On the Feast of Corpus Christi

We have many inestimable treasures made available to us through Holy Church. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted the sacerdotal priesthood at the Last Supper so as to channel forth in the sacraments the graces He would win for us by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Most especially, obviously, men who are truly ordained to the priesthood have the great privilege of enfleshing Our Lord under the species of bread and wine in the Most Blessed Sacrament every time they offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Mere men are given the ability to speak ordinary words, which God Himself obeys to make Himself sacramentally present by the working of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, by the same humility which characterized His Incarnation in Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate womb Our Lord humbles Himself again and again to make Himself incarnate in the Eucharist in each and every unbloody re-presentation of His one sacrifice to the Father in Spirit and in Truth which is the Mass.

Our Lord is not only present sacramentally in the celebration of the Mass, in which we receive His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity to nourish our weak and wounded souls. The same Lord Who was the prisoner of the tabernacle of Our Lady’s Virginal and Immaculate Womb awaits our adoration as the prisoner of love in tabernacles in those Catholic churches and tabernacles chapels around the world. where He is truly present in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Second only to the Mass, there is no gift we have as Catholics that equals spending time with Our Beloved in His Real Presence. He is there beckoning us to adore Him, to make reparation for our sins, to pray for our own needs as well as for those of the whole world, and to offer Him profound thanksgiving for all of the supernatural and temporal helps He gives us each day. He gives us a fundamental foretaste of Heaven itself, where we will gave upon the glory of the Beatific Vision face-to-face if we persist in a state of Sanctifying Grace until the point of our dying breaths, by permitting us to contemplate Him as He is veiled under the appearance of the elements of this passing earth.

We are not alone when we spend time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Even when no other human being is with us in a particular church or chapel as we pray to Our King of Kings and Lord of lords we are never alone there. Every soul in the Church Triumphant is there with us, starting with the Queen of All Saints, our dear Blessed Mother. Every angel is there with us. Yes, spending time with Our Lord in His Real Presence is more than a figurative foretaste of Heaven. All of the souls in Heaven and possibly even those in Purgatory are there with us as we pray, interceding for us that we will be faithful in our daily adoration of the God-Man Who awaits our acts of sacrifice to spend time with Him here as preparation for spending all eternity with Him in Heaven.

As countless spiritual writers have noted, there are infused graces which those who spend time before the Blessed Sacrament receive. Just as the physical Sun warms the planet and radiates through the darkest of clouds, so is it the case that the eternal Son of God made Man means to warm each one of us and to radiate His bright, burning love directly into our souls. In order to be like unto Our Lord to all men we see and meet–and in order to see His image in other men–it is necessary to be with Him on a regular basis on our knees before the tabernacle or before His Real Presence solemnly exposed in a monstrance.

It is thus very inspiring to see that even in the midst of the liturgical and theological revolutions that have devastated the Faith in the past four decades countless numbers of Catholics still have the sensus Catholicus to spend at least a few moments before the Blessed Sacrament every day. Imagine how many more people would be with Our Beloved if the revolutionaries had not disparaged belief in and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, indeed, if they had not taken Our Lord away from the churches in conciliar captivity by means of an invalid Mass and invalid rites of episcopal consecration and priestly ordination.

Obviously, not everyone is able to adore Our Lord on a daily basis, especially as there are so few chapels where Our Lord is truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. It is frequently difficult for parents with young children to do so. That is why those who are single–or those married people whose children have grown up and moved out–must make profitable use of their time by arranging their schedules to spend at least a half hour every day, apart from Holy Mass itself, before our Eucharistic King. This is one of the ways in which the Mystical Body of Christ is built up: each supporting ligament, to paraphrase Saint Paul, builds up the other. Those who have the time to adore Our Lord are able to compensate for those who have less time and more responsibilities, remembering to pray by name for those who are impeded for one reason or another from being physically present before the tabernacle where Love Incarnate resides for our worship and for our spiritual strengthening.

The practice of regular Eucharistic adoration results in a building up of the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity that were flooded into our souls at the moment of our Baptism. The more we develop the discipline that it takes to make good use of our time to habitually adore Our Lord in His Real Presence will be the more we are able to see the world a bit more clearly through the supernatural eyes of the true Faith. Indeed, the practice of regular Eucharistic adoration results in the enlightening of the intellect and the strengthening of the will, making us more willing and better able to bear the crosses we encounter in the course of daily living, to say nothing of the larger crosses that will come our way now and then. A soul that has been strengthened by the habit of Eucharistic adoration comes to understand that we who live in time and space are loved by the One Who lives outside of time and space, the One Who wants us to hope in the sufficiency of His ineffable grace to provide for all of spiritual and temporal needs (in addition to the needs of the Church in these troubling times).  

One of the foremost practitioners of Eucharistic adoration was the great saint of Assisi himself, Saint Francis, who wrote:

Everyday, Jesus humbles Himself just as He did when He came from His heavenly throne into the Virgin’s womb; everyday He comes to us and lets us see Him in abjection, when He descends from the bosom of the Father into the hands of the priest at the altar. He shows Himself to us in this sacred bread just as He once appeared to His apostles in real flesh. With their own eyes they saw only His flesh, but they believed that He was God, because they contemplated Him with the eyes of the spirit. We too, with our own eyes, see only bread and wine; but we see further and firmly believe that this is His most holy Body and Blood, living and true.

The saint to whom was given many of the secrets of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, had this to say on the subject of Eucharistic adoration:   

Love keeps Him there [in His Real Presence] as a victim completely and perpetually delivered over to sacrifice for the glory of the Father and for our salvation. Unite yourself with Him, then, in all that you do. Refer everything to His glory. Set up your abode in this loving Heart of Jesus and you will there find lasting peace and the strength both to bring to fruition all the good desires He inspires in you, and to avoid every deliberate fault. Place in this Heart all your sufferings and difficulties. Everything that comes from the Sacred Heart is sweet. He changes everything into love.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, so devoted to Our Lord and His Most Blessed Mother, wrote:       

To every soul that visits the Blessed Sacrament, Christ in the words of the spouse in the Song of Songs says: Rise. Hurry, my friend! Come, my beautiful one. Rise above your troubles. I am here to enrich you with grace. Hurry to my side. Do not fear my majesty; it is hidden in this bread to overcome your fear and to give you confidence. My friend, you are no longer my enemy, for you love me and I love you. My beautiful one, God’s grace fills you with splendour. Come, throw yourself into my arms; tell me your every wish without fear.

The Cure of Ars, Saint John Marie Vianney, put it this way in a sermon: 

To every soul that visits the Blessed Sacrament, Christ in the words of the spouse in the Song of Songs says: Rise. Hurry, my friend! Come, my beautiful one. Rise above your troubles. I am here to enrich you with grace. Hurry to my side. Do not fear my majesty; it is hidden in this bread to overcome your fear and to give you confidence. My friend, you are no longer my enemy, for you love me and I love you. My beautiful one, God’s grace fills you with splendour. Come, throw yourself into my arms; tell me your every wish without fear.           

A soul that possesses the Holy Ghost tastes such sweetness in prayer, that it finds the time always too short; it never loses the holy presence of God. Such a heart, before our good Savior in the Most Holy Eucharist exposed upon the Altar, is like a bunch of grapes under the wine press. The Holy Ghost forms thoughts and suggests words in that person’s heart.

The founder of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, Blessed Peter Julian Eymard, who wrote the Litany of the Blessed Sacrament that is appended below (for private use only), never ceased in his efforts to promote solemn Eucharistic adoration as an antidote to the evils of society:

Today solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is the grace and need of our time. Society will be restored and renewed when all its members group themselves around our Emmanuel. . . .  Be the apostle of the divine Eucharist, like a flame which enlightens and warms, like the Angel of his heart who will go to proclaim him to those who don’t know him and will encourage those who love him and are suffering.

The feast of Corpus Christi, today, Thursday, June 20, 2019, permits us an opportunity to reflect on our need for the Eucharist, both as our spiritual food and as the Object of our worship. We have the opportunity today to participate in the Corpus Christi processions, replete with Benediction at three different altars. (Such processions will take place in some chapels this Sunday.)

Although this feast originated in the Thirteenth Century, offered for the first time in Liege, Belgium, in the year 1247, spurred by the efforts of Saint Juliana of Liege, it did not receive papal approbation, issued by Pope Urban IV, until 1264. The Feast of Corpus Christi took root relatively rapidly in the hearts and souls of Catholics as it spread from Belgium elsewhere, with the solemn procession we will be participating in today or this evening (or Sunday) emerging in the Fourteenth Century.

Thus, we should celebrate this great feast of Corpus Christi today by marching in solemn procession with Our Eucharistic King, Who is meant to be the King of all of us individually and of our nations collectively. He beckons every day in His Real Presence to offer Him our poor acts of love. Standing with Him before every tabernacle in the world is the woman whose virginal and immaculate womb was the first tabernacle in which He resided in the flesh, Our Lady herself. May it be our goal in life to spend as much time in adoration before Our Lord’s Real Presence as our state-in-life permits. May we, indeed, seek to lose sleep rather than to ignore Eucharistic adoration. There’s an old Irish limerick that goes something like this: “Every time you pass by a Catholic church make sure to go in to visit. That way, when you die, God won’t say, ‘Who is it?’”

As Blessed Peter Julian Eymard understood, Eucharistic adoration is essential to both personal sanctity and to social order. Let me repeat myself so that I will not be misunderstood: Eucharistic adoration is essential to both personal sanctity and to social order.

Pope Leo XIII noted this with great emphasis in Mirae Caritatis, May 28, 1902:

To know with an entire faith what is the excellence of the Most Holy Eucharist is in truth to know what that work is which, in the might of His mercy, God, made man, carried out on behalf of the human race. For as a right faith teaches us to acknowledge and to worship Christ as the sovereign cause of our salvation, since He by His wisdom, His laws, His ordinances, His example, and by the shedding of His blood, made all things new; so the same faith likewise teaches us to acknowledge Him and to worship Him as really present in the Eucharist, as verily abiding through all time in the midst of men, in order that as their Master, their Good Shepherd, their most acceptable Advocate with the Father, He may impart to them of His own inexhaustible abundance the benefits of that redemption which He has accomplished. Now if any one will seriously consider the benefits which flow from the Eucharist he will understand that conspicuous and chief among them all is that in which the rest, without exception, are included; in a word it is for men the source of life, of that life which best deserves the name. “The bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (St. John vi., 52). In more than one way, as We have elsewhere declared, is Christ “the life.” He Himself declared that the reason of His advent among men was this, that He might bring them the assured fulness of a more than merely human life. “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (St. John x., 10). Everyone is aware that no sooner had “the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared” (Tit. iii., 4), than there at once burst forth a certain creative force which issued in a new order of things and pulsed through all the veins of society, civil and domestic. Hence arose new relations between man and man; new rights and new duties, public and private; henceforth a new direction was given to government, to education, to the arts; and most important of all, man’s thoughts and energies were turned towards religious truth and the pursuit of holiness. Thus was life communicated to man, a life truly heavenly and divine. And thus we are to account for those expressions which so often occur in Holy Writ, “the tree of life,” “the word of life,” “the book of life,” “the crown of life,” and particularly “the bread of life.”

But now, since this life of which We are speaking bears v a definite resemblance to the natural life of man, as the one draws its nourishment and strength from food, so also the other must have its own food whereby it may be sustained and augmented. And here it will be opportune to recall to mind on what occasion and in what manner Christ moved and prepared the hearts of men for the worthy and due reception of the living bread which He was about to give them. No sooner had the rum our spread of the miracle which He had wrought on the shores of the lake of Tiberias, when with the multiplied loaves He fed the multitude, than many forthwith flocked to Him in the hope that they, too, perchance, might be the recipients of like favour. And, just as He had taken occasion from the water which she had drawn from the well to stir up in the Samaritan woman a thirst for that “water which springeth up unto life everlasting” (St. John iv., 14), so now Jesus availed Himself of this opportunity to excite in the minds of the multitude a keen hunger for the bread “which endureth unto life everlasting” (St. John vi., 27). Or, as He was careful to explain to them, was the bread which He promised the same as that heavenly manna which had been given to their fathers during their wanderings in the desert, or again the same as that which, to their amazement, they had recently received from Him; but He was Himself that bread: “I,” said He, “am the bread of life” (St. John vi., 48). And He urges this still further upon them all both by invitation and by precept: “if any man shall eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (St. John vi., 52). And in these other words He brings home to them the gravity of the precept: “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless you shall eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you” (St. John vi., 54). Away then with the widespread but most mischievous error of those who give it as their opinion that the reception of the Eucharist is in a manner reserved for those narrow-minded persons (as they are deemed) who rid themselves of the cares of the world in order to find rest in some kind of professedly religious life. For this gift, than which nothing can be more excellent or more conducive to salvation, is offered to all those, whatever their office or dignity may be, who wish-as every one ought to wish-to foster in themselves that life of divine grace whose goal is the attainment of the life of blessedness with God.

Indeed it is greatly to be desired that those men would rightly esteem and would make due provision for life everlasting, whose industry or talents or rank have put it in their power to shape the course of human events. But alas! we see with sorrow that such men too often proudly flatter themselves that they have conferred upon this world as it were a fresh lease of life and prosperity, inasmuch as by their own energetic action they are urging it on to the race for wealth, to a struggle for the possession of commodities which minister to the love of comfort and display. And yet, whithersoever we turn, we see that human society, if it be estranged from God, instead of enjoying that peace in its possessions for which it had sought, is shaken and tossed like one who is in the agony and heat of fever; for while it anxiously strives for prosperity, and trusts to it alone, it is pursuing an object that ever escapes it, clinging to one that ever eludes the grasp. For as men and states alike necessarily have their being from God, so they can do nothing good except in God through Jesus Christ, through whom every best and choicest gift has ever proceeded and proceeds. But the source and chief of all these gifts is the venerable Eucharist, which not only nourishes and sustains that life the desire whereof demands our most strenuous efforts, but also enhances beyond measure that dignity of man of which in these days we hear so much. For what can be more honourable or a more worthy object of desire than to be made, as far as possible, sharers and partakers in the divine nature? Now this is precisely what Christ does for us in the Eucharist, wherein, after having raised man by the operation of His grace to a supernatural state, he yet more closely associates and unites him with Himself. For there is this difference between the food of the body and that of the soul, that whereas the former is changed into our substance, the latter changes us into its own; so that St. Augustine makes Christ Himself say: “You shall not change Me into yourself as you do the food of your body, but you shall be changed into Me” (confessions 1. vii., c. x.).

Moreover, in this most admirable Sacrament, which is the chief means whereby men are engrafted on the divine nature, men also find the most efficacious help towards progress in every kind of virtue. And first of all in faith. In all ages faith has been attacked; for although it elevates the human mind by bestowing on it the knowledge of the highest truths, yet because, while it makes known the existence of divine mysteries, it yet leaves in obscurity the mode of their being, it is therefore thought to degrade the intellect. But whereas in past times particular articles of faith have been made by turns the object of attack; the seat of war has since been enlarged and extended, until it has come to this, that men deny altogether that there is anything above and beyond nature. Now nothing can be better adapted to promote a renewal of the strength and fervour of faith in the human mind than the mystery of the Eucharist, the “mystery of faith,” as it has been most appropriately called. For in this one mystery the entire supernatural order, with all its wealth and variety of wonders, is in a manner summed up and contained: “He hath made a remembrance of His wonderful works, a merciful and gracious Lord; He hath given food to them that fear Him” (Psalm cx, 4-5). For whereas God has subordinated the whole supernatural order to the Incarnation of His Word, in virtue whereof salvation has been restored to the human race, according to those words of the Apostle; “He hath purposed…to re-establish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth, in Him” (Eph. i., 9-10), the Eucharist, according to the testimony of the holy Fathers, should be regarded as in a manner a continuation and extension of the Incarnation. For in and by it the substance of the incarnate Word is united with individual men, and the supreme Sacrifice offered on Calvary is in a wondrous manner renewed, as was signified beforehand by Malachy in the words: “In every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My name a pure oblation” (Mal. i., 11). And this miracle, itself the very greatest of its kind, is accompanied by innumerable other miracles; for here all the laws of nature are suspended; the whole substance of the bread and wine are changed into the Body and the Blood; the species of bread and wine are sustained by the divine power without the support of any underlying substance; the Body of Christ is present in many places at the same time, that is to say, wherever the Sacrament is consecrated. And in order that human reason may the more willingly pay its homage to this great mystery, there have not been wanting, as an aid to faith, certain prodigies wrought in His honour, both in ancient times and in our own, of which in more than one place there exist public and notable records and memorials. It is plain that by this Sacrament faith is fed, in it the mind finds its nourishment, the objections of rationalists are brought to naught, and abundant light is thrown on the supernatural order. (Pope Leo XIII, Mirae Caritatis, May 28, 1902.)

Pope Leo XIII was beckoning all men, including those of worldly influence, to make room in their hearts and in their lives for Eucharistic adoration. No naturalistic political ideology or philosophy (liberalism, socialism and all of its variants, including communism, nationalism, conservatism) and no political or social movement, especially those that are founded in non-denominationalism or inter-denominationalism, can ever help one little bit to ease social problems that have their remote origins in Original Sin and their proximate origins in the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King by the Protestants and the Freemasons and other assorted revolutionaries and innovations, both social and theological, from the Sixteenth Century forward. We need to prostrate ourselves before Our Lord in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament on a regular basis.

Pope Leo went on to explain in Mirae Caritatis that modern man trusts in his own schemes, not in Our Lord, thus producing all manner of disorder in his own life and that of nations:     

But that decay of faith in divine things of which We have spoken is the effect not only of pride, but also of moral corruption. For if it is true that a strict morality improves the quickness of man’s intellectual powers, and if on the other hand, as the maxims of pagan philosophy and the admonitions of divine wisdom combine to teach us, the keenness of the mind is blunted by bodily pleasures, how much more, in the region of revealed truths, do these same pleasures obscure the light of faith, or even, by the just judgment of God, entirely extinguish it. For these pleasures at the present day an insatiable appetite rages, infecting all classes as with an infectious disease, even from tender years. Yet even for so terrible an evil there is a remedy close at hand in the divine Eucharist. For in the first place it puts a check on lust by increasing charity, according to the words of St. Augustine, who says, speaking of charity, “As it grows, lust diminishes; when it reaches perfection, lust is no more” (De diversis quaestionibus, Ixxxiii., q. 36). Moreover the most chaste flesh of Jesus keeps down the rebellion of our flesh, as St. Cyril of Alexandria taught, “For Christ abiding in us lulls to sleep the law of the flesh which rages in our members” (Lib. iv., c. ii., in Joan., vi., 57). Then too the special and most pleasant fruit of the Eucharist is that which is signified in the words of the prophet: “What is the good thing of Him,” that is, of Christ, “and what is His beautiful thing, but the corn of the elect and the wine that engendereth virgins” (Zach. ix., 17), producing, in other words, that flower and fruitage of a strong and constant purpose of virginity which, even in an age enervated by luxury, is daily multiplied and spread abroad in the Catholic Church, with those advantages to religion and to human society, wherever it is found, which are plain to see.

To this it must be added that by this same Sacrament our hope of everlasting blessedness, based on our trust in the divine assistance, is wonderfully strengthened. For the edge of that longing for happiness which is so deeply rooted in the hearts of all men from their birth is whetted even more and more by the experience of the deceitfulness of earthly goods, by the unjust violence of wicked men, and by all those other afflictions to which mind and body are subject. Now the venerable Sacrament of the Eucharist is both the source and the pledge of blessedness and of glory, and this, not for the soul alone, but for the body also. For it enriches the soul with an abundance of heavenly blessings, and fills it with a sweet joy which far surpasses man’s hope and expectations; it sustains him in adversity, strengthens him in the spiritual combat, preserves him for life everlasting, and as a special provision for the journey accompanies him thither. And in the frail and perishable body that divine Host, which is the immortal Body of Christ, implants a principle of resurrection, a seed of immortality, which one day must germinate. That to this source man’s soul and body will be indebted for both these boons has been the constant teaching of the Church, which has dutifully reaffirmed the affirmation of Christ: “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (St. John vi., 55).

In connection with this matter it is of importance to consider that in the Eucharist, seeing that it was instituted by Christ as “a perpetual memorial of His Passion” (Opusc. Ivii. Offic. de festo Corporis Christi), is proclaimed to the Christian the necessity of a salutary selfchastisement. For Jesus said to those first priests of His: “Do this in memory of Me” (Luke xxii, 18); that is to say, do this for the commemoration of My pains, My sorrows, My grievous afflictions, My death upon the Cross. Wherefore this Sacrament is at the same time a Sacrifice, seasonable throughout the entire period of our penance; and it is likewise a standing exhortation to all manner of toil, and a solemn and severe rebuke to those carnal pleasures which some are not ashamed so highly to praise and extol: “As often as ye shall eat this bread, and drink this chalice, ye shall announce the death of the Lord, until He come” (1 Cor. xi., 26).

Furthermore, if anyone will diligently examine into the causes of the evils of our day, he will find that they arise from this, that as charity towards God has grown cold, the mutual charity of men among themselves has likewise cooled. Men have forgotten that they are children of God and brethren in Jesus Christ; they care for nothing except their own individual interests; the interests and the rights of others they not only make light of, but often attack and invade. Hence frequent disturbances and strifes between class and class: arrogance, oppression, fraud on the part of the more powerful: misery, envy, and turbulence among the poor. These are evils for which it is in vain to seek a remedy in legislation, in threats of penalties to be incurred, or in any other device of merely human prudence. Our chief care and endeavour ought to be, according to the admonitions which We have more than once given at considerable length, to secure the union of classes in a mutual interchange of dutiful services, a union which, having its origin in God, shall issue in deeds that reflect the true spirit of Jesus Christ and a genuine charity. This charity Christ brought into the world, with it He would have all hearts on fire. For it alone is capable of affording to soul and body alike, even in this life, a foretaste of blessedness; since it restrains man’s inordinate self-love, and puts a check on avarice, which “is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. vi., 10). And whereas it is right to uphold all the claims of justice as between the various classes of society, nevertheless it is only with the efficacious aid of charity, which tempers justice, that the “equality” which St. Paul commended (2 Cor. viii., 14), and which is so salutary for human society, can be established and maintained. This then is what Christ intended when he instituted this Venerable Sacrament, namely, by awakening charity towards God to promote mutual charity among men. For the latter, as is plain, is by its very nature rooted in the former, and springs from it by a kind of spontaneous growth. Nor is it possible that there should be any lack of charity among men, or rather it must needs be enkindled and flourish, if men would but ponder well the charity which Christ has shown in this Sacrament. For in it He has not only given a splendid manifestation of His power and wisdom, but “has in a manner poured out the riches of His divine love towards men” (Conc. Trid., Sess. XIII., De Euch. c. ii.). Having before our eyes this noble example set us by Christ, Who bestows on us all that He has assuredly we ought to love and help one another to the utmost, being daily more closely united by the strong bond of brotherhood. Add to this that the outward and visible elements of this Sacrament supply a singularly appropriate stimulus to union. On this topic St. Cyprian writes: “In a word the Lord’s sacrifice symbolises the oneness of heart, guaranteed by a persevering and inviolable charity, which should prevail among Christians. For when our Lord calls His Body bread, a substance which is kneaded together out of many grains, He indicates that we His people, whom He sustains, are bound together in close union; and when He speaks of His Blood as wine, in which the juice pressed from many clusters of grapes is mingled in one fluid, He likewise indicates that we His flock are by the commingling of a multitude of persons made one” (Ep. 96 ad Magnum n. 5 (al.6)). In like manner the angelic Doctor, adopting the sentiments of St. Augustine (Tract. xxxvi., in Joan nn. 13, 17), writes: “Our Lord has bequeathed to us His Body and Blood under the form of substances in which a multitude of things have been reduced to unity, for one of them, namely bread, consisting as it does of many grains is yet one, and the other, that is to say wine, has its unity of being from the confluent juice of many grapes; and therefore St. Augustine elsewhere says: ‘O Sacrament of mercy, O sign of unity, O bond of charity!’ ” (Summ. Theol. P. III., q. Ixxix., a. 1. . All of which is confirmed by the declaration of the Council of Trent that Christ left the Eucharist in His Church “as a symbol of that unity and charity whereby He would have all Christians mutually joined and united. . . a symbol of that one body of which He is Himself the head, and to which He would have us, as members attached by the closest bonds of faith, hope, and charity” (Conc. Trid., Sess. XIII., De Euchar., c. ii.). The same idea had been expressed by St. Paul when he wrote: “For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all we who partake of the one bread” (I Cor. x., 17). Very beautiful and joyful too is the spectacle of Christian brotherhood and social equality which is afforded when men of all conditions, gentle and simple, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, gather round the holy altar, all sharing alike in this heavenly banquet. And if in the records of the Church it is deservedly reckoned to the special credit of its first ages that “the multitude of the believers had but one heart and one soul” (Acts iv., 32), there can be no shadow of doubt that this immense blessing was due to their frequent meetings at the Divine table; for we find it recorded of them: “They were persevering in the doctrine of the Apostles and in the communion of the breaking of bread” (Acts ii., 42).

Besides all this, the grace of mutual charity among the living, which derives from the Sacrament of the Eucharist so great an increase of strength, is further extended by virtue of the Sacrifice to all those who are numbered in the Communion of Saints. For the Communion of Saints, as everyone knows, is nothing but the mutual communication of help, expiation, prayers, blessings, among all the faithful, who, whether they have already attained to the heavenly country, or are detained in the purgatorial fire, or are yet exiles here on earth, all enjoy the common franchise of that city whereof Christ is the head, and the constitution is charity. For faith teaches us, that although the venerable Sacrifice may be lawfully offered to God alone, yet it may be celebrated in honour of the saints reigning in heaven with God Who has crowned them, in order that we may gain for ourselves their patronage. And it may also be offered-in accordance with an apostolic tradition-for the purpose of expiating the sins of those of the brethren who, having died in the Lord, have not yet fully paid the penalty of their transgressions. . . .

Most abundant, assuredly, are the salutary benefits which are stored up in this most venerable mystery, regarded as a Sacrifice; a Sacrifice which the Church is accordingly wont to offer daily “for the salvation of the whole world.” And it is fitting, indeed in this age it is specially important, that by means of the united efforts of the devout, the outward honour and the inward reverence paid to this Sacrifice should be alike increased. Accordingly it is our wish that its manifold excellence may be both more widely known and more attentively considered. There are certain general principles the truth of which can be plainly perceived by the light of reason; for instance, that the dominion of God our Creator and Preserver over all men, whether in their private or in their public life, is supreme and absolute; that our whole being and all that we possess, whether individually or as members of society, comes from the divine bounty; that we on our part are bound to show to God, as our Lord, the highest reverence, and, as He is our greatest benefactor, the deepest gratitude. But how many are there who at the present day acknowledge and discharge these duties with full and exact observance? In no age has the spirit of contumacy and an attitude of defiance towards God been more prevalent than in our own; an age in which that unholy cry of the enemies of Christ: “We will not have this man to rule over us” (Luke xix., 14), makes itself more and more loudly heard, together with the utterance of that wicked purpose: “let us make away with Him” (Jer. xi., II); nor is there any motive by which many are hurried on with more passionate fury, than the desire utterly to banish God not only from the civil government, but from every form of human society. And although men do not everywhere proceed to this extremity of criminal madness, it is a lamentable thing that so many are sunk in oblivion of the divine Majesty and of His favours, and in particular of the salvation wrought for us by Christ. Now a remedy must be found for this wickedness on the one hand, and this sloth on the other, in a general increase among the faithful of fervent devotion towards the Eucharistic Sacrifice, than which nothing can give greater honour, nothing be more pleasing, to God. For it is a divine Victim which is here immolated; and accordingly through this Victim we offer to the most blessed Trinity all that honour which the infinite dignity of the Godhead demands; infinite in value and infinitely acceptable is the gift which we present to the Father in His only-begotten son; so that for His benefits to us we not only signify our gratitude, but actually make an adequate return.

Moreover there is another twofold fruit which we may and must derive from this great Sacrifice. The heart is saddened when it considers what a flood of wickedness, the result-as We have said-of forgetfulness and contempt of the divine Majesty, has inundated the world. It is not too much to say that a great part of the human race seems to be calling down upon itself the anger of heaven; though indeed the crop of evils which has grown up here on earth is already ripening to a just judgment. Here then is a motive whereby the faithful may be stirred to a devout and earnest endeavour to appease God the avenger of sin, and to win from Him the help which is so needful in these calamitous times. And they should see that such blessings are to be sought principally by means of this Sacrifice. For it is only in virtue of the death which Christ suffered that men can satisfy, and that most abundantly, the demands of God’s justice, and can obtain the plenteous gifts of His clemency. And Christ has willed that the whole virtue of His death, alike for expiation and impetration, should abide in the Eucharist, which is no mere empty commemoration thereof, but a true and wonderful though bloodless and mystical renewal of it. (Pope Leo XIII, Mirae Caritatis, May 28, 1902.)

You want to know what real “liberation theology” is? You want to know what real “empowerment” is? Spend time before the Blessed Sacrament on a regular basis. For it is the time we spend before Our Lord in His Real Presence which liberates us from human respect and permits us to see the world more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith. It is the time we spend before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament which empowers us to conquer pride and other vices in our own life, making it more possible to die to self so as to bear witness to Christ and His Holy Church no matter what it might cost us in this passing vale of tears. It is the time we spend before Our Beloved that equips us to love Him more deeply, to become more fully attached to Him and less attached to ourselves and the things, people, and places of this world (and to love the people around us more truly in light of willing their eternal salvation, including that of those who hate us and who calumniate us without mercy, as well as to use the things and places of this world more effectively for the salvation of souls, starting with our own).

Countless are the miracles wrought by the Holy Eucharist. Here is just one:

In May of the year 1787 the celebrated musician and pianist Hermann Cohen, a Jew born in Hamburg, was in Paris for a series of concerts. The prince of Moskowa a friend of the pianist, was at the same time conducting the choir’s May devotion in the church of St. Valere.

Hermann Cohen accepted an invitation from the prince to conduct the choir for one of the services, but he was distracted and irreverent during the sermon and often chatted with his neighbors. However, when the moment came for Benediction, his attitude was completely changed. He himself recounts:

Although I was not at all moved to bow the knee with the multitude, I felt within myself an inexplicable commotion. My soul, accustomed to the distraction of the world, seemed to find itself again, so to speak, and was at the same time conscious that something had passed within which was until now quite unknown. Without giving it a thought I bowed my knees. At the instant that the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament was given I felt for the first time an indescribable but agreeable movement within me. On the following Friday I went again, and the same interior movement occurred, only much stronger than before, and I felt as if a weight pressed upon my back, requiring me to bend the knee once more. Against my will I obeyed the impulse, when suddenly the thought rushed overpoweringly into my soul: Thou must become a Catholic!

A few days after this I happened to be one morning in the neighborhood of the same church of St. Valere. The bell rang for Holy Mass. I entered into the house of God, and remained an immovable spectator of the Most Holy Sacrifice. I heard one, two, three Holy Masses without thinking. I could not understand what kept me. Towards evening I was again led to the same church, against my wealth bell seemed to call me. I found that the Al-Holy was exposed, and as soon as I perceived it I was drawn irresistibly to the communion rail and fell upon my knees. I bowed myself this time without resistance at the moment of Benediction, and when I rose up I felt a strange sense of rest enter into my soul. I went back to my room and lay down upon my bed, but during the whole night my spirit, whether waking or sleeping, was ever busied with the Blessed Sacrament. I longed with impatience for the time when the Holy Mass should be said, and from thence-forward I heard daily many Masses at St. Valere with an interior joy which filled my whole being.

Until this time the pianist had looked upon Catholics and Catholic priests as people to be avoided, but now he felt an irresistible impulse to speak to a priest about his experiences. He was direction to Abbe Legrand, whose advice he meant to follow, but as Hermann admits, “. . .the devil was not yet overcome.” His concerts brought him large sums of money, which permitted him to revert to his indulgence of worldly amusements.

After giving a concert in Elms on August 8, 1947, he went, in spite of his friends, to a church and attended Holy Mass. During this service he received the grace of supernatural contrition Twenty days later he received the Sacrament of Baptism at the hands of Abbe Legrand. After receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation he never tired of saying, “I have found Him whom I love. He belongeth to me and I to Him. Never more will I let Him go.”

Shortly thereafter Hermann tarried one evening in the chapel of the Carmelite sisters where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. Impressed on learning that some of these holy women remained throughout the night in adoration before the Eucharist, he determined to organize a confraternity of men who would perform a similar devotion. The Men’s Association for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was soon founded and, on December 6 of 1848, the first nocturnal adoration was held. Since that time the confraternity is said to have spread throughout France.

Prompted by his love for the Blessed Sacrament, Hermann entered the Carmelite Order in 1849 and received the name of Augustine Mary of the Blessed Sacrament. Later he received the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Thus the famed musician who had journeyed throughout Europe, charming audiences with the perfection of his talents, now journeyed to preach the glories of the Blessed Sacrament and the joys of those who embrace it with love and adore it with fervor.

Having been invited to preach in England, he founded in Kensington the beautiful church of St. Simon Stock and served as the first prior of its monastery. (Joan Carroll Cruz, Eucharistic Miracles, TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 194-196.)

Imagine this. The founder of Nocturnal Adoration was a Jew who converted because of the Most Blessed Sacrament! How great and good is God!

Our Lady gave her Divine Son the very Flesh and Blood that He offered up to the Father on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us. It is her fervent desire that we keep her Son company in His Real Presence, just as she valiantly stood by the foot of the Cross as she watched in horror as she saw our sins exact their brutal toll on the Flesh of her Divine Son. We pray to her to help us to be so Christ-centered in our daily lives that we grow in the habit of spending at least a few moments (if not a half hour or an hour, depending upon the duties of our states-in-life) each day. And it will center all of our activity properly, helping us to believe more firmly and to act more courageously as we seek to restore all things in Christ as the fruit of the Triumph of Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. And there is no better place to pray at least one set of mysteries of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary than before her very own Divine Son’s Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

We have an opportunity today (or this evening, depending upon when the Mass of all ages in offered in your particular areas) to march with Our Lord and Our King in His Real Presence. We can thus realize these powerful words of Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God’s religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. We lamented these in the Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.) 

Obviously, it is not possible for all believing Catholics to march under the banner of Christ the King today or tonight as He is carried in solemn procession in this time of apostasy and betrayal. We should, though, unite ourselves spiritually with those who are able to do so.

The Divine Office for today's Holy Mass contains an excerpt from the "lesser works" of Saint Thomas Aquinas:

The immeasurable benefits, which the goodness of God hath bestowed on Christian people, have conferred on them also a dignity beyond all price. "For what nation is there so great, who hath gods so nigh unto them, as the Lord, our God, is unto us?" Deut. iv. 7. The Only-begotten Son of God, being pleased to make us "partakers of the Divine nature," 2 Pet. i. r,  took our nature upon Him, being Himself made Man that He might make men gods. And all, as much of ours as He took, He applied to our salvation. On the Altar of the Cross He offered up His Body to God the Father as a sacrifice for our reconciliation He shed His Blood as the price whereby He redeemeth us from wretchedness and bondage, and the washing whereby He cleanseth us from all sin. And for a noble and abiding memorial of that so great work of His goodness, He hath left unto His faithful ones the Same His very Body for Meat, and the Same His very Blood for Drink, to be fed upon under the appearance of bread and wine.

How precious a thing then, how marvelous, how health-giving, how furnished with all dainties, is the Supper [of the Lord!] Than His Supper can anything be more precious? Therein there is put before us for meat, not, as of old time, the flesh of bulls and of goats, but Christ Himself, our very God. Than this Sacrament can anything be more marvelous? Therein it cometh to pass that bread and wine are bread and wine no more, but in the stead thereof there is the Body and there is the Blood of Christ; that is to say, Christ Himself, Perfect God and Perfect Man, Christ Himself is there, under the appearance of a little bread and wine. His faithful ones eat Him, but He is not mangled; nay, when [the veil which shroudeth Him in] this Sacrament is broken, in each broken piece thereof remaineth whole Christ Himself, Perfect God and Perfect Man. All that the senses can reach in this Sacrament, [look, taste, feel, smell, and the like, all these] abide of bread and wine, but the Thing is not bread and wine. And thus room is left for faith; Christ Who hath a Form That can be seen, is here taken and received not only unseen, but seeming to be bread and wine, and the senses, which judge by the wonted look, are warranted against error.

Than this Sacrament can anything be more health-giving? Thereby are sins purged away, strength renewed, and the soul fed upon the fatness of spiritual gifts. This Supper is offered up in the Church both for the quick and dead it was ordained to the health of all, all get the good of it. Than this Sacrament can anything be more furnished with dainties The glorious sweetness thereof is of a truth such that no man can fully tell it. Therein ghostly comfort is sucked from its very well-head. Therein a memorial is made of that exceeding great love which Christ showed in time of His sufferings. It was in order that the boundless goodness of that His great love might be driven home into the hearts of His faithful ones, that when He had celebrated the Passover with His disciples, and the last Supper was ended, "the Lord Jesus, knowing that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end," John xiii. 1, and instituted this Sacrament, this Sacrament, the everlasting "forth-showing of His death until He come again,"  1 Cor. xi. 26, this Sacrament, the embodied fulfilment of all the ancient types and figures, this Sacrament, the greatest miracle which He ever wrought, and the one mighty joy of them that now have sorrow, till He shall come again, and their heart shall rejoice, and their joy no man take from them. (The Divine Office, Feast of Corpus Christi.)

Again, recognizing that there are so few places in the world today to assist at a true offering of Holy Mass, we must consider it be our privilege to do so when we in order to get home to Our Eucharistic King in Heaven, where we can adore Him face-to-face with Our Lady, Saint Joseph and all of the saints face-to-face after a lifetime of adoring Him veiled behind the accidents of the mere elements of this passing earth.

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all Praise and all Thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all Praise and all Thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all Praise and all Thanksgiving be every moment Thine.

The Litany of the Blessed Sacrament

Written by Blessed Peter Julian Eymard, for private use only

Pange Lingua, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, composed for the Feast of Corpus Christi

Pange lingua gloriosi
Corporis mysterium,
Sanguinisque pretiosi,
Quem in mundi pretium
Fructus ventris generosi
Rex effudit Gentium.

Sing, my tongue,
The mystery of the glorious body,
And of the precious Blood,
Shed to save the world,
By the King of the nations,
The fruit of a noble womb.

Nobis datus, nobis natus
Ex inacta Virgine,
Et in mundo conversatus,
Sparso verbi semine,
Sui moras incolatus
Miro clausit ordine.

Given to us, born for us,
From a stainless Virgin,
And having dwelt in the world,
Sowing the seed of the word,
He closed in a wonderful way,
The days of his habitation.

In suprema nocte coenae
Recumbus cum fratribus
Observata lege plene
Cibis in legalibus,
Cibum turbae duodenae
Se dat suis manibus.

On the night of His last supper,
Reclining with His brothers,
The law having been fully observed
With legal foods,
He gives Himself as food with His
Own hands to the twelve.

Verbum caro, panem verum
Verbo carnem efficit:
Fitque sanguis Christi merum,
Et si sensus deficit,
Ad firmandum cor sincerum
Sola fides sufficit.

The Word in Flesh makes true Bread
His Flesh with a word;
Wine becomes the Blood of Christ,
And if sense is deficient,
To confirm sincere hearts,
Faith alone suffices.

Tantum ergo Sacramentum
Veneremur cernui:
Et antiquum documentum
Novo cedat ritui:
Praestet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Then let us prostrate and
Venerate so great a Sacrament,
And let the old law yield
To the new rite;
Let faith stand forward to
Supply the defect of the senses.

Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et jubilatio,
Salus, honor, virtus quoque
Sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
Compar sit laudatio.

To the Begetter and the Begotten,
Be praise and jubilation,
Health, honor, and strength,
And blessing too,
And let equal praise be to Him,
Who proceeds from Both.
Amen. Alleluia.

Amen. Alleluia.