Editor’s Note: The following excerpt on the Eucharist is taken from a sermon in 1856 by St. John Henry Cardinal Newman. This saint, who was a convert from Anglicanism, focused his efforts on Catholic formation. He was the founding rector of a Catholic university in Dublin, where he delivered lectures that were later compiled into his “Idea of a University,” one of the most influential works on higher education ever written. The following brief Eucharistic reflection is one of many that will be published by Catholic San Francisco magazine as part of the U.S. Catholic Church’s Eucharistic Revival (eucharisticrevival.org) that began on June 19, 2022, on the feast of Corpus Christi, and continues through Pentecost 2025.
There is no feast, no season in the whole year, which is so intimately connected with our religious life, or shows more wonderfully what Christianity is, as that which we are now celebrating. There is a point of view in which this doctrine [of the Body and Blood of Christ] is nearer to our religious life than any other.
We are brought into the unseen world.
How almighty love and wisdom has met this. He has met this by living among us with a continual presence. He is not past. He is present now. And though He is not seen, He is here. The same God who walked the water, who did miracles …. is in the tabernacle. We come before Him; we speak to Him just as He was spoken to 1,800 years ago.
This (is) how He counteracts time and the world. It (the Blessed Sacrament) is not past, it is not away. It is this that makes devotion in lives. It is the life of our religion. We are brought into the unseen world.
St. John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote the following prayer for priests as they prepare to offer holy Mass:
O Holy Mother, stand by me now at Mass time, when Christ comes to me,
as thou didst minister to thy infant Lord –
as thou didst hang upon His words when He grew up,
as thou wast found under His cross.
Stand by me, Holy Mother,
that I may gain somewhat of thy purity, thy innocence, thy faith,
and He may be the one object of my love and my adoration,
as He was of thine.
