Volume II, Treatise VIII, Chapter I

Of the Exceeding Great Love God Has Shewn Us, in Tnstituting the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and of the Inestimable Benefits: Contained Therein

Amoncst the wonders God has wrought, there are two more extraordinary and more beyond the reach of human imagination than all the rest. The prophet Isaias finds them so surprising, that he calls them the inventions of God—‘ Make known to the people,” says he, “his inventions.” (Isaias 12:4) And in effect, it seems that both in the one and in the other, God has particularly studied to find out, in what he might most communicate and manifest himself to us. The first of these wonders, is that of the incarnation, in which the Word of the Father unites itself to our nature, by an union so intimate, that God and man become one and the same person— and by such an union that the secret thereof is incomprehensible to human reason, and is known only to God; an union, so firm and. indissoluble that, as St..Denis says, “what it has once joined, has never been, nor can ever-be separated.” Love, says the same saint, is an unitive virtue, that transforms the lover into the beloved object, and of the two, makes but one. Now what no love in the world ever did, the love of God has done for man. It never happened in the world, that of the lover, and of the object beloved, love effectually made but one and the same thing. This was a wonder which seemed reserved for heaven, where the Father and the Son are indeed truly but one. However, the love of God for man was so great, that God united himself to him in such a manner, that God and man are but one and the same person—that man is truly God, and God truly man—that all that is truly proper to God, may be truly and properly said of man; and on the contrary, all that is truly proper to man, may be truly and properly said of God himself. In a word, he whom men beheld speaking, walking, acting, and suffering, was truly God: he was truly clothed with human nature, he performed human actions, and he who performed them was God. ‘Who ever heard of any such thing as this? And who ever saw any thing like unto it?”—(Isa. Ixvi. 8.) A God to be wrapped in swaddling clothes! A God to weep! A God to become weary and feeble! A God to suffer! What, O Lord! did not the royal prophet say, ‘that thou hast made the highest heavens thy refuge, where no evil shall come to thee, and no scourge shall approach thy tabernacle?” (Psalms 90:9,10) And yet the whips, nails, and thorns have overtaken thee, and nailed thee to a cross. What is farther from God than this? “It is an admirable work that proceeded from him” (Isa. xxviii. 21), says the prophet Isaias; it is a work that exceeds the thoughts of man, and even those of the angels themselves, and keeps them in perpetual admiration.

The other wonder that God has wrought, and which is also an invention of his infinite love, is the institution of the blessed Sacrament of his body and of his blood. In the incarnation he has hid his divinity under the veil of flesh, that we may see him; and in the blessed Sacrament, he has hid both his divinity and humanity, under the accidents of bread and wine, that we may eat him. In the former, God bas received man into his bosom and bowels, by uniting human nature to the Divine Word; and in the latter, he wishes that you yourself receive him into your heart and bowels. Man is united to God by the first; God and man unite themselves to you by the second: in the first the communication and union is made “with one individual nature, which is the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, personally united to the Divine Word; but in the second, an union is made with all those who receive his body and his blood. He becomes the same thing with them, not truly by an hypostatical and personal union, but at least, after that, by the most intimate and strict one that is possible: “‘ He who eats my flesh, and drinks my: blood, remains in me and I in him.”—-(John 6:57) | What can be more admirable than this? ‘‘The Lord, who is good and merciful, has made an abridgement of all his wonders, he has given nourishment to those that fear him.” In ‘effect this is not only, “the greatest of all his miracles,” as St. Thomas says, “but it is an abridgment of all the wonders he has ever wrought.”

We read in the holy Scriptures, that king Assuerus, “to manifest the riches and glory of his kingdom,” made a solemn feast which lasted a hundred and fourscore days. Jesus Christ, the King of kings, vouchsafed also in a feast worthy of his greatness, to manifest the riches of his treasures, and the majesty of his glory; and for this effect, he gives himself to us; which is a wonder no less surprising than that of the incarnation. The manna which fell in the desert, and was only a shadow of this divine manna, heretofore so filled the children of Israel with admiration, that they cried out:—‘ What is this?” And did they not afterwards shew the like astonishment when they said, “how isit possible that he can give us his flesh to eat?’ (John 6:9) Moreover this heavenly feast, is not bounded within the term of a hundred and fourscore days, as that of king Assuerus was; it has lasted already more than seventeen hundred years, and we have eaten it every day, and it will continue to the end of the world. ‘Come,’ cries out the royal prophet, “and behold the works of God—the prodigious things he has wrought upon earth.”—(Psal. xlv. 9.) O - how admirable is the wisdom and depth of his counsels!—And how wonderful are the means he makes use of for the salvation of men! But it being of the miracle of the body and blood of Jesus Christ that I am now to speak, I beseech God to give me his grace that I may acquit myself as I ought, and to supply by his help, the weakness of my understanding.

The blessed disciple speaking of the institution of this adorable sacrament, says, Jesus Christ ‘ having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end.” (John 13:1) He says, “that Jesus Christ loved them to the end,” not only to express that he always loved them, but to give us to understand that in the end he still gave greater marks of his love. In effect it was then that he more abundantly poured forth his graces upon them, and left them most precious pledges of his love; because in instituting the adorable sacrament, he left himself in all his majesty unto men. He could not do anything that could shew us more clearly the excess of his love for us: for it is the property of love to desire always to enjoy the presence of the object beloved, and not to be able to suffer the absence thereof. Wherefore as he ~ tenderly loved men, and as he was to return to his Father, he found

out a means of so leaving the world, as not to leave it entirely, and of going from it in such manner, that he ceased not to remain in it. He descended upon earth without quitting heaven; he ascends to heaven without quitting earth; he quitted the bosom of his Father, yet ceased not always to remain therein. He remains likewise -always with his children, though he has left them. “I came from my Father” says he “and am come into the world: I quit the world and return tomy Father.” (John 16:28) It is another property of love, to desire to live in the memory of the person that is loved; and it is for this reason, that those who love, when obliged to a separation, make ordinarily some mutual present, that they may think, one of the other, during their absence. Now, that we might think of him, Jesus Christ has given himself to us in the blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, and would not leave us a less pledge than himself, to oblige us to ¢think of him. Hence he had no sooner instituted the blessed sacrament, than he says, “do this in remembrance of me;” (Luke 22:19), as if he had said, every time you celebrate this mystery, remember the love which I have. had for you, remember what I have done and suffered for you. “There is no other nation so powerful,” said Moses to the children of Israel, “that have their gods so near them, as our God is present unto our petitions.” (Deuteronomy 4:7) And did not Solomon when he had built the temple, testify aloud how astonished he was, that God would establish his abode therein? ‘Is it possible,” says he, “that God should remain with men upon earth? For if the heavens themselves are not sufficient to receive him, how can this house which I have built be sufficient?’ (3 Kings 8:27) With how far greater reason may we say the same thing, because it is not the shadow or figure of God, but it is God himself that makes his abode with us? “Behold,” says he, “that I am with you unto the end of the world.”—(Mat. xxviii. 20.) What sweetness, what advantage this is for us, that our Redeemer and our God will vouchsafe to take up his habitation with us to sweeten the tediousness of our pilgrimage? If the company of a friend be 0 great a comfort in our afflictions, what comfort ought not that of God be unto us? What consolation ought it not impart to us, to see him enter our house, to see him pass along the streets, and permit himself to be carried from one place to another, and that he has a fixed abode in our churches, where we may at all times visit him; entertain ourselves with him, discover our miseries, afflictions, and temptations, beg his help, and expect it from his all-powerful hand, with.all confidence, since he vouchsafes to approach so near to us, in order to be ready to, give us assistance in all our necessities? ‘I will establish my abode in the midst of you; I will walk amongst you, and I will be your God.” (Leviticus 26:11,12) What heart would not be touched and inflamed with love, to behold the Divine Majesty treat thus familiarly with men?

But the Goodness of God does not rest here; he is not content with coming only into our houses, and remaining in our churches; but he will also have us possess him, within ourselves; he will remain within our breast; he will make that his temple and tabernacle. OQ ineffable love! O unheard of liberality! That I should receive into my breast and heart, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, the same Saviour whom the blessed Virgin carried nine months in her sacred womb! And if St. Elizabeth on seeing your holy mother, who bore you in her sacred womb, entering into her house, cried out in astonishment, and filled with the Holy Ghost, “whence comes this grace and favour unto me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me.” (Luke 1:43) What shall I say, O my God, on seeing you enter not only into my house, but into myself? With how far greater reason may I say, whence comes this grace unto me, who have been for so long a time the devil’s habitation; to me who have so often offended you, and been so ungrateful and unfaithful for so many benefits? Whence proceeds this grace and favour, but from the excess of thy mercy, and because thou art ‘goodness itself, ‘to make it thy delight to be with the sons of men:” (Proverbs 8:31), and because your love of them is infinite.

But if so great a favour as this were granted only to those who have a pure and innocent soul, it were, say the holy doctors, an inestimable benefit for mankind. Yet the Lord is so good that he refuses not to communicate himself even to the wicked as well as to the good, to his enemies, as well as his servants; and even vouchsafed for love of us, to be delivered again into the hands of executioners, and is pleased for the comfort of his servants, even to enter into the mouths of impure sinners. Nay, that he may the better communicate himself to us daily, he is pleased to expose himself to be sold anew, and again to be crucified by them, according to St. Paul’s words, who says, “that they crucify in themselves the Son of God.” (Hebrews 6:6) Behold whether you have not sufficient subject to love and serve him? They holy church seems astonished that he had no repugnance to enter into the chaste womb of the Virgin, saying, “thou hadst no horror to enter into the womb of the Virgin.” Compare the purity of this Virgin without spot, with those impurities with which the heart of man is filled, and you will see there is far greater reason to be astonished that he has not a horror to enter into the impure breast of a sinner.

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