Traditional Ceremonial and Customs connected with the Scottish Liturgy (Appendix Six)

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Alcuin Club Collections
XVII

Traditional Ceremonial and Customs connected with the Scottish Liturgy.

by
F. C. Eeles, F.R.Hist.S, F.S.A. Scot.
Diocesan Librarian of Aberdeen

[pp172-174]

Appendix VI.
The Cultus Eucharistiae

[From an article in The Church Times, 23rd October, 1908, p. 542, entitled, “The Newer Eucharistic Theology.”]

It is unnecessary to restate the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, in which the Real Presence of our Lord under the forms of bread and wine, and the nature of the offering as a true and proper Sacrifice, are indissolubly united and are interdependent. From this doctrine of our Lord’s Presence, that of Eucharist adoration follows. . . . But while in the undivided Church of old and in the East to-day, the adoration of our Lord present in the Eucharist was and is subordinate to the first intention of the rite, which is communion and sacrifice; in later times in the West this adoration has come to take, in practice at least, an equal, if not a more prominent, place.

To understand this change we must try and recall in the first place how the essential character of the Eucharist as a sacrifice offered to the Blessed Trinity, and, in a sense, specially to the First Person, is brought out by the language of every Christian liturgy. All Eucharistic prayers are addressed to the Eternal Father, with only occasional and insignificant local exceptions. Here we see the primitive conception of the rite. At the beginning of the Middle Ages in the West we note the coming of a change in the treatment of the Mass. The doctrine of the Real Presence is attacked, and the attack is repelled, although not, perhaps, in an entirely satisfactory way. The Catholic doctrine is vindicated by the newly-consecrated Host for adoration. This became general in the West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Little by little the essential elements of an Exposition for Adoration, now so familiar, became added to the canon of the Mass, which, instead of being said in the stillness and silence reminiscent of the drawn curtains of earlier days, came to be accompanied with additional lights, the use of incense, gestures of adoration, and the ringing of bells. A few short prayers addressed to our Blessed Lord found their way into mediaeval missals; they were but private devotions for the celebrant, however. Bells and lights were carried in honour of the Blessed Sacrament when taken to the sick. The feast of Corpus Christi was introduced, first as a Low Country festival, and then by Papal authority for the whole Western Church. Processions of the Blessed Sacrament became more and more common, with increasingly elaborate ceremonial, and the open monstrance succeeded the closed pix. Later on the Exposition of, and Benediction with, the reserved Sacrament which accompanied Eucharistic processions became separated from them and were used alone. This was about the time of the Reformation, and these devotions seemed to supply a want strongly felt by Catholics, who rejoiced in finding a new means of testifying to their sacramental belief in the face of Protestant denials and blasphemies. It was not long before the authorities of the Church were obliged to regulate and restrain popular enthusiasm, and towards the end of the seventeenth century the great French liturgiologist, J. B. Thiers, wrote a treatise on the subject, in which he strongly urges the need of a wholesome restraint in the extra-liturgical use of the Holy Eucharist. Nearer our own day the restrictions on the use of these devotions have been more and more relaxed, particularly in certain countries, till at last Benediction and Exposition have reached the frequency we now see among our Roman Catholic neighbours. With them Benediction is the almost universal Sunday evening service in this country and in America, and is admittedly far more popular than the Mass itself with a large class of worshippers. The change has been enormous and far-reaching; it has altered the whole popular conception of the Eucharist . . . . . . .

Side by side with the Cultus Eucharistiae, we may not the growth of that dread of the loss of the slightest particle of the consecrated species which led to the withdrawal of the chalice from the laity. Here again we have a similar instance of the application of a too rigorous logic to the doctrine of the Real Presence Western theologians pressed the need of reverent care for the sacred gift to the extent that they mutilated the Communion of the faithful, for fear of accidents. Beginning from motives of reverence to our Lord, they ended in disobeying His command, “Drink ye all of it.”

Let us now turn to the East.

During all the Christian centuries the practice of the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church has remained untouched by what has gone on in the West. The liturgies of SS. Basil and John Chrysostom have been celebrated upon Sunday and festival, just as of old. The faithful have always received in both kinds and the Blessed Sacrament has been continuously reserved in every church and taken to the sick and infirm. The ceremonial surroundings are no less magnificent than those of the West—to many they seem far more impressive. The closed doors and drawn curtain at the time of the consecration proclaim, in no uncertain way, that the unfathomable mystery is being accomplished which passes man’s understanding, and which the angels desire to look into. There is no shadow of doubt as to the Real Presence or the true sacrifice. The priest offers to God the Father “this reasonable and unbloody worship,” and prays Him to send His Holy Spirit to make the bread the Body and the wine the Blood of Christ. The language throughout the liturgy is more definite on the Sacrifice and Real Presence than that of the Roman missal. But there is no Exposition or Benediction, no procession of the Holy Eucharist, and there are no “visits” to “the Divine Prisoner of the Tabernacle.” The external marks and gestures of adoration are only used in connexion with the liturgy itself and more specially with the act of Communion. Although no one genuflects when passing before the reserved Sacrament, the priest prostrates himself before the holy Gifts when in the act of taking them for the Communion of the sick, because it is for that sacrificial act that the Divine Presence is given. Yet the Eastern is as much at home in his church and has as strong a realization of the presence of God as any Western. And it is in the East than an even deeper and stronger faith in the reality of the Eucharistic gift carries out to the letter, by the Communion of children, the command of Him who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”

Is it not a remarkable fact that, whereas in the West the mediaeval application of a relentless (and shall we say human?) logic to this Divine mystery has been followed by negations, heresies and schisms, with a materialising denial of the truth of the Eucharist, the faith of Christians throughout the East in our Lord’s presence has never wavered?

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