this is My Body," (S. Matt. xxvi. 26.) So that we may come to Him to receive Him, He allures us with the promise of eternal life: " Whoso eateth My Flesh .... hath eternal life." (S. John vi. 54.) " He that eateth of this Bread shall live for ever." (Ib. 58.) And if we do not thus, He threatens us with exclusion from heaven: " Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man .... ye have no life in you." (Ib. 53.) These invitations, promises, and threats, all come from the desire which our Blessed Lord has of uniting Himself with us in this Sacrament, and His desire flows from the great love which He bears us. As S. Francis of Sales observes, The end of this love is no other, than that it may unite itself to the beloved object; and so in this Sacrament, our Blessed Lord wholly unites Himself with the mind: " He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in Him. (S. John vi. 56.) Hence it is, that He so greatly desires that we should receive Him. A bee could not be found that, with so great impetus of love, darts upon the flowers to extract the honey, as our Blessed Lord comes to the souls who desire Him.
Oh, that the faithful would understand the great good, that Holy Communion brings to the soul. Jesus is the Lord of all riches, since the Father has made Him Lord of all things. " The Father had given all things into His hands." (S. John xiii. 3.) Hence, when Jesus Christ comes into a soul in the Holy Communion, He carries with Him the infinite treasures of grace; as Solomon says, speaking of eternal Wisdom, "All good things together came to me together with her, and innumerable riches in her hands." (Wisd. vii. II.)
S. Dionysius says, that " the Eucharist has the highest power of perfecting holiness." S. Vincent Ferrer recorded, that the soul profits more by one communion than by a week of fasting on bread and water. The holy Fathers have declared the Sacrament to be " the antidote by which we are freed from daily sins, and preserved from those which are deadly." Hence, S. Ignatius calls it "the medicine of immortality." Innocent III. said, that our Blessed Lord, " through the mystery of the cross, liberated us from the power of sin; through the sacrament of the Eucharist, He liberates us from the power of sinning."
