A great solemnity has this day risen upon our earth;
a feast both to God and to men: for it is the feast of Christ
the Mediator, who is present in the Sacred Host, that God
may be given to man, and man to God. Divine union –
such is the dignity to which man is permitted to aspire;
and to this aspiration God has responded, even here
below, by an invention which is all of heaven. It is today
that man celebrates this marvel of God’s goodness…
The Holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and
Sacrament, is the very center of the Christian religion;
and therefore our Lord would have a fourfold testimony
to be given, in the inspired writings, to its institution.
Besides the accounts given by Saints Mathew, Mark, and
Luke, we have also that of St. Paul…which he received
from the lips of Jesus Himself, who vouchsafed to appear
to him, after his conversion, and instruct him.
St. Paul lays particular stress on the power, given by
our Lord to His disciples, of renewing the act which He
Himself had just been doing. He tells us what the
evangelists had not explicitly mentioned, that as often as
a priest consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ, he
shows (he announces) the death of the Lord: by that
expression he tells us that the Sacrifice of the Cross, and
that of our altars, is one and the same…The sinner, who
has made his peace with God, will partake of this sacred
Body with deep compunction, reproaching himself for
having shed its Blood by his sins: the just man will
approach the holy Table with humility, remembering how
he, also, has had but too great a share in causing the
innocent Lamb to suffer; and that, if he be at present in
the state of grace, he owes it to the Blood of the Victim
whose Flesh is about to be given to him for his
nourishment. Liturgical Year X, Book I, from pages 185 & 256