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II.8. Panis Vitae

Summary. — Eucharistic Communion, the most assured means of maintaining the Divine life in us. — I. Holy Communion is the Banquet wherein Christ gives Himself to us as the Bread of Life. — I]. By Communion Christ abides in us, and we in Him. — III. Difference between the effects of corporal nourishment, and the fruits of the reception of the Eucharist ; how Christ transforms us into Himself; the influence of this wonderful food upon the body. — IV. The necessity of preparation in order to assimilate the fruits of Communion. — V. Remote dispositions: the complete gift of oneself to Christ ; the direction of all our actions towards Communion. — VI. Immediate preparation: faith, confidence and love ; how Our Lord rewards these dispositions: Communion is the fullest participation possible in the Divine Sonship of Jesus. Variety of formulae, and attitudes for the immediate preparation. — VII. Thanksgiving after Communion: Mea omnia tua sunt et tua mea.

« RANT, Almighty God, that as many of us as, by participation at this altar, shall receive the Most Sacred Body and Blood of Thy Son, may be filled with all heavenly benediction and grace”. Ut quotquot, ex hac altaris participatione, sacrosanctum Filia tui Corpus et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur.

These words conclude one of the prayers following the august rite of consecration in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As you know, Our Lord is present upon the altar, not only to offer perfect homage to His Father by a mystical immolation which renews His oblation on Calvary, but also to make Himself, under the sacramental species, the food of our souls.

Jesus Christ Himself manifested this intention of His Sacred Heart at the moment of instituting this Sacrifice: ” Take ye and eat, for this is My Body”. Accipite et manducate; hoc est enim corpus meum; Take ye and drink,

Tyh Corsext, 24, for this is My Blood”. Accipite et bibite: hic est enim calix sanguinis mei?. If Our Lord has willed to make Himself present under the species of bread and wine, it is in order to become our Food. And if we seek to know why Christ willed to institute this Sacrament under the form of food, we see that it is first of all to maintain the Divine life within us; next, in order that, receiving this Divine life from Him, we may remain united to Him. Sacramental Communion, the fruit of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, is the most certain means for the soul of remaining united to Jesus.

It is in this union with Christ, that, as I have said, the true life of the soul is to be found. Jesus is the Vine, we are the branches; grace is the sap that rises up into the branches to make them bear fruit. Now it is principally by the gift of Himself in the Eucharist that Christ makes grace to abound within us.

Let us contemplate with faith and reverence, love and confidence, this mystery of life whereby we are united to Him Who is at the same time our Divine Model, our infinite satisfaction, and the source of all our holiness”. We will next see with what dispositions we ought to receive the Holy Eucharist that so we may arrive at the perfection of this union which Christ wishes to effect with us in giving us Himself.

I

When, in prayer, we ask Our Lord to tell us why He willed, in His Eternal Wisdom, to establish this ineffable Sacrament, what does He reply?

To begin with, He repeats those same words with which He first announced the institution of the Eucharist to the Jews. ” As the Living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me”. Sicut misit me vivens Pater, et ego vivo propter Patrem, et qui manducat me et ipse vivet propter me*. It is as if He said: My desire is to communicate My Divine life to you. I hold My being, My life, all, from My Father and because I hold all from Him, I live only for Him; I desire with an intense desire that you, likewise, holding all from Me, live only for Me. Your corporal life is sustained and developed by food; I will to be the food of your soul, so as to preserve and develop its life which is Myself?. He that eats Me, lives by My life; I possess the fulness of grace, and those to whom I give Myself as food partake of this grace. The Father has life in Himself, but He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself: Sicut enim Pater habet vitam in semetipso, sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semetipso?. And because I possess this life I am come to give it fully and abundantly: Ego veni ut vitam habeant et abundantius habeant*. I give you life because I give Myself as food. I am the Living Bread, the Bread of Life come down from Heaven so as to give you eternal life; that Bread which gives the Heavenly life, the everlasting life, of which grace is the dawn. Ego sum panis vitae, panis vivus qui de caelo descendi*. The Jews in the desert did eat manna, a corruptible food; but I am the ever Living Bread, ever needful for your souls, for, ” except you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you”. Nist manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis... non habebitis vitam in vobis ®.1

Such are the very words of Jesus. It is therefore not only in order that we may adore Him, and offer Him to His Father as infinite satisfaction, that Christ renders Himself present on the altar; it is not only to visit us that He comes, but it is that we may eat Him as the Food of our souls, and that eating Him, we may have life, the life of grace here below, the life of glory hereafter.

” As the Son of God is Life by essence, it is for Him to promise: and to give life. The holy Humanity He has vouchsafed to take in the fulness of time, touching Life so closely, takes its virtue so fully, that an inexhaustible source of living water springs forth from it Is He not the Bread of Life, or rather, is it not a Living Bread which we eat so that we may have life? For this sacred Bread is the Holy Flesh of Jesus, this living Flesh, the Flesh conjoined to life, this Flesh altogether filled and penetrated with a vivifiying spirit. If ordinary bread, which

  1. Sumi autem voluit sacramentum hoc tamquam spiritualem animarum cibum quo alantur et confortentur viventes vita illius qui dixit = et qui manducat me et ipse vivet propter me. Concil. Trid. Sess. xm, is without life, preserves the life of our bodies, with what a wonderful life shall we not live who eat a Living Bread, Life itself, at the table of the Living God? Who has ever heard of a like prodigy; that one can eat life? It belongs to Jesus alone to give us such Food. He is Life by nature; whosoever eats Him eats life. Oh, sweetest Banquet of the children of God?”! This is why the priest, when he gives Holy Communion, says to each one: ” May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul to life everlasting”! Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam.2

I have said that the Sacraments produce the grace they signify. In the natural order, food preserves, increases, restores, and develops the life of the body”. It is the same with this Heavenly Bread; it is the food of the soul which preserves, repairs, and rejoices the soul, and increases the life of grace within it because it gives it the very Author of grace. The Divine life can enter into us by other ways, but it is by Holy Communion that this life inundates our souls ” like an impetuous torrent”. Communion is so much a Sacrament of life that, of itself, it remits and effaces the venial sins to which we no longer have any attachment ?. It acts in such.a way that the Divine life within the soul recovers its vigour and beauty, grows, develops, and bears abundant fruit. O Sacred Banquet in which the soul receives Christ! O sacrum convivium in quo Christus sumitur... mens impletur gratia*. O Jesus Christ, Incarnate Word, in Whom ” dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally®”, enter into me to make me a partaker of this fulness; this is life for me, since to receive Thee, is to become a child of God §, that is to have a share in the life Thou hast received from Thy Father and by which Thou livest for Thy Father — this life which overflows, through grace, from Thy Humanity, upon all Thy brethren. Come to be my Food, that so I may live by Thy life: Et qui manducat Me et ipse vivet propter Me.

  1. Bossuet, Sermon for Holy Saturday, Oratorical Works. — 2. According to St. Thomas, these are the four effects of food; the holy doctor applies this to the Eucharist, the food of the soul. — 3. See above, p. 181, text from the Catechism of the Council of Trent. — 4. Antiphon of Magnificat of znd Vespers of Corpus Christi. — 5. Col. u, 9. — 6.) Joans 1,112)

One of the intentions of the Heart of Jesusin instituting the Sacrament of the Eucharist, is, therefore, to be the heavenly Bread which maintains and increases the Divine life in us. But Our Lord has willed another end which completes the first: Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum Sanguinem in me manet et ego in eo,” he that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me and I in him”. What is the meaning of the word manere, " abide” ? When we read the Gospel of St. John, who tells us the words of Jesus, we see that he nearly always uses this term when he wishes to express perfect union. There is no union greater than that of the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity, since, with the Holy Ghost, they both possess one and the same Divine nature; St. John says that the Father “abideth ” in the Son 2.

” To abide in Christ ” is, first of all, to share, by grace, in His Divine Sonship: it is to be one with Him by being, as He is, although in a different manner, the child of God. That is the essential and fundamental union, which Christ Himself points out in the parable of the vine: ” I am the Vine; you the branches: he that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit”.

This union is not the only one. ” To abide” in Christ is to be identified with Him in all that relates to our intelligence, our will, our activity. We abide in Christ through our intelligence when we accept with a simple, pure, and integral act of faith all that Christ tells us. The Word is always in the Bosom of the Father; He sees the Divine secrets, and He makes us share in what He sees: Unigenitus Filius, qui est im sinu Patris, ipse enarravit*. By faith, we say : ” Yes”, Amen, to all that the Incarnate Word tells us; we accept His word; and thus identify ourselves with Christ in our intelligence. Holy Communion makes us abide in Christ by faith; we can only receive Him if we accept in faith all that He says, and all that He is. When Our Lord announced the institution of the Eucharist to the Jews, He said to them: ”T am the Bread of Life: he that cometh to Me shall not hunger : and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst *”.3

And as the Jews murmured in their incredulity, He repeated His words: ” Amen, amen, I say unto you: he that believeth in Me hath everlasting life?”. Itis in faith that Our Lord gives Himself to us as food, and to be united to Him is to accept, by the adhesion of our intelligence to His word, all that He reveals to us; Christ is the food of our intelligence in bringing us all truth.

To abide in Him is also to submit our will to His, it is to make all our supernatural activity dependent on His grace. That is to say we must abide in His love by accepting to do His Will: Si praecepta mea servaveritis, MANEBITIS IN DI- LECTIONE MEA, sicut et ego Patris mei praecepta servavt, et maneo in ejus dilectione?. Itis to prefer His desires to our own, it is to espouse His interests, it is to yield ourselves to Him entirely, without counting the cost, reserving nothing, and taking nothing back, for one cannot ” abide” unless one is firm and stable, with that absolute confidence that a bride should have in her bridegroom. The bride is never more pleasing to the bridegroom than when she relies only upon his wisdom, his power, his strength and his love. In thus giving food to love, this heavenly Bread vivifies our will.

This is the supernatural condition in which Jesus Christ desires to place the soul that receives Him. He comes into it so that it may “abide” in Him, that is, that having full confidence in His word, it abandons itself to Him in order to accomplish His Divine good pleasure, and have no other mainspring for its activity than the action of His Spirit: Qui adhaeret Domino unus spiritus est ®.

Not only do we abide in Our Lord, but He also abides in us: Et ego in eo*. See what took place in the Incarnate Word. There was in Him a very intense human and natural activity. But the Word, to Whom the Humanity of Christ was indissolubly united, was the furnace where all His activity was nourished, and whence it radiated.

The desire of Christ in giving Himself to us is to produce something analogous within us. Without establishing a union as close as that of the Word with His Sacred Humanity, Christ, in giving Himself to us, wills to be in us by His grace and the action of His Spirit the principle of all our inner activity: Hi ego in eo ; He is in the soul, He abides in it, but He is not idle, He wills to work in it?, and when the soul remains given up to Him, to His every will, then Christ’s action becomes so powerful that this soul will infallibly be carried on to the highest perfection, according to God’s designs. For Christ comes to the soul with His Divinity, His merits, His riches, to be its Light and Way, Truth, Wisdom, Justice and Redemption: Qui factus est nobis sapientia a Deo, et justitia, et sanctificatio et redemptio 7, in a word, to be the Life of the soul, to live Himself within the soul: Vivo ego, jam non ego; vivit vero in me Christus *. This is the dream of the soul: to make only one with the Beloved. Communion, in which the soul receives Christ as Food, brings about the realisation of this dream, by transforming it, little by little, into Christ.4

TI:

The Fathers of the Church point out the great difference there is between the action of the food which serves to nourish our corporal life, and the effect produced in the soul by the Eucharistic Bread.

When we assimilate the food of the body, we change it into our own substance, while Christ gives Himself to us as food in order to transform us into Himself. St. Leo writes these remarkable words: ” Participation in the Body and Blood of Christ produces in us none other effect than to make us pass into that which we take”. Nihil aliud agit participatio Corporis et Sanguinis Christi, quam ut in id quod sumimus transeamus*. St. Augustine is still more explicit; He makes Christ say: ”I am the Food of the strong; have faith and eat Me. But thou wilt not change Me into thyself, it is thou who wilt be transformed into Me*”. And St Thomas with his usual clearness, has defined this doctrine in a few lines: ” The principle of artiving at clearly understanding the proper effect of a Sacrament, is to judge of it by analogy with the matter of the sacrament... The matter of the Eucharist is a food; its proper effect must then be analogous to that of food. He who assimilates corporal food transforms it into himself ; this change repairs the losses of the organism and gives it the necessary increase. But the Eucharistic Food, instead of being transformed into the one who takes it, transforms him into Itself. It follows that the proper effect of the Sacrament is to transform us so much into Christ, that we can truly say: ” I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me”.5

How is this spiritual transformation brought about? In receiving Jesus Christ, we receive Him wholly: His Body, His Blood, His Soul, His Humanity, His Divinity. Christ makes us sharers of His thoughts, and His sentiments; He communicates His virtues to us, but above all, He enkindles in us the fire that He came to cast upon earth 2, the fire of iove, of charity: that is the result of this transformation produced by the Eucharist. ” The efficacy of this Sacrament ”, writes St. Thomas, ” is to work a certain transformation of ourselves into Christ, by means of charity. And that is the fruit proper to It... the property of charity is to transform the one who loves into the object of his love”. That is to say, that the coming of Christ in us tends, of its nature, to establish between His thoughts and ours, between His sentiments and our sentiments, between His Will and our will, such an exchange, such a correspondence and similitude that we have no other thoughts, no other sentiments, no other will than those of Christ: Hoc enim sentite in vobis, quod et in Christo Jesu®. And this through love. Love yields our will to Christ, and through it, all our being, all our energies ; and because love thus yields up the whole man, it is the means of our supernatural transformation and growth. St. John has well said: ” He that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him‘ ”,

Without this, there is no real “communion”. Without this, we receive Christ with the lips, it is true, but He means us to be united to Him with mind and heart and will and all our soul, so that we may share His Divine life as far as this is possible here below, and so that, by the faith we have in Him, by the love we bear towards Him, it may be really His life, and no longer our ego that is the principle of our life. This is very clearly shown in a prayer which the Church makes the priest recite after Communion : ” Grant, O Lord, that the operation of Thy heavenly Gift may possess both our minds and bodies, that its effect, and not our senses, may ever have dominion within us!”.6

This prayer of the Church leads us to understand that the Eucharistic action overflows from the soul upon the body itself. It is true that it is to the soul Christ immediately unites Himself; it is to the soul that He comes first of all, to assure and confirm its deification: Ut inter ejus membra numeremur cujus Corpori communicavimus et Sanguini 2. But the union of body and soul is so close that in increasing the life of the soul, in powerfully drawing it towards heavenly delights, the Eucharist tempers the heat of the passions, and brings peace to all our being.

The Fathers of the Church? even speak ofa still more direct influence. What is there astonishing in this ? When Jesus Christ dwelt upon earth, the simple contact with His Holy Humanity sufficed to heal the sick. Is this curative power to be lessened because Christ veils Himself under the Sacramental Species? ” Do you think, my daughters ”, said St. Teresa, ” that this most holy nourishment does not also sustain the body, and is not a remedy for its ills. As for myself, I know it has this virtue. I know a person (the Saint is doubtless speaking of herself) who, besides other great infirmities, often experienced much suffering before going to Communion, and had no sooner received the Bread of Life than she felt all her sufferings had vanished, as if a hand had taken them away... Certainly, His Majesty is not accustomed to pay so badly for the lodging He makes in the inn of our soul when He there meets with a good. welcome*”. Before Communion the priest beseeches Christ ” that the participation of His Sacred Flesh may be a safeguard and remedy both of soul and body”: Perceptio Corporis tui, Domine Jesu Christe,... prosit mihi ad tutamentum mentis et corporis. The Church makes us repeat the sameprayer in more than one of her postcommunions at the moment of returning thanks to God for the Divine Gift. ” Purify our minds, we beseech Thee, O

  1. Mentes nostras et corpora possideat, quaesumus,Domine, doni caelestis operatio ; ut non noster sensus in nobis, sed jugiter ejus praeveniat effectus. Postcommunion of 15th. Sunday after Pentecost. — 2. Postcommunion of the Saturday of the 3rd. week of Lent. — 3. S. Justin. Apolog. ad Anton. Pium, n. 66. S. Iraen. Contra haereses, L. Visi, 2 S._ Cyrill. Hierosol. Catech. xx (Mystag IV), n. 3; Catech. xxim (Mystag V), n. 15. — 4. The Way of Perfection, ch. xxxv. The Saint is even more explicit in ch. xxx of her Life by Herself.

Lord, and renew them with heavenly sacraments, that by them, our bodies themselves may receive both present and future aids’*”.

Do not let us forget that Christ is ever living, ever acting. In coming to us He unites our members to His own; He purifies, He uplifts, He sanctifies, He transforms, as it were, all our faculties, so that, to borrow the beautiful thought of an ancient author, we love God with the Heart of Christ, we praise God with the life of Christ, we live by His life. The Divine Presence of Jesus and His sanctifying virtue penetrate our whole being, both body and soul, with all their powers, so intimately, that we become ” other Christs ”.

Such is the truly sublime culmination of this union with Christ in the Eucharist which each Communion tends to make us realise ever more perfectly. If we but knew the gift of God! For those who draw the water of grace at this fountain ” shall not thirst for ever”: Qui autem biberit ex aqua quam ego dabo ei, non sitiet in aeternum?. At this fountain they find every good: Quomodo non etiam cum illo omnia nobis donavit?*. From the altar there proceeds for us all heavenly benediction and grace: Omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur.

PVE:

These wonderful effects are not wrought in the soul unless it is prepared for the effusion of so many graces. It is true, as I have said, that the Sacraments produce fruit of themselves, the fruit for which they were instituted; but on condition that no obstacle be opposed to their action: Non ponentibus obicem. Now what is here the obstacle?

Naturally, there can be none on Christ’s part: in Him are all the treasures of the Divinity, and He infinitely desires to communicate them to us in giving Himself. He is not parsimonious, for He has come to bring us life, He wills to give it with superabundance: Ut abundantius habeant. He repeats to each one of us what He said to His Apostles on the evening of the institution of this Sacrament: ” With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you”. Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum }.7

Do not let us lose sight of the fact that Communion is not a human invention, but a divine Sacrament instituted by Eternal Wisdom. Now it belongs to wisdom to proportion the means to the end. If, then, Our Divine Saviour instituted the Eucharist in order to unite Himself to us and make us live by His life, we may be assured that the Sacrament contains all that is needful to bring about this union and that to a supreme degree. In this marvellous invention are hidden virtualities of incomparable efficacy to produce in us a divine transformation.

The obstacle is then in us. What is it?

To know it we have only to consider the very nature of the Sacrament. It is a Food which is to maintain the life of the soul and strengthen union.

All that is opposed to the supernatural life and union is then an obstacle to the reception and to the fruit of the Eucharist. Grave sin which causes the death of the soul is the absolute obstacle. As food is only given to the living, so the Eucharist is only given to those who already possess the life of grace. Together with “a right intention”, this is the first condition for the faithful to be able to approach Christ and receive the Bread of Life. The great Pontiff Pius X. established this in a memorable document. The Sacrament acts: Ex opere operato: of itself. The Eucharist feeds the soul and increases grace and the habit of charity. This is the first and essential fruit of the Sacrament.

There are’ also other fruits, secondary, it is true, but yet so great that they merit to be brought forward. ‘These are: the actual graces of union which put charity into action %, excite our fervour to return love for love, to perform the Divine good pleasure, to avoid sin, and that fill the soul with joy. ” This heavenly Bread, containing in itself all sweetness” is communicated to the soul to enkindle its devotion

  1. Luc. xxm, 15. — 2. Decree of Dec. 2oth. 1905. The Sovereign Pontiff thus explains what a right intention is: "he who approaches the holy table should do so, not out of routine, or vain-glory, or human respect, but for the purpose of pleasing God, of being more closely united with Him by charity, and of seeking this divine remedy for his weaknesses and defects.” — 3. "It is charity which is brought into exercise in the Sacrament, not only as to the habit of charity, but also as to the act.” S. Thom. III, q. txxrx, a. 4.

Christ, the life of the soul. 19 in the service of the Lord, and make it strong against sin and temptation?. Now these secondary effects may be more or less abundant, and they practically depend in a large measure on our dispositions 2, above all, when love, the principle of union, is the motive-power which urges us to prepare for Our Lord a dwelling less unworthy of His Divinity, and to render Him with all possible affection the homage due to Him for vouchsafing to come to us.

Certainly, Jesus Christ, being absolutely free and infinitely good, grants His gifts to whom He pleases; but apart from the fact that His Infinite Majesty requires that we should prepare for Him, according to the measure of our weakness, a dwelling in our heart, can we doubt for a single moment that He regards with extreme graciousness the efforts of a soul that desires to receive Him with faith and love *?

See in the Gospel how He rewarded the desires and efforts of Zachaeus. This prince of the publicans desired only to see Jesus, and Our Lord, meeting him, anticipated his desires and told him He willed to abide in his house; and His visit brought pardon and salvation to this man. See again when Our Lord is received by Simon the Pharisee. Behold, the woman, Magdalen, enters the dining-hall during the meal, draws near to Jesus, begins to pour perfumes on His Feet, and to kiss them. But immediately, those present recognise: in this woman one who is a sinner. And Simon the Pharisee is indignant within himself thinking: ”If only Jesus knew what manner of woman this is!” Christ knows these secret thoughts and He defends Magdalen. He contrasts what she does to please Him with what the Pharisee has omitted in the exercise of hospitality towards Him : "Dost thou see this woman”? He says to Simon. "I entered into thy house, thou gavest Me no water for My Feet; but she with tears hath washed My Feet, and with her hairs hath wiped them. Thou gavest Me no kiss; but she, since she came in, hath not ceased to kiss My Feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint; but she with oint-

  1. See Catechism of the Council of Trent, ch. xx, § 1. — 2. D. Coghlan, De SS. Eucharistia, p. 368. — 3. " Whereas the Sacraments of the New Law, though they take effect ex opere operato, nevertheless produce a greater effect in proportion as the dispositions of the recipient are better; therefore, care is to be taken that Holy Communion be preceded by serious preparation, and followed ty a suitable thanksgiving.” Pius X. Decree of 20th. Dec. 1905. on Daily Communion. ment hath anointed My Feet. Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less. And He said to her: Thy sins are forgiven thee... thy faith hath made thee safe, go in peace?”.

You see then, that Our Lord is attentive to our dispositions, to the marks of love with which we receive Him. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of union, and the less Christ meets with obstacles to the perfection of this union, the more the grace of His Sacrament acts in us. The Catechism of the Council of Trent tells us that ” we receive all the abundance of God’s gifts when we partake of the Eucharist with a heart well-disposed and perfectly prepared ?”.

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Now there is a very important general disposition drawn from the nature of union, which serves admirably as an habitual preparation for our union with Jesus Christ, and, above all, for the perfection of this union: it is the total gift, frequently renewed, of ourselves to Jesus Christ.

The more we remain in this essential disposition which Baptism inaugurated, the better is our remote preparation for receiving the abundance of Eucharistic grace. To remain attached to venial sin, to deliberate imperfections, to wilful negligences, and premeditated infidelities, all these things cannot fail to impede Our Lord’s action when He comes to us. If we desire the perfection of this union we ought not to bargain with Christ for our heart’s liberty, nor reserve any place, however small, for creatures loved for their own sake. We should empty ourselves of self, disengage ourselves from creatures, aspire after the perfect coming of the reign of Christ in us by the submission of all our being to His Gospel and to the action of His Spirit.

This is a most excellent disposition. What is it that prevents Christ from identifying us perfectly with Himself when He comes to us? Do our infirmities of mind or body, the miseries inherent to our condition as exiles, the limitations of our human nature? Certainly not. These imperfections, or even faults that escape us and that we deplore and strive to destroy, do not prevent the action of Christ. On the contrary, He comes to help us to overcome these faults, and to support our weaknesses patiently; for He is a compassionate High Priest Who ” knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust?”, and Who has taken upon Himself all our miseries: Vere languores nostros ipse tulit ?.8

The things that hinder the perfection of union are the bad habits known and not repudiated, which, from want of generosity, we have not the courage to attack ; voluntary attachment to ourselves or to creatures. Christ cannot make us share in the abundance of His grace as long as we do not labour, by watchfulness over ourselves and by mortification, to uproot these bad habits and break off these attachments.

And this is true, above all, of deliberate or habitual faults against charity towards our neighbour. I shall develop this point when I show the motives we have for loving one another. But I must say a word here. Our Lord is one with His mystical body; all Christians are His members by grace, and when we communicate we must do so with the whole Christ, that is to say, unite ourselves by charity with Christ in His physical being and with His members ; we cannot separate these two. The Council of Trent says: ” Our Lord has willed to leave us this Sacrament as a symbol of the intimate union of this mystical body of which He is the Head?”. St. Paul says in speaking of the Eucharist: ” For we being many are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread*”. Hear what Our Lord Himself says: ” If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee; leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother, and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift®”. This is why the least wilful coldness, the least resentment harboured in the soul towards our neighbour form a great obstacle to the perfection of that union which Our Lord wishes to have with us in the Eucharist.

If then we discover in our heart some voluntary attachment to our judgment, or self-love, or, above all, habits contrary to charity, we may be certain that as long as we tolerate this state of things, the abundance of the fruits of the Sacrament will remain restricted. But if we take the resolution of correcting ourselves of our bad habits, and make serious efforts to destroy them, we may be assured that Our Lord will regard us with kindness, bless our efforts and reward us abundantly, when we approach Him in Holy Communion to find in Him the necessary strength.9

Again, it is true that our dispositions do not cause the grace of the Sacrament; all they do is to give it free course, by removing the obstacles; but we must open our hearts as widely as possible to the outpouring of the Divine Gift. An excellent disposition, then, is to try to refuse nothing to Christ. A soul that remains habitually in this disposition of putting away all that could offend the sight of the Divine Guest, and holding itself always ready to accomplish His Divine Will, is admirably ” adapted” for the Sacramental action.

And what is the reason of this? The Eucharist is the Sacrament of union, as the word ” communion” indicates; it is in order to unite Himself to us that Our Lord comes to us. To unite is to make of two things only one thing. But we unite ourselves to Christ as He is. Now every Communion presupposes the Sacrifice of the Altar, and consequently, the immolation of the Cross. In the offering of the Holy Mass, Christ associates us to His state of High Priest, and in Communion He causes us to participate in His condition of Victim. The Holy Sacrifice supposes,as I have said, that inward and entire oblation that Our Lord made to the Will of His Father when entering into the world, an oblation that He often tenewed during His life and completed by His death on Calvary. All this, says St. Paul, is recalled to our minds by Communion: ” As often as you shall eat this Bread and drink the chalice, you shall show forth the death of the Lord”. QUOTIESCUMQUE enim manducabitis panem hunc et calicem bibetis, mortem Domini annuntiabitis donec vemiat*. Jesus Christ gives Himself to us as Food, but after having been first offered as Victim; Victim and Food are, in the Eucharist, Sacrifice and Sacrament — two inseparable characters. And that is why this habitual disposition of giving oneself totally is so important. Christ gives Himself to us in the measure we give ourselves to Him, to ry 1 Core xi, 626,

His Father, to our brethren who are the members of His mystical body; this essential disposition makes us one with Christ, but with Christ as victim; it establishes sympathy between the two terms of the union. ;

When Our Lord finds a soul thus disposed, given up entirely and unreservedly to His action, He acts in it with His Divine virtue which works marvels of holiness because it meets with no obstacle. The absence of this dispositio unionis also explains why some advance so little in perfection, despite frequent Communions. Christ does not find in these souls the supernatural alacrity which would permit Him to act freely in them. Their vanity, self-love, susceptibility, selfishness, jealousy and sensuality prevent the union between them and Christ being made with that intensity, that fulness by which the transformation of the soul is effected and completed.

Let us ask Our Saviour Himself to help us to acquire this fundamental disposition: it is extremely precious because it adapts our soul in a wonderful manner to the action of the Sacrament of Divine union.

To this disposition of union, which serves excellently as habitual preparation, we can join another, also remote, which consists in directing each day by an explicit act, all our actions towards Communion, in such a way that our union with Christ in the Eucharist becomes truly the sun of our life.. At the time of his ordination to the priesthood, St. Francis of Sales took the resolution of making of every action of the day a preparation for the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the morrow, so as to be able to reply truly if anyone asked him the reason of his conduct: ” I am preparing myself to celebrate Mass”. This is an excellent practice.

But if it is true that without Jesus Christ we can do nothing, how much more do we realise this when it is a question of our accomplishing the most holy action of each day! To be sacramentally united to Jesus in the Eucharist is the highest action possible to us; all human wisdom, however elevated it may be, is nothing in comparison to this act. We are incapable of preparing ourselves fittingly for it without the help of Christ Himself. We show our reverence for Him by our prayers, but it is He Who must prepare a dwell- ing for Himself in us. The Most High must sanctify His own tabernacle. As the Psalmist says: Sanctificavit tabernaculum suum Altissimus?. Let us ask this of Our Lord when, during the day, we go to visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament. ”O Jesus Christ, Incarnate Word, I desire to prepare a dwelling for Thee within myself, but I am incapable of this work. O Eternal Wisdom! prepare my soul to become Thy temple by Thy infinite merits. Grant that I may attach myself to Thee alone! I offer Thee my actions and the sufferings of this day in order that Thou mayest render them pleasing in Thy Divine sight, and that to morrow I may not come before Thee with empty hands”. Such a prayer is excellent, the day is thus directed towards union with Christ; love, the principle of union, envelops our acts. Far from murmuring against what may happen to us that. is disagreeable or painful, we shall offer it to Christ by a movement of love, and the soul will thus be prepared quite naturally, as it were, when the moment comes to receive its10

God.

VI

After this, the moment of Communion being come, there will be nothing more to do than to make the immediate preparation required by the infinite dignity of Him Who comes to us. And although this preparation derives its value and virtue from that fundamental disposition of which I have spoken, it is useful to say a few words about it.

One of the most important immediate dispositions is fazth. The Eucharist is essentially a mystery of faith: Mysterium fidei®. But are not all the mysteries of Christ mysteries of faith? Certainly they are, but nowhere is faith so useful as in this mystery. Why is this? Because neither the reason nor the senses perceive anything of Christ. Look at the manger; Christ is a little Child, but the angels hymn His coming that they may manifest His Divinity, and His mission as Saviour of mankind; during His public life, His miracles and the sublimity of His doctrine give testimony that He is the Son of God; on Thabor, His Humanity is transfigured in His Divinity; on the Cross itself, the Divinity does not entirely disappear: nature proclaims, by the upheaval it undergoes, that the Crucified is the Creator of the world?. But on the altar, neither the Humanity nor the Divinity are apparent: Latet simul et humanitas?. For the senses, the sight, the taste, the touch, there are only the bread and wine. To see through these appearances, to penetrate these veils as far as the Divine realities, needs the eye of faith.11

This appears very clearly when we read the chapter in which St. John records how Christ announced the mystery of the Eucharist to the Jews*. The Saviour had shown, on the previous day, His goodness and power in feeding some thousands of men with a few loaves. Seeing this striking miracle, the Jews had cried out: ” This is of a truth the Prophet that is to come”! And, passing from admiration to action, they try to take Him by force and make Him king. But now Jesus reveals a much more astounding mystery than the prodigy of the multiplication of the loaves, to them. ”I am the Living Bread which came down from Heaven”. These words alone immediately arouse murmurs among the Jews: Is not this the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then saith he, I came down from heaven”? And Jesus answers them: ” Murmur not among yourselves ... I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die... If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh, for the life of the world”. Thereupon the Jews, becoming more incredulous, begin to dispute among themselves: ” How can this man give us his flesh to eat”? But Christ withdraws none of His assertions, on the contrary, He makes them more emphatic: ” Amen, amen, I say to you: Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life... for My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed”. Then incredulity gains ground even among His disciples. Some among them protest: ” This saying is hard, and who can hear it”? From this moment, adds St. John, many of His disciples believed no more in Jesus, ” they went back and walked no more with Him”. After they had gone,12

Our Lord turned towards the twelve Apostles and said to them: ” Will you also go away”? Then Peter answering said: ” Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God”.

Let us also believe with Peter, and the Apostles who remained faithful; let our faith supply what is lacking to the senses: Praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui 1. Jesus Christ has said: ” This is My Body, this is My Blood; take, eat, and you shall have life”. Thou hast said it, Lords that is sufficient, I believe it. This Bread that Thou givest is Thy own self, the Christ, the beloved Son of the Father, Who becamest Incarnate and wast delivered up for me; Who wast born at Bethlehem, didst dwell in N azareth, Who didst cure the sick and give sight to the blind; Who didst forgive Magdalen and the Good Thief; Who at the Last Supper didst let St. John lay His head upon Thy Heart; Thou Who art the Way, the Truth and the Life; Who didst die for love of me, and didst ascend into heaven, and now, at the tight hand of God Thy Father, dost reign and intercede unceasingly for us. O Jesus, Eternal Truth, Thou declarest that Thou art present upon the altar, really and substantially, with Thy Humanity and all the treasures of Thy Divinity. I believe it, I fall down in adoration before Thee. My God and My All, receive this homage of mine”! This act of faith is the most sublime we can make and the most complete homage of our intelligence to Christ.

It is likewise an act of confidence. For the Christ that faith presents to us comes to us as our Chief, and our Elder Brother. We must enkindle our desires. ”O Lord Jesus ”, we should say, with the priest at the moment of Communion, ” regard not my sins, (which I detest) but the faith of Thy Church, which tells me that Thou art there present under the veils of the Host, in order to come to me. Thou hast this power, O Christ Jesus, of drawing me entirely to Thyself, so that I may be transformed into Thee. I yield myself entirely to Thee that Thou mayest be the Master of all my being, and of all my activity, that I may live only of Thee, by Thee, and in Thee”. If we ask this grace, let us be certain that Christ will grant it to us; that is why we ought to go so far as to be importunate, without placing any bounds to our holy desires. If we took into account what riches this Sacrament possesses — and they are infinite, since it contains Christ Himself 1 — if we knew all the fruits that the coming of Christ is able to produce in us, we should have an immense desire to have them brought forth in us. All the fruits of the Redemption are contained in the Eucharist to become ours: Ut Redemptionis tuae fructum in nobis jugiter sentiamus 2, Our Lord wills, with an intense will, to give us a part in them, but He requires that we should enlarge our hearts by desire and confidence. ” Certainly God knows”, says St. Augustine *, ” what we have need of, but He wills that our desire should be enkindled in prayer so that we may have a greater capacity for receiving what He prepares for us. The greater our faith, the firmer our confidence, and the more ardent our desire, so much the more shall we be capable of receiving the fruits of the Bread of Life’. “Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it”, God says to us, as formerly to the Psalmist: Dzlata os tuum et implebo illud *. ” Open thy soul by faith, by confidence, by love, by holy desires, by abandonment to Me, and I will fill it”. ” With what, Lord”? ” With Myself. I will give Myself to thee entirely, with My Humanity, and My Divinity, with the fruit of My mysteries, the merit of My labours, the satisfaction of My sufferings, and the price of My Passion. I will come to thee, as heretofore I came on the earth in order to destroy the works of the devil®; I will offer with thee Divine homage to My Father; I will give thee a share in the treasures of My Divinity, in the eternal life I hold from My Father. and which My Father wills Me to communicate to thee that thou mayest resemble Me. I will fill thee with My . grace so as Myself to become thy wisdom, thy sanctification, thy way, thy truth, thy life. Thou shalt be another Myself, the object, like Me, and because of Me, of My Father’s13

  1. Utilitatis hujus Sacramenti magna est et universalis... nam cum hoc Sacramentum sit Dominicae Passionis, continet in se Christum passum; unde quidquid est effectus Dominicae Passionis, totum etiam est effectus hujus Sacramenti, S. Thom. In Joan. Evang. C. vi. lect. 6 and again: Effects quem Passio Christi fecit in mundo, hoc Sacramentum facit in homine. III, gq. Lxxix, a. 1. — 2. Prayer for the Feast of Corpus Christi. — 3. Sumemus capacius quanto id et fidelius credimus, et speramus firmius et desideramus ardentius, Epist. cxxx, c. 8. St. Augustine says this of eternal life, but it can be applied as well to the Eucharist which is the pledge of that life: Et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur. — 4: PS. LXxX) DI.8—— 95 1 Joan.) m, delight. Open thy soul and I will fill it”. Dilata os tuum et mplebo illud !

What is needed beyond such words to make us yield ourselves up to Christ, so that His grace may take possession of us, and He may accomplish all His Will in us? And see the return Jesus Christ makes to us for what we give Him, how He increases this faith, this confidence, this love with which we receive Him! He is the Word, the eternal Word Who repeats in the depths of our heart Divine secrets and inundates us with His light, for He enlightens every man coming into the world. He is also the One Who came down on earth for our salvation, Who, in this Eucharistic union, applies the infinite merits of His death to us. What invincible assurance and what peace Jesus brings to the soul in coming to it! Not content with applying His satisfactions to us, He gives us the pledge of the future life: Et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur*. Finally, He enkindles love. Love lives by union. This is truly the Sacrament of supernatural growth. Each Communion well made brings us nearer and nearer to our Mode!; above all, it makes us penetrate more intimately into the knowledge, the love, and the practice of the mystery of our predestination and adoption in Christ Jesus, our Elder Brother. It perfects the grace of divine sonship in us.

There is no action wherein our faith can be exercised with greater intensity than in Communion; there is no more sublime homage of faith than to believe in Christ Whose Divinity and Humanity are both hidden under the appearances' of the host. When Christ Jesus, in showing us a little bread and wine, tells us: ” This is My Body. This is My Blood”, and our intelligence, putting aside all that the senses say, accepts these words of Christ; when our will leads us in faith and love to the Holy Table, to put into practice this adhesion of the intelligence, then we accomplish the highest and most absolute act of faith that can be.

Eucharistic Communion is the most perfect act of our Divine adoption. There is no moment when we are more justly entitled to say to our Father in heaven: ” O heavenly Father, I abide in Thy Son Jesus, and He abides in me. Thy Son, proceeding from Thee, receives the communication of Thy Divine life in its fulness. I have received Thy Son with faith; faith tells me that at this moment I am with Him, and since I share in His life, behold me in Him, through Him, with Him as the son in whom Thou art well-pleased”. What graces, what light, what strength does not such a prayer bring to the child of God! What superabundance of Divine life, what closeness of union, what depth of adoption does not such a faith communicate to us! We here touch the culminating point, on earth, of this Divine adoption.14

As to the formulae to help us in the immediate preparation for this union with Jesus, one cannot fix on any exclusively, the needs of souls as well as their aptitudes being so varied.

Some are accustomed to follow the prayers and movements of the priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice, and they approach the Holy Table during Mass, at the moment of the Communion. When possible, this is the best immediate preparation for receiving Christ. Why should not the faithful use the same prayers that our holy Mother the Church puts on the lips of the priest to prepare him to receive Our Lord? In thus preparing ourselves, we are united more directly to the Sacrifice of Christ and to the intentions of His Sacred Heart. Moreover, the Missal contains, as in the Gloria in excelsis, for example, admirable expressions of faith, confidence, and love. Others read the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, where the Apostle relates the Eucharistic promises, and they intermingle aspirations of faith, hope, and charity with the Sacred Text. We can also nourish our devotion with Book IV. of the Imitation of Christ, which deals especially with the Mystery of the Altar, or again, we can use the formulae contained in approved works of piety.

Each can follow, in this, the bent of his preferences, as long as the mind and heart are associated with the words pronounced by the lips, and provided that the soul enlarges its capacity of union by an intense faith, deep reverence, absolute confidence, ardent desire and love, and above all, generous abandonment to the Will of Jesus Christ. Then all is well: there is nothing further to do than to receive the Divine gift...

PANIS VITAE. 301 Wil

I would leave the same latitude for the thanksgiving. Some, in silence, adore the Divine Word within them. The Humanity we receive is the Humanity of the Eternal Word. By It, we enter into communion with the Word, Who from the Bosom of the Father, Jn sinu Patris, has descended into us. The Word, by essence, belongs wholly to His Father; He holds all from Him, without on that account, being less than His Father. But He refers all to His Father: Ego vivo propter Patrem, His essence is to live by His Father. When we are thus united to Jesus and give ourselves up to Him, He bears us up by the faith we have in Him even to the Holy of Holies, Usque ad interiora velaminis. There, we may unite ourselves to those acts of intense adoration that the Sacred Humanity of Christ renders to the Blessed Trinity. We are so united to Christ at this moment that we can appropriate to ourselves the acts of the Sacred Humanity and render an extremely acceptable homage to the Eternal through the Holy Spirit. Christ Himself becomes our thanksgiving, our Eucharist; let us never forget that He supplies for all our weakness, for all our infirmities, all our miseries. What unlimited confidence ought not the soul to derive from Christ’s Presence within her !

Again, we can lend our lips to sing the canticle of all creation which takes its life in the Word, so that all the things which were made by the Word — Omnia per ipsum facta sunt; et sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est ? — may sing, in Him and by Him, to the glory of God. This is what the priest does on coming down from the altar. The Church, the Bride of Christ, who knows better than anyone the secrets of her Divine Bridegroom, makes the priest sing in the sanctuary of his soul where the Word dwells, the inward canticle of thanksgiving. The soul leads all creation to the feet of its God and its Lord, that He may recieve homage from every creature: Benedicite omma opera Domini Domino*. All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt Him above all for ever. O ye Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord, O ye heavens, bless Him... Sun and moon, stars of heaven, bless the Lord... Showers and dew, winds and tempests, fire and flames, cold and heat, dews and rime, frost and cold, ice and snow, bless the Lord. Nights and days, light and darkness, lightnings and clouds, bless Him...” The priest invites the earth, the mountains and hills, the plants, the seas and rivers, the fish, the birds, wild beasts and cattle, and again, men, priests, the holy and humble of heart, to render glory to the Holy Trinity, to Whom all honour is given through the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. What a wonderful song is that of all creation sung thus by the priest at the moment when he is united to the Eternal High-Priest, the one Mediator, the Divine Word by Whom all was created!15

Others, sitting, like Magdalen, at the feet of Jesus, speak to Him familiarly, listening to what He says in the depth of the soul, ready to give Him all He asks; for, at these moments when the Divine Light is in us, Jesus often shows the generous soul what He requires of it. ” A sovereignly precious time”, says St. Teresa, ”is that hour following Communion: the Divine Master is then pleased to instruct us; let us listen to Him, and in gratitude for what He vouchsafes to teach us, let us kiss His feet, and beg Him not to leave us?”.

We can also read slowly, as if listening to the words of Christ, the magnificent discourse after the Last Supper, when Jesus had just instituted this Sacrament: ” Believe you not that J am in the Father, and the Father in Me?.. he that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him... As the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love... These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be filled... I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you... the Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God... These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace; in the world you shall have distress, but have confidence, I have overcome the world ?”.

Or again, we can converse interiorly with Our Lord, as if we were at the foot of the Cross; or pray vocally by reciting the psalms which refer to the Eucharist: ” The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing; He hath set me in a place of pasture: He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment: He hath converted my soul... though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me?”.16

All these attitudes of the soul are excellent. The inspirations of the Holy Spirit are of endless variety. The one thing necessary is that we should recognise the greatness of the Divine Gift which St. Paul declares to be ” unspeakable”, and that we should draw, for our own needs and those of our brethren and of the whole Church, from this infinite treasury. For ” the Father loveth the Son, and He hath given all things into His Hand”: Pater diligit Filium, et omnia dedit in manu ejus?. Christ gives all in giving Himself; we too ought to give all, while repeating from the depths of our hearts, the words He Himself said: Quae placita sunt ei facio semper. "1 do always the things that please Him *”, or again those words of Jesus to His Father at the Last Supper, words which are the very expression of perfect union: ” All My things are Thine, and Thine are Mine” Et omnia mea tua sunt, et tua mea sunt *.

This is, I repeat, the fruit properly belonging to the Eucharist : the identification of ourselves, through faith and love with Christ. If, as St. Augustine admirably says, you receive well the Body of Christ, you are what you receive °.

Doubtless, the act itself of Communion is transitory, but the effect it produces, union with Christ the life of the soul, is, of its nature, permanent; it lasts as long and in the same measure as we wish. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of life only because it is the Sacrament of union; we must abide in Jesus and Jesus in us. Do not let us, then, in the course of the day, diminish by our levity, our dissipation, our curiosity, vanity and selfseeking, the fruit of the Eucharistic reception and union. It is a Living Bread, a Bread of life, a Bread which makes us live, that we have received. The works

  1. Ps. xxl, 1-4. — 2. Joan. m, 35. — 3. Ibid. vat, 29. — 4. Ibid. Xvu, 10. — 5. The virtue proper to this food is to produce unity, to unite us so closely to the Body of Jesus Christ that,having become His members, we may be that. which we receive: « Virtus ipsa quae ibi intelligitur unitas est, ut redacti in Corpus ejus, effecti membra ejus simus quod accipimus. Sermo, LVI. Cc. 7. »

we ought to accomplish are the works of life, the works of a child of God, after having been nourished every day with this Divine Bread in order to be transformed into Christ. For ” he that saith he walketh in Christ, ought himself so to walk even as Christ walked ?”.

Do not let us, from want of generosity, and so as to excuse our sloth, say that we are weak. This is true, more true even than we think. But by the side of this abyss, (it is one), of our weakness, which is, however, compatible with our good will — and Our Lord knows this good will better than we do — there is another abyss, that of the merits and treasures of Christ ; and, by Communion, this Christ is ours.

  1. I Joan. 1, 6. This is what the Church makes us ask at the Mass of the znd. Sunday after Pentecost: « May the offering to be dedicated to Thy Name purify us, O Lord, and carry us on from day to day, to the practice of a heavenly life.

Footnotes

    1. Cf. Luc. xx, 17 and 20. — 2. Catechism of the Council of Trent. Cf. xx, § 1, — 3. Joan. vr, 57.
    ↩

  2. cap. 2. — 2. Joan. v, 26. — 3. Ibid. x, 10. — 4. Ibid. v1, 35, 48, 51- =i 5 ee OATINEV TS 4 ↩

    1. Joan. vI, 55. — 2. Ibid. xIv, 10. — 3. Ibid. 1,18. — 4. Ibid. v1, 35.
    ↩
    1. Joan. vi, 47. — 2. Ibid. xv, 10. — 3. I Cor. vi, 17. — 4. Joan. XV, 5.
    ↩
    1. Usque modo operor. Joan. v, 17. — 2. I Cor. 1, 30. — 3. Gal. 11,20. — 4. Sermo 63 de Passione 12, c. 7. — 5. Confess. L. vil, c. 4.
    ↩
    1. In IV Sentent. Dist. 12, q. 2, a. 1. — 2. Luc. x1, 49. — 3. Philipp. N, 5. — 4. Joan. rv, 16.
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    1. Sit nobis Domine REPARATIO mentis ET CORPORIS caeleste mysterium. ‘Postcommunion of 8th. Sunday after Pentecost. Purifica, quaesumus, Domine, mentes nostras et renova caelestibus sacramentis : ut consequenter et CORPORUM PRAESENS pariter et futurum capiamus AUXILIUM. Postcommunion of 16th. Sunday after Pentecost. — 2. Joan. Iv, 13. — 3. Rom. vii, 32.
    ↩
    1. Luc. vu, 36-39 ; 44-50. — 2. Ch. xx, § 2.
    ↩
    1. Ps. ctl, 14. — 2. Isa. Li, 4. — 3. (Sacramentum hoc voluit esse) symbolum unius illius corporis, cujus ipse caput existit, cuique nos, tamquam memobra, arctissima fidei, spei et caritatis connexione adstrictos esse voluit, ut idipsum omnes diceremus nec essent in nobis schismata. Sess, xm, cap. 4. — 4. I Cor. x, 17. — 5. Matth. v, 23-24.
    ↩
    1. Hamon, Vie de St. Francois de Sales, t. I, L. II, ch. 1.
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    1. Ps. xiv, s. — 2. Words contained in the formula of the Consecration of the Precious Blood.
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    1. Luc. xxi, 44 and 51. — 2. Hymn Adoro te. — 3. Joan. vi, 30-70.
    ↩
    1. Hymn Pange lingua
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    1. Antiphon of Vespers of Corpus Christi.
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    1. Hebr. vi, 19. — 2. Joan. 1, 3. — 3. Dan. in, 57.
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    1. Way of Perfection, ch xxxiv. — 2. Joan. x1v and xv.
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Chapter 16 of 21