Quote:The Jews liberated, by the powerful hand of God, from Egyptian captivity, went on dry ground through the midst of the Red Sea, whose waters became the grave of their pursuer, King Pharao, and his whole army. Having arrived in the desert called Sin they began to murmur against Moses and Aaron, their leaders, on account of the want of bread, and demanded to be led back to Egypt where there was plenty. The Lord God took pity on His people. Jn the evening He sent into their camp great flocks of quails, which the Jews caught and ate, and on the morning of the next day the ground was covered with white dew, and in the desert something fine, as if pounded in a mortar, looking like frost on the earth, which as soon as the Jews beheld, they exclaimed in surprise: "Man hu?'' "What is that?'' But Moses said to them: "This is bread which the Lord has given you." And they at once began to collect the food which was white, small as Coriander seed, and tasted like wheat-bread and honey, and was hence- forth called man or manna. God gave them this manna every morning, for forty years, Sabbaths excepted, and the Jews lived upon it in the desert, until they came to the Promised Land. This manna is a figure of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar which contains all sweetness, and nourishes the soul of him who receives it with proper preparation, so that whoever eats it worthily, dies not, though his body sleeps in the grave, for Christ will raise him to eternal life.

Quote:The holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, is the very center of the Christian religion; and therefore, our Lord would have a fourfold testimony to be given in the inspired writings to its Institution. Besides the account given by Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have also that of St. Paul, which has just been read to us and which he received from the lips of Jesus himself, who vouchsafed to appear to him after his Conversion and instruct him.

St. Paul lays particular stress on the power given by our Lord to his disciples, of renewing the act which he himself had just been doing. He tells us what the Evangelists had not explicitly mentioned, that as often as a Priest consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ he shows (he announces) the Death of the Lord: and by that expression, tells us that the Sacrifice of the Cross, and that of our Altars, is one and the same. It is likewise by the immolation of our Redeemer on the Cross that the flesh of this Lamb of God is truly meat, and his Blood truly drink, as we shall be told in a few moments by the Gospel. Let not the Christian, therefore, forget it, not even on this day of festive triumph. The Church insists on the same truth in her Collect of this Feast: it is the teaching which she keeps repeating, through this formula, throughout the entire Octave, and her object in this is to impress vividly on the minds of her children this, the last and earnest injunction of our Jesus: As often as ye shall drink of this cup of the new Testament, do it for the commemoration of me! The selection she makes of this passage of St. Paul for the Epistle should impress the Christian with this truth,—that the divine Flesh which feeds his soul was prepared on Calvary, and that, although the Lamb of God is now living and impassible, he became our food, our nourishment, by the cruel death which he endured. The sinner, who has made his peace with God, will partake of this sacred Body with deep compunction, reproaching himself for having shed its Blood by his sins: the just man will approach the holy Table with humility, remembering how he too has had but too great a share in causing the innocent Lamb to suffer; and that if he be at present in the state of grace, he owes it to the Blood of the victim, whose Flesh is about to be given to him for his nourishment.

But let us dread, and dread above all things, the sacrilegious daring spoken against in such strong language by our Apostle,—and which, by a monstrous contradiction, would attempt to put again to death Him who is the Author of Life; and this attempt to be made in the very banquet which was procured for us men by the precious Blood of this Saviour! Let a man prove himself, says the Apostle; and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. This proving one’s self is sacramental confession, which must be made by him who feels himself guilty of a grievous sin which has never before been confessed. How sorry soever he may be for it, were he even reconciled to God by an act of perfect contrition, the injunction of the Apostle interpreted by the custom of the Church and the decisions of her Councils forbids his approaching the holy Table until he has submitted his sin to the power of the Keys.

Quote:The beloved Disciple could not remain silent on the Mystery of Love. But at the time when he wrote his Gospel, the institution of the Eucharist had been sufficiently recorded by the three Evangelists who had preceded him, as also by the Apostle of the Gentiles. Instead, therefore, of repeating what these had written, he completed it by relating the solemn promise made by Jesus on the banks of Lake Tiberias a year before the Last Supper.

He was surrounded by the thousands, who were in admiration at his having miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes: Jesus takes the opportunity of telling them that he himself is the true bread come down from heaven and which, unlike the manna given to their fathers by Moses, could preserve man from death. Life is the best of all gifts, as death is the worst of evils. Life exists in God as in its source; he alone can give it to whom he pleases and restore it to him who has lost it. Man, who was created in grace, lost his life when he sinned, and incurred death. But God so loved the world as to send it, lost as it was, his Son, with the mission of restoring man to life. True God of true God, Light of Light, the Only Begotten Son is, likewise, true Life of true Life by nature: and as the Father enlightens them that are in darkness by this Son, who is his Light, so likewise he gives life to them that are dead, and he gives it to them in this same Son of his who is his living Image. The Word of God, then, came amongst men, that they might have life, and abundant life. And whereas it is the property of food to increase and maintain life, therefore did he become our Food, our living and life-giving Food, which has come down from heaven; partaking of the life eternal which he has in his Father’s bosom, the Flesh of the Word communicates this same life to them that eat It. That, (as St. Cyril of Alexandria observes) which, of its own nature, is corruptible, cannot be brought to life in any other way than by its corporal union with the body of him who is life by nature: now, just as two pieces of wax melted together by the fire make but one, so are we and Christ made one by our partaking of his Body and Blood. This life, therefore, which resides in the Flesh of the Word made ours within us, shall be no more overcome by death; on the day appointed, this life will throw off the chains of the old enemy, and will triumph over corruption in these our bodies, making them immortal (In Johan, lib. x. cap. 2). Hence it is that the Church, with her delicate feelings both as Bride and Mother, selects from this same passage of St. John, her Gospel for the daily Mass of the Dead; thus drying up the tears of the living who are mourning over their departed friends, and consoling them by bringing them into the presence of the holy Host, which is the source of true life, and the center of all our hopes.

Thus was it to be that not only the soul was to be renewed by her contact with the Word, but even the body, earthly and material as it is, was to share in its way of what our Savior called the Spirit that guickeneth. “They,” as St. Gregory of Nyssa has so beautifully said, “who have been led, by an enemy’s craft, to take poison, neutralize by some other potion the power which would cause death; and as was the deadly, so likewise the curative must be taken into the very bowels of the sufferer; that so the efficacy of that which brings relief may permeate through the whole body. Thus we, having tasted that which ruined our nature, require a something which will restore and put to right that which was disordered; and that when this salutary medicine shall be within us, it may, as an antidote, drive out the mischief of the poison which had previously been taken into the body. And what is this (salutary medicine)? No other than that Body which had both been shown to be stronger than death, and was the beginning of our life. For, says the Apostle, as a little leaven makes the whole paste to be like itself, so, likewise, that Body which God had willed should be put to death, when it is within ours, transmutes and transfers it wholly to Itself … Now, the only way whereby a substance may be thus got into the body, is by its being taken as food and drink.”

Feast of Corpus Christi
by St. Alphonsus Liguori

A most blessed Feast of Corpus Christi to you all!