into corruption. Such, my brethren, is the way to examine ourselves. The Lord had formerly forbidden the Jews to offer up honey and leaven in the sacrifices: see if, in approaching the altar, you bring not with you the leaven of your crimes, and the honey of voluptuousness: that is to say, both that relish for the world and for pleasure, and that effeminate and sensual character, enemy of the cross, and incompatible with salvation. Approach not, if you do not feel yourself sufficiently pure: this holy body, says the prophet, would not purge your iniquity, it would only increase it; your religion would be vain, your heart idolatrous, your sacrifice a sacrilege.
Examine, therefore, yourself, and afterward eat of the heavenly bread. But we are not to stop at the simply discerning and examining. Hitherto, you have only removed the obstacles; but you have not settled the last preparations: you have lopped off whatever might repel Jesus Christ from your soul; but you have not acquired what might attract him to it: you have arranged so as not to receive him unworthily; but you have not so as to receive him with fruit. It is not sufficient to be free from guilt; it is necessary to be clothed with righteousness and sanctity: it is little not to betray him like Judas; it is necessary to love him with the other disciples: it is little, in a word, to be no longer profane, worldly, voluptuous, effeminate, proud, and revengeful; it is necessary to be sedate, meek, humble, firm, chaste, believing, Christian. " As oft as ye do this, do it in remembrance of me:" this is the third disposition to communicate in remembrance of Jesus Christ.
Reflection III. — What is it to communicate in remembrance of Jesus Christ? It is, in the first place, internally to describe all that passed in the heart of Jesus Christ in instituting this adorable sacrament. " With desire," said he to his disciples, " I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer," He sighed for that blessed moment; he never lost sight of it; in the remembrance of it he was comforted for all the bitterness of his passion. What did he thereby mean to teach us? Ah! that we ought to bring to this divine table a heart inflamed, penetrated, consumed; an eager, earnest, and impatient heart; a hunger and a thirst after Jesus Christ; an inclination roused by love: in a word, what I have termed a burning desire which impels us to love. This bread, said a father, requires a famished heart. Ah! Lord, says then the believing soul, with St. Augustine, who will give me that thou mayest enter into my heart to take possession of it; wholly to fill it; to reign there alone; to dwell there with me even to the consummation of ages; to be mine all; there to constitute my purest delights; to shed through it a thousand inward consolations; to satiate, to gladden it, to make me forget my miseries, mine anxieties, my vain pleasures, all mankind, the whole universe, and to leave me wholly to thee, to enjoy thy presence, thy conversation, and all the delights which thou preparest for those who love thee? Perhaps, Lord the tenement of my soul is not yet
