nd when will a person use plainer speech than
at the point of death?

These words: "This is My body; this is My blood," embodied a new dogma of
faith which all were obliged to believe, and a new law which all were
obliged to practice. They were the last will and testament of our blessed
Savior. What language should be plainer than that which contains an
article of faith? What words should be more free from tropes and figures
than those which enforce a Divine law? But, above all, where will you find
any words more plain and unvarnished than those contained in a last will?

Now, if we understand these words in their plain and obvious; that is, in
their Catholic, sense, no language can be more simple and intelligible.
But if we depart from the Catholic interpretation, then it is impossible
to attach to them any reasonable meaning.

We now arrive at the third class of Scripture texts which have reference
to the use or reception of the Sacrament among the faithful.

When Jesus, as you remember, instituted the Eucharist at His last Supper
He commanded His disciples and their successors to renew, till the end of
time, in remembrance of Him, the ceremony which He performed. What I have
done, do ye also "for a commemoration of Me."(374)

We have a very satisfactory means of ascertaining the Apostolic belief in
the doctrine of the Eucharist by examining what the Apostles did in
commemoration of our Lord. Did they bless and distribute mere bread and
wine to the faithful, or did they consecrate, as they believed, the body
and blood of Jesus Christ? If they professed to give only bread and wine
in memory of our Lord's Supper, then the Catholic interpretation falls to
the ground. If, on the contrary, we find the Apostles and their
successors, from the first to the nineteenth century, professing to
consecrate and dispense the body and blood of Christ, and doing so by
virtue of the command of their Savior, then the Catholic interpretation
alone is admissible.

Let St. Paul be our first witness. Represent yourself as a member of the
primitive Christian congregation assembled in Corinth. About eighteen
years after St. Matthew wrote his Gospel, a letter is read from the
Apostle Paul, in which the following words occur: "The chalice of
benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of
Christ? and the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body
of the Lord?... For, I have received of the Lord that which