On the Mysteries 9

Perhaps you say: “I see something else; how do you assure me that I receive the body of Christ?” This, too, remains for us to prove. How many examples, then, we use! Let us prove that this is not what nature formed but what the blessing consecrated, and that the power of blessing is greater than that of nature; because by blessing nature itself is changed. Moses held a rod; he threw it down, and it became a serpent. Again he took hold of the serpent’s tail, and it returned to the nature of a rod. Do you see, then, that by prophetic grace the nature both of the serpent and of the rod was twice changed? The rivers of Egypt were running with a pure flow of waters; suddenly blood began to burst from the veins of the springs, and there was no drink in the rivers. Again, at the prophet’s prayer, the blood of the rivers ceased and the nature of the waters returned. The people of the Hebrews were hemmed in on every side, walled in on one side by the Egyptians, shut in on the other by the sea; Moses raised his rod, the water separated and stood frozen like walls, and a path on foot appeared between the waves. The Jordan, turned back against nature, returned to the source of its spring. Is it not plain that the nature both of the sea’s waves and of the river’s course was changed? The people of the fathers were thirsty; Moses touched the rock, and water flowed from the rock. Did not grace work beyond nature, that the rock poured out water which by nature it did not have? Marah was a most bitter river, so that the thirsty people could not drink. Moses threw wood into the water, and the nature of the waters put off its bitterness, which grace, suddenly poured in, tempered. Under the prophet Elisha the iron of an axe flew off from one of the sons of the prophets and at once sank. He who had lost the iron asked Elisha; Elisha too threw wood into the water, and the iron floated. Certainly we know that this too was done beyond nature; for the substance of iron is heavier than the liquid of the waters. We notice, then, that grace is of greater power than nature; and yet we are still counting the grace of a prophet’s blessing. But if a human blessing had such power as to change nature, what do we say of the divine consecration itself, where the very words of the Lord and Saviour work? For this sacrament which you receive is made by the word of Christ. And if the word of Elijah had such power as to bring down fire from heaven, will not the word of Christ have power to change the kinds of the elements? You have read of the works of the whole world: “For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.” The word of Christ, then, which could make out of nothing what was not, can it not change things that are into what they were not? For it is no less to give things new natures than to change natures. But why do we use arguments? Let us use his own examples, and by the example of the incarnation establish the truth of the mystery. Did the course of nature come first when the Lord Jesus was born of Mary? If we look for the order, a woman joined with a man usually conceives. It is plain, then, that the Virgin conceived beyond the order of nature. And this body which we make is from the Virgin: why do you look here for the order of nature in the body of Christ, when the Lord Jesus himself was born of a virgin beyond nature? It was the true flesh of Christ which was crucified, which was buried; truly, then, it is the sacrament of that flesh. The Lord Jesus himself cries out: “This is my body.” Before the blessing of the heavenly words another kind is named; after the consecration the body is signified. He himself calls it his blood. Before the consecration it is called something else; after the consecration it is named blood. And you say: Amen, that is, it is true. What the mouth speaks, let the mind within confess; what the word sounds, let the heart feel. With these sacraments, then, Christ feeds his Church, by which the substance of the soul is made firm; and rightly, seeing its continual advance in grace, he says to her: “How comely your breasts have become, my sister, my bride! How comely they have become from wine, and the odour of your garments above all spices! Your lips distil a honeycomb, O bride, honey and milk are under your tongue, and the odour of your garments is like the odour of Lebanon. A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.” By which he signifies that the mystery ought to remain sealed with you, that it be not violated by the works of an evil life and by the adultery of chastity, that it be not divulged to those to whom it is not fitting, that it be not scattered among the faithless by chattering talkativeness. Your guarding of faith, then, ought to be good, so that the integrity of life and silence may continue undefiled. Hence the Church too, keeping the depth of the heavenly mysteries, drives away from herself the more violent storms of wind and invites the sweetness of springing grace; and knowing that her garden cannot displease Christ, she calls the Bridegroom himself, saying: “Arise, north wind, and come, south wind; blow through my garden, and let my ointments flow down. Let my brother come down into his garden and eat the fruit of his apple trees.” For she has good and fruitful trees, which have dipped their roots in the watering of the sacred font and have sprouted with the bud of new fruitfulness into good fruits; so that they are no longer cut down by the prophetic axe but made fruitful by the plenty of the Gospel. Indeed the Lord too, delighted by their fertility, answers: “I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spices; I have eaten my food with my honey; I have drunk my drink with my milk.” Why he said food and drink, understand, you who are faithful. But this is not doubtful, that he himself eats and drinks in us, just as you have read that he says he is in prison in us. Hence the Church too, seeing so great a grace, exhorts her sons, exhorts her neighbours, to run together to the sacraments, saying: “Eat, my neighbours, and drink, and be inebriated, my brothers.” What we should eat and what we should drink the Holy Spirit has expressed to you elsewhere through the Prophet, saying: “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed is the man who hopes in him.” In that sacrament is Christ, because it is the body of Christ: it is not, then, bodily food but spiritual. Hence the Apostle too says of its type: “Our fathers ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink”; for the body of God is a spiritual body; the body of Christ is the body of a divine Spirit, because Christ is Spirit, as we read: “The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord.” And in the Epistle of Peter we have: “Christ died for us.” Indeed this food strengthens our heart, and this drink gladdens the heart of man, as the Prophet recalled. Having obtained all things, then, let us know that we have been regenerated; and let us not say, “How have we been regenerated? Did we enter into our mother’s womb and were born again? I do not recognize the course of nature.” But there is no order of nature here, where there is the excellence of grace. Indeed the course of nature does not always bring about generation: we confess that Christ the Lord was born of a virgin, and we deny the order of nature. For Mary did not conceive of a man, but received in her womb of the Holy Spirit, as Matthew says: “For she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.” If, then, the Holy Spirit coming upon the Virgin brought about the conception and fulfilled the work of generation, it is certainly not to be doubted that, coming upon the font or upon those who obtain baptism, he brings about the truth of regeneration.