
made visibly a member of the Christian fellowship. Converts were
originally baptized in adult life, as they are to-day in the mission
field. The candidate publicly renounced his heathen past and made a
profession of his faith in Christ and his desire to be loyal to His
Church. As a sinner in need of redemption he went down into the water,
and was three times immersed in the Name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The rite conveyed an assurance of the
forgiveness of sins. The going down into the water symbolized the
burial of the dead past. The coming up out of the water expressed the
idea of resurrection to newness of life in Christ. The new-made
Christian was said to be born again of water and of the Spirit: the
"old Adam" was slain, the "new man" raised up. The candidate was
henceforward a "member of Christ," a "child of GOD," an "inheritor of
the Kingdom of Heaven." He was admitted both to the privileges and to
the responsibilities of Church membership. It remained only that he
should walk worthily of his Christian profession, and to this end
hands were laid upon his head in benediction, with prayer that he
might be made strong by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.
Confirmation was thus the complement of Baptism, and the two things
normally went together. The same order is still commonly observed to-
day in the case of persons baptized in adult life, and has the
advantage of making the significance of both rites, and their mutual
relation, at once more vivid and more intelligible.
But the question arose, in the second Christian generation, of the
status of children in relation to the Church. Might children be
admitted to membership in infancy, or must they wait until they were
adult? The Church decided that they were admissible, provided there
were reasonable assurance that they would be Christianly brought up.
Why should a child grow up in heathenism? Had not the Lord said,
"Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not"?
There seemed no reason why children should not be brought at once
within the sphere of Christian regeneration.
But if children were baptized in infancy, it was plainly essential
that they should at a later stage receive systematic instruction in
Christian faith and practice; and the Western Church (though not the
Eastern) adopted the practice of separating Confirmation from Baptism,
and deferring the former until such instruction had been received. The
plan has obvious advantages, though it tends to obscure in some
respects the essential meaning of Confirmation and its original close
relation to the sacrament of Baptism.
In modern usage Baptism is normally administered by a priest,
Confirmation always by a Bishop. Candidates are received by the latter
upon the assurance of one of his subordinate clergy that they are
adequately instructed and rightly disposed by faith and penitence to
receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost--"the spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." As an immediate preliminary to
the actual rite the candidate solemnly and deliberately declares his
acceptance of the obligations and implications of his baptism. The
laying on of hands which follows is in one aspect the recognition by
the Bishop, as chief pastor of the flock of Christ in his own diocese,
that the candidate is henceforward of communicant status. In another
aspect it is the bestowal through prayer of a fuller gift of the Holy
Ghost, whereby the candidate is "confirmed" (_i.e._ made strong). It
should be noted that the Bishop's prayer for each candidate is not
that he may be made magically perfect there and then, but that he may
"daily increase" in GOD'S Holy Spirit "more and more," until he come
to GOD'S "everlasting Kingdom."
_The Sacrament of Repentance_
It must be admitted that very large numbers of those who are confirmed
lapse at an early stage in their lives from the communion of the
Church and never return. The causes of this are various, and there is
no one sovereign or universal remedy. Sometimes it is to be feared
that there has been either lack of intelligence or lack of
thoroughness in the candidates' preparation. In not a few cases what
has really happened is that the young communicant has been led into
the commission of some sin of a kind which his own conscience
recognizes as grave, so that he feels that he has spoilt his record
and failed to "live up to" his profession. To go back to communion, he
thinks, would in these circumstances be a kind of mockery.
Unfortunately he does not know--since too often he has not been
taught--any effectual method of spiritual recovery and renewal.
What is needed in such cases is a real doctrine and practice of
Christian repentance. It is the universal teaching of the Christian
Church that forgiveness is freely available for all those who truly
repent. A man who, laying aside self-justification, will freely
acknowledge his offences and shortcomings before GOD, and that in a
spirit not of self-pity, self-loathing or self-contempt, but of sorrow
at having brought discredit upon the Christian name and done what in
him lies to crucify the Son of GOD afresh, may freely claim and find
in Christ forgiveness and inward peace.
This Gospel or message of the forgiveness of sins it is part of the
mission of the Christian Church to set forth. It is her mission to set
it forth not merely as a piece of good news proclaimed in general
terms to the world at large, but as a healing assurance brought home
in detail, as need may require, to the individual consciences of
sinners. "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." The words may have
been uttered by the historical Jesus of Nazareth, or they may not--
they are ascribed to the risen Christ in the Fourth Gospel. In any
event they represent the Church's conviction of her authority to
exercise a reconciling ministry, to remit sins and to retain them.
In early times such grave offenders as by their deeds had brought
scandal upon the Christian name were excluded from Christian
fellowship until reconciled by penance; and many whose sins, being
secret, might otherwise have escaped detection, preferred to make open
confession of them in the Christian assembly. "Confess your faults one
to another," writes S. James, "and pray one for another, that ye may
be healed." The ancient system of public "penance" (_i.e._ penitence)
was for a time at least revived in a modern form by Wesley.[Footnote:
The "class-meeting" of strict Wesleyanism is said to have originally
involved mutual confession of sins among the members of the "class."]
Its application to notorious offenders is described in the English
Prayer-book as a "godly discipline," the restoration of which is "much
to be wished." But it is hardly practicable under the conditions of
modern Church life, and it has disadvantages as well as advantages.
Its working in the early days of the Church was not found to be wholly
for good.
Burdened consciences nevertheless require relief: and sin is not
merely a private affair between the soul and GOD; it is also an
offence against the Brotherhood. A system grew up under which the need
was met by the substitution, in the majority of cases, of private for
public penance. Confession was made, no longer before the whole
assembly, but privately before the Bishop, whose office it was, both
as pastor of the flock and as representative of the Church, to declare
forgiveness or "absolution," and to restore penitents to communion. At
a later date presbyters or priests were also authorized, as delegates
of the Bishop for this and other purposes, to receive confessions and
to absolve penitents.
In this way arose in the Church what came to be known as the sacrament
of Penance, or the practice of sacramental confession. It was ranked
as a sacrament for the reason that the inward assurance of GOD'S
pardon is in this connexion outwardly mediated by words of Absolution
audibly pronounced. In medieval times there grew up a regular system
of the confessional and an elaborate science of the guidance and
direction of souls. Recourse to sacramental confession was made
obligatory for all Christians at least once in the year. [Footnote:
This is still the formal rule of the Church of Rome.] The system came
to be attended by many superstitions and abuses, frequently it was
exploited in the interests of a corrupt sacerdotalism, sometimes it
was associated with a degrading casuistry.
But the confessional met and meets a real human need; and while
Protestantism, as a whole, broke away at the time of the Reformation
in a violent reaction from the whole theory and practice of
sacramental confession, the Church of England quite deliberately
retained it. It was abolished as a compulsory obligation. It was made
less prominent in the Church's system. But as a means of spiritual
reconciliation and spiritual guidance, freely open to such as for any
reason desire to make use of it, it was retained; and in the case of
persons who for reasons of conscience hesitate to present themselves
for Holy Communion it is specifically urged in the Book of Common
Prayer as the needed remedy. [Footnote: See the closing paragraph of
the first of the three lengthy exhortations to Holy Communion, printed
immediately after the "Prayer for the Church Militant" in the Prayer-
book.]The words of S. John xx. 23 are quoted in the Anglican formula
of ordination to the priesthood; and a form of words to be used by the
priest in the private absolution of penitents is prescribed in the
Office for the Visitation of the Sick.
As regards the theory of the confessional it is important to bear
certain things in mind. The confession is made primarily to GOD,
secondarily to His Church. The priest is the Church's accredited
delegate and representative. He acts not in virtue of any magical
powers inherent in himself, either as an individual or as a member of
any so-called sacerdotal caste. If he declares the penitent absolved
it is as pastor of the flock, and as one officially authorized by the
Church to be her mouthpiece for these purposes. The ultimate absolving
authority, under GOD, is the Christian Society as a whole. It is a
confessor's duty to assure himself of the reality of the penitent's
contrition, and to enjoin that restitution or amends shall be made for
any wrong which has been done, in all cases in which amends or
restitution is possible. He may also give advice and counsel for the
guidance of the spiritual life; and it is customary to enjoin the
performance of a "penance," which in modern practice usually takes the
form of some minor spiritual exercise of a more or less remedial kind.
The acceptance of the penance is regarded as an enacted symbol of
submission to the Church's judgment. (The mediaeval theory that the
penance is of the nature of a punishment or penalty imposed by the
Church upon her erring members ought, I think, to be repudiated. It is
perhaps permissible to differ from the moral theology of Borne in
holding that it is not essential to impose a penance at all, while
recognizing the value in most cases of suggesting some definite act of
self-discipline or observance, of a kind adapted to the penitent's
circumstances and needs). The confessor is, of course, bound in the
strictest way not to reveal anything said to him in confession, or to
broach the subject again to the penitent without the latter's express
permission, or to allow his subsequent manner or behaviour to be
influenced in any the least degree by what has been confessed.
It is highly unfortunate that the practice of sacramental confession
should have been made the subject of controversy, and as a consequence
of this that the Church's teaching with regard to it should have been
either unhealthily suppressed or obtruded out of season. There are
without doubt numerous cases in which such a spiritual remedy is badly
needed. There are burdened souls needing absolution and there are
perplexed souls needing guidance. What is desirable is that the actual
teaching of the Church of England on this subject should be plainly
and frankly set before her members, and that opportunities should be
afforded them of making their confessions if they desire or need to do
so. It is the plain duty of a parish priest to provide such
opportunities for his people. He is as plainly going beyond his duty
if he tries to enforce the practice of sacramental confession as a
necessary obligation. There are differences of opinion as to how
widespread is the spiritual need to which confession ministers. There
are reasons for thinking that it is more widespread than is commonly
recognized. But it is of vital importance that no one should be
pressed or brow-beaten into going to confession, or should do so, in
any circumstances, otherwise than by his own voluntary act.
_The Sacrament of Holy Communion_
Throughout Christian history and in all parts of Christendom the
central and highest focus of Christian worship and devotion, and the
great normal vivifying channel of spiritual renewal and power, has
been the sacrament of Holy Communion. It has been celebrated amid
great diversities of liturgy and ritual and circumstance, and has been
known by many different names and titles--mass, eucharist, communion,
sacrifice: essentially it is one thing--the sacrament of the Body and
Blood of Christ.
The Gospels record that at the Last Supper on the night of His
betrayal the Lord Jesus took bread and blessed and broke it, saying,
"Take, eat: this is My Body, which is for you: do this in remembrance
of Me": and that in like manner He took a Cup of mingled wine and
water, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, saying, "This
Cup is the New Covenant in My Blood, which is shed for you and for
many for the remission of sins: do this, as often as ye shall drink
it, in remembrance of Me."
With the exceptions of the Society of Friends and the Salvation Army,
every existing "denomination" of Christians has continued in one form
or another the observance of this Mystical Meal. In the Roman Church,
and in many parishes of the Church of England, it is celebrated daily;
and it is evident from the provisions of her Prayer-book that the
Church of England intends that there shall be a celebration of the
Communion in all normal parishes at least on all Sundays and Holy
Days.
Historically the institution of the weekly Eucharist is deeply rooted
in the tradition of the Church, and is the origin of the Christian
Sunday, The Christians met together week by week to keep on the day of
the Lord's rising that memorial of the crucified yet risen Christ
which is also Christ's gift of Himself to men. It would have seemed
unthinkable in the early days of Christianity for any baptized
Christian, who was not prevented by unavoidable circumstances from
being present, to be absent on the Lord's Day from the Lord's Table.
It ought to be equally unthinkable to-day.
With regard to the significance of the Sacrament, a man's view is
necessarily coloured partly by his own experience as a communicant,
and partly by the extent to which he is disposed to attach weight to
the devotional traditions of Christendom as a whole; and it is worth
remembering that forms of teaching about Holy Communion which are
intellectually crude may represent a real, though an infelicitous,
attempt to express in thought certain elements in eucharistic
experience which are deep and real, and to which more attenuated types
of doctrine fail to do justice.
The celebration of the Eucharist is from one point of view an enacted
drama, a doing over again in the name and in the person of Christ of
that which Christ did in His own person on the night of the Last
Supper. Bread is taken and blessed and broken and offered to GOD in
thanksgiving: Wine in like manner is poured out and blessed and
offered together with the Bread. And the Bread and the Wine symbolize
the Body and the Blood of Christ--the Body that was broken and the
Blood that was shed--the life that was freely given for the life of
the world.
The whole drama of the Eucharist is thus deeply symbolical; but the
Bread and the Wine are more than _mere_ symbols in the modern sense of
that word. They are a sacrament of Christ Himself, who by means of
them manifests His presence in the midst of His worshipping disciples
to be the Bread of life and the Food of souls. "This is My Body"--that
is, "This embodies Me: where this is, I am: receiving this, you
receive Me." "This is My Blood"--that is, "This is My life: My life
which is given for you: My life which in death I laid down and in
rising again from the dead I resumed: My life which is to be the
principle of spiritual life in you." "Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life.... He that eateth
My flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him."
There is, then, in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ a
manifestation of Christ's Real Presence, a spiritual Presence indeed,
which is discerned by the spiritual vision of Christian faith, but a
Presence of which the reality is independent of individual
faithlessness, though not independent of the faith of the Christian
Church as a whole.
This doctrine of the Real Presence (as it is called) of course does
not imply that Christ is absent from His Church at other times or in
other connexions. We believe that all times and places are present to
the mind of Christ, and that therefore at all times and in all places
we are in His presence. We believe, further, that Christ through the
Spirit is embodied, however inadequately, in His Church, and that He
dwells spiritually in the hearts of Christian men. There is nothing,
however, in these truths to exclude the further truth that His
presence is specially manifested through the Bread which embodies Him
and the Wine which is His Blood. Bread and wine, solemnly set apart
for the purpose of communion and hallowed by the Spirit in response to
the prayer of the Church, possess henceforward a significance which
did not belong to them before. They are now vehicles or sacraments of
the Body and Blood of Christ.
The purpose of the manifestation of Christ's Presence in Holy
Communion is that we should receive Him, and a participation in the
service which stops short of actual communion is so far incomplete.
But it is gratuitous to assume that the reality of the sacramental
Presence is limited to the moment of actual or individual reception,
and it is untrue to say that attendance at the service, apart from
individual reception, is unmeaning. The habitual attendance of persons
who are not regular communicants--unless it be in the case of those
who for any reason are as yet unconfirmed--falls short of full
discipleship and is intrinsically undesirable. But this objection does
not apply to attendance at the service on the part of communicant
Churchmen who yet on a particular occasion do not communicate: and to
attend throughout the service without personally communicating is a
procedure infinitely preferable to the irreverent modern custom, still
prevalent in too many parishes, of leaving the Church in the course of
a celebration of the Communion, and before the consecration has taken
place. It is unfair to those who are preparing to receive Communion
that their devotions should be disturbed by the noisy egress of a
large body of worshippers. It is also quite unintelligible that any
Churchman who considers seriously the meaning of the Eucharist should
be content to depart before the liturgical drama has reached its
climax.
As regards actual reception of Holy Communion, it is a partaking of
Christ, who gives Himself therein to His disciples to be in them a
spiritual principle of life and power. S. Paul discovers in the
Eucharist a spiritual food and drink which is the reality to which the
Manna and the Water from the Rock of Hebrew story correspond as types
and shadows, and he declares that the Bread which we break is a
sharing of the Body of Christ, and that the Cup of Blessing which we
bless is a sharing of His Blood. At the same time the Communion is not
to be interpreted in any gross or carnal manner, or in such a way as
to give colour to the ancient taunt of Celsus, the heathen critic,
that Christians were self-confessed cannibals. The Fourth Gospel,
which, in a context that is in a general sense eucharistic, ascribes
to our Lord strong phrases about the necessity of eating His flesh and
drinking His blood, proceeds in the same context to explain that "it
is the Spirit that giveth life," that "the flesh," in itself,
"profiteth nothing." "The sayings which I have spoken unto you are
spirit and are life." In other words, we are to understand that when
our Lord uses the terms "flesh" and "blood" He means the Spirit of
which His life in the flesh was the expression, and the Life of which
His outpoured Blood was the principle: that the inward reality of the
Eucharist is to be discovered, not in any quasi-material fleshly
embodiment which the Bread conceals, or in any quasi-literal Blood,
but rather in the Spirit and the Life of Christ Himself. The Bread is
His Body in the sense that it is an embodiment of His Spirit: the Wine
is His Blood in the sense that it mediates His Life. The sacrament is
to be understood as a "point of personal contact with Jesus Christ."
Rightly to receive Communion is to hold spiritual converse with the
risen Lord and to find in Him the Bread of Life, the food and
sustenance of the soul. So it is that the Eucharist, at once supremely
natural and wholly supernatural, is the meeting-place of earth and
heaven. From one point of view our worship is in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. It is "with angels and archangels and with all the
company of heaven," that we laud and magnify GOD'S Holy Name. We join
in an eternal act of worship, which is that of the whole Church, the
departed with the living, whose adoration ascends continually before
the throne of GOD.
If we like to express it so, we are pleading the eternal sacrifice: we
are uniting ourselves, in desire and in intention, with Christ's
eternal self-devotion and oblation of Himself. Calvary itself was in a
sense but the enacted symbol, the supreme outward expression, of our
Lord's sacrifice, of which the inward essence is eternal. It is the
self-offering of a Will that was wholly dedicated to GOD on others'
behalf, obedient even unto death, and through death triumphant: the
Will of One "who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without
spot to GOD," and who now, being ascended into the heavens, for ever
liveth to make intercession for us. Looking at the Eucharist from this
point of view we are bold to approach the Throne of GOD and to offer
Christ on our behalf--"Behold the Lamb of GOD that taketh away the sin
of the world": but we proceed also to offer ourselves in Christ--"Here
we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and
bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto Thee."
And so doing we are made one with Christ and one in Him with each
other. The Eucharist has a social aspect which is too little regarded.
It is the sacrament of Holy Fellowship. "We that are many are one
Bread, one Body," wrote S. Paul, "for we all partake of the one
Bread." The Holy Communion is the sacrament of the unity of all
Christians in Christ. The scandal of a divided Christendom shows
itself perhaps most of all in the fact that it prevents inter-
communion. For that very reason it appears to many persons unreal, and
therefore wrong, to practise isolated acts of inter-communion while
ecclesiastical differences remain unresolved: it is to conceal the
fact of actual disunion beneath the cloak of immediate sentiment. Yet
there is a true sense in which, through the Spirit, we _are_, in the
act of communion, made one with the fellowship of all faithful people
whether in the sphere of this earthly life or in the world that is
beyond death and tears: with all those, of whatever race or rank or
age or country, who amid whatever diversity of language and liturgy
and denominational loyalty, have named the name of Christ and received
the life of Christ in obedience to His command as they understood it.
There is no bond comparable to this bond, and no equality like the
equality of those who, high and low, rich and poor, one with another,
kneel side by side as brothers and sisters at the common Table of the
Lord.
And lastly there is a further point. The Body of Christ is a broken
Body and the Blood is Blood that is shed. "This is My Body which is
for you"--for you, and never for Myself. The Bread is the Bread of
Sacrifice and the Cup is the Stirrup-cup of Service: and part, surely,
and a great part, of the meaning of the words, "Do this in remembrance
of Me," is "Break your bodies in union with My Body broken: give your
lives in sacrifice for others, as I have given Mine." The Eucharist,
rightly regarded, is the mainspring and motive-power of service, the
principle of a life that is crucified. And all those who in their day
and generation have spent their lives unselfishly and used themselves
up in promoting causes not their own are partakers in that Holy
Fellowship.
At this present time of war and tumult, when all the powers of Hell
are abroad and leagued together for the onset, we think of that which
alone can be the redemption of war, even the self-devotion of those
who, hating the whole devilish business and going into it only because
they saw no alternative to Duty's clear and imperative call, have been
counted worthy to show forth the love than which no man hath greater,
even to lay down their lives for their friends. There is no one so
unfortunate as not to have known some such men. And at the Communion
Service "in the act of conscious incorporation into the fellowship of
the love of Jesus," it may be given to us in some measure to
understand these things, and to know that we are become partakers in
the power of a world-wide crucifixion, a fellowship of broken bodies
and lives poured out in Christ: and to know also--with a knowledge
that is not of this world--that somehow, in it and through it, the
Spirit of GOD in Christ will bring redemption.
So wonderful, so many-sided, and so full of meaning is this Sacrament:
so great is the measure of their loss who, professing and calling
themselves Christians, are content to ignore the last injunction of
the Christ to His disciples on the night before He died that we might
live.