communicates strengthened in a wonderful manner to vanquish temptations! The Holy Eucharist is called bread, the heavenly bread, that we may understand how the Communion preserves the life of the soul, which is Divine grace, just as earthly bread preserves the life of the body. For the same reason the Council of Trent calls Holy Communion a remedy which relieves us from venial and preserves us from mortal sins: "An antidote by which we are freed from daily faults, and are preserved from mortal sins." St. Thomas, speaking of the Holy Eucharist, says that the wound left by sin would remain incurable, were it not for this remedy which is given to us. "It would be incurable, were it not the medicine of God applied to cure us." Moreover, Innocent III says that the Passion of Jesus Christ delivers s from the chains of sin, and the Holy Communion defers us from the will to sin: "The mystery of the Cross delivers us from the power of sin; the mystery of the Eucharist, from the will to sin."
The other grand means of overcoming temptations is prayer offered to God through the merits of Jesus Christ: Amen, Amen, I say to you (said our Redeemer), if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it you. [John 16:23]
Whatsoever, then, we ask of God in the name of Jesus Christ, that is, through His merits, we shall certainly obtain it. And this, we see, happens continually; all those who are tempted and have recourse to God, and invoke Him through Jesus Christ, invariably come off victorious;
