16/06/2022
𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘁. 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘀 𝗔𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
The immense blessings bestowed by the divine mercy upon the Christian people give it an inestimable dignity. There is not, nor ever was, a nation so great that has gods so near as our God is present to us. For the only-begotten Son of God, wishing to make us partakers of his divinity, took upon himself our nature, that becoming man he might make men gods. And this body that he took from us he gave wholly for our salvation. For he offered his own body to God the Father upon the altar of the cross as a victim for our reconciliation, and he shed his own blood both to redeem and cleanse us, that we, being bought back from a wretched slavery, might be washed from all our sins. And then, that the memory of such a great benefit might abide in us, he left his body to be our food and his blood to be our drink, and that the faithful might receive them under the species of bread and wine.
O precious and wonderful banquet, heath giving and full of all sweetness! What could be more precious than this banquet, in which no longer as under the law the flesh of the calves and goats is eaten, but Christ the true God is set before us that we may receive him? What could be more wonderful than this sacrament, in which bread and wine are substantially changed into the body and blood of Christ? And, therefore, Christ, perfect God and man, is contained under the appearance of a little bread and wine. He is eaten by the faithful, but not torn asunder; indeed, when the sacrament is divided, he remains entire in each particle. The accidents subsist without a subject, that there may be room for faith, when we receive visibly that which is invisible and hidden under the appearance not its own. Thus, the senses are kept free from deception, for they judge of accidents known to them.
Of all the sacraments none is more health giving, for by it sins are washed away, virtues are increased, and the soul is fed with an abundance of all spiritual gifts. If is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, that all may profit by that which was instituted for the salvation of all. Finally, no words suffice to describe the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delights are tasted at their very source, and the exceeding charity of Christ in his Passion is called to mind. It was in order to impress more deeply upon the minds of the faithful the boundless extent of his charity that, when he had kept the Pasch with his disciples and was about to depart out of this world to his Father, Christ instituted this sacrament as a perpetual memorial of his Passion, the fulfillment of the ancient figures, the greatest of all his miracles. To those who grieved at his absence it was to be a special consolation.
