And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying,
Drink you all of it;
All Commentaries on Matthew 26:27 Go To Matthew 26
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Drink ye all of this. This was spoken to the twelve apostles; who were the all then present; and they all drank of it, says Mark xiv. 23. But it no ways follows from these words spoken to the apostles, that all the faithful are here commanded to drink of the chalice, any more than that all the faithful are commanded to consecrate, offer and administer this sacrament; because Christ upon this same occasion, and as I may say, with the same breath, bid the apostles do so, in these words, (St. Luke xxii. 19,) Do this for a commemoration of me. (Challoner)
It is a point of discipline, which the Church for good reasons may allow, or disallow to the laity, without any injury done to the receiver, who according to the Catholic doctrine of the real presence, is made partaker of the same benefit under one kind only; he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. (John vi.) . When our adversaries object to us, in opposition to the very clear and precise proofs we produce from the primitive writers of the doctrine of the real presence, that is called sometimes bread, a figure, a sign; we reply, that they can only mean that the outward forms of bread and wine, which remain after consecration, are a figure, a sign, a commemoration. They nowhere teach that the consecrated species are barely figures or signs, and nothing more. On the contrary, with St. Cyril above quoted, they say: "Let your soul rejoice in the Lord, being persuaded of it, as a thing most certain, that the bread, which appears to our eyes, in not bread, though our taste do judge it to be so, but the body of Christ: and that the wine which appears to our eyes, is not wine, but the blood of Christ "(Myst. catech. 4, p. 528); and with St. Gregory of Nyssa, born in 331, "the bread, which at the beginning was common bread, after it has been consecrated by the mysterious word, is called, and is become, the body of Christ. "And with St. Paulinus, in the same age, "the flesh of Christ, with which I am nourished, is the same flesh as that fastened to the cross; and the blood, with which my heart is purified, is the same blood that was spilt upon the cross."
