 |
Words on
the Holy Eucharist
from the Ecumenical Councils |
Council of Ephesus (431)
Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
Council of Trent (1551)
Second Vatican Council (1963) Sacrosanctum
concilium Number 47
Second Vatican Council (1964) Unitatis redintegratio
Number 22
Council of Ephesus (431)
"Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius" Paragraph 7
(Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils Volume I, pages * 53f)
Proclaiming the death according to the flesh of the only begotten Son
of God, that is Jesus Christ, and professing his return to life from the
dead and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody worship in the
churches and so proceed to the mystical thanksgivings and are sanctified,
having partaken of the holy flesh and precious blood of Christ, the saviour
of us all. This we receive not as ordinary flesh, heaven forbid, nor as
that of a man who has been made holy and joined to the Word by union of
honor, or who had a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and
real flesh of the Word. For being Life by nature as God, when he became
one with his own flesh, he made it also to be life-giving, as also he said
to us: "Amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood...." For we must not think that it is the flesh of a man
like us (for how can the flesh of man be life-giving by its own nature?),
but as being made the true flesh of the one who for our sake became the
son of man and was called so.
Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
"Constitutions: 1. On the Catholic Faith" Paragraph 3
(Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils Volume I, page * 230)
His body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar
under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been changed
in substance [Latin transsubstantiatis], by God's power, into his
body and blood, so that in order to achieve this mystery of unity, we receive
from God what he received from us. Nobody can effect this sacrament except
a priest who has been properly ordained according to the Church's keys,
which Jesus Christ himself gave to the apostles and their successors....
Council of Trent (1551)
"Decree on the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist" Chapter 1
(Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils Volume II, pages * 693f)
The Holy Council teaches and openly and without qualification professes
that, after the consecration of the bread and the wine, our Lord Jesus
Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained
in the propitious sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance
of those things which are perceptible to the senses. Nor are the two assertions
incompatible, that our Savior is ever seated in heaven at the right hand
of the Father in his natural mode of existing, and that he is nevertheless
sacramentally present to us by his substance in many other places in a
mode of existing which, though we can hardly express it in words, we can
grasp with minds enlightened by faith as possible to God and must most
firmly believe. For thus did all our forefathers, as many as were in the
true Church of Christ and treated of this Most Holy Sacrament, most clearly
profess: namely, that our Redeemer at the Last Supper instituted this so
admirable sacrament when he bore witness in express and unambiguous words
that, after the blessing of the bread and the wine, he was offering to
them his own body and his own blood. Since those words, recorded by the
holy evangelists and afterwards repeated by St. Paul, bear that proper
and very clear meaning which the fathers understood them to have, it is
surely a most intolerable and shameful deed for some base and argumentative
persons to twist them to false and imaginary meanings that deny the reality
of Christ's flesh and blood, against the universal understanding of the
Church which, as the pillar and bulwark of the truth, detests these contrived
theories of evil people as the work of the devil, and constantly recalls
and confesses with gratitude this outstanding favor of Christ.
Second Vatican Council (1963)
Sacrosanctum concilium Number 47
(Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils Volume II, page * 830)
Our Savior inaugurated the eucharistic sacrifice of his body and blood
at the Last Supper on the night he was betrayed, in order to make his sacrifice
of the cross last throughout time until he should return; and indeed to
entrust a token to the Church, his beloved wife, by which to remember his
death and resurrection. It is a sacrament of faithful relationships, a
sign of unity, a bond of divine love, a special Easter meal. In it, Christ
is received, the inner self is filled with grace, and a pledge of future
glory is given to us.
Second Vatican Council (1964)
Unitatis redintegratio Number 22 Paragraph 3
(Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils Volume II, pages * 919f)
Though the ecclesial communities which are separated from us lack the
fullness of unity with us which flows from baptism, and though we believe
they have not retained the authentic and full reality of the Eucharistic
Mystery, especially because the Sacrament of Orders is lacking, nevertheless
when they commemorate his death and resurrection in the Lord's Supper,
they profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and look forward
to his coming in glory....