LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. j Chap, Copyright No. Shel£._Xd3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE EUCHARISTIC CHRIST. The eucharistic christ Reflections and Considerations on the Blessed Sacrament. REV. A. TESNIERE, Priest of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. TRANSLATED BY MRS. ANNE R. BENNETT-GLADSTONE WITH A PREFACE BY REV. D. J. McMAHON, D.D., General Director for the United States of the Apostolic Union of Secular Priests. HA- NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO: BENZIGER BROTHERS, Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 1897 V ?\« IWbtl ©bstat D. J. McMahon, D.D., Censor Deputatus. flmprimatur. + MICHAEL AUGUSTINE, Archbis7wp of New York. New York, June 24, 1897. COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY BENZÏOER BROTHERS preface. " At the sight of the love of Jesus in His adorable Sacrament, of the isolation in which He is left, of the little piety and great indifference among so many Chris- tians, and of the ever-increasing impiety of the age ; at the view of the extended and pressing wants of the Church I have said, Why should there not be some men whose mission would be to pray perpetually at the feet of Jesus Christ in the Ever-Blessed Sacrament ?" It was thus that the Kev. Fr. Eymard, after four years of prayer and preparation, exposed to Pope Pius IX. his plan of forming the Society of Priests of the Blessed Sacrament. He explained further the various duties which the society could fulfil usefully, and which had not that systematic care which was becoming to them. Pius IX. replied with earnestness to the petition, say- ing, "lam convinced that this thought comes from God. The Church has need of it. Let every means be taken to spread the knowledge of the Holy Eucharist." For nearly twenty years Fr. Eymard had labored as a Marist, and by reason of the positions which he held as provincial and director he was prepared for the arduous duty of forming a new community. He had tried every breach, had tested every sign before he would give any heed to the project which seemed, however, to grow more im- perative when he would endeavor to put it aside. When ii Preface. he finally determined, after five years of careful thought and prayer, to take the step, he formulated his plan and proposed it almost as completely as it is found to-day. It comprises the Society of the Blessed Sacrament, a com- munity of priests whose whole duty is to keep perpetual adoration in their convent and to preach the Blessed Sac- rament abroad. " You do not become a member of this Society of the Blessed Sacrament," said the venerated founder to his novices, " in order to become virtuous ; nor do you enter to amass a greater sum of merit and a higher degree of glory in heaven. No ; for you yourself would be the first object of your service. You have en- tered solely to immolate your personality to the service of Jesus Christ and to procure for Him the greatest pos- sible glory by the homage of a love which will reach as readily to the heroism of sacrifice as it will to the sim- plest and most natural act of your duty. The praise, the merit will go to Jesus, your Master ; the soldier gains the victory and dies ; the king alone triumphs and ob- tains its glory." This spirit of complete renunciation was constantly inculcated in order that his priests might lead lives with no other thought than to make known the love of the Prisoner of the tabernacle. That this great end might be more widely gained he formed the Confraternity of the Priest Adorers. These have the duty of spending at least an hour weekly in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, whence they might draw that fervor which would be manifested in their works of zeal. That this devotion towards the Holy Eucharist might be extended, he planned the Aggregation of Lay- Adorers, whose mem- bers spend one hour monthly in adoration. Besides this personal service, these are generally to be attached to some of the various works which centre in the Blessed Sacrament, as the tabernacle and altar societies, etc. Preface. iii Fr. Eymard died in 1868, and in the thirty years which have since passed, his work has developed beyond the highest expectation of its founder. The society has been established in very many dioceses and numbers its members among the hundreds. The Confraternity of Priest Adorers has struck a responsive chord in the hearts of the devoted friends of the Eucharistie Lord. Its members number already fifty thousand, of which about three thousand are in the United States. The in- fluence of the work among priests is extended far beyond this number of members, for very many have renewed good wishes and resolves in their devotion through the knowledge which the existence of this confraternity imparts. Not all take the word of entering organi- zations for works of purely personal piety, but they are encouraged and stimulated in their individual lines by the zeal which the organizations must show forth. In the interest of this confraternity many works have been published in French by the members of the society. The present, " The Eucharistie Christ/' is the first that has been put into English dress in the hope that its re- flections and pious thoughts may find favor among the American members of the confraternity. The establishment of this society and confraternity at this period in the Church's history seems, indeed, sin- gular, for the Blessed Sacrament has ever been the cen- tre of all worship in the Church. To awaken, however, to vivify and increase the faith and love of Catholics in this august mystery is surely a becoming duty in our age. If we view the subject historically we shall see that the establishment of the Blessed Sacrament as a special devotion belongs to that doctrinal development of which every age gives us examples. It seems like a grade in that progress towards the perfection of our devotion. The Blessed Sacrament first presents itself to our view iv Preface. under the awful mystery of the Mass. In the Church has this sacrifice been at all times a necessity, and we cannot consider it as an act of devotion, since it pertains to the essence of the religion. There never was a time when attendance at Sunday Mass was not obligatory. The commandment of the Church to hear Mass on Sun- day is the formulation in words of an obligation which is sunk deep in the heart and conscience of Christen- dom. Even though for a time it seemed to be obscured, Fr. Bridgett, in his work on the " Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in England, " shows how universal was the practice and how important it was considered at all times centuries before it was taught in the Catechism. Holy communion, the second aspect of the Holy Eucharist, was at first deemed a necessity for all attendants at Mass. As late as the fourth century a Council of Antioch, under Pope Julius, pronounced censures against those who heard Mass and did not communicate thereat. This decree was based upon the Apostolical Constitutions. To the hermits and Cénobites this law was equally ap- plicable. In the course of time custom limited the obligation to the Sunday Mass. Bishops and rulers urged this duty, but the inroads of the barbarians and their subsequent conversion brought more and more the spirit of relaxation to the piety and recollection demand- ed for the frequent reception of this adorable mystery. For it was difficult to awaken at once these " rude chil- dren of the forest to the proper spirit of devotion." From the ninth to the thirteenth century, in this glorious period of the Crusades, in these ages of faith, strange is it to find that communions were rare among the faithful. There are some particular cases of frequent communion in saintly lives at this as at other epochs. But when we find the Religious Orders lax in this saintly duty, what can be expected of the faithful Preface. V living in the world ? Thus, Dalgaims, in " The Holy Communion," from which these facts are principally culled, shows that " in the only genuine English Order that ever was established, called the Gilbertins — after the founder, St. Gilbert, contemporary of St. Thomas à Becket — the Lay-Brothers communicated only eight times a year." Some decades later we have the seraphic St. Francis allowing one Mass daily in each convent, no matter how numerous the priests might be therein. In the Order of the Poor Clares, the Sisters were permitted by rule to receive communion only six times a year. The novices of the Benedictine Order were much more re- strained, since they were limited to three times a year. The Council of Vienna for these last, as the Council of Trent for the Poor Clares, ordained that communion should be received at least once a month. It may, indeed, be that there were less dangers for faith or morals in those days, and hence there was less need of the frequent reception of the saving power of holy communion ; but to our eyes the command of the Lateran Council to communicate at least once a year appears to have been framed none too soon. From that time until our own time, except for a short period under Jansenistic influence, the present discipline in relation to the frequency of reception has prevailed in the Church. Neither the Mass nor communion can be considered as a special devotion, since they are duties from which an obligation arises that must receive attention. They are necessary parts of our Christian life, and have been duties from the beginning. Upon these two aspects of the Blessed Sacrament all saintly piety expended itself until the thirteenth century. The development of Christian truth and the efflorescence of Catholic devotion seem in a measure to have been arrested from the sixth until the twelfth century, as the Church had then her wars vi Preface. with rulers and her struggles with the barbarians. It was the Berengarian heresy of the latter century which brought into clearer view the doctrine and devotion of the Blessed Sacrament. Immediately thereafter fol- lowed the decree of the Lateran Council about Paschal communion, etc., which was reduced to practice among the faithful through the preaching of the saints who then adorned the Church, but principally through the devotion kindled by the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi. The procession of the Blessed Sacrament, which soon became the feature of this feast, was introduced shortly after its institution to give the most solemn honor to our Eucharistie Lord as an answer to the heretical opinions of Berengarius. The feast for the universal Church was approved by Urban IV. in 1264, and at his sugges- tion the Angelic Doctor wrote the Office. The observ- ance did not, however, become general for seventy years after this. The Blessed Sacrament was borne about in procession in the sacred pyx, but was not, as now, ex- posed to the view of the faithful. For over two hundred years it was the sole public de- votion to the Blessed Sacrament beyond the Mass and communion, and it doubtless aided to confirm and strengthen the faith of the people, which was tried by the failure of the Crusades and the Western schism. From this procession, when the Council of Trent had finished its course, there arose the Devotion of the Forty Hours. Within a few years after its first introduction, whether that be attributed to St. Charles and the Friar Joseph at Milan, or to the Jesuits in Macerata, the devo- tion was established in the churches of Rome, and thence spread slowly to the Catholic world. The devotion of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament came in later. It was by slow steps that the Blessed Sacrament became Preface. vii exposed to the view of the faithful, and that monstrances were made in the shape that now obtains. The next development in the devotion of the Blessed Sacrament was that of visiting Our Lord dwelling in the tabernacle. Doubtless at all times in the history of the Church there were souls who would occasionally perform this sacred duty. We can the more readily believe it of those early days of persecution, when the faithful brought home with them the Blessed Sacrament, that they might com- municate themselves on the morrow. In the quiet of their own homes they must have given free rein to their hearts' impulses of adoration and love towards the Eucharistie Lord. So, too, from the various private revelations do we learn that visits to the Blessed Sacrament were common in the religious houses, but the practice has become general among the faithful only as a very late development. Finally, from this devotion of visiting the Blessed Sac- rament arose in a short time the practice of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Perpetual adora- tion of some kind was ever in the Church from the ear- liest days, when the monks spent most of their time in their chapels ; but this devotion as applied to the Bless- ed Sacrament was instituted about 1660 in France by the Sisters of the Annunciation. The number of relig- ious communities of Sisters who are now devoted to this work is very large, and are to be found in almost every Order. The Benedictines, the Dominicans, and the Franciscans, however, bear the palm. The practice of perpetual adoration is not confined to the nuns of the contemplative life, for some who are most actively en- gaged have adopted it also. A distinction might here be made between those devoted to perpetual adoration and to perpetual exposition, but it is aside from our present purpose. It was reserved to Fr. Eymard, in our viii Preface. day, to establish a society of priests for this same obje2t and to open to all priests a participation in this duty and in its rewards. The one great object of all these devotions to the Blessed Sacrament — procession, Forty Hours, Benedic- tion, visits, and perpetual adoration — is to deepen our love and intensify our reparation, and thus prepare our- selves for a more worthy reception of the graces of the Holy Eucharist. Each age has its own character impressed upon it, and Providence so disposes the course of nature that the pre- dominating feature will in the end make itself known and felt. Into the groove which will be formed men's minds and wills will be turned and the work of the age will unconscionably be directed to the progress which is the result. The character is the product of the work which has, under God's watchful care, received its turn and course from the efforts of some man living in the age. He may be comparatively unknown, he may have only some meagre ends to gain, but he has opened the spring at the opportune moment, and the age becomes his debtor for its name and character. This is true not only for the chief or principal feature of an age, but is as well for those eddies and currents that bear onward a goodly portion of the human race. In our time there are a large number of devotions which occupy the minds of pious Christians. Religious so- cieties and confraternities for special objects are bid- ding for the attention and the affection of the faithful. They all aim at bringing us nearer to God through the practice of various virtues, and must be commended for their zeal and earnestness. From every point of his life, work, and character different devotional practices would enter to win man's allegiance to his Maker. But for the Blessed Sacrament, the source and centre of Christian Preface. ix life, there was no special society, with the exception of the few convents for nuns in which perpetual adoration had been established. The devotion to the Sacred Heart, in urging the need of reparation for sacrilegious com- munions, with its other purposes, comes near to it. Many religious foundations looked to this same end as well. But there was no general society having only the Blessed Sacrament in view until the time of Fr. Eymard. The Blessed Sacrament had been a special devotion among many of the saints and pious people in all times, for it can be viewed as an essential part of the Christian religion and as the object of a special and particular devo- tion. All Catholics must render their meed of adoration in the Mass, in holy communion, and therein is it of strict and severe obligation, an essential part of Chris- tian duty. But the special devotion extends to that mindful observance and active memory of the adorable presence of our diviue Lord. It is that constant thought and earnest wish to express our love and adoration and to bow down in humble prayer before the tabernacle. It finds expression in the many sources which an intense love will ever frame and fashion. God has shown His approval of this special devotion in the past by giving to many pious souls the miraculous power of ever discerning His presence even by the senses. Some could tell the consecrated from the unconsecrated Host by the taste ; others by the odor ; others by the mere presence, as Louise Lateau. To others Our Lord has communicated Himself in miraculous ways, as going from the priest's hand to St. Catharine of Sienna and Blessed Imelda, or piercing through the breast of St. Juliana Falconieri. The establishment and diffusion of this special devo- tion at this time seems, indeed, to accord with the canons x Preface. of God's dealings with man. In the sixth decade of this century, just when Darwin had won great favor in the English world by his materialistic work ; when Buchner had deepened the irreligious channel of Vogt in German minds ; when the enthusiasm of the new and seemingly convincing evidence had placed infidelity on a strong basis of science — then it was that Fr. Eymard brought forth this devotion to the Blessed Sacrament by the estab- lishment, one after the other, of his religious body, the Association of Priest-Adorers, and the Aggregation of Lay-Adorers. The Lord seems to delight in paradoxes in the estab- lishment of His reign among men. He would seem to choose the most unpropitious time and manner for the accomplishment of His purposes. But " the Lord hath regard to the prayer of the humble" (Ps. ci. 18), and when the intellectual world seemed in opposition " He looked forth from His high sanctuary . . . upon the earth," and He determines that " the people shall be created who will praise the Lord." He will "choose the weak to confound the strong" (1 Cor. i. 27), and just as " He change th times and ages, giving wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them that have understand- ing" (Dan. ii. 21) for the end He would obtain ; so at the time when the world was trusting only to matter does He introduce this special devotion to the Blessed Sacra- ment, which is so far removed from that which deals with the purely material. May we not also say that the Spirit of the Blessed Sacrament which Father Faber so beauti- fully shows to be the Spirit of the Holy Infancy, namely, simplicity and hidden life, is directly opposed to the spirit of the age, ever desirous of proclaiming and extol- ling its various beneficent deeds ? Father Olier, the founder of the Sulpitians, had the thought in the seventeenth century of establishing a Preface. xi body of priests who would be wholly employed in spread- ing the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament ; but the Lord in His all- wise counsel reserved it to the year when it would seem a consequence of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It is, indeed, needed that great and constant attention should be given to Our Lord's presence. For eighteen centuries He has been upon our altars, and how much like a prison has His tabernacle oftentimes seemed ! What prophet could have foretold that He would thus dwell among men and that He would be treated as if He were not, as if it were painful to remain in His presence ? As the animals of old crowded around Adam in the Garden of Eden, to honor him as their master, should not all men also crowd around, sing out their praise, and seek the benediction of their Lord and Master on every occasion ? We would have thought that God's presence in His creation would have ever won man's attention ; that the Church where He welcomes us would seemingly be the one place where we should love to come, where, indeed, we would ever find our home. But " He came unto His own and His own received Him not." There was very frequently only solitude and cheer- lessness for Him. The light of the sanctuary lamp is oft the only active attendant that is destined to acknowledge His presence. He has become no company to His creat- ures, and thus is He left to solitude. Man has care and esteem of all in this world but the Creator of the world. True, all earnest members of the Church at- tended the weekly Mass and oft found solace in holy communion, bat the visit, the special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the active, constant memory of His presence, seemed a matter which suited only the cloister and religious habit. As we enter into the thought of God's dealing with men, does there not seem to be a con- xii Preface. stant round of failure ? It appears written upon all His enterprises. God's gifts are without repentance, and, having once given us His presence on earth, He cannot withdraw it forever. His sacramental presence is to be ever with us until the veil of Mercy shall be turned to that of Justice, and our deeds shall receive from Him their rightful recompense. We would have thought that every precaution would be taken in order that He should be always ackDowledged in the sacrament of His love. But when we recount His dealings with His crea- tion, how strange becomes this frequent appearance of failure ! The creation of the angels was a failure, for one-third fell and set up a hostile activity against His saving will. The Garden of Eden was a failure, bringing upon us the results of the disastrous fall of Adam and Eve. So, too, was the Saviour's mission, for His lifework was confined to a small part of northern Africa, and won only a few followers to His doctrines. Nor did He seem to aim any higher, for He preaches so that His meaning is oft con- cealed in figures and parables ; He worked miracles, but would have them unnoticed, and closes His life by con- demnation as a criminal. " Verily," might we say with Isaias, " Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Saviour." The great miracle of the Resurrection which was the corner-stone for cre- dence in Him was not revealed to all, but to a chosen few. Retirement, defeat before the advance of man seems ever the way of the Lord, and did not our faith uphold us, we should be severely tried at this constant recession. So, too, in His dealings with man in this sacrament of faith. For not only is there absolute neglect and carelessness of His presence, but there is from His enemies open outrage and scandalous abuse, which in all meekness He suffers without complaint. Preface. xiii The more, however, we sink into the study of God's dealings in our regard it will be apparent that He dis- closes Himself in hiding. For the characteristics of His withdrawal show us that it is godlike. Its constant secrecy, its helplessness, joined to its ignominy and de- feat, show that it is more than human, and the after- success will not then surprise us. God desires that He shall be sought diligently — for His many-sided perfections, the magnificence of His at- tributes would not be appreciated were they ever before us. He is hidden behind the wonderful effects of His crea- tion, though their beauty, their wisdom, and their power ravish us by their grandeur. So, too, in the wonderful works for our supernatural destiny He has evidenced His handiwork, though the beauty and splendor of His appearance are denied us. "Why," asks Fenelon, "has God established His general laws ? It is to hide, under the veil of the regu- lated and uniform cause of nature, His perpetual opera- tion from the eyes of proud and corrupt men, while, on the other hand, He gives to pure and docile souls some- thing which they may admire in all His works." Ofttimes is it only after reflection upon the reception of some favors that, like the disciples of Emmaus, we recognize the giver. Faith, hope, and charity here below must be exercised in seeking after Him, in pursu- ing the path that leads to the brightness of eternal bliss ; but how many of His creatures truly pursue it? " There would seem to be some repulsion, some centrifu- gal force in Him who is the centre of minds, and souls, and lives." So indeed is it with our dear Lord in the Blessed Sacra- ment ; for the repulsion that generates " this is a hard saying, and who can believe it ?" the negligence that cares not for His presence, and the indifference that thinks xiv Preface. not of this mystery — all show the want of true esteem of a very large number for this greatest gift of God. While the Lord, on His part, seems not to draw or hold the at- tention to the tabernacle's Dweller. It would seem to be the general tenor of the effect of His presence to treat us as we treat Him. For the care- less and indifferent there seems no stirring of His affection except on rare occasions ; but for the devout the rays of His love so warm and brighten their hearts as to urge them to greater love. To some souls i t is given to make amends for man's frequent forgetfulness of God, aud to none should it be so strict a duty as to the members of that society whose aim is to diffuse and extend the love of Our Lord. That this love may be deepened and broadened, frequent serious meditation must be made upon the mystery, that thus we may be able to unfold more securely the riches of God's goodness and charity. No depth in creation is so shrouded in impenetrable secrecy as Our Lord's presence under the consecrated Host. The eye of the greatest saint to whom the glories of heaven have been revealed knows not the manner of His presence. The brightest saint in the vaults of the blessed, enriched with the light of glory through which the beatific vision is viewed, endowed with the aureoles of the virgin and martyr, added to the marks of the apostle and confessor, cannot discern the depths of this mystery in itself. Even the angels to whom in a special manner the care of the Blessed Sacrament is com- missioned know it not, while the devils simply believe and tremble, for their knowledge does not extend so far. Nor can we ever become familiarized with it on account of the mysteries it contains. There are miracles and mysteries as well in the opera- tions of Our Lord in the Eucharist ; for in the Blessed Sacrament we have the same Christ who " dying once, Preface. xv dies now no more." He is living and active. There is His divinity, His soul, and His body, and to each must be ascribed the operations consonant with His sacra- mental presence. His heart is there touched by our earnest prayer ; His intellect also, not alone by the view which the beatific vision and infused science grants, but also by the operations of His senses, as many worthy theologians teach, thus stretching out to this realm of wonderful mystery the axiom, " Nihil in intellectu nisi prius fuerit in sensu." Here is a world of activity and of grandeur, and the thirst for knowledge which is natural to the children of Adam must extend into it in order that our loye and de- votion to the Lord may become intensified. The pious soul loves to dwell upon this aspect of our Saviour's pres- ence, for it brings Him so near to us ; we regard Him as looking down upon us with His own eyes as if in His visible corporal presence, and through our own sensi- bility our hearts open out to Him with all the effulgence and devotion of which they are capable. " All do not take this word" of deep and constant de- votion ; but those who are dedicated to the service of the altar have indeed a duty to extend the sway of this incomparable gift among the faithful, and in a special manner for the priest-adorers of the Eucharistie League does it become a loved labor. " We should be," says Fr. Faber, " all for Jesus, if Jesus is our all. The Blessed Sacrament should be to us the single overpowering fact of the world. Our hands hold Him ; our words make Him ; our tongue rests Him ; our body compasses Him ; our soul feels Him ; our flesh feeds upon Him— Him, the Infinite, the Incomprehensible, the Immense, the Eternal. Must not all life be looked at in this light, just as the whole Church lies in this light and has no other ? Our whole xvi Preface. being thus resolves itself into one double duty, one while praise, and another while reparation to this Most Holy Sacrament. " In the spiritual unseen world the angelic thrones, under the leadership of the Archangel Michael, are ever in constant attendance upon the Blessed Sacrament, but in the visible world their place is taken by the priest, and especially the priest-adorer, since he has bound him- self thereto in a particular manner. Close indeed is the priest to the Lord as His minister and His priest. Great, too, should be His knowledge and love of this sublime mystery. " Our whole life as priests," says again Fr. Faber, " resolves itself into duties and ceremonies with regard to it. To that end are we deputed. We are taken out of the world and set apart. The mark of Jesus Christ is put upon us, and the spirit of the world, and the ways of the world, and the allowable things even of the world are to us what they are not to others. We have to enter the Holy of Holies daily in one way or another. We have to handle God, and to be ready at all moments to wait upon and carry about and administer the infinite substantial purity of the Most High. An invisible char- acter has been sculptured upon our soul by the chisel of the Holy Ghost, that we may be the property of the Blessed Sacrament forever. Our hands have been anointed to touch Jesus. Even He Himself in the holy oil of Extreme Unction shrinks from the spot where that other greater unction went before. Oh ! what are we and what should we be ? Mary drew the Eternal Word down from heaven once, while we draw Him daily. She bore Him in her arms till He grew beyond it ; but with us His sacred infancy is prolonged throughout our lives. Can we look into our Mother's face and tell her we are in this way greater than she and then not think Preface. xvii of the holiness our dread office requires ? To Jesus Himself we are Mary, and Joseph, and the apostles, and the evangelists, and if His dear sacrament requires it the company of martyrs also ; while to the people we are as Jesus Himself. With us priests self-preservation is but the second law of our nature ; the preservation of the Blessed Sacrament is our first. Oh, how happy would the slow martyrdom of our unworldly lives be did we but strive after sacerdotal holiness ! If we attract the Blessed Sacrament even so far off as the throne of God in heaven, ought we not to feel His corresponding affec- tion in our hearts ? The attraction of the Holy Eucha- rist is our vocation, our ecclesiastical spirit, our sanc- tity, our joy." That our knowledge of this great mystery may be in- creased, and that our love and esteem may be deepened until it shall absorb our whole being, this work of " The Eucharistie Christ" is presented to the clients of the Blessed Sacrament. In its English dress it is the first work which is offered specially to the American members of the Priests' Eucharistie League. It has been written con amove by one of the society which Fr. Eymard founded ; and the writer shows that he has well imbibed the spirit of that devoted friend of the Blessed Sacra- ment. In a series of meditations which are searching in their theological acumen there are joined reflections which will appeal to the devotion of all. There is solidity in the explanations while there is poetry in the touching applications. "Whatever will extend the glory of the eucharistie reign of Our Saviour ; whatever will enliven our faith and love for. this hidden God, dwelling ever among us, almost as if He were not ; whatever will increase the devotion of visiting Our Lord prisoned in the tabernacle xviii Preface. will surely be in accord with the devotional develop- ment of this sublime mystery and will meet with a hearty response from every loyal priest. To promote these ends has been the purpose of the writer of this book, and we are sure that the weekly hour of Adoration will be very profitably engaged by meditating upon any of the subjects which are here prepared. They are calculated to win us to serious reflection and frequent thought and mention of the Blessed Sacrament. Commencing thus first with himself, the priest will spread abroad more earnestly " the fire that came to de- vour the earth. ' ' D. J. McMahon". Feast of Corpus Christ i, 1897. Contents. PAGE Preface, i Introduction.— Practical Considerations on the Ado-' ration of the most holy sacrament, ... 9 The Institution of the Eucharist. The Fact 41 The Masterpiece of God, 49 The Priest, 57 The Sacrifice 65 The Eucharist a Memorial of the Passion, . . 80 The Most Holy Body of Jesus, 94 The Precious Blood, 100 The Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist, . . . .110 The Five Wounds 125 The Eucharistic State, 148 The Diffusion of the Eucharist : Everywhere ! . 161 The Perpetuity of the Eucharist : Always ! . .169 The Universality of the Eucharist : To all ! . 178 Introduction* Practical Considerations upon the Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament. I. The Object and the End of the Adoration. In order rightly to understand the nature of a virtue, the duties which it imposes, the acts which it ought to inspire, and the spirit in which they ought to be accom- plished, it is necessary to understand as clearly as possi- ble its object and its end. What, then, is the object, what is the aim of the adora- tion of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the most excellent act of all the virtue of religion ? This is what we desire to point out in a simple and practical manner for the greatest utility of all those souls who, by the influence of God's grace, have enrolled themselves in our various eucharistie associations, where the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament is the princi- pal object. The spiritual link which unites in one sole family of adorers the members of the Society of Priest Adorers and those of the Monthly Adoration in the parishes, together with the religious of the Congregation of the Most Holy Sacrament, allows them to be addressed with the same instructions which Père Eymard gave to his sons in his rule, and which are the most perfect ex- 10 The Object and the End of the Adoration. pression of his thought and mind. It is, in fact, the same sap which nourishes the religious trunk and the secular branches of the eucharistie tree planted by the venerable founder in order to produce the fruits of love, of honor, of satisfaction, and glory which the divine King of the sacrament desires so greatly and so legiti- mately to enjoy. The adoration has a threefold object, and ought to be considered in a threefold relation. It is first Our Lord Jesus Christ that it ought to honor beneath the eucharis- tie veils ; next it is the love of the adorer which it ought to sanctify ; and, lastly, it is our neighbor which it ought to assist and to help, and especially the Church. The Adoration in Relation to Our Lord. I. That Our Lord Jesus Christ, truly present in the Most H0I7 Sacrament, has every right to be adored is what His divinity with all His infinite perfections pro- claim — His title of First Principle and of Creator of all things ; His title of Universal Preserver of all that is ; His title of Supreme End and of Sovereign Remunerator. This is likewise proclaimed by His humanity, deified in the womb of Mary, through personal union with the Word, and then by a fresh title, His glorified humanity at the right hand of the Father in heaven, where, in compensation for His abasement and His death, it re- ceived as recompense the exercising of a universal empire. It is proclaimed not less evidently by the Eucharist — that is to say, the real presence of Jesus Christ under the sacramental veils, through its reality, its perpetuity, and its universality. For if He be present here below, in the verity of His divine and human nature, He claims the adoration due to His divinity and His humanity ; if He remains in a constant and assiduous manner which The Object and the End of the Adoration. 11 defies time, it is to receive thenceforth, upon earth even as He receives in heaven, the adoration to which He has, since His victory, acquired a rigorous and inaliena- ble right ; if He everywhere extends His august and beneficial presence, it is because the empire He has con- quered extends over the whole earth, and because He wishes that all nations should recognize it as a fact in all places. This, then, is the fundamental reason, and which is obligatory on all men, of the adoration — namely, to ren- der to Jesus Christ — God, Man, and King — present in the sacrament, and just on account of that very pres- ence, all the adoration due to Him by these titles. II. There is still another reason, special to those who have been called in a greater or less measure to the eucharistie vocation. For twenty years Our Lord spoke to the heart of Père Eymard what the sweet voice of Mary then put in these words : " All the mysteries of my Son have a religious society to honor them ; it is only the Eucharist which has none ; it must have one !" And Père Eymard, in order to respond to the appeal, founded the Society of the Most Holy Sacrament, con- secrated to the sole service of the Eucharist, of which the essential act is the perpetual and solemn adoration of this august sacrament. The sacramental Christ specifies therefore for us His rights and His will to be adored in the Eucharist ; He makes of it a personal obligation, the most important duty of our individual vocation. It is evidently tanta- mount to desiring us to consider the adoration as our supreme object here below, our one sole business, the goal of all our efforts. He seems to say to us : " Every one owes Me faithful and assiduous adoration in My sacrament ; many abso- lutely refuse it to Me ; 12 The Object and the End of the Adoration. 1 ' A great number of those who render Me this homage do not do so sufficiently or generously enough ; " No one makes this adoration his supreme duty, his sole occupation, his life. And yet unum est necessa- rium, one sole thing is absolutely necessary, before and above all others : it is that God and I, Jesus Christ, the Son of His complaisance, should be adored ! " Let you, at least, give Me this homage, give Me the satisfaction of rendering the adoration which is due to Me, to My Father and Me, which I came to seek in making Myself man, and which I pursue in remaining in the Eucharist. Make this adoration your state, your only all !" Such is the meaning of the Society of the Most Holy Sacrament, and of the individual vocation of all those who are called by divine grace to it. " The supreme reason of the Society of the Holy Sac- rament," says Père Eymard, " consists wholly in this : to give to Our Lord Jesus Christ, really present and always remaining in the sacrament for love of men, true and perpetual adorers and propagators of His eucharistie glory, that Jesus Christ may be adored in communities throughout the whole world. Also, let all who are called be certain that they have given them- selves only for one sole object — namely, the service of the adorable person of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and that they must consecrate to this service their tal- ents and their gifts, their graces and their virtues, their persons and all that they possess, without keeping any- thing for themselves, not even their personality : Absque sui proprio !" III. From the foregoing flow two important conse- quences : First, to appreciate the adoration at its proper value ; second, the manner of practising this adoration. The first consequence : The value of the adoration. The Object and the End of the Adoration. 13 It is a holy service, an angelic function, something wholly divine, since it gives us the reality of our God in His terrestrial presence as the immediate object to honor, to serve, to adore, face to face. It is a royal service, since it asks us to serve Him on the throne which He assumes here below in order to ex- ercise the functions of His royalty over the world, and to receive its homage in compensation for the humilia- tions He underwent during His Passion, and of those to which He is being subjected in His eucharistie state. It is, then, the duty, the task, the most noble, the most elevated, the most glorious of all employments to which life can be devoted, seeing that to satisfy the per- son and the personal rights of Jesus Christ is evidently superior to satisfying the rights and the needs of our neighbor, who is only a creature : Optimam partem. It therefore possesses the legitimate and well-founded right — absolutely and by itself — of taking the precedence of every other kind of labor, of every other kind of ser- vice, and, in case of any competition arising, it requires that everything else should come after and be sacrificed to it. He who acts thus is simply logical in his faith and in his conformity to what is true : Quœ non aufere- tur ab ea. He only renders to the superadorable person of Jesus Christ that to which he has a right. And he who does not render it is either very ignorant or very illogical in his faith, or, lastly, cowardly in presence of the first of all his duties. He disowns in fact, if not formally, Our Lord Jesus Christ, since he places the ser- vice of His person in a secondary rank. Second consequence : The practical spirit of the adora- tion in regard to Our Lord. Having Oar Lord Jesus Christ as an immediate object to be recognized and hon- ored, it requires of us purity and holiness of life. We do not present ourselves in a negligent costume to serve 14 The Object and the End of the Adoration. a king upon his throne. In heaven the angels who sur- round the throne of glory are purity itself, and saints are not admitted to the eternal adoration unless they are purified from the slightest stains not only of sin, but of everything which has the least connection with sin. Is it not the same God of holiness whom we come to adore beneath the veils of the Most Holy Sacrament ? There is needed an immediate or proximate prepara- tion of the mind, of the memory, of the heart ; for God is a spirit, and He searches not for those who are merely adorers in nothing more than the outward form, but for adorers who worship Him in spirit and in truth, by means of the whole interior homage of their faculties — faith, love, praise, submission, humility, and interior acts of all the virtues. Now, without a preparation which makes the mind come forth from its habitual occupations and fixes the attention upon a precise point, our soul, absorbed by the immediate cares of sensible things, weighed down beneath the burden of the flesh, is incapable of rising to the region of faith and of giving itself up there to spiritual intercourse with God. Lastly, we ought to propose to ourselves as the prin- cipal object in the adoration to honor, to satisfy, to serve Jesus Christ, infinitely more than the sanctifying of ourselves and the serving of even our spiritual interests. Without excluding this last end, but, on the contrary, favoring it, as we shall see later on, the adoration ought, before all things and above all things, to pursue the first object. It is in its nature : it is the expression of per- fect charity, of pure love, which finds its perfection and its repose in the satisfaction of the beloved object, and not in its own satisfaction. Moreover, it is commanded by the immediate presence and the superior rights of Jesus Christ. Is it not the first of all things that God is God and recognized as such ? His glory takes prece- The Object and the End of the Adoration. 15 dence of our interests, and we ought to wish it, and to ask for it beyond things which are necessary to us, even if they contribute to this very glory. Is it not thus that the Saviour has taught us to pray in the Our Father, where, before all else, before " our daily bread, our for- giveness, and our preservation from temptation and from evil," He makes us ask for " the sanctification of the name of God, the coming of His reign, the accom- plishment of His will" ? Therefore, before all things else, in the first and long- est portion of the adoration, we ought to apply ourselves to the recognizing of Our Lord Jesus Christ in His per- fections and His mysteries, in His person and in His life, in His words and in His virtues, in all His beauty, His kindnesses, His amiability ; above all, in His love, and in His love present in the sacrament, in His tender- ness, His bounty. His sacrifice. We ought to study all these marvels of beauty, gran- deur, and truth ; we ought to strive to see, to under- stand, to penetrate by means of a sedulous and active, humble and persevering faith — such is the homage and the gift of the spirit. Having entered into this spirit of faith, our duty now is to love all these amiabilities, to adhere to them, to desire them, to take pleasure in them, and then to praise, bless, and exalt, congratulate, rejoice in our hearts ; afterwards to contemplate, to adore, in the silence of amazement, of ravishment, of ecstasy, the last expression of love — such is the homage and gift of the heart. Lastly, to give ourselves, to sub- mit and to conform ourselves to what seems to us to be so beautiful and so good, even as we give ourselves to the Infinite Good, without reserve, without keeping aught back, in order to be possessed, to be dependent, to be vivified, to be assimilated, to be transformed in- teriorly into the resemblance of the divine object which 16 The Object and the End of the Adoration. we adore, that it may be everything within us — author- ity, principle, and life, and that we may disappear and be lost wholly in it. Such is the first end to be attained in the adoration, the principal employment of the time consecrated to the adoration — it is the homage of the whole interior being to Jesus Christ, for no other reason than because He supremely merits it ; without 'any other object than that of rendering satisfaction to Him, of honoring Him, of loving Him. In heaven nothing else is done except the loved duty of serving Him, loving and prais- ing Him, giving and losing one's self in God — it is the supreme homage, the most lofty glorification which God can receive from His creatures. The God of the sacrament claims it and expects it. He is there for that purpose ; He desires to receive it upon earth, in the manner in which it can be received here below, where faith replaces vision, militant charity consummate love, hope possession, but where faith, hope, and charity unite us really to Him in the Sacrament of His Real Presence — Adveniat regnum tuum . . . sicut in cœlo et in terra! The Adoration in Relation to Ourselves. In relation to ourselves the adoration is clothed with a double character : (a) It is our principal duty ; (b) it is our principal means of sanctification, and this double title lays upon us obligations with which it is necessary to be well acquainted. I. Principal duty. Père Eymard formally declares that " adoration is the supreme object of his institute," and he desires that if it should form apostles " their sole object should be to have the Blessed Sacrament adored by all men throughout the whole world." The fundamental reason of all the secular works which are The Object and the End of the Adoration. 17 taken in hand by the Society of the Blessed Sacrament is therefore the adoration. To all, consequently, in the measure in which they are engaged in them, are ad- dressed these other words of Père Eymard, setting forth the great duty of the adoration :' " As the service of adoration is of itself the first of all our duties, and ought to be preferred to all the others, let no one omit or post- pone or lessen the hours of adoration assigned to him." He also says with incomparable sweetness : " Look, then, at the hour of adoration assigned to you as an hour of paradise ; betake yourself to it as if you were going to heaven, to the divine banquet ; and then it will be an hour desired and welcomed with rejoicing ; keep the desire for it sweetly enshrined in your heart. If you should have an hour which is painful to nature, rejoice all the more, your love will be greater because it will suffer more. If because of an infirmity, illness, or im- possibility you should not be able to make your adora- tion, let your heart be sad for a moment only ; then make your adoration in spirit, unite yourself with those who are adoring at that time, keeping yourself during the whole hour in a state of the greatest recol- lection." These words clearly intimate that adoration is the first of all our duties, whence it follows that we must attach more importance to it than to anything else what- ever, and that if it be not performed, or not performed well enough, loss and injury will be the result. Thence the necessity of practically recognizing the importance of the adoration by the following means : (a) By making it take precedence of study, of the ser- vice due to our neighbor, the ministry of souls, preach- ing, and zeal ; of all exercises of private devotion, even of health and the preservation of life ; (b) by treating it with all the care, with all the attention that it claims — 18 The Object and the End of the Adoration. care in preparing the mind by fixing the subject of the adoration ; care in preparing the heart for it by habitual recollection in the love of Our Lord, Manet e in me, in dilectione meet ; care in preparing the will, by fidelity to duty, fervor in spiritual work, conformity to the will of God, and abandonment to His good pleasure ; care iu preparing the conscience, by means of the purity and the delicacy assured to it by frequent examinations ; care in preparing the body also, by keeping from all ex- cess, even of labor and of zeal, which renders it untidy, through over-excitement or fatigue, to co-operate in the adoration by the recollection of the senses ; lastly, if the adoration is the first duty, everything ought to tend to it and to prepare for it — study and prayer, the holy office, Mass and communion, actions and virtues, labor and mortification, joys and sorrows — the whole life ought to move on this axis and converge towards this centre. II. Principal means of sanctification. The adoration would be imperfect if, tending to honor God, it did not procure the sanctification of the soul. Therefore it is in its nature theoretical and practical, speculative and moral. It aims at the honor of God in the faith, the love, the praise of the mind, of the heart, and of the will. But God has a right to more than this, and it is the whole life — life in practice, which ought to praise Him by the concert of all the virtues in action. The perfect praise of God is the resemblance to Him in holiness ; it in- augurates itself in a conviction, a desire, a resolution ; it ought to be completed in works. Thus the adoration has a double object : to honor God by means of the in- terior faculties, then to sanctify man in order that he may give to God the praise of virtues and of good works. But virtues, in order to take root in the soul, have need The Object and the End of the Adoration. 19 of the preparatory employment of prayer. It is there, in silence and in recollection, that the supernatural germs open, send forth their first roots, and form their stem, which will very quickly show itself in actions. Prayer is the interior elaboration of holiness. The mas- ters of the spiritual life are at one in teaching that it is an indispensable means of sanctification, especially for the priest and the religious, because it is the sole effica- cious means of arriving at the knowledge and the reform of ourselves. Now, the prayer common to us all is the adoration. We have no other. And could there be any better one than that which takes place at the feet of Jesus, the object, the Master, the means, and the pattern of all prayer which is performed under His eye, in union with His prayer, in the place sanctified for prayer, and where is breathed an atmosphere all impregnated with the graces of prayer ? Therefore the adoration ought to produce in us, as does all assiduous prayer, effective sanctification and practical virtues ; but it is on condi- tion that we make of it an exercise of knowledge of our- selves and of consequent amendment. 1. In the adoration we strive to attain a knowledge of ourselves, which means (a) that we will consecrate a portion of the time of the adoration to a wholly personal labor of examination into our spiritual state, of the dis- cussion of our actions, and of the application to our own life of the practical and moral consequences of our sub- ject of adoration ; (b) that we should take care to con- sider in all truths, even the most speculative, the moral teachings which they contain, to choose from time to time, as the subject of our adorations, exclusively posi- tive and practical truths, and, lastly, to choose, in as far as it is possible, such as have relation to the actual state of our souls, the duties of our state, of which the accom- 20 The Object and the End of the Adoration, plishment is urgent, our immediate needs, our present temptations, our ordinary weaknesses. 2. We will occupy ourselves during the adoration with the reform of our morals, the correction of our defects, of our passions, and of our vices ; by attentive, precise, and prolonged examinations, discussing everything as to its cause and its effect ; by regret, contrition, detesta- tion of the evil which we recognize in ourselves ; by formal and precise resolutions having as their object occasions clearly defined. 'à. We will apply ourselves therein to the interior ex- ercise of virtues. Every virtue ought first to be prac- tised in the interior kingdom of the intelligence, of the heart, and of the will, from which the King Jesns ex- pects acts so numerous and so precious. The soul ought to be primarily sanctified in its powers in order that afterwards vigorous and frequent exterior acts of the virtues may spring forth. It is our duty to render our faculties exceedingly active by means of the regular and sustained exercise of the virtues suitable to them : to the mind acts of all the intellectual virtues, to the will acts of the moral virtues, to the heart innumerable fruits of love. There must, therefore, be laid down in the adoration positive and precise acts of the virtues to be encountered in the subject under meditation. For example, in a mystery of Jesus to see the humility, the gentleness, the patience which is rendered visible in it, and then not at once to form in the will acts of these virtues is to make an adoration which is incomplete and mutilated. These acts ought to be as precise, as multiplied, as prolonged as possible ; it would be impossible to give them too much intensity ; it is the force accumulated in the interior to act afterwards in the exterior life : the The Object and the End of the Adoration. 21 development of the latter will be in proportion to the force obtained within. In order to link together the practice of virtues which ought to be manifested in our life, particularly in the accomplishment of duties belonging to our state of life, with this interior exercise of virtues in adoration, it is necessary to consider the circumstances in which we may find ourselves, the duties which impose themselves upon us, and then to take very clear and very firm reso- lutions to conduct ourselves in such or such a manner, to avoid such or such an extreme, to make such or such a kind of effort. As to the time to be employed in this practical em- ployment of sanctification, it may be said that it ought to fill about half the adoration, since, in accordance with the method of the four ends of the sacrifice, the second portion of the hour of adoration is consecrated to repara- tion and prayer. The reparation quite naturally de- mands the examination, the discussion of acts, satisfac- tion by means of regret and change of life. Prayer will not be rightly accomplished unless we ask for definite graces, conformable to the known needs of our souls, with the firm resolution to profit by them — that is to say, to correspond effectively with them. This supposes that we have recognized our needs, and that we have taken the resolution to act with firmness and con- stancy. Last counsel. In order to fully accomplish this law of laboring for our personal sanctification in the adora- tion and deriving all possible fruit from it, it is neces- sary to keep and continue the same subjects of adora- tion, on the reform of defects or on progress in virtue, as long as amendment is not recognized or profit ob- tained. Sanctification is the labor of our life, and each one of the obstacles to be put aside or of the steps to be 22 The Object and the End of the Adoration. taken requires long and persevering efforts. But patience obtains everything. To fly from subject to subject is curiosity and frivolity. The labor to acquire holiness is of a very different character. It is regular and serious. III. Such are the practical rules of the adoration con- sidered in relation to ourselves. If they are neglected the adoration necessarily falls into one of the following defects : (a) Pure speculation, study, the exclusive labor of the mind, intellectual curiosity, all which things, put in the place of prayer, are the most substantial of the aliments of spiritual pride ; they lead sooner or later to the strange and fatal alliance of beautiful thoughts, of beautiful imaginary representations on all the truths of religion, and of a life wanting in energy, relaxed, ill - regulated, and finally culpable ; (b) an exaggerated sen- timentality and the over-excitement of the imagination, which engender an effeminate, egotistical, personal, vari- able, and inconstant kind of piety, devoid of virtue, without any elasticity, without any strength for making sacrifices ; wherein life is spent in more or less fasci- nating dreams, in more or less fine projects, in promises lacking in fidelity, in impulses which have no aim, in constant beginnings which are void of any sequel ; and (c), lastly, worse still ! spiritual idleness, a kind of som- nolence of the mind, of the heart, and of the will, which engenders torpor, then routine, and ends by rendering the adoration absolutely null and void — null as a homage to religion, null as a cause of sanctification. Hence to weariness in the adoration, to being disgusted with this holy exercise, to infidelity towards this capital duty, there is but a step. But if this last step be taken, it is infidelity to the divine King Himself, it is infidelity to our divine vocation, it is apostasy to the service of the Eucharist ! The Object and the End of the Adoration. 23 The Adoration in Relation to our Neighbor. I. The adoration is too essential a fruit of perfect charity for it not, after having attained its first and adorable object, which is the God-Man of the sacrament, necessarily to bend, by the same movement of charity, to the service of our neighbor. After having attained its first and adorable object — the God-Man of the sacra- ment — adoration is so essentially a fruit of perfect charity, that it necessarily tends by its own accord to the service of our neighbor. Love of our neighbor is inseparable from the love of God ; the first is not only the sign of the second, but its necessary effect, its nat- ural fruit. The same sap nourishes both ; they are the two branches of one sole trunk. They grow, blossom, bring forth the same fruits at the same time ; but with- ering and sterility also attack them at the same time and in the same degree. " He who says he loves God and does not love his brother is a liar," said the apostle of charity. The exterior forms of charity towards our neighbor vary, and sometimes reveal themselves only in a very restricted number of acts. That depends upon particular vocations, of which some apply in greater measure to our neighbor and others less. But in regard to love in its basis, to charity, to devoted- ness of the heart and inmost zeal, no vocation is with- out it ; it is a species of love which ought to be devoid of measure and to keep side by side with the love of God. In the vocation of the adoration direct acts of minis- tering towards our neighbor are, as a rule, very limited. They can only occupy a portion of our time and of our resources ; the first and the greatest belongs to the adoration, to the personal service of the divine King in prayer, to divine praises, and to solemn worship. But 24 The Object and the End of the Adoration. that does not dispense ns from serving our neighbor with immense love. And it is in the adoration itself that this love ought to be at the service of and procure utility to our neighbor, by means of the apostolate of prayer, propitiation, and reparation. It is a duty of the vocation. The Society of the Most Blessed Sacrament was founded for the object of apos- tolic prayer, of reparation for others, of propitiation for the whole world. And could it be otherwise when it requires from its members to remain as suppliants before the throne of grace, where it exposes and causes solemnly to ascend between heaven and earth Him who, says Saint John, " is the Advocate, the just Jesus, the pro- pitiation for our sins, and not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world" ? Xow, among all our neighbors who have a right to our charity, to our prayers, the first, the most august, that which lays an obligation upon us more strict than any of the others, is the Holy Catholic Church, the spouse so greatly beloved of Jesus Christ, for the love of whom He shed the whole of His blood that "she might become for Him a beautiful spouse, pure, without spot or wrinkle," and for whom He instituted the Eucharist in order to be always present to her, to lead her, to keep her, to defend her, and to nourish her with His substance. To the Church, then, first of all, and to the Supreme Pontiff, in whom she is summed up, must be given the whole of our love, the whole of our devotedness, the whole of our zeal in adoration, in prayer ; then to all her members, in the order in which they are placed by their participation of her authority, her holiness, and her life ; to bishops, to priests, and to apostolic laborers ; to the faithful, to sinners, to those even who reject her in spite of lier having over them all the rights of her royal Spouse, to whom " has been given The Object and the End of the Adoration. 25 all nations to be His inheritance ;" to heretics, to schis- matics, to Jews, and to infidels. And beyond this world, in the dark prisons of purga- tory, our charity ought to be exercised, in the person, so interesting, so worthy of pity and love, of the suffer- ing Church. It is hardly necessary to say that all the special obliga- tions which may impose a tribute of charity on a person, through the ties of blood or of supernatural affinity or of gratitude, ought to be respected and satisfied in the apostolical ministry of the adoration. And among these ties, which are created by grace, none is more sacred or stronger than that which links souls together in the unity of a religious family or in an association recom- mended by the Church. To our brethren, therefore, members of the same eucharistie body, and to the society which keeps us together, and which bestows on us all the graces of our holy vocation, should be given an ex- cellent part in the devotedness of our filial and grateful charity. But let the Father say to us, with the authority of a founder, what the adoration ought to be for us in regard to our neighbor : II. " The adorer should devote himself to the sublime ministry of the adoration as the deputy of the society and of the Church." Prayer is one of the essential ends of the adoration, according to the method of the four ends of the sacri- fice ; it ought, therefore, to occupy a normal time, the quarter of the adoration. " Supplication or impetration," says the Father, " ought to crown your adoration and be the glorious trophy of it. Impetration is the strength and the power of eucharistie prayer. E^ery one cannot preach Jesus in the pulpit, nor labor directly for the conversion of 26 The Object and the End of the Adoration. sinners and the sanctification of souls. But all adorers have the mission of Mary at the feet of Jesus — that is, the apostolical mission of prayer, of the eucharistie prayer, in the midst of the splendors of worship, at the foot of the throne of grace and of mercy. The eucharis- tie prayer goes direct to the heart of God like a burning dart ; it makes Jesus labor, work, and live again in His sacrament ; it lets loose His power. The adorer does still more than this ; he prays through Jesus Christ ; he places Him on His throne of intercession near the Father, as the divine advocate of His redeemed brethren. 11 Your mission is to ask grace with Him for all the guilty, to pay their ransom to the divine mercy which has need of suppliant hearts ; it is to make you victims of propitiation together with Jesus the Saviour, who, not being able to sutler any longer in His risen state, will suffer in you and by you. " These words, Adveniat regnum tuuml ought to be the motto, as it were, of the prayer of the adorers. Let them offer their adorations for the Supreme Pontiff and for all his intentions, for the exaltation of our holy mother, the Church, for the obtaining of the blessings of God upon the society and the sanctification of their brethren ; for all persons occupying offices of dignity, as well in the Church and religion as in the State ; especially for all priests in order that Jesus may live in them by love and holiness ; for the destruction of heresies and schisms, for obtaining the recognition of Jesus Christ by the Jews, the adoration of the Saviour by pagans ; lastly, for the whole world, that all men may love Our Lord Jesus Christ, and may hasten to His sacrament of life. " III. It follows from these words and from the con- siderations which precede them, that we have in the adoration a real ministry of charity to accomplish towards The Object and the End of the Adoration. 27 our neighbor. In it we ought to be propitiators, advo- cates, mediators, apostles. To think in it only of ourselves, to pray in it only for our personal interests, however holy they may be, is, therefore, not enough ; we ought to form for our- selves in it generous, disinterested, devoted hearts open to all the interests of Jesus Christ ; to the needs of the whole world. The great desires, the consuming ardors, the holy tortures of anguish for souls and for the Church ought to inflame and consume our hearts. It will suffice for this purpose to remember how exten- sive, immense, and infinite is the work of this redemp- tion of the world which the divine Saviour pursues in His prayer and in His perpetual immolations in the sac- rament. He labors therein day and night ; and what labor ! what ungrateful labor, thwarted, combatted, coming into constant collision with obstinate malice, with base treachery, with deep, unceasing hatred ! It is to such a task as this that He invites us. And as it is in prayer and secret immolation He first pursues it, it is the ardor and the assiduity of our supplications, of our cries and of our tears, that He desires from us ; it is the sacrifice of all secret pains, of all the tortures of the soul, of all the mortifications known to Himself alone, that He expects from us. Ah ! who would refuse Him this hearty and joyful acceptance of humiliations, of being subjected to con- tempt, treachery, and abandonment, of calumny, accusa- tions, and unjust condemnations ; who would refuse Him the privation of all joy in prayer, in the spiritual life of all consolation, in labor of all personal success, in our whole life of all satisfaction, in order to complete His Passion, and to co-operate by these means in obtain- ing His eucharistie reign, or the exaltation of the Church, or the deliverance of the Supreme Pontiff, or 28 Method of Adoration. the conquest of an infidel country ; or the consolidation and the prosperity of the society devoted to the sole ser- vice and the sole apostolate of His sacrament of love ; or the success of some special work, known to every one, and to which they are attached by personal ties of voca- tion or of predilection — the conversion of a parish, the conversion or sanctification of a single soul, especially if it be the soul of a father, of a husband, or of a son, still more, if it be a soul from which God seemed, by the exquisite gifts He had lavished upon it, to expect more of satisfaction, more of glory ! Such is the adoration with regard to our neighbor : a work of perfect charity, of apostolic zeal, of universal and indefatigable devotedness. Its means are chiefly prayer and interior immolation. But it must be remem- bered that the condition which is indispensable to every mediator, desirons of being listened to, is purity, holi- ness, separation from sin, and a supernatural life ; it is, at any rate, by these features that Saint Paul represents to us the Eternal Pontiff and the Perfect Adorer, Our Lord Jesus Christ ; it is at this price alone that our prayer, united with His, will be agreeable to God : Talis en ira décelât ut nobis esset pontifex, sanctus, innocens, im- pollutus, segregatus apeccatoribus et excelsior cœlisf actus. II. The Method of Adoratiox by Means of the Four Exds of the Sacrifice. The Idea of the Jfethod of the so-called Four Ends. Every art, in addition to its general principles, has its method — that is to say, an elementary discipline, a cer- tain manner of procedure— by means of which disciples are initiated into the knowledge of the art, and then into its easy practice, finally into its secrets and its per- Method of Adoration. 29 fection. Illustrious masters, saints, have given different methods of the great art of prayer, the excellence of which does not stand in any need of demonstration. They have characteristics common to them all, having all of them a double, necessary object — namely, that enabling the soul to glorify God by means of the homage of an interior religion, and next to sanctify itself through the contemplation of the eternal truths, the knowledge of itself, and the preparation of its duties. They vary according to the special point of view which their authors have placed before them and the special object which they desire to attain. When prayer has for its special end the fashioning of the servant of God for the performance of good works, or for arming the soldier of Christ for holy combats, the method demands much from the labor of the mind through reflection, interior discussions, and study ; it aims, above all, at practical results, strong and precise resolutions of the will which lead immediately to action. If, on the contrary, prayer is destined primarily to per- mit the soul to find God in order to converse with Him and to unite itself with Him in the active repose of love ; if it aim at making a contemplator rather than a laborer, an adorer rather than an apostle, the method will demand less of an abstract labor from the mind, less of actual resolutions and of precise determinations from the will. Without neglecting these things, and in giving them a legitimate and necessary part, it will rather look for a simple glance from the mind, for senti- ments of the heart, for peaceful acquiescences of the will. It will fix the gaze of the soul upon God, upon Jesus, His mysteries and their spirit, upon His interior and His sentiments, more often than on itself, upon its duties to be accomplished, and its passions to be re- pressed. !Not, once more, that it excludes the labor of 30 Method of Adoration. sanctification, that necessary homage of all true religion, in the same manner as the method of prayer which forms the apostolical laborer does not exclude union with God, repose in God as at least the term of its different acts. But in the combination of these two essential elements of prayer the one method will give more to labor in re- gard to self, and the other more to the contemplation of God ; the former will be directed more towards the dis- cussion of personal acts, the latter to the praising of the divine perfections. Father Eymard, when replacing in his plan of spirit- ual life, such as he established it for souls called to serve the Eucharist, prayer by the adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, was constrained to adopt a method which should, above all, favor contemplation, praise, conversa- tion, and union with God. The adoration, in fact, must be made before the Most Holy Sacrament, whether at the foot of the throne of the Solemn Exposition or before the tabernacle, the burning lamp of which is a sign of the living Christ who inhabits it. The mere fact of such a presence claims that the adorer, coming forth from out of himself, should fix all the thoughts of his soul on the august person of the God-Man shown to him through the transparent veils of the sacrament. It would seem as though it would be almost a violation of the highest rules of propriety to be occupied with ourselves rather than with Him, and as though we did not take sufficient account of what His near presence claims from us. However necessary may be the study and the reformation of ourselves, it would seem as though, in presenting Himself so openly before our eyes, the hidden God, who so greatly desires to be known, were soliciting us to study Him, to know Him, to apply ourselves to Him first before descending after- wards into ourselves, assured, as we may well be, that we Method of Adoration. 31 shall never see as well what we are as after we shall have clearly seen what He is— Noverim te, noverim me! But, more than this, desiring that the adorer should unite his prayer with that which, from behind the eucharistie veil, the real Holy of Holies, Jesus, the one sole Pontiff, offers to His Father, and which is only the continuation of His sacrifice — that is to say, of His death, accomplished in the morning on the altar, Father Eymard was obliged to seek for a method which would permit the adorer to appropriate to himself the acts, the homage, the sentiments, the duties, of which the Mass is the solemn and perfect expression. Now, by the Mass, or by His sacrifice, Jesus Christ renders to G-od four principal species of homage which the Council of Trent defines : adoration, thanksgiving, reparation or propitiation, and prayer. These four species of homage include all the duties of religion — that is to say, a the- oretical and practical recognition of all the truths which attach men to God. Saint Thomas has defined in the following brief and profound words the religion of man towards God : " Man is linked and bound to God, above all, for these four reasons —namely, on account of His supreme majesty, composed of all His divine excellences ; on account of His past benefits, testimonies of His good- ness and of His love ; on account of the offences com- mitted against His holiness, which render him a debtor to His justice ; and on account of the possessions which are necessary to him for the future as regards time and eternity, and which he cannot obtain except from His liberal bounty, which is rich in all kinds of possessions."* * Homo maxime obligatar Deo propter majestatem ejus, prop- ter bénéficia jam accepta, propter offensam et propter bénéficia sperata. la 2ae q. CXIL, a. III., ad. 10. 32 Method of Adoration. Each one of these different species of homage includes the most precious and necessary acts of virtues ; they contain all that can bo expressed of the recognition of the perfections and of the rights of God ; the confession of all the duties, of all the obligations imposed upon man. For, in reality, there is only one prayer which is perfect in all respects — namely, Holy Mass ; all other prayers are valuable only in proportion to their more or less great union with this personal prayer of Jesus Christ. It is the same with the Christian virtues, which compose, together with the homage of prayer, the re- ligion of man towards God ; the only value they possess is in the measure in which they take their origin and are consummated in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. For a Christian there is, therefore, no form of prayer more perfect than the participation in spirit and in truth in the holy sacrifice. But it must be borne in mind that during the time in which Christ preserves the state of an immolated Vic- tim, with which He clothes Himself while offering to His Father His mysterious but real death in the sacri- fice of the Mass, the religion which is then expressed, the homage which is then rendered, He continues, by the continuation of the said state, to render to His Father. During the whole of every day and every night, in the permanence of this state of Victim beneath the species of bread and wine, He adores the majesty, thanks the goodness, makes reparation to the justice, implores the liberality of God. This it is which inspired Father Eymard with his method of adoration, called by him the method of the four ends of the sacrifice. Placing the adorers in the presence of Jesus, the perfect Adorer, could he ask of them anything more opportune, more suitable, more necessarv even, than to unite himself to the Master of Method of Adoration. 33 prayer, to the Ponti ff in the exercise of his prayer, and to pray like Him, with Him, by Him ? He therefore asks of his disciples to aim primarily, in their adorations, at the production of acts of adoration, of thanksgiving, of reparation, and of prayer ; to address them to God the Father, by Jesus Christ, the Mediator and Pontiff ; to address them to Jesus Christ Himself, who is God as well as Priest, and the eternal end of all things, at the same time as a Mediator between His Father and men. But as all these species of homage ought to spring from everything which God has revealed to us respecting His excellences, from all that His bounty has given us, from all that we owe to His justice, from all that we ex- pect from His infinitely bountiful plenitude, Father Eymard teaches his disciples to discover in all truths, all mysteries, in all subjects of meditation, in one word, the motives of adoration, of thanksgiving, of reparation and of prayer which they necessarily contain. He teaches them what acts of virtue are inferred by each one of these species of primordial homage in order to be properly rendered, some virtues being more suitable to adoration, others to thanksgiving, others to reparation, and others, lastly, to prayer. Finally, these motives not being able to be discovered, and these acts to be produced, except by a certain labor of the faculties and of the powers, Father Eymard demands from the intelli- gence, the heart, and the will their regular co-operation, which is what all the different methods of prayer claim. In this manner the whole of the interior being is seen to be employing itself in successively producing, in union with the Eucharistie Pontiff, the homage of the great and perpetual prayer of this sacrifice. From the strictly methodical point of view each of these species of homage ought to succeed one another 34 Method of Adoration. in the order in which the Council of Trent enumerates the ends of the eucharistical sacrifice : Adoration — Thanksgiving — Reparation — Prayer. Father Eymard even recommends that the hour of adoration (for he asks that the adoration should habitually last an hour) should be divided into four quarters, and that each quarter should in turn be consecrated to rendering to God the four great species of homage. He does not, however, render such an equal partition of time absolutely neces- sary and obligatory, and if grace gives one inspiration any one species of homage may be prolonged beyond the others. But whatever may be the length of time given to each species, the succession of these four thoughts singularly' facilitates the exercise of the adoration, even in the case of the most inexperienced. It is then four successive prayers, each of a quarter hour's duration, linked together by the uuity of the same subject, but varying by means of the four different points of view under which they are made to pass ; and each time all the faculties are brought into play in order to derive from them the diverse motives of the four ends and to produce the acts of virtue proper to each. What could be simpler or easier ? The same truth, taken up again and replaced four times under a different aspect : (1) Of the adoration or of the divine excellences reflected in it ; (2) of the thanksgiving, and of the features of the divine goodness which it bears, and the benefits it recalls to mind ; (3) of the reparation, and of the differences it manifests between what we are and what we ought to be in order to accomplish the duties it reveals to us ; (4) of prayer and of the graces which we need in order to fulfil the obligations it imposes on us. Such is the method of the four ends of the sacrifice. Can we not see that by means of this method of adora- tion our prayer is made to participate in a wholly special Acts of Adoration. 35 manner in the august prayer of Jesus Christ, and that we unite our own private religion to the public religion of the holy sacrifice ? that we are consequently placed in very near relations with the Eucharistie Pontiff, and that we honor in a very direct manner His state and His action in the sacrament ? What could be more appropriate to a prayer which is destined to be offered in the presence of the tabernacle, or of the throne of the exposition ? To facilitate the exercise of it we now proceed to enumerate the acts of the different virtues which may be produced by our different faculties for the purpose of expressing the homage of each one of the four ends of the sacrifice. Certainly we are not bound each time to make acts of all these virtues ; we name them all in order that a person may choose among them according as the nature of the subject or the state of his soul and the movement of grace may guide him. III. Acts of the Faculties and of the Virtues in Each of the Four Ends. Acts and Virtues of the First Mid. Adoration, understood as the first of the ends of the sacrifice, has as its object the recognition of the divine majesty, says Saint Thomas, propter majestatem, and, as he says elsewhere, that which evidences His excellence above His creatures, the beauty, the perfection, the ami- ability of God — all that constitutes His infinite being. In relation to us, it is His sovereign rights as First Prin- ciple and Supreme End, of Creator and Preserver. The acts of the mind, in the adoration, are faith in the truth proposed as the subject of adoration, because of the divine word and authority ; the supernatural 36 Acts of Adoration. understanding of the truth in question ; the spiritual contemplation of the perfection and the amiability of God which are manifested therein ; admiration ; praise. The acts of the heart, or of the affective will, are com- plaisance, desire, good-iuill, joy. The acts of the will, properly so called, are the gift, the giving up, of ourselves to the excellences, the perfec- tions, the amiabilities, the rights, the sovereignty of God ; and this gift can hardly be manifested except by a kind of annihilation of ourselves in the presence of so much greatness, of so much splendor, of rights so lofty, of a majesty so sublime. Humility, absolute submis- sion, abandonment without reserve, holy fear, religious and profound silence, are the expressions most suitable for rendering this annihilation of the creature in pres- ence of his Creator whom he adores. Acts and Virtues of the Second End. The action of thanksgiving has for its object the gifts, the benefits of God : propter data, such as they are manifested in the truth which we are meditating ; consequently its formal object is the goodness and the love of God, proved by His benefits. The acts of the mind are the following : Considera- tion of the portion exercised by the goodness, the love of God in the proposed truth, by means of the views and the merciful designs revealed in it ; remembrance and enumeration of the benefits relating to this truth which we have received in our past life, or which we are still receiving every day ; the study of the value, of the greatness, of the magnificence of these benefits, drawn from the different circumstances which render them more or less costly ; the gratuity of them, the greatness of the donor, the indigence and the unworthiness of the Acts of Adoration. 37 recipient, the continuation of the gifts, in spite of abuse or of the small profit derived from them, admiration, praise. The acts of the heart are grateful love, complaisance and joy, benediction and jubilation, effusions of grati- tude and of tenderness, happiness and repose, the silence of beatitude. These acts issue from the considerations exercised by the mind as enunciated above, the heart following upon the mind at the sight of the divine good- ness and the review of His gifts. The acts of the will are effective gratitude, testified by protestations of fidelity, towards a benefactor so magnifi- cent ; humility or the very humble acceptance of the position of debtor and of an insolvent debtor ; resolutions to make use of all of His gifts only for His glory, to render to Him the fruit of these seeds of His liberality ; promises to make returns to Him for them ; lastly, the gift of ourselves, of all that we have, of all that we are, of all that we will do, in testimony of gratitude and as an instalment of our debt. Acts and Virtues of the Third End. Propitiation or reparation has for its object the offences and the shortcomings to be found in our life in relation to the truth which we are meditating, and which this meditation discovers to us : propter offensam. Repara- tion first supposes the confession of the fault committed against the holiness of God and the acceptance of the debts contracted towards His justice ; then, by prayer, the re-entering into favor through His mercy. The formal object of reparation is, therefore, justice to be appeased and holiness to be restored, then the mercy of God to be gained. Acts of the mind : The examination, or the attentive consideration of the contrast between our life and the 3S Acts of Adoration. truth proposed to it, either through our formal sins or through our imperfections ; meditation upon the serious- ness of the state in question, upon the gravity and the number of our faults ; upon the consequences which such a state and such faults bring with them in regard to God, to Jesus above all ; in regard to our responsi- bilities towards our neighbor ; in regard to our vocation in time and our eternal future ; and the sincere and humble confession of all our sins. Acts of the heart : They consist chiefly in saddened love, compunction, a breaking of the heart, contrition ; regret, bitterness, salutary fear, holy sorrow, horror of sin ; compassion, pity for ourselves and the other victims of sin — compassion, above all, for Jesus, the first, the universal, but the innocent, the gentle victim of our sins. Acts of the will : Detestation and renunciation of evil, shunning the occasions leading to it, the rupture of its ties, interior conversion, a firm resolve ; satisfac- tion and the resolution to perform penance ; voluntary humiliation, the acceptance of all the pains it may please God to inflict upon us in expiation of our faults ; lastly, the gift of ourselves, in the humble annihilation of the sinner, to justice that it may satisfy itself here below in regard to us ; to mercy that it may have pity on us, have patience and give us new graces ; to holiness that it may restore and transform us. Acts and Virtues of the Fourth End. Supplication, or prayer, has for its object the gifts, the benefits, and the graces of God to be obtained in the future even as the act of thanksgiving had for its object the giving thanks for benefits already received : propter bénéficia sperata. It has as its express reason the good- Acts of Adoration. 39 ness, the liberality, the plenitude, the providence of God, which it takes upon itself to touch and to render attentive and generous in giving us all the good things necessary to our indigence as being creatures of nothing- ness. The view of the indigence in question had already appeared during the reparation, in the consideration of the shortcomings and faults which disfigure our souls with respect to the truth proposed as a subject ; it had already appeared in the contrast between these defects and the divine perfections contemplated in the adora- tion, with the benefits and the gifts set forth in the act of thanksgiving. Acts of the mind : A clear view of our needs ; a con- sideration of the exact species of graces we have to seek in order that our soul may profit by all the fruits con- tained in the proposed truth ; the consideration of the riches, of the plenitude, of the providence of God, which possesses, without impoverishing itself, wherewith to enrich millions of creatures who are nothingness ; a re- membrance of the promises whereby God has engaged Himself to give either by way of facts or of guarantees which show that He will be still more liberal, having already been so in such a magnificent manner. The acts of the heart consist in hope, confidence, de- sires, which are ardent and lively, animated as they are by the sentiment of what we have already received ; in the suffering we experience because of our indigence ; in pity for ourselves and for others whose needs we know to be identical with ours ; in charity, disinterested love which is generous, zealous, apostolical, and makes us desire and earnestly ask what will be either for the glory of God or a benefit for our neighbor. The acts of the will are formal prayer or the suppli- cation expressed by the heart or the lips ; repeated, in- stant, persevering prayer ; humble, lowly prayer, full of 40 Acts of Adoration. ardor and also at the same time of abandonment, will' ing what it asks, but still more the good pleasure of the divine will which may prefer, for reasons known to its unfathomable wisdom, to delay instead of immediately granting ; to permit the accomplishment of the trial in- stead of preservation from it ; the resolution to carry out into action, immediately and very faithfully, the graces which are asked for ; the demand of the same gifts for all those ivlio have need of them ; lastly, the gift of our- selves, the oblation of our being and of the whole of our life to the good God from whom we expect help in order to repay it, at least in a slight proportion, by means of this offering of small value, although it be all that we can offer of what is best. In terminating, a look must be cast upon the duties which will immediately follow upon the adoration : to ask the exact kind of graces which will then be neces- sary to us, afterwards to implore through Mary and through Saint Joseph the blessing of Our Lord. The subjects of adoration which are about to be given are composed solely upon these different acts ; .if we have not always specified or placed them in methodical evidence, it is in order to permit the pious adorer to ex- press them himself as he may be inspired to do so. AVe believe that if it be well to help and to enlighten prayer there must be left to each several soul the task and the consolation of making it. THE EUCHARISTIC CHRIST. Ube Institution of tbe lEucbartet THE FACT. I. Adoration. Adore Our Lord, instituting the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the excess of His infinite love. Contemplate Him on the last day of His life, at the last hour of His liberty, seated in the midst of His apos- tles, between Saint Peter and Saint John. He has just been humbling Himself in their presence to the extent of washing their feet ; they are struck with astonish- ment, stupefied ; what, then, is about to happen ? Jesus takes the bread, raises His eyes to heaven, gives thanks to His Father, blesses the bread, saying, " Take ye and eat ; this is My body which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me." In like manner He takes the chalice filled with wine mixed with water. He blesses it, gives thanks, and says, " Take ye all of this and drink ; this is the new testament in My blood, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins." Adore Jesus in these different acts ; listen to His 42 Institution of the Eucharist. words ; hearken to them attentively with the reverence of love. See what sweet majesty is diffused over the whole of His person, what kindness beams from His eyes ; what an accent of tenderness there is in His voice ! Then make a formal and detailed act of faith in the whole of this mystery. I adore, Jesus, Thy veracity ; I believe that Thou hast really pronounced these adorable words ; I believe that they are true, and that they will efficaciously pro- duce that which they enunciate. I believe, then, that the bread becomes, through Thy word, Thy very body, and the wine Thy very blood. I believe that the whole substance of the bread and of the wine was changed, transubstantiated into Thy body and into Thy blood. I believe that there remained of the bread and of the wine nothing more than the appearances, the accidents, such as the color, the taste, the weight, and the figure, and that Thy omnipotence alone sustained these acci- dents. I believe that Thou wert as truly present then beneath the consecrated species as Thou wert at the table beneath the eyes of Thy apostles. I believe that the whole of Thy blood was united with the substance of Thy body under the appearance of bread, and the whole of Thy flesh was united with the substance of the blood under the appearance of the wine. And I believe, Jesus, that what Thou didst then at the Last Supper priests now do, like Thee, by Thy order and Thy power, in virtue of those words, " Do this for a commemoration of Me." I believe that Thou art present in all the consecrated Hosts, in all the tabernacles throughout the world, and I adore Thee therein, I praise Thee therein, I bless Thee therein, Jesus, the Author of this sacrament of love ! Institution of the Eucharist. 43 I unite my adoration and my faith with that of the apos- tles at the Last Supper ; I adore Thee with the angels who watch, silent and burning with love, around Thy tabernacles. II. Thanksgiving. " Jesus gave thanks —gratias egit." Jesus, Thou givest thanks that the moment has come in which Thou canst give free course to Thy love and allow it to pass over all imaginable limits. Thou thankest Thy Father for permitting Thee to give Thyself up to every one of us, forever, without re- serving anything for Thyself, either of Thy being, or of Thy glory, or of Thy rights ! Thou art happy because of it ; and Thou dost express Thy gratitude even as though it were a gain, a profit for Thee. What, then, dost Thou personally gain in giving Thy- self thus ? What dost Thou hope to derive in regard to Thyself from this excess of love ? Will praises and homage compensate for the forgetfulness, the contempt, the insults with which Thou wilt be assailed during the long sacramental life which Thou dost begin at this hour ? Wilt Thou receive as much love as Thou wilt receive ingratitude ? Dost Thou believe that such a treasure will be esteemed in accordance with its value ? Ah ! Thou knowest what a bitter chalice, always full, always overflowing, this sacramental state prepares for Thee ; Thou knowest in all its most exact details all that awaits Thee ; Thou dost foresee all the circumstances of human malice, Thou dost count all its repetitions, Thou dost measure the whole of its obstinacy ; never- theless Thou dost give thanks because Thou wilt do 44 Institution of the Eucharist. good to many souls, and because to do good to Thy poor creatures is Thy supreme object, Thy joy, Thy recom- pense, the always longing, never satisfied need of Thy heart ! But if Thou dost render thanks because Thou art able to give Thyself, what ought to be my gratitude for re- ceiving this gift of Thy infinite love ? It is for me, for us, that Thou dost institute this sac- rament — pro nobis. For me the thought, the sublime invention of the Eucharist ! For me the marvels of power and the multitude of miracles which its institution required ! For me the efforts of love, of patience, of pardon, and the numberless and inexpressible sacrifices which its perpetuity costs ! for me, for my good, my salvation, my strength, my assistance, my consolation ! For me ! And what am I ? Nothingness and sin, weakness and ingratitude. And Thou, who givest Thyself thus, what art Thou not ? All being, all perfection, all love ! love, goodness, condescension, the inexhausti- ble treasures of the tendernesses of the heart of Jesus, what shall I render Thee ? At least I can confess my insolvable debts ; I avow, I confess to Thy glory, that I owe Thee everything, Jesus ! I thank Thee for all, I bless Thee for all. And I will praise, I will forever chant the blessed hour of the institution of Thy sacrament and of my sacrament ; it is the source which will never dry up, the ever-active principle, the inextinguishable hearth of life, of grace, of mercy in the Church. It is from it that came to me the Host full of pure de- lights of my First Communion ; it is from that blessed source that I gather every morning the strengthening Institution of the Eucharist. 45 food that fortifies my feeble life ; it is because the hour of the institution lasts always, fixed like a sun in the firmament of the Church that I hope for the Viaticum of my last hour ; it is from Thee, Jesus in the Eucharist, that I await my eternal heaven ! It is there, in the days which will have no evening, that I shall render Thee worthy thanks for the institu- tion of Thy sacrament, where my intelligence shall have been enlightened to understand the marvels of it, my heart inflamed with infinite love, so as to love it suffi- ciently, but even in heaven will my gratitude ever rise to the height of the treasure of Thy Eucharist ? . . . III. Reparation". When instituting the Eucharist the Lord said : " This is My body, which is given, delivered up for you ; this is My blood, which is shed for many unto remission of sins." These words show that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, an immolation, a death for sin. In point of fact, is it not equivalent to death for a living man to be reduced to the state of a host, which makes of him the food of man ? There is no longer any brilliancy in his eyes, any majesty in his person, no longer any life upon his lips ; silence, obscurity, inertia, death ! See if there be any greater distance between a living man and his corpse than between Jesus seated at table with His apostles and Jesus become the bread which they eat in trembling. The eucharistie state, therefore, is like unto a state of death. The profound humiliation of Jesus in the Host is nec- essary in order to be in opposition to our pride ; His obedience, to our continual revolts, and His poverty, to the follies attendant upon our luxury. 46 Institution of the Eucharist. Holy Father, receive this Host for my sins ! Jesus ! I ask of Thee pardon for all my sins and the persistent malice I show in repeating them when Thou dost accept such great sacrifices in order to expiate them ! I detest them with Thee, like Thee, as much as Thee ! In addition to this state of death, which Thou didst Thyself choose, at the hour of the institution of the Eucharist, how many deaths full of ignominy do we not impose on Thee, divine Victim ! The death of isola- tion, the death of insult, the death of ingratitude, the death of sacrilege ! And Thou dost see them displayed before Thee, hid- eous, threatening, contemptuous, outrageous, in the odious person of Judas ! But woe to those who inflict them upon Thee ! Pardon them, Jesus ! Pardon all those who forsake Thee, despise Thee, and insult Thee ! Accept my faith, my respect, my poor love in reparation ! " This is My blood, which is shed for many unto re- mission of sins" (Matt. xxvi. 23). What does " many" mean if it be not that this blood given for all will not serve all in reality, and that there will be hardened souls who will obstinately turn aside from its redeeming action ? Alas, we see only too clearly that it is so ! The blood may flow without interruption, gush from a thousand sources, that it may everywhere spread its salutary floods, and in spite of it there are souls endued with the fatal facility of escaping from it. And it is the sight of these poor, erring creatures which made Thee endure, Jesus, at the hour in which Thou didst institute the Eucharist, the most poignant grief. Thou still seest all of them in Judas ; in Judas, who would not allow himself to be touched by any of the marks of Thy tenderness ; who communicated in a Institution of the Eucharist. 47 sacrilegious manner ; who died impenitent in spite of the advances, the numberless testimonies of Thy love. And the sight fills Thee with sadness ; it makes Thee shudder ; it troubles Thee ! In it lies the inexpressible torture of Thy heart, at seeing Thy sacrament remain useless in regard to many souls — this sacrament, which is the proof of so great a love, the fruit of numberless sacrifices, the renewal of Thy death daily resumed and continued. Jesus ! I compassionate Thy trouble, Thy anguish ! I implore Thee in behalf of these hardened souls ! I supplicate Thee, above all, to have mercy on the dying who reject, at their last hour, the Viaticum of their eternity ! IV. Peayek. " Do this in commemoration of Me." When Jesus has given us all ; when, in this sole act of the Supper, He made Himself at once our victim, our nourishment, and our companion— our victim to be immolated down to the very end ; our nourishment to be given to all men in all centuries, to the little as well as to the great, to sinners as well as to saints ; our com- panion to guide us, to follow us on every shore, under all latitudes, and to live with us like a father in the midst of his children, and a friend with his friends ; when He had made the gift which embraces all pleni- tudes, and which was none other than that of His divine and human being — gift embracing both time and space — then, in return, He addressed Himself to His apostles, and addressed to us in their person a humble, a touch- ing prayer, " Remember Me !" Yes ! in order to repay Him for a love which is clothed in so many magnificent forms, which is so liberal, so constant, so magnanimous, He asks only a remembrance ! 48 Institution of the Eucharist. Not to forget that He is there ; to remember that He is ever attentive to us ; to know that He awaits us and ceaselessly offers us all that He possesses, is all that He wants, all that He requires, all that He solicits from us ! He begs us, He conjures us,