Affections and Prayers.
O my Jesus, and what has ever led Thee to give Thy whole Self for our food? And what remains, after Thou hast given us this gift, to compel us to love Thee? Oh! Lord, give us light, and make us to feel how excessive is the love which caused Thee to reduce Thyself to food, to unite Thyself with us poor sinners. But if Thou givest Thyself wholly to us, it is a reason that we also should give ourselves wholly to Thee. O my Redeemer, how have I been able to offend Thee, Who hast so loved me, and Who hast had nothing more that Thou couldst do to gain my love? Thou hadst become Man for me; Thou didst die for me; Thou hast made Thyself my food; tell me what more it remains for Thee to do? I love Thee, O Infinite Goodness; I love Thee, O Infinite Love! Lord, come often into my soul: inflame me wholly with Thy holy love, and cause me to forget all else, so that I may neither think o nor love any other than Thee.
Second Point.
Let us consider, in the second place, the GREAT LOVE of Jesus Christ, which He has shown to us by such a gift. The Holy Sacrament is a gift which is given from love alone. It was needful for our salvation, according to the Divine decree, that the Redeemer should have died, and by the sacrifice of His life should have made satisfaction to Divine Justice for our sins; but what necessity was there, that after having died, He should leave Himself to us as food? But thus love willed. " For no other reason," says S. Laurence Justinian, did our Lord institute the Eucharist, " than as a token of His exceeding love." And this is exactly what S. John wrote: " When Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own, .... He loved them unto the end." (S. John xiii. i.) Jesus, knowing that the hour had come for Hun to depart from this earth, wished to leave a most marked proof of His love, which was this gift of the Holy Sacrament, as is signified particularly in the words, " He loved
