Tuesday, December 4, 1917. 5.20-6.30 p.m.
"BE content, friend, to write what we are able to put into your mind, and do not question that it comes from us. For, on the one part, we keep a somewhat close hold on you when you write thus for us, and, on the other part, we disallow others taking up our tale on their own behalf. We are enabled to do this by the long preparation of you and of ourselves before ever we made known to you our wish by the help of our little friend Kathleen.
"To-night we would speak to you on the matter of the Sacraments, which are in use in Christendom, and which should be of much note and concern to those who profess the Name of the Christ their Master. That of His Body and Blood is the one which is continuous in the life of a Christian. It has many phases, both of help given and also in its teaching, and on that Sacrament we wish to say something now. First as to its founding:
"You will remember from your records remaining that there is much more left unwritten than that which has come to you down the ages past. A most cursory reading will show this. Also those accounts, in essentials agreeing each with the others, are not clear as to the lesser points. You must know that these records are but a few of many. The others have been destroyed, or have been lost for the time being, and will one day find their way into the light of day once again. We have all the records here and have studied them, and on that study we now base our words.
"The Master Jesus was about to change His state from the incarnate to the discarnate. Knowing this, He, being assembled with the Twelve, gave to them a Rite of Remembrance and of Communion by which they and those who should follow them might be able from time to time perpetually to intensify their contact with Him, and so draw from Him that Life of which Himself is the reservoir. Cast your mind back to the three modes of communion which we have given you, and you will be able to see that so sensitive is the quivering and pulsating life-stream coming down from Him to you that the very slightest disturbance in the system of vibrations, obtaining in their own special and peculiar quality throughout that radius which is His Kingdom, will cause an effect at the Centre and Source of it of so manifest a nature as to ensure some immediate response. For there is nothing in the economy of your earth-sphere of such enormous intensity and momentum that we may apply as a type by which to make in any way clear our meaning. It must satisfy you and us that we remind you that the greater the velocity of any series of particles in motion, the greater the disturbance to their arrangement and direction given by any intruding influence.
"That is what we would imply in speaking of this stream of vital force proceeding from the Father, arrested in the Christ, tinctured with His quality of life, and projected outward in radiating waves towards the circumference and boundary of His Kingdom. Such a disturbance is created by the wilful offering of the Bread and Wine, with invocation of words, in that Rite of Communion which He gave. On the elements displayed before the assembly there is, at the words of prayer, directed this vital stream, and they are interpenetrated with the Life of Him and become, as He said, Body and Blood of Him. That form of prayer you use is not alone of the nature of invocation, but also is the assent of those assembled to the receiving of Life from Him. For without such assent no blessing is ever thrust upon men. It matters not if the assent be silent. It is the spirit which is the source of those responsive pulsations which leap forth to meet the flowing of His Life earthward and, meeting this Christ-stream, like those who came from Salem to meet Him when He rode to the city over Olivet, are commingled and, by reason of the greater momentum of that stream set forward by Him, are turned back and together, as one stream, they fall plashing upon the congregation from which the initial impulse of pleading came.
"So the blessing is threefold. First, the communion of spirit with Spirit—that of the worshippers with their Master and Lord. Second, the quickening into greater health and vigour of their spiritual covering, the soul. And third, the natural effect of those operations, still proceeding outward, namely, the transfusing of the inner vitality into the over-clothing, which is the body material.
"This is the phase which we may name the vitalizing or quickening of the whole Body of the Christ in its singular members, each and each, by the communicating of the Life of Him from the Source and Centre through the mass to the circumference.
"There is another aspect of this Sacrament we will treat of at this time, but with brevity. For it were not of any use to endeavour to give you a full account of its significance in whole. You would not understand our words that we should use, and there are none of your own which would serve us. This thing reaches far beyond where tongues of earth are remembered, and is spoken of, in its inner mystery, only in those forms of language proper to the Spheres far removed in sublimity, and near that of the Christ.
"As He said, those two common things of earthly origin, the Bread and the Wine, do come to be His Body and His Blood. They are therefore a part of Him Who spoke those words. Men have asked how this could be when on that first occasion of their utterance Himself was present in Body of flesh and bones and blood. But yet, every man—without ceasing, all his life, and sustainedly—does communicate of himself to things without himself. No coat he wears but, flung aside, is marked with the impress of his personality. No thing he touches, no house he inhabits, but he leaves his quality there indelible to be read by those who are so endowed.
"As He gave of His vitalizing force to the sick and halt in Judaea and Galilee, as He breathed of His spirit power upon the Apostles and they became inspired of His Life, so upon the Bread and Wine did He pour of the life-stream of Himself and they did in verity become His Body and His Blood.
"And so it is to-day. For He did not offer so great a thing to snatch it away so soon as that meal was ended and His Body given to the Tree. No, the Source of that vital river operative on the Bread and Wine or on the persons of the Apostles or on the bodies of the multitude was not that Body of flesh He wore for so short a time and then laid it by like a cloak past wearing. Nor was it the Body of spirit substance, through which it did but flow as through a conduit from the Reservoir into the cisterns of a town. But it was the Spirit Himself, the Christ, Who was and is the Source, and that, too, whether in the Body of flesh or out of it. For that little matters in things of spirit force and power, except by way of manifestation. The thing manifested is unaltered in itself whatever form the manifestation take.
"So it is true to say that the Bread and Wine at the last meal of theirs together, at His wish and will, became depository of His life-force, and so were made His Body and His Blood. And so, far from the present lack of that Body material hindering now a similar operation on His part, it would almost be true to say that now the way is made more easy and direct by the absence of one medium. At least, it is entirely true to say that such absence of the Body of flesh forms no hindrance to the flow of life from Him to these elements of Bread and Wine.
"When therefore the Ministrant, the Priest, takes up the consent of the congregation and, laying the Body and Blood upon the Board, pleads the Sacrifice of Him Who lives to-day very highly exalted, he in essence places his hand upon the bosom of his Lord and, looking into those Realms which are the abode of Angels, and of Angels who rule, looks towards the Father's face and pleads the Love and allegiance of His Son for poor humanity's sake that they be made all beautiful as He. And if he be of simple mind and in heart a little child of the Kingdom he shall feel within that Breast beneath his hand the quiet strong beating of the one constant Heart in Christendom to-day, and shall know that what his weakness will not bear to do shall have reinforcement of the Life which wells within, and that what pleading is his with the Father goes not unaided into that bright Sphere of awful purity, and holiness so still, but as He promised so He keeps at hand to perform, and out of His Heart goes forth a sighing prayer, and your prayers are acceptable for His sake."
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