Rudolf the Habsburg Warmonger

The worth of the Eucharist and the humility of God

On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men;
Here thy very manhood steals from human ken:
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer made by the dying thief.

-St. Thomas Aquinas, Adoro te Devote (trans, Gerard Manley Hopkins)

In the 13th century, there lived a German count by the name of Rudolf. The precise color of this Rudolf’s nose is unknown, but we do know he was not what would traditionally be called a “good man.” He was ruthless and ambitious, an oathbreaker and a warmonger. At one point he even burned down a convent, an act which earned him the excommunication of Pope Innocent IV.

Despite his rather nasty character, history credits at least one good deed to Rudolf. One day as he was out riding his horse, he saw a poor parish priest hurrying out into the countryside. The priest was carrying a pyx, the sacred vessel which holds the Blessed Sacrament while in transit, on his way to deliver viaticum to a dying man. Rudolf, moved by the sight, dismounted his horse and gave it to the priest to speed him on his way. In return, the priest turned to Rudolf, raised his hands in benediction, and prophesied that because of this kind deed, Rudolf’s descendants would rule the world.

Rudolf, from his origins as a relatively poor count, would go on to become King of Germany. His descendants, the Habsburgs, would go on to build an empire that straddled the Atlantic, covering Spain, Central Europe, Northern Italy, and most of the Americas at its peak.

The Habsburgs loved the story of their forefather Rudolf and repeated it widely. Indeed, it was so beloved by them that they would even reenact Rudolf’s generosity if the occasion ever arose; any priest who hurried too much in the presence of a Habsburg was in danger of having a horse spontaneously thrust upon him.

To those of us hearing this story in the modern day, it sounds like mere Habsburg propaganda. It definitely was used as propaganda by the Habsburgs, tidily explaining why they were able to rise to the heights as they did. The reason why the story was so powerful in its day, though, is more interesting to me than its objective veracity or the Habsburg’s motive for telling it.

The reason why the original hearers of this story found it compelling is because they believed in the Eucharist in a way that we find it hard to. Whereas in the modern Church a majority of Catholics believe the Eucharist to be nothing more than a wafer of bread, the medieval Habsburgs believed it to be the Body and Blood of our Lord. The Eucharist was actually worth more than the world; old Rudolf was short-changed.

This devotion to the Eucharist, which the Habsburgs were an exemplar of, is one of the defining hallmarks of Catholicism, dating back to the days of the Apostles. In the Gospel of St. John, Jesus tells his disciples they must eat his flesh and drink his blood if they wish to have his life within them. Bringing us new life is the raison d'être for the incarnation, a point that John drills again and again. This new life can only come from the Son and is made available to us through incorporation into his mystical body which only happens through reception of the Eucharist.

St. Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians, reaffirms this point. When we drink the cup and eat the bread at communion, this is a “participation” in the Blood and Body of the Lord. It is hard to imagine how we can participate in something that isn’t present. Paul contrasts this with those who participate in pagan sacrifices - they too are incorporated, but into a partnership with demons rather than the living God. The choice isn’t between incorporation and independence, then, but rather what body are you going to be incorporated into.

Taken together, these passages show us that the symbolic value of eating is inverted here. Normally what we eat is incorporated into us, enabling us to take the vegetable and animal levels of the great chain of being and making them part of our bodies. The strange thing about the Eucharist is that by eating the flesh of our Lord we are incorporated into his Body. We become participants in it both in the practical sense, being members of the Church, and in the mystical sense. Here, we actually become what we eat, rather than what we eat becoming us. This is the justification for calling the Eucharist the “source and summit of the Christian life” as the Catechism does.

Taking this idea literally is often disconcerting, both today and when Christ walked the Earth. The teaching of the Eucharist is the only recorded moment in the four gospels where followers of Jesus abandoned him en masse. Why should it surprise us that we find it hard to accept if those who followed Jesus in the flesh found it equally difficult? It being a hard teaching does not excuse us from accepting it, especially when our Lord says it is a condition of receiving eternal life.

No, we cannot reject this teaching. But how are we to make sense of the scandal it causes to its hearers? Perhaps one avenue is by noting the similarities between the Eucharist and the Incarnation. Is it really that much more difficult to accept God’s presence in the host than it is to accept the presence of God in an infant in a manger? In a poor carpenter from Galilee? In a man who died the death of a slave?

St. Francis of Assisi raised this same argument against the detractors of the Eucharist in his own day. You find it difficult to believe the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, he argued, but while Christ walked the earth, men found it just as difficult to believe in his divinity. If you can’t believe in Christ as he appears to you today, in the Eucharist, by what reason do you think you would believe in his divinity if Christ appeared to you in the flesh? How will you believe in him when he appears to you in glory?

The scandal of the Eucharist, then, finds its parallel in the scandal of the Incarnation. This may not be a demonstrative proof of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, but it certainly forms an argument of fittingness. If God did not despise to become man for our salvation, why would he despise being present on the altar so that we might all participate in that salvation? If we’re willing to defend the Incarnation, despite its seeming absurdity, then we should be willing to defend the Eucharist as well.

Both of these mysteries are not to be merely defended, though, but actively proclaimed. All of us are called to be missionaries, proclaiming the glories of Christ’s Incarnation and the Eucharist to the world. The grace of Christ which we have received through the Sacraments are not oriented towards a sort of self-centered navel gazing. The mass, for this reason, ends with a missionary call to “go forth” into the world.

Both the Eucharist and the Incarnation point towards the humility of God. St. Paul tells us that Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a slave for the sake of our salvation. St. Francis, in his Letter to the Entire Order, takes up this theme to write about the Eucharist:

O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity!
O sublime humility!
O humble sublimity!
The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God,
so humbles Himself
that for our salvation He hides Himself
under an ordinary piece of bread!

Brothers, behold the humility of God,
and pour out your hearts before Him!
Humble yourselves
that you may be exalted by Him!

Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves,
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally!

The humility of God, the condescension of God, is a great reason for us to rejoice, whether we are beholding it in the crib, on the cross, or in communion. Through his Incarnation, death, and resurrection, Christ has already won the battle. Human nature as a whole has been redeemed, even if that redemption is not yet possessed by every individual human. Our great commission is to spread the news of this victory to the ends of the Earth, so that everyone receive the King of Glory as the king of their hearts.

Rudolf, for all his faults, teaches us this great truth. The world is sick and in need of the true medicine, the body and blood of our Lord. We, though sinners, are able to help speed our Lord on his way to them. By doing so, we too can hope to inherit a great kingdom, one greater than any Habsburg has seen upon this Earth.

May God give us this grace.

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This is an adaptation of a speech I gave at my parish on the subject of Eucharistic Revival last year. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and sharing us with a friend. We here at Dreaming of the Rood are praying for you all to have a happy and blessed Advent and Christmas.