bestowed upon us by our Lord, creation, redemption, predestination to glory; so that the Eucharist is not only a pledge of the love of Jesus Christ, but of paradise, which he desires also to give us. "In which, "says the Church, "a pledge of future glory is given us."[1] Hence St. Philip Neri could find no other name for Jesus Christ in the Sacrament save that of "love;" and so, when the holy Viaticum was brought to him, he was heard to exclaim, "Behold my love; give me my love."
The prophet Isaias[2] desired that the whole world should know the tender inventions that our God has made use of, wherewith to make men love him. And who could ever have thought if he himself had not done it that the Incarnate Word would hide himself under the appearances of bread, in order to become him self our food? "Does it not seem folly," says St. Augustine, "to say, Eat my flesh; drink my blood?"[3] When Jesus Christ revealed to his disciples the sacrament he desired to leave them, they could not bring themselves to believe him; and they left him, saying: How can this Man give us His flesh to eat? … This saying is hard, and who can hear it?[4] But that which men could neither conceive nor believe, the great love of Jesus Christ hath thought of and accomplished. Take ye, and eat, said he to his disciples before he went to die; and through them to us all. Receive and eat: but what food shall that be, O Saviour of the world, which Thou desirest to give us before Thou diest? Take ye, and eat; this is my body.[5]
- ↑ "In quo … futuræ gloriæ nobis pignus datur."
- ↑ Isa. xii. 4.
- ↑ "Nonne videtur insania: Manducate meam carnem, bibite meum sanguinem?"—In Ps. xxxiii. en. 1.
- ↑ "Quomodo potest hic nobis carnem suam dare ad manducandum?—Durus est hic sermo; et quis potest eum audire?"—John, vi. 53, 61.
- ↑ "Accipite et manducate; hoc est corpus meum."
