Our Lord's Use of the Holy Eucharist

Christ instituted the sacrament of Holy Eucharist atthe Last Supper, the night before he died. He gave this sacrament to his apostles in Holy Communion. And he received this sacrament himself.

Some have thought that Christ did not give Holy Communion to Judas. But it seems that Judas received our Lord withthe other apostles.

When our Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist, and gave himself to his apostles under the species of bread and wine, he hadnot yet endured his Passion, except in intention. His body was not yet glorified, as it was to be glorified in the Resurrection, but was a passible body, that is, a body that could endure pain and death. What Christ gave to his apostles in the Holy Eucharist was his body as it was then, thatis, at the time of the Last Supper. And yet, that body, passible in itself, was not passible in the Holy Eucharist because pas-sibilitydepends on external extension, and even the passible body of Christ was unextended in the Eucharist, as this was given at the Last Supper. After the Resurrection of our Lord, his body in the Holy Eucharist is the glorified and impassible body.

If the Blessed Sacrament had been reserved in a tabernacle or had been consecrated by an apostle at the time of Christ’s Crucifixion, our Lord would have died in the Blessed Sacrament as he died on the cross. For Christ is one and the same substantial being in his concrete bodily existence and in the Holy Eucharist.