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← French Confession of Faith (Confession de La Rochelle / Gallican Confession)/Book 1 · Confession de Foi
Chapter 37FCF.1.37

XXXVI.

The Mystery of Spiritual Communion

The Lord's Supper serves as a spiritual testimony of our union with Christ, nourished by his body and blood through the power of the Holy Spirit and apprehended by faith.

XXXVI. We confess that the holy Lord's Supper (which is the second sacrament) is a testimony to us of the union we have with Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he has not only died and risen once for us, but also truly feeds and nourishes us with his flesh and blood, so that we may be one with him, and that his life may be common to us.✦✦✦ Now, although he is in heaven until he comes to judge the whole world, we nevertheless believe that by the secret and incomprehensible power of his Spirit he nourishes us and makes us alive with the substance of his body and blood.✦✦✦1 We do hold that this is done spiritually, not in order to put imagination or thought in the place of the effect and the truth, but because this mystery, in its loftiness, surpasses the measure of our understanding and the whole order of nature.✦23 In short, because it is heavenly, it can only be grasped by faith.✦4

Read the original French

XXXVI. Nous confessons que la sainte Cène (qui est le second sacrement) nous est un témoignage de l’union que nous avons avec Jésus-Christ, d’autant qu’il n’est pas seulement une fois mort et ressuscité pour nous, mais aussi nous repaît et nourrit vraiment de sa chair et de son sang, à ce que nous soyons un avec lui, et que sa vie nous soit commune. Or, bien qu’il soit au ciel jusqu’à ce qu’il vienne pour juger tout le monde, toutefois nous croyons que par la vertu secrète et incompréhensible de son Esprit, il nous nourrit et vivifie de la substance de son corps et de son sang. Nous tenons bien que cela se fait spirituellement, non pas pour mettre au lieu de l’effet et de la vérité, imagination, ni pensée; mais d’autant que ce mystère surmonte en sa hautesse la mesure de notre sens, et tout ordre de nature. Bref, parce qu’il est céleste, il ne peut être appréhendé que par la foi.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩John.6.53-John.6.56 — So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves." John.6.54 — The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. John.6.55 — For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. John.6.56 — The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
  2. ↩1Cor.10.16-1Cor.10.17 — The cup of blessing that we bless — is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break — is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 1Cor.10.17 — Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
  3. ↩Rom.4.25 — who was handed over because of our trespasses and was raised because of our justification.
  4. ↩Acts.3.21 — Heaven must receive him until the time when all things are restored, as God spoke long ago through the mouth of his holy prophets.
  5. ↩Acts.1.11 — Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven.
  6. ↩1Cor.11.26 — For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
  7. ↩1Cor.2.9-1Cor.2.14 — But as it is written: What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived—all that God has prepared for those who love him. 1Cor.2.10 — But to us God has revealed it through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 1Cor.2.11 — For who among people knows the things of a person except the person's own spirit within? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God. 1Cor.2.12 — Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that comes from God, so that we may understand the things freely given to us by God. 1Cor.2.13 — And these things we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things with spiritual words. 1Cor.2.14 — But the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
  8. ↩Heb.11.1 — Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩vertu is rendered 'power' (the older sense of vertu), not moral 'virtue'. substance is kept as the confession's own term for what is given, not paraphrased as a mere symbol.
  2. 2 ↩bien que is not concessive here (the verb is indicative se fait): bien strengthens tenons, 'we do hold'. spirituellement denies a crude local eating without reducing the gift to a mental picture; effet and vérité name the real fruit and reality, as against imagination and pensée.
  3. 3 ↩sens in la mesure de notre sens can mean 'sense' or 'understanding'; the parallel with tout ordre de nature favors the limit of our mind.
  4. 4 ↩il is taken as the heavenly mystery of the previous sentence (mystère, masculine), not as a sudden shift to Christ himself.

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