Apostle: " Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened; for Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. Therefore, let us feast not with the old leaven, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." [1]
This property of the bread, however, is not to be considered so essential as that its absence must render the Sacrament null: both sorts, leavened and unleavened, are called by the common name, and have each the nature and properties, of bread. [2] No one, however, should on his own individual authority, have the temerity to depart from the laudable rite, observed in the Church to which he belongs; and such departure is the less warrantable in priests of the Latin Church, commanded, as they are, by authority of the supreme Pontiff, to celebrate the sacred mysteries with unleavened bread only. [3] With regard to the first element of this Sacrament, this exposition will be found sufficiently comprehensive. We may, however, observe in addition, that the quantity of bread to be used is not determined, depending as it does upon the number of communicants, a matter which cannot be defined.
We come next to treat of the second element of this Sacrament, which forms part of its matter, and consists of wine, pressed from the grape, mingled with a little water. That our Lord made use of wine, in the institution of this Sacrament, has been at all times the doctrine of the Catholic Church. He himself said: " I will not drink, henceforth, of this fruit of the vine, until that day." [4] On these words of our Lord, St. Chrysostome observes: " Of the fruit of the vine, which certainly produces wine, not water; as if he had it in view, even at so early a period, to crush by the evidence of these words, the heresy which asserted that water alone is to be used in these mysteries." [5] With the wine used in the sacred mysteries, the Church of God, however, has always mingled water because, as we know on the authority of councils and the testimony of St. Cyprian, our Lord himself did so; [6] and also because this admixture renews the recollection of the blood and water which issued from his sacred side. The word water we also find used in the Apocalypse, to signify the people, [7] and, therefore, water mixed with wine signifies the union of the faithful with Christ their head. This rite, derived from apostolic tradition, the Catholic Church has at all times observed. The propriety of mingling water with the wine rests, it is true, on authority so grave, that to omit the practice would be to incur the guilt of mortal sin; however, its sole omission would be insufficient to render the Sacrament null. But care must be taken not only to mingle water with the wine, but also to mingle it in small quan-
