III

Some of the practical aspects of the beliefs and teaching of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may be illustrated from the writings of Mother Juliana of Norwich, John Myrc, and Thomas a Kempis, and from Langforde’s Meditations.

1. The book entitled Revelations of Divine Love was the work of Mother Juliana, a Norwich anchoress, who lived from the first half of the fourteenth century to the first half of the fifteenth. It contains an account of sixteen revelations or vision seen by Mother Juliana in the year 1373, when she was thirty years old. One of the characteristic ideas in the teaching of the book is that of the Motherhood of God and of Christ. In connection with the Motherhood of Christ there is an allusion to the Eucharist.

“The mother’s service is nearest, readiest, and securest. Nearest, for it is most of nature; readiest, for it is most of love; and securest, for it is most of truth. This office nor might nor could never none have done to the full but He alone. We wit that all our mothers bear us to pain and dying. What is that but our very Mother Jesus? He alone beareth us to joy, and to endless living, blessed may He be. Thus He sustained us within Him in love and travail unto the full time that He would suffer the sharpest thorns and grievous pains that ever were, or ever shall be, and died at the last. And when He had done, and so borne us to bliss, yet might not all this make satisfaction to His marvellous love. And that He showed in these high overpassing words of love, ‘If I might suffer more, I would suffer more’. He might no more die, but He would not cease working. Wherefore Him behoveth to find us, for the dear worthy love of Motherhood hath made Him debtor to us. The mother may give her child to suck her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus He may feed us with Himself, and doth full courteously and full tenderly with the Blessed Sacrament, that is the precious food of very life. And with all the sweet Sacraments He sustaineth us full mercifully and graciously. And so meant He in these blessed words, where He said, ‘I it am, that holy Church preacheth thee and teacheth thee’; that is to say, all the health and the life of the Sacraments, all the virtue and all the grace of My word, all the goodness that is ordained in holy Church to thee, ‘I it am’. The mother may lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus, He may homely lead us into His blessed breast by His sweet open side, and show us there in part of the Godhead, and the joys of heaven, with ghostly secureness of endless bliss.”

2.              John Myrc was a canon of Lilleshall in Shropshire in the early part of the fifteenth century. In his Festival Book he writes thus about the Eucharist:—

“The fourth is the holy Sacrament of the altar, the which is Christ’s own body, His flesh and blood in form of bread, the same that was born of the Virgin Mary, and done on the rood; this is made through the virtue of God’s words of the priest that hath power, which power neither angel nor archangel hath, but only man in mind of Himself. This Sacrament is every man and woman bound by the law once a year as at Easter, if he be fourteen years of age and have discretion to receive it, when they been with shrift and penance made clean of their sins, and else to be put out of the Church and of Christian burial, but if it be for sickness or for some reasonable cause, which cause he must certify his curate of. For he that unworthily receiveth this Sacrament receiveth his damnation.”

In his Instructions for Parish Priests John Myrc includes in the teaching to be given to the people that they are to believe that they receive “God’s body” “in Form of bread,” and that the consecrated wine is “God’s blood that He shed on the rood”; that they are to kneel down and hold up their hands and say words of prayer to our Lord when the bell rings at the consecration; that when they meet the priest carrying the Sacrament out of doors, they are to kneel down and “worship Him that all hath wrought”; that the “sight” of “God’s body” leads to earthly benefits and protection to him who has seen it on any day. If a sick man is unable to receive the Sacrament, he is to be told that “God alloweth his heart and his will”.

3. The book entitled The Music of the Church, usually known as The Imitation of Christ, was probably written by Thomas Hammerken of Kempen, Thomas a Kempis, an Augustinian monk who died in 1471 at the age of ninety-one. The main subject of the first two books in the moral and spiritual discipline by means of which a Christian may become a true follower of Christ; the third book, often wrongly placed as the fourth, deals with the Eucharist as the means of union with Christ; the fourth book, regarded in its right order, which the ordinary editions displace, is on the mystical union of the soul with Christ, to which sacramental Communion leads those who use it well. Some passages from this well-known treatise may be quoted as affording instances of the devotional aspects of the mediæval doctrine of the Eucharist on its highest sides.

“Thou art present with me here upon the altar, my God, Holy of Holies, Creator of men, and Lord of angels.”

“Here in the Sacrament of the altar Thou art wholly present, my God, the Man Christ Jesus; here too a rich harvest of eternal salvation is reaped as oft as Thou art worthily and devoutly received.”

“O the admirable and hidden grace of this Sacrament, which only the faithful ones of Christ do know, but the unbelieving and slaves of sin cannot experience. In this Sacrament spiritual grace is conferred, and lost virtue is restored in the soul, and the beauty which sin had disfigured returns. This grace is sometimes so great that out of the fulness of devotion here given not the mind only but the weak body also feels great increase of strength bestowed on it.”

“Thou, O Lord my God, true God and Man, art contained wholly under the small species of bread and wine, and art eaten yet not consumed by him who receives Thee.”

“As often as thou callest to mind this mystery and receivest the body of Christ, so often dost thou enact the work of thy redemption, and art made partaker of all the merits of Christ. For the love of Christ is never diminished, and the greatness of His propitiation is never exhausted.”

“None but priests duly ordained in the Church have power to celebrate and to consecrate the body of Christ. The priest a indeed the minister of God, using the word of God by God’s command and appointment. Nevertheless God is there the principal Author and invisible Worker, to whom all that He wills is subordinate, and all that He commands is obedient. Thou oughtest then to trust God Almighty in this most excellent Sacrament more than thine own sense or any visible sign.”

“There is no worthier oblation nor greater satisfaction for the washing away of sins than to offer oneself unto God purely and wholly with the oblation of Christ’s body in Mass and Communion.”

“Every devout person every day and every hour can profitably and unimpeded draw near to Christ in Spiritual Communion, and yet on certain days and at time appointed he ought to receive the body of his Redeemer sacramentally with affectionate reverence, and rather seek the honour and glory of God than his own comfort.”

“In this Sacrament I have Thee really present, though hidden under another species. For to look upon Thee in Thine own divine brightness, mine eyes could not endure, nor could the whole world exist in the splendour of the glory of Thy majesty. Herein then Thou hast compassion on my infirmity, that Thou dost veil Thyself under a Sacrament. Him do I really possess and adore whom angels adore in heaven; I for a while as yet by faith, but they by sight and without a veil.”

“Simple and chaste should be the eyes that are wont to behold the body of Christ. Pure and lifted up to heaven should be the hands that are wont to touch the Creator of heaven and earth.”

“Beware of curious and unprofitable searching into this most profound Sacrament, if thou wilt not be plunged into the depths of doubt. ‘He that pries into majesty shall be overpowered by glory.’ God can work more than man can understand.… Human reason is feeble and may be deceived, but true faith cannot be deceived. All reason and natural inquiry ought to follow faith, not to go before or break in upon it. For faith and love do here especially take the lead, and work in hidden ways in this most holy, most supremely excellent Sacrament.… If the works of God were such that they might be easily comprehended by human reason, they could not be called marvellous or ineffable.”

4. Langforde’s Meditations for Ghostly Exercise in the Time of the Mass may be a fifteenth century work. In it the details of the rite are described as a mystical representation of the passion and resurrection of Christ. At the consecration the people are directed to pay “due reverence to the blessed body of our Lord,” and to say at the elevation of the host, “Hail, Light of the world, King of kings, Glory of heaven, who didst gladly bear the penalty of death for us. Hail, our Salvation, true Peace, Redemption, Power,” and at the elevation of the chalice, “Hail, price of our Redeemer. Hail, pledge of our eternal inheritance. Hail, glorious blood of Christ. Blessed be the Lord my God, Jesus Christ, from whose side Thou wast poured for the redemption of the world.”