The Mystery of the Ascension

By Father Jean Corbon

Editor’s note: One of the most significant books on the sacred liturgy over the past half-century is Jean Corbon’s The Wellspring of Worship, a work particularly focused on the liturgy’s Trinitarian and spiritual aspects. Jean Corbon (1924-2001) was born in Paris, ordained a priest for the Greek-Catholic eparchy in Beirut, and was the principal author of Part IV of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the topic of prayer. Adoremus is grateful to Ignatius Press for permission to reprint the following excerpt on the ascension from The Wellspring of Worship (59-62).

It is highly regrettable that the majority of the faithful pay so little heed to the ascension of the Lord. Their lack of appreciation of it is closely connected with their lack of appreciation of the mystery of the liturgy. A superficial reading of the end of the Synoptic Gospels and the first chapter of Acts can give the impression that Christ simply departed. In the mind of readers not submissive to the Spirit, a page has been turned; they now begin to think of Jesus as in the past and to speak of what “he said” and what “he did.” They have carefully sealed up the tomb again and filled up the fountain with sand; they continue to “look among the dead for someone who is alive” and they return to their narrow lives in which some things have to do with morality and others with cult, as in the case of the upright men and

“This real body of Jesus that walked the earth and is now seated at the Father’s right hand, and the Mystical Body which is the Church, composed of the living cells of the baptized, which we are. When the priest says,“This is my Body,” and lifts the host, he is showing you, in a certain sense, your body in Christ.

Does any human phrase—“Good morning.” “Please pass the salt.” “It’s not my fault!”—even come close? How glorious!

And yet, it may be precisely because of its importance, as testified by the repetition of this phrase on such a regular basis, that “familiarity breeds contempt.” I cannot speak for anyone else, but I would be lying if I said that my own praying ears perk up as they ought each time I hear that the bread offered at Mass will become Christ’s body. Even the Sanctus bells that accompany the elevation of the Host have lost some of the ring that they formerly had.

The three-year period of Eucharistic Revival that the dioceses of the United States are currently celebrating seeks to draw our attention back to the heart of our faith in the Blessed Sacrament. Much, of course, has and can be written about the Eucharistic Mystery. (Once again, have any other four small words ever led to such contemplation?) At their core, though, the words “This is my body,” by the action of the Holy Spirit, makes Calvary’s offering present in our midst. That body is given over whole-heartedly to the Father. And this Eucharistic action is no mere mental reminder of something long since passed, but an actual making present here and now, as really and truly present before our eyes as his fleshly body and open heart were present before Mary, the Centurion, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. And here comes the most excellent truth of these almost-incredible words, “This is my body”: this body of Christ is also—or should be—the body of each of us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that in “the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his women of the old covenant. But in fact the ascension is a decisive turning point. It does indeed mark the end of something that is not simply to be cast aside: the end of a relationship to Jesus that is still wholly external. Above all, however, it marks the beginning of an entirely new relationship of faith and of a new time: the liturgy of the last times. […]

In his ascension, then, Christ did not at all disappear; on the contrary, he began to appear and to come. For this reason, the hymns we use in our churches sing of him as “the Sun of justice” that rises in the East. He who is the splendor of the Father and who once descended into the depths of our darkness is now exalted and fills all things with his light. Our last times are located between that first ascension and the ascension that will carry him to the zenith of his glorious parousia. The Lord has not gone away to rest from his redemptive toil; his “work” (John 5:17) continues, but now at the Father’s side, and because he is there he is now much closer to us, “very near to us,”1 in the work that is the liturgy of the last times. “He leads captives,” namely, us, to the new world of his resurrection, and bestows his “gifts,” his Spirit, on human beings (see Ephesians 4:7-10). His ascension is a progressive movement, “from beginning to beginning.”2

Jesus is, of course, at his Father’s side. If, however, we reduce this “ascent” to a particular moment in our mortal history, we simply forget that beginning with the hour of his cross and resurrection Jesus and the human race are henceforth one. He became a son of man in order that we might become children of God. The ascension is progressive “until we all…form the perfect Man fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself” offering” (1368). In other words: that body which is transformed by the Spirit and lifted up to the Father is not only the Body of Jesus in the Sacrament, but it is also the Body of Christ in the Church—you, me, and each of the baptized. “This is my body” is both the real body of Jesus that walked the earth and is now seated at the Father’s right hand, and the Mystical Body which is the Church, composed of the living cells of the baptized, which we are. When the priest says, “This is my Body,” and lifts the host, he is showing you, in a certain sense, your body in Christ.

The annual Solemnity of Corpus Christi is an especially grace-filled celebration to refocus our eyes on the truth of things, to retune our ears to the true words of everlasting life. Pope Benedict XVI paints a lovely analogy for our consideration on this day, by comparing those of us journeying in the Age of the Church with the disciples walking with the corpus Christi on the road to Emmaus. “There is no portrait of the risen Lord,” the Holy Father says. “At first the disciples do not recognize him. They have to be led toward a new kind of seeing, in which their eyes are gradually opened from within to the point where they recognize him afresh and cry out: ‘It is the Lord!’” (The Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018), 134-5).

Adler reminds his readers early on in his book, “Since reading of any sort is an activity, all reading must to some degree be active. Completely passive reading is impossible; we cannot read with our eyes immobilized and our minds asleep” (Adler, How to Read a Book, 6). So, too, we can say something similar about attending to our Lord—and our souls—on the feast of Corpus Christi

May our ears hear clearly, truly, and actively those most popular of words, “This is my Body,” at this upcoming feast and, along with the Emmaus disciples, may our mouths proclaim with firm intention and true purpose, “It is the Lord!”

(Ephesians 4:13). The movement of the ascension will be complete only when all the members of his body have been drawn to the Father and brought to life by his Spirit. Is that not the meaning of the answer the angels gave to the disciples: “Why are you Galileans standing here looking into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way as you have seen him go to heaven” (Acts 1:11). The ascension does not show us in advance the setting of the final parousia; it is rather the activation of the paschal energy of Christ who “fills all things” (Ephesians 4:10). It is the ever-new “moment” of his coming.

1. Byzantine liturgy of the ascension.

2. The expression is used by Gregory of Nyssa in his eighth Homily on the Song of Songs (PG 44:941c). The entire spiritual life is carried along by this “ascensional” thrust.

Continued from SEEING, page 1

Cyprian explains about the two disciples that Christ’s “death had so offended them that they did not believe him to have risen again whom they [thought and] implied ought not to have died.”6 Jesus’ response to the two disciples confirms this interpretation: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things?” Thus, Jesus identifies the inadequacy of his disciples’ faith—which prevented them from believing in his resurrection and also from recognizing him—precisely on the grounds that they had intentionally overlooked or misinterpreted the prophesies about his sufferings.

Restoration

These two disciples typify Christians today for whom the bishops are concerned in calling for Eucharistic revival. A growing number of American Catholics are absenting themselves from Sunday Mass, just as the disciples on the road departed from the community of the Apostolic Church on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Relatedly, a disconcerting number of Catholics do not profess faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which suggests a lack of spiritual perception akin to that of the disciples who could not recognize the risen Lord appearing to them in a different form on the road. Without issuing judgments about the moral state of disenfranchised Catholics today, it is certainly conceivable that these have also lost both theological faith and hope and correspondingly live in sadness and despondency, like the disciples on the road. (Perhaps we ourselves are also imperfect in faith, hope, and seeing the Lord as we should.)

The good news is: if the two disciples in our narrative have a spiritual profile that matches that of many Catholics today, then the saving actions of God revealed in this narrative have prophetic and normative value for us. In other words, we can discover in Jesus’ responses to the disciples what he is doing now through his Spirit and wishes to accomplish through his Mystical Body in response to the present crisis.

Attentive to Jesus’ mercy and pastoral wisdom revealed in this Gospel pericope, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver beautifully summarizes the Lord’s approach to the wayward disciples: “He chooses to first listen to them and allow them to articulate where they had strayed. He then shares and initiates them into his own worldview through the scriptures.”7

According to the narrative, after affirming the necessity that the Christ “should suffer these things and enter into his glory,” then “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” St. Justin Martyr, as well as the fourth-century apologist Lactantius, encapsulate Jesus’ entire post-Resurrection ministry prior to his Ascension in terms of opening the Scriptures.8 This is expressed symbolically in the Apocalypse: “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll…. And between the throne and the four living creatures…I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain…and they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God’” (Revelation 5:5-9). The Lion-Lamb, the crucified and risen Christ, does not merely offer a conceptual key for the interpretation of the Scriptures, but he himself, crucified and risen, interprets the Scriptures. Thus, for the early Church, it is precisely in the light of the resurrected Christ and through his activity that the Scriptures can be rightly understood.

St. Thomas Aquinas follows the consensus of the Fathers in affirming the death and resurrection of Jesus as the key to unlocking the Scriptures and by presenting Christ himself as the inaugurator of this interpretive method. In fact, St. Thomas considers the Christological interpretation of Scripture so essential that he speaks of it as constituting Christian discipleship: commenting on the “chair of Moses” mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, he writes, “on the chair sit…the scribes, who consider only the letter [of the Scriptures]; the Pharisees, who consider a small part of its interior sense; [and] the disciples of Christ, who his Passion, therefore, is to inevitably fail to attain understanding of the most essential meaning of the text. When the heart of Jesus was pierced on the Cross, manifesting his boundless love, the Scriptures were definitively opened.

The Fire of the Word

Not surprisingly, the disciples “said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?’” The Fathers interpret this burning as a fire of love;12 and likewise in the lives of the saints, the extraordinary mystical phenomenon of burning in the heart is associated with excessive love.13 Nonetheless, we should pause to consider how the disciples would have understood this experience, since they appeal to it as though it should have been for them a sufficient proof of the Lord’s resurrection.

On the one hand, the disciples may have recalled listening to Jesus on previous occasions. A distinctive effect of the divine Word is that it communicates the Spirit. St. Thomas writes: “the Son is sent…according to the intellectual illumination, which breaks forth into the affection of love, as is said…In my meditation a fire shall flame forth.”14 And so, perhaps these disciples, reflecting on the breaking forth of the fire of love in their hearts that resulted from this Mysterious Man’s teaching, recognized an effect in themselves that they had previously experienced only from Jesus of Nazareth, whom they should have realized by this very fact was teaching them again in person and therefore must have risen from the dead.

On the other hand, it seems significant that the disciples do not specify that their hearts were burning with love but only report that their hearts were burning, as if the experience of fire alone was sufficient to indicate the resurrection. We are perhaps too quick to associate fire with love, without adequately considering what the perception of an extraordinary fire would have meant for first-century Jewish Christians Specifically, the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité relates: “in the religion of Israel, fire is the preeminent sign of the divine presence. It is generally the principal element of theophanies or manifestations of God on the earth.”15 This is easy to confirm: fire had a conspicuous place in the great theophanies to Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc.

ponder the whole. And they are not called disciples of Moses, but of Christ. [As it says:] … he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”9 In other words, for St. Thomas, to be a disciple of Christ means precisely to learn from Christ, who interprets all of the Scriptures in light of himself.10

Most importantly, St. Thomas hints at the reason for the connection between Christ’s Passion and the opening of the Scriptures. He comments on Psalm 22, which Christ invoked on the Cross, and which includes the line “my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast.” St. Thomas proposes: “this liquefaction [or melting] can be applied to Christ…for this liquefaction is from the Holy Spirit and is in the… affections.” He then offers another interpretation: “by the heart of Christ should be understood the Sacred Scriptures which manifest the heart of Christ. This was closed before the Passion, since it was obscure, but is open after the Passion.”11 If we take both of these interpretations together, we arrive at the following conclusions. Christ’s heart on the Cross was so inflamed with love from the Holy Spirit that he declared that it was melted. The Scriptures, for their part, manifest the heart of Christ, which is full of this love that he displayed on the Cross. Thus, it is only in light of the Cross that the essential meaning of the Scriptures is revealed. Conversely, the meaning of the Scriptures is nothing other than the love of Christ revealed on the Cross. For a Christian, therefore, the study of the Scriptures and the study of the Cross are inseparably the study of the heart of Christ filled with love. To read Sacred Scripture apart from Christ and

The question immediately arises, however: why does the spiritual interpretation of Scripture have the effect of an interior theophany? St. Thomas offers a clue in the first question of the Summa: “The author of Holy Scripture is God, in whose power it is to signify his meaning, not by words only…but also by things themselves.”16 When Scripture is understood Christologically, that is, in its unity, two things are made clear: first, that God must be the Author of the Scriptures, since only divine omniscience can be the source of prophetic knowledge of the future; second, God must be the Author of the historical events recorded in the Scriptures, since only divine omnipotence can direct being itself to signify truth. And so, the typological interpretation of Scripture—or demonstrating the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy— necessarily manifests the Author of the Scriptures as the Lord of history, who both transcends history by his infinite knowledge and power, and who also acts intimately within history on the level of being and human knowledge.

Furthermore, since Sacred Scripture centers on Jesus Christ, who is the very transcendent Lord who entered history personally in order to reveal through his sufferings on the Cross the love that is the source of creation, there is no greater manifestation of the true God possible through the mere signification of words than interpreting the inspired Scriptures in light of the death and resurrection of Christ. Once again, it is no surprise that the disciples’ hearts were burning! In all the theophanies of the Old Covenant, material fire was ultimately a sign of the spiritual fire that would burn first of all in the heart of Christ on the Cross and then in the hearts of those disciples who were introduced by him into this very truth.

Transformed Hearts

The Fathers, when discussing the fire ignited in the disciples’ hearts, emphasize the transformative effect of God’s Word. St. Athanasius, for example, writes that “our Lord Jesus Christ…came that he might cast this [fire] upon earth…so that the soul, being purified, might be able to bring forth fruit.”17 St. Jerome asks, “Where should we seek this saving fire?” and concludes: “No doubt in the sacred volumes, reading from which all vices are purged.”18 St. Augustine argues that the fire which Christ came to set on the earth was himself, the Word of God, a consuming fire, “for the love of God consumes our old life and renews our being.”19

Even though the disciples experience a fire of love that evidences the presence of God in the risen Christ, they do not yet identify him. Still, his transformative word has a decisive effect on their dispositions and actions: “they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, ‘Stay with us…So he went in to stay with them.” Archbishop Aquila comments, “When we genuinely love someone, we do not want to leave them or them to leave us.”20

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the human heart as “our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason…. The heart is the place of decision.”21 The fact that Christ’s interpretation of Scripture generated a fire in their hearts that issued in changed behavior means that the principal work of their conversion has been accomplished. The disorder of disbelief (and despair) that previously reigned in their hearts due to the false interpretation of God’s plan for history—on account of which they formerly could not recognize the risen Christ—was corrected through his teaching, such that they are now disposed to recognize him. And this is what occurs next: “when he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”

Christ’s repeating for these disciples what he did at the Last Supper was the final step in their coming to recognize him.22 They must have perceived the intrinsic relation of the Eucharist with Christ’s Passion, which it signified, and which they now properly understood in light of the Scriptures. And so, they report to the Apostles that “he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” It is noteworthy that among the actions of taking, breaking, blessing, and giving, they chose breaking to refer to the crucial moment. This conveys most clearly the connection that Christ himself established between this Sacrament and his sacrificial death when he said, “take this all of you and eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given up for you.”

Immediately upon recognizing him, “he vanished from their sight.” Christ was teaching the disciples that he is truly present in this Sacrament. It is as if he was playing a game of peek-a-boo—disappearing in one form to foster recognition of himself in another form— treating the disciples as spiritual children, giving them a lesson in “supernatural object permanence.” The Real Presence is a doctrine about which the disciples needed to be convinced, because this is the manner in which he would remain substantially present to the Church on earth after his ascension. He does not permit the disciples even a moment to rest in the sensible enjoyment of his glorified body: he immediately departs, leaving a strong impression linking his risen presence with this sacrament.

We should also notice that this narrative presents the Sacrament in relation to the resurrection. Not only is Christ known to be present in the Eucharist, but above all the Eucharist makes known his risen presence: “He was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” This corresponds to the central point of the narrative, which possesses a clearly chiastic structure.23 The sacred author’s presentation of the Emmaus story, which takes place on Easter Sunday, focuses on the announcement of the resurrection by the women: “they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.” The truth about the Sacrament is therefore contextualized: above all, the disciples identify the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who is alive, and who communicates himself through both word and Sacrament.

Authentic love is never inactive, and, accordingly, the two disciples “rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem…and they found the eleven gathered together…. Then they told what had happened on the road.” Archbishop Aquila observes that “they immediately go and witness to their experience of the Risen Christ. They go on mission.”24 We should add that the disciples specifically seek the Apostles, and so their knowledge and love of the risen Christ leads them to apostolic communion.

Orientations

To the many proposals for fostering Eucharistic revival, I only wish to add a few in light of this Gospel pericope. First of all, we can imitate Christ who travels with discouraged and disbelieving disciples and

To the degree that we are ignorant of the love of Christ manifested in his death on the Cross, we cannot understand the meaning of the Eucharist, which represents this sacrifice. In the 17th century, it was precisely to counteract indifference and ingratitude toward himself in the Holy Eucharist that Jesus enjoined devotion to his Sacred Heart, directing the world to “Behold…this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.” attentively listens to their concerns.

Second, we can emphasize the redemptive death of Jesus Christ. To the degree that we are ignorant of the love of Christ manifested in his death on the Cross, we cannot understand the meaning of the Eucharist, which represents this sacrifice. In the 17th century, it was precisely to counteract indifference and ingratitude toward himself in the Holy Eucharist that Jesus enjoined devotion to his Sacred Heart, directing the world to “Behold…this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love.”25

Third, we should principally proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Faith in the Eucharist depends on belief in the divinity of Christ, which was most clearly manifested in his resurrection.26 And celebration of this Sacrament does not commemorate a mere prophet who died but deepens communion with the living God in the person of the risen Lord Jesus.

Fourth, we should return to announcing Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of prophecy and the primary typological referent of Scripture. This was the method that Christ himself used in order to dispose his

Finally, we should pray for illumination. The disciples on the road suffered from insufficient spiritual perception. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his treatment of the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding, explains that “there are many kinds of things that are hidden within;” for example, “under words lies hidden their meaning” and “under the accidents lies hidden the nature of the substantial reality.”28 Inasmuch as the gift of understanding enables us to perceive the mystical sense of the words of Scripture that disclose Christ and the substantial reality of his presence hidden under the accidents of bread and wine, we ought to pray for the whole Church, that God would strengthen our minds with the light of understanding to know the risen Christ. “For it is God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Joshua Revelle is an Assistant Professor of Dogmatic and Spiritual Theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, CO. He holds a BA and MA from Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH, and a PhD from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.

1. As an introduction to the Church’s Year of the Eucharist in 2004, Pope St. John Paul II presented “the image of the disciples on the way to Emmaus…as a fitting guide for…when the Church will be particularly engaged in living out the mystery of the Holy Eucharist.” John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Mane Nobiscum Domine,” https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2004/ documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20041008_mane-nobiscum-domine.html. More recently, for the launch of the diocesan phase of the Eucharistic revival in the United States, Archbishop Samuel Aquila offered a similar recommendation and his own reflections on the Gospel pericope. Samuel Aquila, Advent 2022 Pastoral Note “Were Not Our Hearts Burning,” https://archden.org/pastoral-notes/ advent-2022-were-not-our-hearts-burning/.

2. For example: “The mistake which held them was not to be attributed to the Lord’s body.” St. Jerome, “To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem,” trans. W. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W. Martley, NPNF, Second Series, vol. 6 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature, 1893), §35.

3. St. Gregory the Great, “Homilia XXIII” in Gregorius Magnus: Homiliae in Evangelia, CCSL, vol. 141 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 194. My translation.

4. St. Augustine, “Sermon 236A,” trans. Edmund Hill, WSA, vol. 3/7 (New Rochelle, NY: New City Press), §3.

5. St. Augustine, “Sermon 26A,” §4.

6. Pseudo-Cyprian, De Rebaptismate, in CCSL, vol. 3F: Sancti Cypriani Episcopi Opera, Pars IV; Opera Pseudo-Cyprianea, Pars I (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), §9. My translation.

7. Aquila, “Were Not Our Hearts Burning.”

8. St. Justin Martyr, The First Apology, in Writings of Saint Justin Martyr, trans. Thomas Falls, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (New York: Christian Heritage, 1948), chap. 50; Lactantius, The Divine Institutes: Books

I-VII, trans. Mary McDonald, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 4.20.

9. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 1328, trans. Jeremy Holmes, Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 34 (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute), par. 1833. Emphasis added; Biblical quotation replaced with ESV.

10. In a text that closely resembles the Emmaus road narrative, St. Thomas comments on John 1:26: “there is one standing in your midst i.e., in the Sacred Scriptures…whom you do not recognize, because your heart is hardened by unbelief, and your eyes blinded, so that you do not recognize as present the person you believe is to come.” St. Thomas explicitly links unbelief in the heart, blindness preventing recognition of Jesus, and the failure to interpret the Scriptures with respect to him. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John: Chapters 1-5, trans. Fabian Larcher (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), §246.

11. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Psalms, trans. Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski and Sr. Maria Veritas Marks, in Commentary on the Psalms, Rigans Montes, Hic est Liber, Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 29 (Green Bay, WI: Aquinas Institute, 2021), §186. Emphasis removed; translation slightly amended.

12. Origen, Second Homily [on the Song of Songs] trans. R. P. Lawson, in Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies, Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 26 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957), §8; St. Ambrose, Isaac, or the Soul, in St. Ambrose: Seven Exegetical Works, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Washington, D.C. The Catholic University of America Press, 1972), 8.77; St. Thomas Aquinas, The Commandments of God, trans. Laurence Shapcote (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne), prol.

13. Jordan Aumann, Spiritual Theology, (London: Sheed & Ward, 1982), 431. For many examples, see Herbert Thurston, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, ed. J. Crehan (London: Burns Oates, 1952), chap. 8, “Incendium Amoris.”

14. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 3 vols. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947), I, q. 43, a. 5, ad. 2.

15. Friedrich Zoepfl, “Feu,” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 5 (Paris: Beachesne, 1964), col. 247. My translation.

16. St. Thomas, ST I, q. 1, a. 10, co. Translation amended.

17. St. Athanasius, “Letter III,” trans. R. Payne-Smith, NPNF, Second Series, vol. 4 (New York: Christian Literature, 1892), §4.

18. St. Jerome, “Epistula XVIIIA Ad Damasum,” in Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, Pars I, CSEL (Vindobona: Tempsky, 1910), §6. My translation. He also recommends the reading of Scripture since the fire of love that it generates replaces sensual desire; St. Jerome, “Letter XX,” NPNF, vol. 6, §17.

19. St. Augustine, Answer to Adimantus, WSA, vol. 1/19, 13.3.

20. Aquila, “Were Not Our Hearts Burning.” disciples to recognize himself, and it was accordingly the method of the Fathers.27 Typological teaching manifests the divine presence, precisely in Jesus; and through his being revealed as the center of the divine plan, he appears as the destiny of every human person. The Fathers emphasize the transformative power of the Scriptures, which cause the human heart to burn with desire to be with the Lord. Without handing on the truth about Christ that is conveyed in the Scriptures, we should not expect any conversion toward the Eucharist. I could announce the real presence of my friend Tom in the next room until I am blue in the face, but I should not expect anyone to visit the next room who lacks personal knowledge of him. Through the opening of the Scriptures, the heart of Christ in the Eucharist is revealed as the heart of God who is love, and the natural outcome is increased devotion to the Eucharist.

21. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2563.

22. It is not clear whether these disciples had heard about the institution of the Eucharist from the Apostles during the previous day or two—nor how their memory was involved in this stage of the process of recognition.

23. John Noland, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 35c (Dallas: Word Books, 1993), 1177-8. Some examples of the nested parallels include: the disciples speak with one another in verses 14 and 32; their eyes are closed, then opened in verses 16 and 31; they recall the “things concerning Jesus,” and Jesus explains “the things concerning himself” in verses 19 and 27; Christ’s sufferings are discussed in verses 20 and 25; his tomb is mentioned in 22 and 24; etc. These center on the announcement of his resurrection.

24. Aquila, “Were Not Our Hearts Burning.” co.

25. Bougaud, Revelations of the Sacred Heart to Blessed Margaret Mary, and the History of Her Life, trans. A Visitandine of Baltimore, 2nd ed. (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1890), 176.

26. That Eucharistic belief corresponds to faith in the divinity of Christ, see for example John 6:68-69: after many disciples depart from Christ on account of his teaching about the Bread of Life, St. Peter responds with a profession of faith in Christ, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” That Christ’s divinity is manifested especially by his resurrection, see Rom. 1:34 and Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 653.

27. The First Vatican Council declared that “miracles and prophecies... demonstrating…the omnipotence and infinite knowledge of God, are the most certain signs of revelation and are suited to the understanding of all.” “Dei Filius—The Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith,” Nova et Vetera, English Edition, 20, no. 3 (2022): 947 (chap. 3).