^- r f.'^i [ ' i; i8# 1 )- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Slielf_.i?.7 8 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE BLESSED EUCHARIST OUR GREATEST TREASURE. BT MICHAEL MULLEE, Priest of the Congregation oftlie Most Holy Redeemer, "In the midst of j'ou standeth One Whom you know not — the latchet of Whose shoe I am not worthy to loose." — John i. 26, 27. TENTH REVISED EDITI^. >''■. %lM^ ,, Jl ,M c NEW YORK AND CINCINNATI : FR. PUSTET, PHmTES TO THE HOLT APOSTOLIC SeS AKD TBCE S. CoNG. OF RlTE3. 1878. fr Copyright, ERWIN STEINBACK, 1878. JmprimHturt: MARTINVS JOANNES, Archiep. Baltz DiB 22 OOTOBEE, 1867. PROTEST OF THE AUTHOR. TN obedience 'lo the decrees of Urban YIII. of holy -*- memory, I protest that I do not intend to attribute any other tbi^n purely human authority to all the mira- cles, revelations, graces and incidents contained in this book; neither to the titles holy or blessed applied to the servants of God not yet canonized, except in cases where these have been confirmed by the Holy Roman Catholic Church and by the Holy Apostolic See, of whom I profess myself an obedient son ; and, therefore, to their judgment I submit myself and whatever I have written in this book. PREFACE. My Dear Reader and Brother in Jesus Christ : SIl!^CE the spirit of devotion that has urged me to write this book, animates you to read it and makes us the happy children of the same loving Father, should you ever hear any person say I might have spared myself the labor, there being already so many learned and celebrated works which treat of this subject, I beg you to answer that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Adorable Sacrament, is such an abun- dant fountain that the more it flows the fuller it be- comes, and the fuller it is the more it flows, which signifies that the most Holy Eucharist is so great and so sublime a mystery that the more we say of it the more remains to be said. If St. Alphonsus could say with all truth of the Passion of our Lord, " that eternity will not suffice to meditate adequately upon it," we may affirm the same of Jesus Christ hidden in the Blessed Sacrament, and with a thou- sand times more justice apply to our subject what St. Augustine says in praise of the Blessed Virgin, VIZ : that all the tongues of men, even if all th^r PREFACE. members were changiad into tongues, would not be sufficient to praise lier as she deserves. Worldly lovers are accustomed frequently to men- tion and praise those whom they love, that others also may praise and applaud them ; how poor and weak should we then consider the love of those who call themselves lovers of the Blessed Sacrament, and yet who seldom speak of it or think of endeavoring to inspire others with a love of it. The true lovers of the most Blessed Sacrament do not act thus ; they speak of it, praise it everywhere, in public and in private ; whenever it is in their power they try to enkindle in the hearts of all those ardent flames of love wdth w^hich they themselves burn for their be- loved Jesus. The object of this little book is, then, to make Jesus, in the Blessed Eucharist, more generally known and better loved. Our Divine Saviour is ready to bestow innumerable graces through this Sacrament, which are lost in consequence of the ig- norance and indifference of men. When the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar is not revered and loved, scandals will abound, faith will languish, and the Church mourn. On the other hand, if this Sacra- ment be worthily frequented, peace will reign in Christian hearts, the devil will lose power and souls vfill be sanctified. " As many as received Him to them He gave power to be made the sons of God." It has seemed to me that a work explanatory of the [prominent points of this mystery, written in a PREFACE. simple and familiar style, would greatly contribute to remove tlie obstacles to a rigbt appreciation of tbis wonderful Sacrament of Divine love ; and witb tbis conviction I bave ventured to lay tbe following pages before tbe public, trusting, witb tbe blessing of God, tbey may prove useful to many souls. As Almigbty God in His goodness imparts His favors to His faitbful followers in divers ways, some times by enligbtening tbeir minds in a supernatural manner, and even conversing witb tbem familiarly as it were, and as tbe nature of tbis work is intended to be practical, not controversial, I bave tbougbt it expedient for tbe edification of pious souls to intro- duce into it, after tbe manner of tbe Holy Fatbers, botb some revelations made to certain saints, and several miraculous facts concerning tbis mystery. I know tbere are some persons wbo, boasting of being free from prejudices, take great credit to tbemselves for believing xxO miracles but tbose recorded in tbe Holy Scriptures, esteeming all otbers as tales and fables for foolisb women. But it will be well to re_ member bere a remark of tbe learned St. Alpbonsus, wbo says, " tbat tbe bad are as ready to deride mira- cles as tbe good are to believe tbem ; adding, tbat, as it is a weakness to give credit to all tbings, so, on tbe otber band, to reject miracles wbicb come to us attested by grave and pious men, eitber savors of infidelity wbicb supposes tbem impossible to God, or of presumption wbicb refuses belief to sucb a class of ^iitjiors. "We give credit to a Tacitus, a Sueto- X PREFACE. nius, and can we deny it without presumption to Christian authors of learning and probity. There is less risk in believing and receiving what is related with some probability by honest persons and not re- jected by the learned, and which serves for the edifi- cation of our neighbor, than in rejecting it with a disdainful and presumptuous spirit." Hence Pope Benedict XIY. says : " Though an assent of Catho- lic faith be not due to them, they deserve a human assent according to the rules of prudence by which they are probable and piously credible." JS^ow should the Reverend Clergy deem this pub- lication ever so little calculated to promote devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the compiler will believe himself amply rewarded for his labor if they en courage its circulation. Michael Mijller, C. S.S. R. St. Alphonsus', Baltimore, Md. December 8th, 1867. CHAPTER I. PAG« The Doctrine of the Real Presence . . . 1 CHAPTER II. On the Reverence due to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament .... 29 CHAPTER III. On the Love op Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament 44 CHAPTER lY. On Yisiting Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sac- rament . . 61 CHAPTER Y. 05r THE Great Desire or Jesus Christ to enter INTO OUR Hearts in Holy Communion . . *l*l CHAPTER YI. On Preparation for Communion . . . .91 CHAPTER YII. On Thanksgiving after Communion . . . 105 CHAPTER YIII. On the Effects op Holy Communion . . . 124 zi xn CONTENTS. CHAPTER . IX. rAo« The Excuses of those who do not Communicate Frequently . . . . . .145 CHAPTER X. On Unworthy Communion 16t CHAPTER XL On Spiritual Communion 185 CHAPTER XII. Considerations on the Yirtues that Jesus Christ Teaches us in the Most Holy Sac- rament of the Altar . . . •. . 189 CHAPTER XIII. The Most Holy Festival of Corpus Christi and its Origin 191 CHAPTER XIY. Additional Examples Relating to the Real Presence . 20y CHAPTER XV. The Most Holy Sacrifice op the Mass . .244 CHAPTER XYI. On the Ceremonies of Mass . . . . 2t6 CHAPTER XYIL An Exhortation to hear Mass Devoutly . . 287 CHAPTER XYIII. Examples Relating to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 304 Hymn . . 320 Oblation . 322 THE BLESSED EUCHAEIST OUR GEEATEST TEEASURE. CHAPTER I. THE DOCTRINE OF THE REAL PRESENCE. CEE-TAIN man was once thrown into prison. He there suffered so much from hunger, thirst, and cold, that at last he was almost dead. One ^ day the king determined to pay a visit to the captive, in order to find out how he bore his sufferings. Having put off his royal apparel, he went in disguise to the prison, and asked the poor man how he fared ; but the prisoner, being very sad and melancholy, scarcely deigned to answer him. When the king had gone ^way, the jailer said to the criminal : " Do you know who was speaking to you ? It was the king himself.^' " The king ! ^' exclaimed the captive. " O wretch that I am ! If I had known that, I would have thrown 1 2 THE DOCTRINE OF myself at his feet and clasped liis knees, and I would not have let him go until he had pardoned me. Alas ! what a favorable opportunity I have lost of freeing myself from this dungeon." It was thus the poor cap- tive lamented in anguish and despair; but all was unavailing. I think, dear reader, you understand the meaning of this story. The sufferings of this captive represent the wretchedness of man's condition on this earth. Our true country is heaven, and as long as we are living on earth, we are captives and exiles. We are far from Jesus Christ, our King; far from Mary, our good Mother; far from the angels and Saints of heaven, and far from our dear departed friends. But very many Christians are also, in another respect, like the captive of whom I have spoken. They do not know Jesus Christ, their true King, Who not only visits them, but dwells very near them. "But,'' you will ask, "how can Jesus Christ dwell near them without their know- ing Him?" It is because He has put on a strange gar- ment, and appears in disguise. Our Lord Jesus Christ abides in two places : in heaven, where He shows Him- self undisguised, as He is in reality ; and on earth in the Blessed Sacrament, in which He conceals Himself under the appearance of bread. One day a certain nun said to St. Teresa: "I wish that I had lived at the time of Jesus Christ, my dear Saviour, for then I could have seen how amiable and lovely He is." St. Teresa, on hearing this, laughed outright. "What!" said she, "do you not know, then, dear sister, that the same THE REAL PRESENCE. 3 Jesus Christ is still with us on earth, that He lives quite near us, in our churches, on our altars, in the Blessed Sacrament?" Yes — the Blessed Sacrament, or Holy Eucharist, is the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord; Who is truly, really and substan- tially present under the outward appearances of bread and wine. This is indeed a great mystery; and the more to confirm your faith in it, I will give you some proofs for it from Scripture and tradition. The first proof is taken from the sixth chapter of the gospel of St. John. Our divine Saviour knew that if He were to teach the Jews and His disciples so new and wonder- ful a doctrine, without having first prepared them for it, there would be scarcely one who would believe Him. When God intends to do something very extraordinary, He generally prepares men for it by revealing to them beforehand what He is about to do. Thus we know that when He intended to destroy the world by the deluge. He made it known through Noah a hundred years before this dreadful event took place. Again, when the Son of God had become man, and was about to make Himself known as the Eedeemer of the world, He sent St. John the Baptist to prepare the people for His coming. Finally, when He intended to destroy Jerusalem, He foretold it by the prophets ; and Jesus Christ has also described the signs by which men may know when the end of the world is at hand. God acts thus with men because He does not wish to overwhelm them by His strange and wonderful dealings. Hence, when our divine Saviour was about to telj 4 THE DOCTRINE OF the people that He intended to give them His flesh and blood as food for their souls, He prepared them for this mysterious doctrine by working a very astounding mir- acle. This great miracle was the feeding of five thou- sand men with five loaves and two fishes. The people having witnessed this miracle, were all so full of rever- ence for Jesus Christ that they wished to take Him by force and make Him king ; but Jesus, perceiving this, fled from them. They found him again, however, on the following day; and then Jesus took occasion, from the impression the miracle had made on them, to intro- duce the subject of the heavenly food which He was about to give to the world. " Amen,^^ said Jesus, " I say to you ; ye seek Me, not because ye have seen signs, but because ye have eaten of the loaves and have been filled. Labor not for the food which perisheth, but for that which endureth to life everlasting which the Son of man will give you." ^ Here He declares that the food He was to give them would confer eternal life. Their curiosity being excited by these words, they desired to know more about this heavenly food, and asked what sign He would give them, and whether the food He spoke of was better than the manna from heaven which God had given their fathers in the desert. Then Jesus said to them : "Amen, amen, I say to you, Moses gave you not the bread from heaven ; but 3Iy Father giveth you the true bread from heaven ; for the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world." '^ In these words He shows the superi ' St. John vi. 26; 27. ' Ibid. v. 32, 33. THE REAL PRESENCE. 5 ority of this bread to the manna of the Old Testament, calling it the ^Hrue bread from heaven/^ and saying that it possesses such wonderful efficacy as to give life to the world. The Jews, hearing of so wonderful a kind of bread, said to Him ; " Lord, give us this bread always." ^ Whereupon, He replied : " I am the bread of life; your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and died. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that if any man eat of it, he may not die> / am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever ; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world." ^ He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath life everlasting, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me and I in him."^ His disciples hearing this, said : " This saying is hard, and who can hear it."* Jesus, knowing that His disciples murmured at this, said to them : " Does this scandalize you?"^ Observe, he does not say, you are mistaken, you do not understand me, — no; on the contrary. He insists still more on the necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood : " Amen, amen, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you." "Many of His disciples," continues the Evangelist, " hearing this, went away and walked no more with * St. John T. 34. ' Jhid. V. 5r. * Ibid. v. 62. '■» Ibid. V. 52. * Ihid. Y. 61. 1* 6 THE DOCTRINE OF Him." Jesus, seeing that they would not believe that He was to give them His flesh and blood as food for their souls, suffered them to go away offended, and when they were gone, He said to the twelve : " Will ye also go away ? " Then Simon Peter answered in the name of all : " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and know that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God/'^ Remark the noble simplicity of the apostle's faith. They believe the words of their Master without the least hesitation ; they receive His words in that sense in which the others had refused to receive them; they receive them in their obvious meaning, as a promise that He would give them His real flesh to eat and His real blood to drink ; they believe with a full faith, simply because He is " the Christ, the Son of God," too good to deceive, and too wise to be deceived, too faithful to make vain prom- ises, and too powerful to find difficulty in fulfilling them. From this time forward the disciples were constantly expecting that Jesus Christ would fulfil His promise. At length the long looked-for day came. At the last Supper, Jesus took bread and blessed, and gave to His disciples, and said : ^' Take ye and eat, for this is My body." Then taking the chalice. He gave thanks and gave to them, saying : " Drink ye all of this, for this, is 3fy Blood of the New Testament which shall be shed for many, for the remission of sins." ^ Now in these words we must consider especially the » St. Jolin V. 68-70. » St. Matt. xxvi. 26-28. THE REAL PRESENCE. 7 Speaker. It was God Himself. It was the same God Who created heaven and earth out of nothing ; Who, in the beginning, said : " Let light be made," and in an instant the sun, the moon and the stars appeared in the heavens ; the same God Who once destroyed the whole world, with the exception of eight persons, by water ; Who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven ; Who, by His servant Moses, wrought so many miracles in the sight of Pharaoh, and conducted the Israelites out of Egypt, making a dry path for them in the midst of the Red Sea; — it was the same God, Je- sus Christ, Who once changed water into wine ; Who gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and life to the dead ; Jesus Christ, W ho as- cended into heaven, and Who, at the end of the world, will come again with great majesty in the clouds of heaven, to judge the living and the dead. He it was, the great Almighty God, Who took bread into His most sacred hands, blessed and gave to His disciples, saying : " Take ye and eat: for this is My Body J' And no sooner had He said : " This is my Body,^^ than the bread was really changed into His Body. He it was Who, in the same manner, took the chalice, blessed and gave to the disciples, saying : " Drink ye all of it, for this is My Blood." And no sooner had He said, " this is My Blood," than the wine was really changed into His Blood. When God speaks, what He commands is done in an instant. As He made the sun, the moon and the stars merely by saying : " Let light be made," so also at the Last Supper, by His word alone, He in« 8 THE DOCTRINE OF Btantaneously changed bread into His Body, and wine into His Blood. To those who doubt this, we may apply the reproof A^hich St. Jane Frances de Chantal once gave to a Cal- /inist nobleman who Vv^as disputing with her father about the Real Presence. She was at that time only five years of age, but hearing the dispute, she advanced to the heretic, and said : " What, Sir ! you do not be- lieve that Jesus Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist, and yet He has told us that He is present You then make Him a liar. If you dared attack the honor of the king, my father would defend it at the risk of his life, and even at the cost of yours, what have you then to expect from God for calling His Son a liar?" The Calvinist was greatly surprised at the child^s zeal, and endeavored to appease his young adversary with presents ; but, full of love for her holy faith, she took his gifts and threw them into the fire, saying : ^' Thus shall all those burn in hell who do not believe the words of Jesus Christ." St. Paul warmly exhorts the Corinthians to flee all communications with idolatry, and to abstain from things offered to idols, and he uses the following argu- ment to persuade them : " The chalice of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Chnst f And the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of the Lord ? " ^ Here he ex- pressly says that in the Holy Eucharist we communi- cate and partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. And still further on he says, in the same epistle to the * 1 Cor. X. IG. THE REAL PRESENCE. 9 Corinthians : " Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord." Nay, he goes far- ther and says : " He that eateth and drinketh un- worthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord."^ How could the Apostle declare that any one who received holy communion unworthily would eat and drink eternal damnation, if such a one did not really receive our Lord? Would it not be absurd to say that a man would incur eternal damnation by merely eating a piece of bread, or drinking a few drops of wine ? But be- cause the Apostle, taught by Jesus Christ Himself, knew that He who receives holy communion receives our Lord Himself, he declared that to receive it unworthily was to be guilty of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and consequently to deserve hell-fire. Moreover, all the Fathers of the Church teach the same doctrine as St. Paul. St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who lived in the first century, wrote as fol- lows to the faithful of Smyrna : ^^ Because the heretics refuse to acknowledge the Holy Eucharist to be the same flesh which suffered for our sins and was raised again to life by God the Father, they die a miserable death and perish without hope." ' Tertullian says : '' Our flesh is nourished with the body and blood of Jesus Christ, in order that our souls may be filled with God Himself." "Who," asks St. John Chrysostom,^ "will give us of his flesh that we may be filled." ^ This, Christ * 1 Cor. xi. 29. * De Eesurrect. carnis c. viii. ' Job xxxi. 31. 10 THE DOCTRINE OF has done, allowing Himself not only to be seen, but to be touched too, and to be eaten, to be united to us, thus gratifying all our wishes. Parents often give their children to others to nurse them : not so do I, says Christ, — "I nourish you with My flesh and place My- self before you. I was willing to become your brother . for your sake I took flesh and blood ; and again I de- liver to you that flesh and blood by which I became sc nearly related to you."^ In like manner do all the Fathers of the Church speak that have written upon this subject. But you will ask : " Mow is our Lord present in the Holy Eucharist ? " I answer : " Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained under the outward appearance of bread and wine, i. 6., He is present whole and entire. His body and soul. His flesh and His blood, His whole humanity and His whole Divinity. This is clear from what our Lord said at the institution of this holy mystery : " This is My Body," that is to say, this which I hold in My hand is the same body of flesL with which you see me clothed, the same body that 1 have borne for thirty-three years, the very body thai shall be to-morrow nailed to the cross. Moreover, as in Him the human nature was insepa- rably united to the divine. He Himself — His whole humanity and divinity — was contained under that out- ward appearance of bread. " How is this possible ? '' you ask. I answer : " By the Almighty power of God.* Is it not as easy for Him to change bread into His *■ Homil. in Joan. xlvi. THE REAL PRESENCE. 11 Body, and wine into His Blood, as it was for Him to create heaven and earth out of nothing ? It happened once in the Netherlands, that two ladies, a Catholic and a Protestant, were disputing on the subject of the Real Presence. The Protestant asserted that the Real Presence was impossible. The Catholic asked her: " Have you Protestants any creed in your religion ? '' " Oh to be sure,'^ said the Protestant ; and she began to recite : " I believe in God the Father Almighty, Cre- ator of heaven and earth." "Stop,'^ said the other; " that is enough. You say that you believe in an all- powerful God, why then do you not believe that He can change bread into His Body and wine into His Blood ? Is that difficult for Him who is Almighty ? " The Protestant had nothing to answer. A similar argument was once made use of by a pious painter named Leonardo. He, one day, met in an inn two men, one of whom was a Lutheran and the other li Calvinist. They were ridiculing the Catholic doctrine about the Blessed Sacrament. The Calvinist pretended that by these words, " this is My Body," it was only meant that the bread signifies the Body of Christ ; the Lutheran, on the other hand, asserted that this was not true, but that they meant that bread and wine, in the moment of their reception, became, by the faith of the recipient, the Body and Blood of Christ. While this dispute was going on, Leonardo took a piece of paper and drew the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, with Luther on the right hand and Calvin on the left. Un- der the image of our Saviour he wrote the words: 12 THE DOCTRINE OF " This is My Body." Under the figure of Calvin he wrote : " This signifies My Body ; " and under that of liUther : " This becomes My Body in the moment that you eat it." Then handing the paper to the two dis- putants, he said : " Which of these three is right, our Saviour, or Calvin, or Luther ? " They were struck at the force of the argument, and ceased to scoff at the Catholic doctrine. Indeed, this objection to the Real Presence is but a proof of the blindness into which men fall when they are led astray by pride, and instigated by the devil. The devil has had from the beginning a special hatred to this doctrine. In the early ages of the Church, he incited Simon the Magician and the Manicheans to deny it, and in later times, he seduced Berengarius to follow tlieir example ; but he never succeeded so well as with Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, and the other heresiarchs of the sixteenth century. Luther acknowledges him- self that the devil once appeared to him in a visible shape, saying to him : " During fifteen years you have daily celebrated private Masses, what if all those Masses have been a horrible idolatry ? What if the body and blood of Jesus Christ be not present there, and that yourself adored and made others adore bread and wine."^ And, indeed, this is not strange. The devil knows that, according to the promise of Jesus Christ, they who receive holy communion worthily wdll not fall into his power, but will obtain eternal life, and on * See History of the Reformation, by M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltini<»re, vol. i., note B., p. 470. THE REAL PRESENCE. 13 this account he either tempts men to disbelieve the mystery, or he suggests every sort of pretext to keep them from receiving it. But he himself believes it and trembles. Would to God that all men had so strong a faith ! After our Lord had changed bread into His Body, and wine into His Blood, He added the words : " Do this in remembrance of Me." ISTow, by these words, He commanded the Apostles, and their lawful succes- sors, the Catholic bishops and priests, to consecrate, i. e., to change bread and wine into His Body and Blood. " Do this," He says — that is to say, "do this which I have done, as I have changed bread and wine into My Body and Blood, so do you also in My name, change bread and wine into My Body and Blood." This change takes place in the sacrifice of the Mass, at the consecration. The moment the priest pronounces the words of the consecration over the bread and wine, that very instant Jesus Christ is present as truly as He is in heaven, with His Body and Soul, His human- ity and Divinity. After consecration nothing remains of the bread and wine except the sensible qualities or appearances. If, for instance, the bread is round, its roundness remains after the consecration; if it is white, its whiteness remains ; if it has a certain taste or quality before, that taste or quality continues ; and so with the wine ; the particular taste, color, and every other sensi- ble quality is just the same after the consecration as it was before it. In a word, whatever is capable of being perceived by the senses remains, but the 8ubsta7ice, 2 1 4 THE DOCTRINE OF which is perceived by the understanding alone, and not by the senses, is changed. But you will ask perhaps : " Why does our Lord hide Himself under the outward. appearances of bread and wine ? Why does He not manifest Himself under the sensible qualities of His body, wdth His wounded hands, His merciful countenance. His radiant majesty?^' Now, our Lord does so chiefly for two reasons. The first is, that we may not lose the merit of faith. Were we to see Jesus Christ as He is seen by the blessed in heaven, we could no longer make an act of faith in His Real Presence, for " faith is the belief in things which we do not see.''^ Now, our Lord Avishes to bestow on us, after this life, a great rcAvard for our faith, as He Himself has said : " Blessed are they that do not see and yet believe." ^ Many of the saints, in order not to lose the merit of their faith, have gone so far as to beg our Lord not to favor them with those consoling mani- festations of Himself in the Blessed Sacrament which He has sometimes granted to His chosen servants. One day, when St. Louis, king of France, was in- vited to go to a church in which our Lord 4ippeared in the Holy Eucharist under the form of an infant, he re- plied : " I will not go to see my Lord in the Holy Eu- charist, because I believe that He is present there as firmly as if I had seen Him. Let those go and see Him who do not believe." Surius relates, in the life of St. Hugo, that a priest of a certain village in England, on breaking the sacred » St. Paul. " John xx. 29. THE REAL PRESENCE. 15 host one day at Mass, saw blood issuing from it, w iiere- apon, filled with reverential awe, he determined to lead a holier life in future, and in iact he soon became re- nowned for his sanctity. St. Hugo happened once to stop at this village. The priest related this miracle to him, and offered to show him the cloths which were yet stained with the miraculous blood ; but the holy bishop refused to look at them, and w^ould not even allow his attendants to do so, saying that such wonders and sen- sible proofs were only for those who did not believe. And when he noticed that some of his attendants had a desire to see them, he reprimanded them sharply, and said that this desire proceeded not from piety, but from curiosity, and that it was more perfect to believe with- out seeing, as our Lord Himself assures us. "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe/^ * The second reason why our Lord hidp< Himself is, that He might inspire us with confidence. If He were to show Himself in all his glory, as He apj^ears to the angels and saints in heaven, who would dare to ap- proach Him? Surely no one. But Jesus most ear- nestly desires to unite Himself intimately to our souls, and, therefore. He conceals Himself under the outward form of bread, that we may not be afraid of Him. "Our great King," says St. Teresa, veils Himself that we may receive Him with greater confidence." In order to enliven our faith in His Real Presence, our Lord has frequently manifested Himself in a sen- sible manner in the Holy Eucharist. Church history *■ St. John XX. 29 16 THE DOCTRINE OF abounds in instances of the kind. The first that I shall relate is that of a miracle which occurred in the church of St. Denis in Douay, and is recorded by Thomas Cantipratensis, an eye-witness. A certain priest, after having distributed holy com- munion to the faithful, found one of the sacred hosts lying on the floor. Full of consternation, he knelt down to take it up, when the host arose, of its own accord, and placed itself on the purifier. The priest immediately called those who were present, and when they came near the altar, they all saw in the sacred host Jesus Christ under the form of a child of exquisite beauty. " On hearing the news," says our author, " I too went to Douay. After I had declared to the dean the object of my .visit, we went together to the church, and no sooner had he opened the ciborium wherein the miraculous host was contained, than we both beheld our Divine Saviour." " I saw," says Thomas, '' the head of Jesus Christ, like that of a full-grown man. It was crowned with thorns. Two drops of blood trickled down His forehead and fell on his cheek. With tearful eyes I fell prostrate before Him. When I arose again, I no longer saw either the crown of thorns or the drops of blood, but only the face of a man whose aspect in- spired great veneration." This miracle gave rise to a confraternity in honor of the Most Holy Eucharist, to which several popes, especially Paul III. and Innocent XI. granted numerous indulgences.^ In the village of Les Ulmes de St. Florent, in the * P. Favre Le Ciel ouvert. TE^ REAL PRESENCE. 17 tliocese of Angers, the following' miracle occurred on the second of June, 1666, the Saturday within the oc- tave of the feast of Corpus Christi. The people were assembled in the church for benediction, and when the priest had intoned the hymn, " Verbum Caro, panem verum," there appeared in place of the host the distinct figure of a man^ He was clothed in white, and His hands were crossed on His breast ; His hair fell upon His shoulders, and His countenance was resplendent with majesty. The curate then invited all his parish- ioners to come and witness the miracle : " If there be any infidel here,^' said he, " let him now draw near." Every one approached and gazed upon this beautiful vision for about a quarter of an hour, after which the host resumed its former shape. The bishop of Angers, Mgr. Henry Arnaud, after having examined the testi- mony in favor of this miracle, caused it to be proclaimed throughout the whole of France. The Blessed Nicholas Fattori, a Franciscan friar, re- markable for his piety and purity of heart, often saw Jesus Christ in the consecrated host in the form of an infant. On touching the Blessed Sacrament, he seemed to feel, not the mere Eucharistic species, but the very flesh of Jesus Christ. On this account he used to present his fingers to those who wished to kiss his hand, saying : " Kiss these fingers with great respect, for they are sanc- tified by real contact with Jesus Clirist our Lord and Sovereign Good." It is also related that, when this holy man was in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, he used to rejoice as a child does in the presence of its mother. 2* B 18 THE DOCTRINE OF Our Lord, in His great mercy, has even gone so far as to manifest Himself to His enemies, to the unbe- lievers. In the life of St. Gregory the Great, written by Paul the deacon, it is related that a noble matron of Rome who was accustomed to prepare the hosts for the holy sacrifice of Mass, went one Sunday to. receive holy com- munion from the Holy Pontiff. When he gave her the Blessed Eucharist, saying: "May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul unto life everlasting," she laughed outright. Seeing this, the Sovereign Pon- tiff did not give her the Blessed Sacrament, but replaced it on the altar ; and when the holy mysteries were ended, he asked the lady why she laughed when about to re- ceive the Body of the Lord. " Why,'^ said she, " I laughed because I saw that, what you said was the Body of the Lord, was one of those very wafers which I had made with my own hands." Upon this the Pope ordered all present to pray that God, in confirma- tion of the truth, would cause all to see with the eyes of the body what the unbelief of this woman had pre- vented her from seeing with the eyes of the soul. Ac- cordingly, when the holy Pontiff and all present had prayed for a while, the corporal was removed, and in sight of the multitude who pressed round to witness the miracle, the holy host was visibly changed into flesh. Then, turning to the woman, the Pope said ; Learn now to believe the words of the Ute7mal Truifi Who declares : " The bread which I give is My flesh, and My blood is drink indeed." This w^oman never THE REAL PRESENCE. 19 again doubted of the Real Presence, and soon made great progress in virtue. I shall adduce only one more instance which is re- lated by St. Alphonsus, in his History of Heresies. • It occurred about the time in which Wickliife began to deny the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. Some Jews procured a sacred host, through a servant-girl whom they had bribed to receive it unworthily. They then carried it. to an inn, where they cut it into several pieces. Immediately a great quantity of blood issued from each of the particles; but this miracle did not con- vert those unhappy wretches. They now concealed the particles in a meadow near the city of Posen. Some time afterwards, a cowherd, on crossing this meadow, saw the small particles of the host rising into the air and shining like fiery flames ; he saw, moreover, that the oxen fell on their knees as if in adoration. The cowherd, who was a Catholic, told his father what he had seen, and the father, having also witnessed the mir- acle, acquainted the magistrate of the fact. Thereupon a great concourse of people flocked to the place to wit- ness the miracle. In fine, the Bishop, with the clergy of the city, went in procession to the place, and having deposited the holy particles in a ciborium, they carried them to the church. A small chapel was built on the spot where this miracle occurred. This chapel was afterwards enlarged and converted into a magnificent church by Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia; and Stephen, the Archbishop, testifies to his having seen in this church these bloody particles. 20 THE DOCTRINE OF You might be inclined to infer from this narrative that our Lord's body is really broken, and His blood really shed whenever the host is cut or divided ; but this is not the case. In the Blessed Sacrament our Lord's body remains whole and entire in each particle, as it was in the entire host. The Fathers of the Church explain this by the comparison of a broken mirror, for, just as each part of the mirror reflects the entire image which the whole reflected before it was broken, so alse does each particle of the host contain Christ's body en- tire, as the whole host did before it was broken. And what is true of the host is true also of the chalice ; our Lord is present under each drop of blood as truly as under the whole species in the chalice. Whenever, therefore, the host is broken, or the blood spilt, it is not our Lord's body and blood that are broken and divided, but only the sacred species. More- over, our Lord's blood, as well as His body, is present under the form of bread, and His body, as well as His blood, is present under the appearance of wine. At His resurrection, our Lord's soul was reunited to His body and blood, never to be again separated ; so that where His body is, there also is His blood, His soul, and His Divinity ; and where His blood is there also are His body, soul, and Divinity. In a word, Christ *s present whole and entire under the species of bread as well as in the least particle of it, and He is also present whole and entire under the species of wine, as well as in the least particle of it. On this account, the Church, moved by several weighty reasons, commuai- THE REAL PRESENCE. 21 cates the faithful under the form of bread only, knovv'- ing that they are thereby deprived of no part of the Sacrament, but that they receive the blood of Jesus Christ as truly as if they drank it out of the chalice. That our Lord's blood is contained along with His body in the sacred host, is proved, not only by the authority of the Church and the Scriptures, and by the arguments from reason which I have just stated, but also by numerous miracles. Some of those which I have already related prove this doctrine. I will, there- fore, add but one more. It is related in the chronicles of the Hieronimites, that a religious of that order, named Peter of Cavane- las, was much tempted by doubts about the presence of blood in the sacred host. It pleased God to deliver him from the temptation in the following manner : One Saturday, as he was saying Mass in honor of our Blessed Lady, a thick cloud descended upon the altar ind enveloped it completely. When the cloud had disappeared, he looked for the host he had consecrated, but could not find it. The chalice, too, was empty. Full of prayer, he prayed to God to assist him in this perplexity, whereupon he beheld the host, upon a paten, in the air. He noticed that blood was flowing from it into the chalice. The blood continued to flow until the chalice was as full as it had been before. After his death, this miracle was found recorded in his own hand- writing. At the time it happened, nothing was known about it, as our Lord enjoined secrecy upon him. Even the person who served his Mass knew nothing about 22 THE DOCTRINE OF it; he only noticed that the priest shed many tears, and tliat the Mass lasted longer, than usual. Ah ! how mysterious, yet how divine and how con- soling is the doctrine of the Real Presence ! Indeed, it is one of the most wonderful and most consoling of all doctrines. It is the centre of Catholic devotion, and has ever been the object of the most rapturous contem- plation of the saints. But I have not yet mentioned a fact which, I believe, will increase your appreciation of this mystery. It is, in some respects, more w^onderful than any I have yet mentioned, and with it I will con- clude my instruction. There have been many holy persons, who have had a supernatural instinct by which they were sensible of the presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament even when it was hidden and at a distance from them ; they could also distinguish a consecrated host from an unconsecrated one. Goerres, in his celebrated work entitled, " Christian Mysticism,'' notices this fact, and thus prefaces the enumeration of the few cases which he cites : " In reference to the holiest of all things, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, w^e find that those saints who have succeeded in raising themselves to the higher regions of spiritual life, w^ere all endowed with the faculty of detecting the presence of the Blessed Sacra- ment, even when it was hidden and at a considerable distance. Blessed Ida of Louvain was always sensible of the presence of our Lord at the precise moment of consecration. Once when the server at Mass had, by mistake, given the priest water instead of wine^ so that THE REAL PRESENCE. 23 thei'e was no consecration, St. Coleta, though kneeling at a distance, perceived it by a supernatural instinct. " The Cistercian nun Juliana always knew when the Blessed Sacrament was moved from St. Martinis church at the close of the service, and each time she used to be overwhelmed with sadness. This was frequently wit- nessed by her friend Eva.^ One day the Franciscans of Villonda invited the holy Carmelite Cassetus to visit them, and to try him they took the Blessed Sacrament out of the tabernacle in which it was usually kept and placed it elsewhere. They put no light before it, but left the lamp burning as usual before the customary altar. On entering the church, the companion of Cas- setus turned towards the high altar, but Cassetus im- mediately pointed out the spot where the Blessed Sacra- ment had been placed, saying : " The body of our Lord is there, and not where the lamp is burning ; the brothers whom you see behind the grating have placed it there in order to try us.'^^ St. Francis Borgia had the same gift, and on enter- ing a church, he always walked straight to the spot where the Blessed Sacrament was kept, even when no external sign indicated its presence. In 1839, Prince Licknowsky visited Mary Moerl, the celebrated Tyrol- ese Virgin, upon whom God bestowed so many miracu- lous gifts. While she was kneeling in ecstasy on her bed^ he observed that she moved round towards the window. Neither he nor any of those present could tell the cause of this. At last, on looking out, they saw a priest pas.s- * Rid,. ° Ibid. 24 THE DOCTRINE OF ing by, carrying the Viaticum to the sick, without bell or chant, or any sound that could give notice of ita approach.^ In the life of St. Lidwina of Holland, it is recorded that the priest, in order to try her, gave her an uncon- secrated host, but the saint perceived that it was only bread, and said ; " Your Reverence will please give me another host, for that which you hold in your hand is not Jesus Christ." Blessed Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, a Car- melite nun who lived in France, was one day suffering great pain. Her sisters, wishing to ascertain whether she would really find relief in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, to which she had a singular devotion, car- ried her at first to various places in which the Holy Eucharist was not kept, and exhorted her to pray to Jesus Christ; but she answered in a plaintive voice: " I do not find my Saviour here," and addressing herself to Him, she said : " My Lord, I do not find here Thy Divine Truth," after which she besought her sisters to carry her into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.^ When St. Louis, king of France, was on his death- bed, he was asked by the priest who brought him the Viaticum, whether he really believed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was present in the host. The saint, collecting all his strength, answered with a loud voice : " I believe it as firmly as if I saw Him present in the host, just as the Apostles saw Him when He ascended gloriously into heaven." • Catholio Magazine. ' Her life by P. Poesl, C. S.S. R. ■ THE REAL PRESENCE. 25 Now, if 70U would have such faith as this great saint, make use of the following means : First, make many- acts of faith in the real presence of Jesus Christ in tha Blessed Sacrament. Make them at home ; kneel down in your room ; turn toward some church in which the Blessed Sacrament is kept and say : " My Jesus, I firmly believe that Thou art present in that church ; I sincerely wish to be with Thee ; but since this is impos- sible, I beseech Thee to give Thy blessing to me and to all men.'' Make such acts of faith when you are abroad or when you are at your work : turn from time to time towards the Blessed Sacrament and say : " My amiable Saviour, bless me and everything that I do ; I will do and suffer everything for love of Thee." Make such acts of faith on your way to church. Say to yourself: " I am going to visit the King of heaven and earth ; I am going to see my good Jesus, my amiable Saviour, Who died on the cross for me, a wretched sinner ; I am going to visit the best of fathers. Who even con- siders it a favor when I have recourse to Him in my necessities." Finally, excite your faith when you are in church. Kneel with profound reverence and adore your God and Creator, saying : " My God, I firmly believe that Thou art in this tabernacle. I believe that in the Blessed Sacrament the same God is present Who cre- ated heaven and earth out of nothing ; the same God Who became an infant for my sake ; Who, after His death and resurrection, ascended into heaven, and now Bits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; 3 ^3 THE DOCTRIKE OF the same "Who, at the end of the world, will come In great majesty to judge the living and the dead." This, then, is the first rule — to make many acts of faith. The second is — to keep yourself free from sin; for God will not bestow the gift of a lively faith on a soul that is dead in sin. The third and most effica- cious means to gain a strong faith in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is — to pray for it. "He that asketh receiveth." Hence, if you wish to have a lively faith in this mystery, a faith that will make you exult when in the presence of the Holy Eucharist, or even when you think of it — ask it of Jesus Christ, and be assured that you will receive it. But since this lively faith is a gift of inestimable value, Jesus Christ washes that we should ask for it again and again without ceasing. Pray, therefore, for it, until you have obtained it, and when you have obtained this great gift, continue to pray that it may never be taken from you. Make this prayer especially during Mass. Heai Mass frequently, and especially in the time between the consecration and the communion, beseech Jesus Christ to grant your petition, and doubt not in the least that you will obtain it. A young cleric once heard a missionary preach on the Real Presence, and on the great love of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The preacher spoke with as lively a faith as if he saw Jesus Christ with his eyes. The young man was struck at this, and said to himself: "O my Lord! what shall become of me? I, too, must one day preach on Thy presence in the Holy THE REAL PRESENCE. 27 Eucharist ; but how feeble will my words be in com- parison with the words of this pious priest ! '^ The young man related this afterwards, and he added that, from that time forward, he had always begged of Jesus (yhrist the gift of a lively faith in the Real Presence, and that he had done so frequently during Mass, par- ticularly at the time of the elevation. By this means bis faith became so strong that he afterwards besought our Lord not to appear to him in any sensible manner ; and he could find nowhere so much joy and content- ment of heart as in a church where the Blessed Sacra- ment was preserved. Often call to mind the wonders which Jesus Christ has wrought in this mystery of love ; make many acts of faith in His Real Presence ; lead a very chaste life ; often beseech Jesus Christ to give you a lively faith, especially when you have received Holy Communion : and then rest assured that your faith will become strong and lively, like the faith of a saint, and your happiness will be unbounded. In days of yore, God complained that the Jews did not know Him : " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib : but Israel hath not known Me, and My people hath not under- stood." And when our Divine Saviour came on earth. He repeated the same reproach. When Philip said to our Lord, at the Last Supper : ^^ Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us," our Saviour re- proached him, saying : " Have I been so long with you and you have not known Me ? Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the Father also." In the same manner does 28 THE DOCTRINE OF THE REAL PRESENCE. onr dear Saviour, hidden under the Sacramental veilSj seem to reproach us : " I, your God and Redeemer, have been so long with you in the Blessed Sacrament, and yet you do not know Me? Do you know that when you see the Blessed Sacrament, you see Me, your Jesus ? Do you not know that when you are in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament you are in My Di- vine Presence?^' Alas! this reproach is but too just. How true are the words of the Evangelist : " He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not/^ May you, my dear reader, never deserve this reproach, but rather may you be of the number of those of whom the same Evangel- ist says : " But as many as received Him (that is, with a lively faith,) to them He hath given power to be made the Sons of God." May you live on earth as a Child of God, and after death may you be received into the kingdom of your heavenly Father, where, in re- ward for your faith, you will see, face to face. Him whom you have adored in the Blessed Sacrament, and will hear from His lips the consoling words : ^^ Come, My well-beloved, blessed art thou, because, though thou hast not seen, hast yet believed.'^ CHAPTER II. ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO JESUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. YOUNG Portuguese travelled to India to seek his fortune. In a few years he returned to Europe, accompanied by several of his own vessels laden with wealth, the fruits of his toil and researches. Having arrived at his native place : " Stay," said he to himself, " I must play a little deception on my relations." He put on soiled gar- ments and a torn cloak, and hastened to the house of his cousin Peter. In this disguise he claimed relation- ship : " I am your cousin John," said he. " I have passed several years in India; I now return to visit my friends and native land once more. You see my posi- tion, and thus, by ties of kindred, I crave hospitality at your hands." "Ah ! would to heaven I could ac- commodate you, my dear John," replied Peter. " Ex- cuse me, my house is wholly occupied." John, play- ing his role, proceeds to another friend's house, makes the same advance, realizes the same reply, and thus to a third and fourth. His poverty-stricken appearance had thus driven him from door to door. Ah ! poor S* 29 30 ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO deluded friends, little did you imagine that under thai tattered garment a man of wealth lay concealed. John hastened back to his ships, cast aside his beggar's dress, robed himself in costly attire, and, followed by a mul- titude of servants, proceeded at once to purchase a prin(jely dwelling in the very heart of the city. His fabulous wealth, his lordly retinue, his high-blooded steeds, w^ere the talk of the town and neighborhood. The news soon reached the ears of his friends. Picture to yourselves, if you can, their wondrous amazement ! How changed would their conduct now be if the oppor- tunity could but present itself anew I Listen to the altered tone of their language : " ^^at is the meaning of all this?" said one to the other. "Could you have supposed this for a moment? Had I but known this before, my friend would have met Avith very different treatment at my hands ; but alas ! it is now too late. We have repulsed him forever." The foregoing story serves as an illustration of what takes place between Christians and their Lord. This man went to his friends as a beggar, attired in poor, tattered garments, disguising thus his affluence and power. In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, does not our Blessed Lord act in the same manner. Does He, whilst silently remaining enclosed in our Tabernacles, by day and by night, display His heavenly glory and brightness ? No ; but He there remains, as it were, in a poor, miserable dress, under the humble appearance of bread. This stranger came to his friends a second time in rich and royal attire, escorted by numerous Ji:sus CHRIST in the blessed sacrament. 3'i attendants. Jesus Christ will come again, at the end of the world, enthroned on the clouds of heaven, in great power and majesty. Myriads of Angels and blessed spirits will surround Him on every side, for wealth, glory, and power are His. To whom can we compare those unkind friends of our narrative? Un- fortunately, to a very great number of Christians of the present day. How is that, you Avill ask me, perhaps ? Because, as they paid little or no attention to their rela- tive in his poverty, so, in the same manner, a great many Christians pay little or no reverence to Jesus Christ, when humbly concealed in the Sacrament of His love. After this conduct of Christians, let us not be astonished if we hear of infidels or heretics treating our Lord with irreverence in the Holy Eucharist. Once a Jewess pushed her temerity and hardihood so far as to receive Holy Communion with the Christians. Her audacity was immediately detected, although, when she had received the Sacred Host, she bowed down most profoundly, covering her face with her hands, as though wrapped in the purest devotion, 'Yell, you will say, "How did she betray herself?'^ tThose who were near her noticed that she Avas keeping the Sacred Host in her mouth and treating it with irreverence. She acted thus in order to ridicule and dishonor eJesus Christ, the God of the Christians. The observers of this conduct concluded that she must be either a sorcer- ess, or, as was really the case, an unbelieving Jewess. In what does her conduct diiFer from that of many peopl? of our day ? Do we not see men who hardlv S2 ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO bow their head, much less bend the knee when passing before that Most August Sacrament? Women enter the church who, by their dress and thouglitlessness, cannot claim any high prerogative in the modesty of their sex. Men even grant full liberty to their wanton gaze, heedless of the penetrating eye of their God Who fills that temple, and Whose sight has already piciced their souls. When, at processions intended to honor the Blessed Sacrament, I see such behavior, I must conclude that this is the result of the most complete indifference towards Jesus Christ, or a total forgetful- ness of His Presence. What then ; shall I call these persons Jews ? shall I call them sorcerers ? No. But I think I shall not be far astray in saying that they have not a lively faith. They may be Catholics, if you will, but, certainly, their faith is not practical. They do not realize that Jesus Christ is present in the taber- nacle and in the remonstrance. They are deceived by their senses. In the remonstrance, or in the hands of the priest at Mass, they see nothing but the white host, and their thoughts penetrate no farther. But if they only reflected on what their faith teaches, viz., that under that little host Jesus Christ conceals His heav- enly splendor and glory, how different would be their deportment ! h'ow different their thoughts and feelings ! Would you know how they would act if their faith was real and lively ? Go to the palace of a king. Mark the silent expectation in that splendid apartment! *What mean those movements so circumspect? that tread so noiseless ? that voice so subdued ? Ah ! ^tis JUS as CHRIST IN TUB BLESSED SACRA3IENT. 33 the Royal Antechamber ! There^ a loud word is an impertinence ; there, unbecoming attire is a crime. But hark ! even that stealthy conversation is hushed ; every eye is turned to one point, each one assumes the most respectful attitude, the curtain is drawn, and the obse- quious courtiers stand in the presence of their King. What an unpardonable breach of decorum would it not be for any one, to remain sitting at a moment like this ! Yes, to talk, to laugh, or to remain with head covered ! Now, if such honor is paid to earthly princes, what reverence is not then due to Him Who is " King of kings and Lord of lords ? " St. John Chrysostom is indignant with us for even making the comparison, and it is with reason. For what is an emperor when com- pared to the King of Heaven and earth ? He is less than the blade of grass when compared to the whole universe. Whenever the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in the iabernacle, borne in procession, or carried as Viaticum to the sick ; w^henever the sacred host is raised at the consecration in the Mass, our infallible faith says to us: "EccE Rex vester!" "Behold your King!^^ Behold your Redeemer, your Judge, your Creator, your God ! If, then, in the presence of the Most Holy Sacrament I feel no devotion interiorly, and show no modesty ex- teriorly, what will you think of me? You will say with truth and justice that: "that man does not believe that liis God is present there ; " or again, " that man's faith is cold and dead." C 34 ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO Who could believe that Jesus Christ is present in this Sacrament, and fail in reverence towards it? What reverence did not the Jews pay to the ark of the Cove- nant ! No one dared approach it ; yet fifty thousand persons who, through curiosity, ventured to gaze there- at, were struck dead, as a punishment for their rash act !^ Yet, what did the ark contain? "A golden pot that had manna, and the rod of Aaron that had blos- somed, and the tables of the covenant."" But in the Holy Eucharist, faith tells us that God Himself is pres- ent. He Who made all things out of nothing, and could destroy them in a moment. He who, at the last day, will come on the clouds of heaven to judge the living and the dead. Only let Catholics believe this with a lively faith, and our churches will be filled wath wor- shippers, whose deportment will correspond to their belief. The modest attire, the guarded eye, the bended knee, the meekly folded hands, will bespeak the convic- tion of their hearts. Only let Catholics have a lively faith in this mystery, and Jesus Christ will seldom be left alone. At all hours. His children will come to present themselves before Him, as subjects before their prince, as sick men before their physician, as children before their father, in a word, as friends before their beloved friend. Only let a congregation be animated with a lively faith in this doctrine of our holy religion, and each mind will be filled with amazement, the spirit will be recollected, the soul moved to contrition, the affections inflamed, the eye melted to tears of tender- " 1 Kings vi. 19. ' Heb. ix. i. JFSUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 35 ness^ and the voice broken with sighs like those of the poor publican : "0 Godj he merciful to me a -sinner !^^ or like unto that of St. Peter, " Lord, retire from me, for I am a sinful man ! " Thus reverence is nothing more than a lively faith. The reality of the Divine Presence in the Blessed Sacrament is the true rule of our deportment before it. The Catholic has within himself the rule of decorum. He needs nothing else to teach him what is proper or improper in church, be- sides the dogma which assures him that he is in the presence of his God. If, then, he be but a little recol- lected, he will be, almost necessarily, respectful. This, then, is the great means of preserving a rever- ent deportment, to remember Who He is that is en- closed in the tabernacle, and what we are, viz. : that our Divine Saviour is in our midst, and that we are His creatures and subjects, come to worship Him. But although our faith is sufficient to teach us how we ought to behave before our Lord, yet because it is sometimes difficult to keep in mind the truths of faith, and because examples are alw^ays more powerful than a bare precept, I will set before you some striking exam- ples, which may serve to impress upon your mind the duty of reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament. First, I will propose the example of the Angels. St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom^ testify to having seen at the time of Mass many hosts of Angels in human form, clothed with white garments and standing round the altar as soldiers stand before their king. But what * De Sacerd,, lib. 6. c. 4- 36 ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO was their attitude and deportment ? Their heads were bowed, their faces covered, their hands crossed, and the ■whole body so profoundly inclined as to express the deepest sense of their own unworthiness to appear be- fore the Divine Majesty. O would we but think of this ! The Angels, those pure spirits, shrink before the Infinite Holiness of God, and we allow vain, worldly, and even sinful thoughts to insinuate themselves into our minds in His Presence ! The Angels tremble be- fore His Greatness, and we fear not to talk and laugh in His Presence ! The Angels, those princes of heaven, are all humility and modesty, and we, the dust of the earth and miserable sinners, all impertinence and pride! The Angels veil their faces before His splendor, and w^e do not even so much as cast down our eyes, but rudely stare and gaze around ! The Angels bow down to the earth, and we will not bend our knee ! The Angels, full of awe, fold their hands upon their breasts, and we allow ourselves every freedom of attitude and move- ment ! ! O what a subject of confusion ! What hu- miliating reflections ! What an impressive lesson ! Secondly, I will take you from the princes of heaven to the princes of the earth, and teach you a lesson from the example of kings and nobles. There are many beautiful examples on record of the homage which kings and emperors have paid to the Saviour of man- kind, so humbly hidden in the Blessed Sacrament. Philip II., King of Spain, always dispensed with regal pomp and pageantry when he assisted at processions of the Blessed Sacrament, and, as an ordinary personage, JESUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 37 mingled with the common throng. Inclemency o^' weather deterred him not from paying this tribute of honor to his Lord. One day, as he was devoutly ac - company ing the Blessed Sacrament with uncovered head, a page held his hat over him, to shield him from the burning sun. " Never mind,^' said Philip, " th& sun will do me no harm ; at such a time as this we must regard neither rain nor wind, heat nor cold." On another occasion, whilst the Blessed Sacrament was being carried a great distance to a sick person, Philip accompanied it all the way on foot. The priest, observing this, asked him if he were not tired. " Tired ] " replied he, "behold ! my servants wait upon me both by day and by night, and never yet have I heard one of th^m complain of being tired. Shall I, then, complain of fatigue when I am waiting upon my Lord and my God, Whom I can never sufficiently serve and honor ! " Kudolph, Count of Hapsburg, whilst hunting one day, observed a priest carrying the Viaticum to the sick, whereupon he immediately alighted, and insisted on the priest mounting in his place. The offer was accepted. The priest, having gone through his sacred and pastoral duty, returned the animal, with many marks of gratitude, to the Count. But this noble and Christian Count could not be prevailed upon to accept it. " No," said he, " keep it, for I am not worthy to ride upon a horse which has borne my Lord."^ Whilst the Lutheran heresy was spreading its rav- ^es throughout Germany, Charles Y., of Spain, hast- * Heiss's History of Austria. 4 38 ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO ened to Augsburg to assist at the diet convened there to stem the pernicious influence of this heresy. The feast of Corpus Christi fell at that time. It was cele- brated with every possible pomp and magnificence ; the Emperor Charles assisted thereat with the most edifying devotion. At the procession, the Prince Bishop of May- ence carried the Most Adorable Sacrament, being sup- ported on the right by Ferdinand, the Roman King — on the left by Joachim, Elector of Brandenburg. The canopy was borne by six princes, namely, Louis, Duke of Bavaria; the son of the Elector of Brandenburg; George, Duke of Pomerania; Philip, Count Palatine of Werdelburg ; Henry, Duke of Brunswick, and the Duke of Mecklenburg. When these six princes had carried it as far as the Chapel on Mount Berlach, six others took it and carried it to a place called the Holy Cross, whence six others bore it to the Cathedral. The Emperor Charles, torch in hand, on foot and with un- covered head, accompanied by several Archbishops, Bishops, and many persons of high rank, followed the procession during the whole route. Such noble traits of devotion are not confined to days gone by; in our own times we see princes who have in- herited from their fathers this true devotion to the Most Holy Sacrament. Of the present Emperor of Austria it is related that, one day as he was riding through the streets of Vienna, at the signal announcing that the Blessed Sacrament was being carried to the sick, he immediately stopped his carriage, alighted, and, on bended knees, there devoutly adored his Lord and JF,SUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 39 Gori. The same is said of that excellent princess, the late queen of Belgium. Now, these instances of reverence are not mentioned as being great in regard to the Blessed Sacrament. Be- fore Him Who dwells concealed under that veil, princes are as nothing. Why, then, should we be astonished at this? Why look on this tribute of devotion as something extraordinary ? ^Tis true, these princes are as nothing before our Lord, but they are great and mighty when confronted with us, and may Avell serve to remind us of the obligation which faith imposes upon us. If, then, those, whose position bespeak honor and ease, cheerfully submit to humiliation, inconven- ience, and pain at the call of religion, what ought we not to do ? We cannot boast of high position to make us proud, luxury to make us effeminate, or gentle care to make us tender. On the contrary, our position bows us to humility, our necessity and poverty bend us to labor, our life accustoms us to forego our ease. This being the case, whilst we honor the great ones of the earth, shall we refuse to join with them in worshipping Him Who is the source of all greatness, and Who is above all ? We have seen that reverence tow^ards the Blessed Sacrament is enjoined upon us by faith and reason, and preached to us by heaven and earth. I will, then, add but one more reflection : it is urged upon us by the teaching of our Holy Mother the Church. To what tend all her beautiful ceremonial, her mi- nute ritual and her costly ornaments, but to inspire or 40 ON THE REVERENCE DUE TO express reverence for her Divine Spouse? AVhy is the priest who celebrates Mass, and the faithful who receive communion, required to be fasting, but on account of the greatness of the Guest they are about to receive? The incense, the lights, the flowers, the vestments of the priests, the numerous attendants, the genuflexiops, are not all these to honor Him Who has so greatly humbled Himself for the love of us? And not content Y/ith her daily homage, she has appointed a festiva) in the year, for the express purpose of repairing the inju- ries which Jesus Christ has received from men, whether at the time of His visible sojourn on earth or since the establishment of His Keligion, especially in the Sacra- ment of His love. What is the procession of Corpus Christi but i% re- versal of the judgment which an unbelieving world passed upon our Lord, and a compensation for the out- rages which it has inflicted on Him ? As He was once, in the most ignominious manner, led as a malefactor through the streets of Jerusalem, from Annas te Cai- phas, from Caiphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, from one tribunal to another, so is He, on this day, borne in triumph through the streets, as the spotless Lamb of God and man's Highest Good. As His sufierings had no other witnesses than CDvi- ous and mocking Jews, so now, on this day, every knee bends in adoration before Him. As the executioners once led Him forth to death, so, in this procession, the great ones of the world mingle with the throng to do Him reverence. As then His ears resounded with the JESUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 41 most scornful and outrageous blasphemies, so now, on this great festival, the Church greets Him with every kind of musical instrument and song of praise. The crown of thorns which once pierced His brow, is now exchanged for the wreath of flowers around the remon- strance ; while civil magistrates, with their insignia, and troops of heroes, with glittering arms and waving ban- ners, replace the fierce Roman soldiers who once kept watch around His dark and silent tomb. The Cross, which Jesus bore with sorrow and sweat, up the rugged hill of Calvary, is, on this His day of triumph, carried before all as the sign of victory. Jesus Himself, Who was lifted up upon it, is now, in the Blessed Sacrament, raised aloft to impart His Benediction to His kneeling and adoring people. If such be the spirit of the Church, what should be the practice of her children? Are we Catholics? Where then is our faith? It is Jesus our Saviour Who remains enclosed in the tabernacle, and Who is lifted on high in the remon- strance. It is the true Eternal God Whom we receive in Communion. We must show by our works that we believe this. I do not say that we are bound, as the early Christians, to prostrate ourselves to the earth and press our foreheads in the dust. I do not say that we are bound to imitate St. Vincent of Paul and bend the knee when it costs us the most excruciating pain to do so. Nevertheless, we are bound, at least, to avoid of- fending our Divine Lord, and dishonoring Him to His face. We are bound, when about to receive Holy Com- 4* 42 ON THE REVERENCE DTfE TO munion, carefully to prepare ourselves by a good con- fession, and thus avoid the dreadful peril of re»:eiving Him in a state of mortal sin. We are bound fo lay aside all unbecoming attire and scandalous behavior, especially in the house of God, and to be modest, rev- erent, and humble in attitude and deportment. We ought to regard all our members as, in some way, con- secrated by Jesus Christ Whom we so often receive, or, at least. Whom we visit in the Church. It is not fit- ting that the feet, which have borne us to the altar of God, should carry us into evil company; that those eyes which, in the morning at Mass, have looked upon the Immaculate Victim, should, through the day, look at that which is unclean ; that the tongue, which has been the throne of God, should utter blasphemous, im- pure, or calumnious words ; that the heart, which has been united to the Infinite Purity and Beauty, should be polluted by the stain of sin. But, alas ! how often are such indecencies perpetrated ! When one thinks of the offences which Jesus Christ receives in this Sacrament, of the sacrilegious commun- ions which those make who receive in mortal sin, or in the proximate occasion of sin, of the neglect of so many to receive Holy Communion for a long time, and the insufBcient preparation they do make when they re- ceive, all this is enough to make the true Christian shudder with horror. Yes, we are inclined to believe as of old, God repented that He had made man, because his heart was bent on wickedness, so now our Lord must surely repent of having instituted this Sacramrnt, JESUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 43 and must even wish to take away from His Priests the power which He gave them of consecrating His Body and Blood. But no, such a thought does an injustice to His love. Jesus Christ will never withdraw the power which He confided to His Church of changing bread and wine into His Most Adorable Body and Blood. He will continue to suffer patiently and silently till the end of time/ for the sake of those faithful souls who give Him pleasure by the devotion and love with which they re- ceive or visit Him. Let us seek to be of that number. ^'Accedamus cum vero corde in plenitudine fideV^ "Let us approach Him with an upright heart and a lively faith." One day He will throw off His disguise and appear in His Heavenly Might and Splendor. O how happy will they be then who have kept Him company in His humiliation ! They will not be confounded, but will " stand before Him with great constancy." They wilJ "see His face" and rejoice forever more. CHAPTER III. ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT NE day two men, who were disputing about the possession of a piece of land, came to the Emperor Otho that he might decide on the affair in question ; each of them said : " The lajid belongs to me." And what do you think the Emperor did, when he found himself unable to settle the dispute? He gave to the one, out of his own purse, as much money as the piece of land was worth, and to the other the land itself, and thus satisfied both. A similar, but far more wonderful act of liberality took place at Jerusalem eighteen centuries ago. This happened in the following manner : Our .Divine Re- deemer having lived on this earth more than thirty years, and the time having come for Him to leave it, there arose, as it were, a dispute between heaven and earth. The Angels wished to have their Lord and their God with them in heaven again, after He had been for so long a time wdth men on earth. Men, on the other hand, especially the Apostles, desired to de- tain their Divine Master, Jesus Christ, with them on 44 ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST IN THE SACRAMENT. 45 earth. They felt very sad -^'hen He told them that the time had come for Him to leave them. Now, how did our sweet Lord act in order to settle this dispute ? He found out a- means to satisfy both men and Angels. He satisfied the Angels by ascending to heaven; He satisfied men by remaining invisibly with them in the Blessed Sacrament, and by giving power to the Apos- tles, and their lawful successors, to change bread into His Body and wine into His Blood. What could have induced our dear Lord, Christian soul, to stay with us on earth in the Blessed Sacrament? Was it to gain honor? Alas! our good Lord receives the same treatment in the Blessed Eucharist which He received during the thirty-three years that He lived upon earth. When upon earth He was made light of, and it was said of Him : "Is He not the son of a car- penter ?'' "Y/hy do you listen to Him?^^ said the Pharisees. " Do you not see that He has a devil, that He is possessed, that He is a wine-drinker and a friend of sinners ? ^^ They bound Him, scourged Him, crowned Him with thorns, and at last, making Him carry His own cross, they crucified Him. Such was the honor which Jesus Christ received when living among men ! And has he not been treated in the same manner, in His Sacrament, from that time to the present day? Instead of being honored by all men, as He deserves. He is dis- honored and insulted. Some do not think of Him for weeks together; others walk carelessly into the church, almost like men without faith, and make their genu- flexion before Him as if they wished to mock Him; 4d ON- THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST others behave in church as if they were in their own houses. In many churches there is not even a lamp kept burning; and how often has it happened that tlie con- secrated hosts have been trodden under foot, or thrown into the fire by heretics, Jews, and other bad men ? Such has been the treatment He has met with — con- tempt, mockery and insult, or coldness and indifference towards His Divine Majesty! Certainly, the expecta- tion of being honored could not have induced Him to remain with us ! What then induced Him to stay with us in the Holy Eucharist? Was it to seek or to increase His own happiness? By no means. His happiness is so great that it cannot be increased. He has risen from the dead; He is glorified; He sits at the right hand of God the Father, and has all power in heaven and on earth. The Angels serve Him ; men are His subjects, whom He will judge and reward according to their deserts; the devils tremble at His presence; every knee must bend before Him, of those that are in heaven, on earth and under the earth, in purgatory and in hell. What, then, is wanting to His happiness? Nothing. Since, therefore, our Lord cannot become happier by remaining with us, and since He does not receive due honor among us, what, * I ask once more, could have induced Him to abide heie so long, to re- main on earth for eighteen hundred years, yea even until the end of the world, to be present in the Blessed Sacra- ment in every place, in every parish church in America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, in the isles of the sea, and even sometimes in the midst of the ocean itself? IN THj3 BLtJSSED SACRAMENT. 47 4.h! Christian soul, there was no other motive than love, the great, the excessive love of Jesus Christ towards men! Yes, it was love, love alone, nothing but love, which induced Jesus, our Redeemer, to remain among us in the Blessed Sacrament. O Jesus, O most sweet Jesus, hidden under the sacramental species, give me now such love and humility, that I may be able lovingly to speak of this invention of boundless love, that all who hear of it may begin to love Thee in reality. O Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ, and our dear Mother; O all ye holy Angels, who, by your adoration in our churches, make up for the little love which your God and our Saviour receives from men, obtain for us the grace to comprehend a little the love of Jesus Christ in the most Holy Sacrament. In order to conceive, in some measure, the love of Jesus Christ in this wonderful Sacrament, let us consider first, the time at which He gave Himself to us as our food and drink. Jesus might have instituted this Sacra- ment when, in the twelfth year of His age, He travelled to Jerusalem, or at the wedding in Cana, or when He was thirty years old and began to teach publicly, or Ho might have instituted it after His Resurrection. But He chose, for the time of its institution, the last moment of His earthly career. Why did He wait so long? Why did He not institute it sooner or later? why not after His resurrection ? Why just at the moment when He was about to take leave of the Apostles and quit the earth ? He instituted this Sacrament at the last moment 48 ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST of His life, in order that men might the better see the ex- cess of Plis love. Do you ask how this is? To make it clearer, imagine a father who has in store costly presents of gold and jewels which he intends to give to his chil- dren, in order to show them how much he loves them. What time do you think, this father will choose for be- stowing these gifts, as being best calculated to make a deep impression on them? He will wait until he is on his death-bed, and then he will give them, that they may be the last memorials of his love. Behold, our Divine Saviour thought and acted in the very same manner. He thought, I have already given men so many proofs of My love towards them; I have created them ; I preserve their lives ; I have become man, — for their sake I became a child; I have lived among them for more than thirty years ; I am yet to suffer and die for them on the cross and to re-open heaven for them; what can I do more for them ? Ah ! I can make them one more present ; I will give them a most precious gift ; I will give them all that I have, so that they may not be able to charge Me with having done less for them than I might have done. I will give them Myself as a legacy ; I will give them My Divinity and My Humanity, My Body and My Soul, Myself, entirely and without reserve. I will make them this present at the last moment of My life, at a time when men are accustomed to bequeatl: to those whom they love that which they value tin most. At the very moment when they are seeking t« betray Me; at the very moment when the Pharisees am Jews are planning to remove me out of the world, 1. IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 49 will give Myself to men on earth to be their food and drink ; to abide with them in the Blessed Sacrament in a wonderful manner ; to be always in their midst, by dwelling in their churches. Instead of withdrawing My love from them on account of their ingratitude, I will manifest it to them the more. Wonderful manner ! who could ever have imagined that God would go so far in his love for ungrateful men *as to give them His own Flesh and Blood as the food of their souls ! What man or Angel would ever have conceived such a thing! And supposing it had oc- curred to some man or Angel, to wish that God might do so, who would have dared to express such a wish, or to ask such a thing of God ? Would not the thought have been immediately banished from the mind as sacrile- gious ? Now, what the angels could never have con- ceived, nor men dared to ask, the immense love of God has given us unasked. Hence our Lord was right indeed to say to His Dis- ciples when they became sad on account of His having told them of His approaching departure from them : " Let not your hearts be troubled ; I will not leave you orphans." A good mother on her death-bed says to her weeping children : " Dear children, I must now die, and leave you. I recommend you to God, and to the pro- tection of your Blessed Mother, Mary. Avoid sin, and act always as good children, that I may be so happy as to see you again in the other world .'^ But Jesus does not speak thus to His Apostles. He says : " You need not be sad, because I am about to leave the world. I 5 D 50 ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST will remain always with you in My most Holy Sacra- ment. I will give you a power than which there is no greater in heaven or on earth, that of changing bread into My Body, and wine into My Blood. In virtue of this power you can always have Me with you. You need only pronounce the words of consecration over the bread and wine, and in that very moment I will be with you, and you will hold Me in your hands. O Love ! O Love of God towards us ! O Jesus, Thou lovest ue too much ! Thou couldst not endure that we should be left alone in this world ; and that even death might not be able to separate Thee from us. Thou didst leave Thy- self to us as our food in the Blessed Sacrament. Secondly, in order that we may see the love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist still more clearly, let us consider, with a lively faith, Whom we have in our midst. Dear Christian, consider, if Jesus Christ had left a saint or an Angel with us in His stead after His death, or if He had given us His own Mother to remain with us and keep us company, would it not have been a very great proof of His love towards us ? But He has left neither saint nor Angel ; not even His own Mother, for it was too little for His love. He Himself would be ever with us. Yes, indeed, the good God, the holy and merciful God is among us — the Almighty God Who created us and the whole world out of nothing, and Who still continues to preserve us. That same God is in our tabernacles Who saved Noah from the deluge; Who gave manna from heaven to the Jews ; Who, amid lightning and thunder, gave the ten commandments to IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 51 Moses on Mount Sinai; Who, at Babylon, delivered the three youths from the flames of the burning fur- nace; Who saved the life of Daniel in the den of lions. That same Jesus is with us in our churches Who, at His birth, was laid on straw and adored by the Magi ; Who fled into Egypt ; Who was sought for by the Blessed Virgin and found in the temple ; Who changed water into Y/ine ; Who restored sight to the blind ; made the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. Beloved Chris- tian, you esteem Simeon happy in having been per- mitted to take the Infant Jesus in his arms ; and were you to receive a grace like him, no doubt you would exclaim ; " Now dost Thou dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word, in peace: because my eyes have seen Thy salvation." You consider Zacheus happy because our Lord vouch- safed to enter his house and eat with him; you deem St. John happy because he rested on the breast of our Saviour at the Last Supper ; and, above all, you regard the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph so very happy, because they nourished and supported our dear Lord. But are you not as happy as they ? Are you not even happier ? You do not hold our Lord in your arms as Simeon did, but you receive Him into your heart in Holy Communion ; you do not rest on the bosom of our Lord like St. John, but the Saviour Himself rests in your heart after Holy Communion; you do not nurse and support our Lord like the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, but you have a still greater happiness, for the Saviour Himself nourishes you and gives Him- 52 ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST self to you as your food. O Love ! O Love ! O wha can understand the love of God for men ! AVhat would you say if a shepherd suffered himself to be slain in order to save his sheej) ? What would you say if, in those times of horrible famine which his- tory here and there records, when the cravings of hun- ger silenced the voice of nature, and men fed on each other's flesh, a king had loved a beggar so much, or a lord his servant, as to give himself as food in order to save the poor sufferer from starvation ? Do you think that any shepherd, or king, or lord could really be found who would act thus ? Certainly not. Again, a mother's love is proverbial, and mothers are often found who love their offspring so much that they will deprive themselves of a morsel of their scanty bread to givxi it to their hungry children — and yet it has sometimes happened that even mothers have devoured their own infants in time of famine. Now, while no shepherd loves his bheep so muijh as to give his own life for them ; while no king ever ioved a beggar so much as to suffer, for his cake, the loss of life or limb ; while even a mother fon grow cruel to- wards the fruit of her womb, Jesus, our God and our King, has loved us so much as to gtvo Himself to us whole and entire. His Flesh and Blood, His Human- ity and Divinity really and substantially. "I am the good Shepherd," says Jesus; ^'a good shepherd gives his life for his sherp." He seems to say to us : "I give my life for you, each day, at each Holy Mass, at each Holy Communion. I am the God IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 53 of Supreme Wisdom ; but I cannot find a more ade- quate pledge of My love. I am Almighty, but My Omnipotence is not able to do anything greater ; I am love itself, but I cannot give you anything more con- soling ! ^' It is so, sweet Lord, I acknowledge Thy infi- nite love, and full of amazement at Thy immense char- ity, I find no better words to express my wonder than those of Thy saints : " Lord, Thou hast become foolish from love towards us/^ ^ " He has given heaven ; He has given earth ; He has given His Kingdom ; He has given Himself — what more has He to give? O my God ! (allow me to say it) how prodigal art Thou of Thyself! ^^^ Thirdly, an especial mark of the love of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament towards us, is the manner in which he gives Himself to us. He is with us, but under strange forms. Now, some one may say : " Would not the love of Jesus Christ have seemed greater if He had remained with us visibly, so that we might have seen Him and conversed with Him as one friend does with another ? " I^o, dear Christian, it would not have seemed so great. Just because he conceals Himself from our eyes, He gives a new proof of His love, and shows that he thinks of us all, of sinners as well as of the just. " How so?^^ you ask. I will tell you how. First, then, with regard to sinners, Jesus renders them a great favor by concealing Himself. You know that the best remedy for weak eyes is to exclude the light. We cannot look at a very bright object without our * ^t. Mary Magdalene de Pazzis. ^ St. Augustine. 6* 54 ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST eyes being dazzled. None of us could look steadily al the sun at noon ; if we should do so, we would become blind. We read in Holy Scripture that Moses once conversed with God on a mountain, and that afterwards, when he came down to the Jews, his countenance was so radiant with light that they were unable to look upon him, and he was obliged to put a veil over his face when he spoke to them. Suppose now, beloved Christian, that Jesus Christ were to manifest Himself on our altars in His heavenly splendor and glory, and one yet at enmity with God, should come into the church, how would he feel ? Would he not be over- whelmed with awe and terror ? Yea, a mortal agonj would seize the poor wretch at the sight of Jesus Christ. When Adam and Eve had sinned, they heard the voice of the Lord who was walking about in Paradise, and they hid themselves from the Lord in the midst of the garden. The mere sight of an offended God was in- supportable to them. Cain, too, acted in the same man- ner after having killed his brother. "And Cain fled from the face of the Lord." Oh ! it is terrible for man to appear before God with a conscience laden with sin ! If, in our day, Jesus Christ were to show Himself openly, sinners would flee from the church in order to avoid the angry countenance of their Judge. If one conscious of sin should dare to remain and brave the displeasure of his offended Lord, his heart would die within him before the angry glance of those eyes which are "as a flame of fire." One single indignant look m THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 55 that Philip II., king of Spain, cast uj^on two of his courtiers, who behaved irreverently in church, was enough to drive one of them out of his senses and to kill the other. How, then, could a sinner endure the eye of Jesus Christ? We may judge, in some measure, from what took place when the Bethsamites looked upon the ark of the covenant with irreverent curiosity. More than fifty thousand were punished with death for having gazed at the ark of the covenant of the Lord, containing a golden pot that had manna, and the rod of Aaron that had blossomed, and the tables of the cov- enant.^ " And the men of Bethsames said : ^ Who can stand before the face of the Lord, of that Holy God ? ' ^^ Who, then, does not see that it is a great grace and oenefit, for us and all sinners, that Jesus Christ should veil Himself from our view under the appearances of bread and wine ? Oh ! how considerate and amiable is the heart of Jesus Christ ! He does not wish openly to meet with one who is His sworn enemy, and who, on that account, deserves nothing else but His wrath and vengeance. He works one of His greatest miracles, and draws near to him without being seen. He keeps Himself hidden under the poor veil of bread that the sinner may not tremble and fear before His majesty and brightness, but may approach Him with confidence to ask the pardon of his sins, and grace not to relapse into them, again. But, not only to sinners does Jesus Christ show spe- cial love by concealing Himself in the Blessed Sacra- * Hebrews ix. 4. 66 ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST ment, but also to the just. Tliese, indeed, would not, like sinners, be conscience-stricken at the sight of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, but they would, never- theless, be almost beside themselves with amazement, and instead of entertaining a confident and childlike love and affection for Him, they would feel an excessive and oppressive fear of Him. As soon as the Queen of Saba saw Solomon sitting on his throne in all his regal splendor, she became breathless and almost fainted away. This Avas natural. That which is too splendid repels rather than attracts, and while an ordinary brightness pleases the eye, an intense, excessive brightness dazzles and blinds it. O, what would happen if the Son of God were to appear on the altar in His Divine Majesty, surrounded with heavenly light and glory ? \Yhat eye could be- hold His brightness? For, if even the few rays of light which our Divine Saviour suffered to beam from His face on Mount Thabor, caused His disciples, inti- mate and familiar as they were with Him, to fall to the ground in amazement and dismay, who could bear in its full intensity the glory of His countenance as it appears to the eternal but insatiable gaze of the Elect, and which forms the heaven of heaven itself? Ah ! in the glorious presence of Christ, even the just would be awe-stricken, nay, they would perhaps die from distress and fear. At all events, they would not dare approach their Divine Saviour with love and affection. No one would venture to draw near to Him, in order to con- verse with Him, and to explain to Him his wants. The IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 57 cufathomable Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament would no longer be amor amorum — (i. e. love of all love, as St. Bernard calls it) ; it could no longer be called a pledge of love between God and man ; but it would be a Sacrament of Glory and Majesty, before which we should be obliged to bend the knee, not in love and confidence, but in fear and trembling. But no; our Divine Saviour, "Who loves us so excessively, would, in this Sacrament, deal in all kindness with just and pious souls, and would treat with them, not as a God of Ma- jesty with His subjects, but as a good father with his beloved children, as a brother with his brothers, a friend with his confidential friend, a bridegroom with his bride. " Comedite, amicij et bibite et inebriaminij carissimi/' says He to us. (Eat, my friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my well-beloved !) " Venite ad me omnes, qui labor atls et onerati estis, et ego reficiam vos.^' (Come to Me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you.^) '^Venite omnes/' come ye all, without exception ; come ye poor and suffering ; come ye rich and prosperous; come ye despised; come ye honored ones of the earth ; come ye servants and slaves ; come ye princes and masters ; come ye husbands and wives ; come ye parents and children ; come ye young men and young women ; come ye great and small ; come all, without any exception ; come ye My beloved children whom I have redeemed ; expose to me your wants and your troubles ! Ego reficiam voSj I will refresh you, I *Matt. xi. 28. 58 ON THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST will console you. Venite, come, tlien, come without fear ! I am waiting for you at all hours. Consider it well, dear Christian, in order that we may approach Him with childlike confidence; the most ami- able and sweet heart of Jesus Christ invented this won- derful Sacrament, manifesting His love by concealing His Majesty and keeping Himself hidden under the appearance of bread, as under a veil, which He suffers no single beam of His Divinity to pierce, lest He might so awe us as to prevent our confidential intercourse with Him. " It is on account of our weakness,'^ says Hugo de St. Victor, " that He does not show Himself in the brightness of His Majesty. He acts towards us as a prince or a king, w^ho, having put aside his garments of state, appears in the company of his subjects without the emblems of his rank, not expecting from them the exact observance of court etiquette, or demonstrations of so great respect, but intending, on the contrary, to make merry and rejoice with them in all confidence and familiarity. O good Lord ! O great God ! how humbly dost Thou hide Thyself for our sake ! But alas ! how much is Thy bounty and love abused ! Not only do sinners despise Thee in this Thy Sacrament of love, because they see Thee not, but the good also, the just, treat Thee with indifference and coldness. Thou hast been so long with them, and they with Thee, and for want of a lively faith, they have not known Thee. So long hast Thou been with us, and there are so few who know it, so few who are penetrated with a sense of their un- IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 59 S|*T;akable liappiness. I hear Thee complain of us, O dear Jesus, as Thou didst one day complain to the Blessed Margaret Alacoque, when showing to hor Thy heart crowned with thorns : " Behold this heart of Mine, so full of love for men, that it has shed its last drop of blood for them, and has given them My own flesh and blood as food and drink for their souls ; and consider how this heart receives from most men, in re- turn for so great a love, nothing but ingratitude and contempt ! But what grieves Me most is, that I am thus treated even by good and just souls." Do you not understand, dear Christian, the just com- plaint of your Divine Saviour? Is your heart not touched by it? "Behold," says He, "behold this heart which loves men so excessively; this heart which is always pouring out graces upon them ; this heart, so full of pity to receive sinners, to help the poor and in- digent; to cure the sick; to console the af&icted; to hear the prayers of all men, at what time soever they come to ask; this heart which is almost beside itself with love — this heart is not known, it is despised: and, what is the most piercing grief, even by those souls into which I have so often entered in Holy Communion." Ah ! dear Christian, have you a heart ? Well, if it be not of stone or iron, let it be touched by this touch- ing complaint of the heart of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Give to your God and Saviour what is due to Him. Repay Him for the benefit of your creation ; repay Him for the benefit of your redemption ; for the benefit of the preservation of your life; for the pains of 60 ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST IN THE SACRAME^'T. Plis scourging ; for the agony of His crucifixion ; but, above all, repay Him, yes, in some measure, repay Him for the excessive love and affection which He bears you in the Blessed Sacrament. " But how," you will ask ; " how shall I pay my Jesus for His love to me ? What can I give Him in return ? " Nothing but love. Love demands love and is contented only with love. But it must be true love, that is, such love as animates you to keep His com- mandments, and to avoid sin ; such love as impels you to receive Him often in Holy Communion, and still oftener to visit Him in the Church. Ask of Him, then, so to detach your heart from all creatures, that you may live only for Him Who came down from heaven to live and die for you. So doing, you may expect, with all confidence, that, in your last hour, your dear and amiable Saviour, Whom having not seen you have loved, will come to meet you, calling you to Him by these sweet and consoling words : " Come thou good and faithful servant, come; because thou hast been faithful in little things, I will place thee over many." " Come and see what thine eye has never seen ; come and hear what thine ear has never heard; come and enjoy w^hat on earth thy heart has never conceived ; come, enter into the joy of thy Lord forever and ever." CHAP TEE IV. ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT HERE is the new-born King of the Jews?" inquired the three Magi of Herod, king of Jerusalem. "Where is He?" they repeat in their great desire to find Him. " We have seen His star in the East, and we have come to adore Him. Ah ! tell us where He is ; we desire so much to see Him ; we have made so long a journey in order to become ac- quainted with Him." What a joy must it not have been for these three holy kings to learn that the Saviour of the world was born in Bethlehem ; with what speed must they not have gone thither to find out their true King, Who had caused the wonderful star to appear which led them to His abode ! Beloved Christians, you have heard and read this in- cident among the many wonderful events in the life of our God and Saviour. On hearing, or reading the ac- count, you have, perhaps, even earnestly desired to have lived at the time of the Apostles, in order that you might have had the happiness of seeing your Lord and Saviour. But you ought to know that you are happier now than if you had lived at the time of the Apostles, 6 61 62 ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST for you might have been obliged to travel very far, and make many inquiries to find out the place of His abode. But now there is no need of travelling far or of making many inquiries to find Him. He is, as we know by faith, in our churches, not far from our homes. The Magi could find Him in one place only ; we can find Him in every part of the world, wherever the Blessed Sacrament is kept. Are we, then, not happier than those who lived at the time of our Saviour Himself? Yes, we are hap- pier than they — no faithful soul can doubt it. But can we say also that we know how to avail our selves of this happiness ? Alas ! how many are there perhaps who must confess that, up to this day, they have never visited Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, re- sembling Jutta, the niece of the Empress, St. Cunegunda, of whom it is related that she stayed at home, without any plausible reason, whilst the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the church. St. Cunegunda, inflamed with holy indignation at this indifference, gave her niece a severe slap in the face. The Lord, in punishment of Jutta's indifference toward Him, allov/ed the print of Gunegunda's fingers to remain indelibly stamped on her face. This was a life-long monitor for her. Such a monitor, however, is not given to every one to remind him of his duty towards Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; I w^ill, therefore, set forth some reasons which ought to induce every faithful soul to show, for the future, more fervor, gratitude and love for her Hi vine Saviour, by often visiting Him in this mystery of love, and by asking of Him graces, b )t only for her- ^If, but especially for all those who are cold and indif- m THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 63 ferent towards the excessive love and patience of tlieir God hidden under the Sacramental species. If there be one consideration which, more than all others, ought to induce you often to visit Jesus Christ in the church, it is the thought of the excessive love which He bears to us in this adorable mystery of His love. " It is my delight to be with the children of men."^ O, what great condescension it would be for a king to invite a poor man to come to his palace and to keep company with him! But Jesus Christ, the king of heaven and earth, says : " Come all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.^^^ Ought we not to look upon it as a great grace and favor to be invited into His presence? Surely, we ought to find our delight in His company, since He is delighted to be in ours. We ought to go to Him frequently and say to Him : " My Jesus, why dost Thou love me so much ? What good dost Thou see in me that thou art so enamored of me ? Hast Thou already forgotten the sins by which I have offended Thee so grievously ? O, how can I love anything else than Thee, my Jesus and my All ? No one has ever done so much to make me happy as Thou hast done, O amiable, O most amiable Jesus ! Never let me love anything but Thee." If you had a friend who always wished you well, and who had promised to help you in all your wants, and who would even take great pleasure in the opportunity of bestowing a benefit upon you, you would undoubtedly be acting ungrate- fully if you did not have recourse to him in your neces- ' Prov. viii. 31. ' St. Matt. xi. 28. 64 ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST sities. Eufc where, I ask, can you find a better, a more faithful, or a more liberal friend than Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament ? one who more sincerely wishes you well ; one who consults more your advantage and happiness ; one Avho grants your petitions with greater readiness and pleasure ? Ought you not, then, to feel drawn to go after your King and best friend, in order to show your gratitude to Him ? What would you say if a rich man should come and take up his abode in the neighborhood of a poor beggar, for no other purpose than to make it more easy for the poor man to receive from him relief in all his necessi- ties ? What would you say of such a lord ? " Oh ! ^' you would exclaim, " how good, how exceedingly good he is ! He deserves to be honored, esteemed, praised and loved by all men. How happy is the poor man who has such a lord for his friend ! " But while, in fact, none of the rich of this world have ever gone so far in love to the poor, Jesus Christ, the King of heaven and earth, has gone so far in His love for us poor sin-« ners ; He takes up His abode in our churches for the convenience of each one of us. O how happy we are ! AYould to God that each, of us availed himself of this happiness by frequently visiting Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Thus, at least, the saints have ever shown their gratitude. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzis, as we read in her life, visited Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament thirty-three times a day. The Coun- tess of Feria, a fervent disciple of the venerable Father Avila, and afterwards a nun of the Order of Poor Clares*, IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 65 was call(3d the Spouse of the Blessed Sacrament, from her fervent and lengthened visits to It. Being once asked what she did during the many hours which she spent before Its sacred presence, she replied : " I could remain there for all eternity ! Is there not there the very essence of God which is the food of the blessed ? Good God ! They ask what we do before Thee? What is there that we do not do ? We love, we praise, we give thanks, we entreat. What does a beggar do in the presence of a rich man ? What does the sick man do when he sees his physician ? or one who is thirsty at a running spring? or a starving man at a plentiful table? ** St. Elizabeth, of Hungary, was accustomed, even in her childhood, often to visit Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. If she found the church closed, she would affectionately kiss the lock of the door and the walls of the church for love of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist. St. Alphonsus being unable, on account of his ad- vanced age, to walk to the church, had himself carried thither in a chair, in order to pay his accustomed visit to his beloved Saviour. Father Aloys la !Nuza, a great Missionary of Sicily, was, even when a young student in the world, so much attached to Jesus Christ, that it seemed as if he could hardly tear himself from the presence of his beloved Lord, on account of the great delight he found there ; and being commanded by his director not to remain before the Blessed Sacrament longer than an hour at a time, when that period had elapsed it was as great a 6* £ 66 ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST violence to him to separate from tlie bosom of Jesus, as for an infant to tear itself from its mother's breast. The writer of his life says, that, when he was forced to leave the church, he would stand looking at the altar and turning, again and again, as if he could not take leave of his Lord, whose presence was so sweet and so consoling. Father Salesio, of the Society of Jesus, felt consolation in even speaking of the Blessed Sacrament. He never could visit it often enough. When summoned to the gate, when returning to his room, or passing from one part of the house to another, he made use of all these opportunities to repeat his visits to his beloved Lord, so that it was remarked that scarcely an hour of the day elapsed without his visiting Him. Thus, at length he merited the grace of martyrdom at the hands of heretics, while defending the Real Presence in the Most Holy Sacrament. Oh, how do these examples v^f the Saints confound us, who have so little love for Jesus Christ and are so negligent in visiting Him ! But some one may say, " I have too much to do ; I am busy ; I cannot find time." Dear Christian, do not say, " I have too much to do," but say, " I have too much love and affection for the goods of this world, and too little love for Jesus Christ." You find time to eat and to drink ; you find time to rest and to sleep ; you find time to talk and to laugh ; time to amuse yourself; time for all your temporal affairs; time even to sin. And how is it that you find time for all these things ? It is be- cause you like them. If you appear but seldom before IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 67 Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, it is an evident sign that you love Him but little. Love Him a little more, and you will find time to visit Him. Do not say, " I am busy." The Saints, too, were very busy, perhaps more so than you are, and yet they found time enough to visit their Lord. Do you imagine that you have more to think of than St. Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia? or St. Lewis, King of France? And yet because they tenderly loved Jesus Christ, their King, they found time every day to pay a visit to Him. Be sure, if you do not visit Jesus Christ at all, or if you visit Him but seldom, your love and affection for Him are not great. I repeat, then, once more : Love your Lord and God in the Blessed Sacrament a little more, and I am sure you will be found oftener before the altar. Again, do not say, " I have too much to do." It is for this very reason that you should feel obliged to visit your Saviour. For the laboring and heavy-laden are invited by Jesus Christ to come to Him : *' Come to Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." " Instead of being kept away from Me by your numerous toils and labors," He seems to say to you, you should rather feel drawn to Me, in order to speak to Me about them. Come and tell Me all your troubles, recommend to Me all your affairs, and I will bless them that they may succeed. The Saints understood this well ; they knew and were persuaded that on God's blessing depends everything ; they knew ii\h.l if God did not bless their temporal affairs, they V* aid not succeed, nay, that they would be even in- 08 ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST jurious and hurtful to their souls. Whenever St. Vincent of Paul had to transact any important business, he would go before the Blessed Sacrament and rec- ommend the affair to Jesus Christ, beseeching Him confidently to give it His blessing, and after having performed it, he went again to the church to thank Jesus Christ for its success. Before the Blessed Sac- rament St. Francis Xavier, too, found strength for hi? toils in India. Whilst his days were passed in saving souls, he passed much of the night in prayer before thr; Blessed Sacrament. St. John Francis Regis used to do the same ; and if he found the church closed, he would console himself by kneeling at the door, even in the cold and wet, that he might, at least at a distance, pay his homage to his sacramental Consoler. When any affliction befell St. Francis of Assisium, he went immediately to com- municate it to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The Blessed Bertha, of Oberried in Alsace, being one day asked by one of her sisters in religion, how she could discharge so many distracting duties without prejudice to her piety, replied : " Whenever I am entrusted with an office, I go to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Pie is my Comforter, my Lord and best Counsellor, and I do carefully what He inspires me to do. He governs me, and it is by Him that I govern those whom He has confided to me.'' Do you, O Christian, understand this language? Do you understand how the blessing of heaveir is to be obtained upon your affairs and undertakings ? Oh, were you to visit Jesua IN TEE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 69 Christ in the Blessed Sacrament only for a quarter of an hour each day, from how many trials and hardships would you be delivered, from how many accidents, misfortunes, temptations and attacks of the devil would you be preserved ; how few sins would you commit, and how much more consolation and peace of heart would you enjoy ! " How true it is,'' you would exclaim, " what Jesus Christ has said : ^ Seek first the Kingdom of God, and the rest will be added unto you.' " " Ah," you would say, " since I have been in the habit of going to church every day, I labor only half as much as before, and yet I have more success than when I used to labor day and night by the sweat of my brow." Instead, then, of spending your time in idle, useless talk, in games and amusements, go to church and pray there for a while, in order to draw down the blessing of heaven upon you and your whole family. Kest as- sured, that you will experience what so many holy souls have experienced whilst before the Blessed Sac- rament, namely, that you will feel a thousand times happier in the company of Jesus Christ than in the most delightful company of men. Men can only aiFord you vain consolations, but Jesus Christ has His hands full of lasting consolations and divine graces, which He is ready to pour out upon your soul, if you present yourself before Him. One day as Frederic IV., King of Prussia, was passing through the Rhenish Province, a certain cow- herd approached the Royal carriage, and commenced 70 ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST playing as artistically as he could on his rude horn. The King, admiring the simplicity and token of honor of the cow-herd, presented him with a piece of money, to repay him for the loyalty he had exhibited towards his Sovereign. Now, if this earthly Prince so readily rewarded this slight act of honor, how much more readily will not our Lord pour out His graces upon all those who come to honor Him in the Blessed Sac- rament, for ever so short a time. Our Lord manifested this readiness to Blessed Bal- thasar Alvarez, when once kneeling before the altar. He showed Himself in the sacred host as a little child with His hands full of precious stones, saying: "If there were only some one to whom I might distribute them." Are you, then, in temporal want? Go to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; He can and He will help you. St. Peter, of Alcantara, one day, seeing his brethren in religion destitute of bread, and without the means of procuring it, ordered them to go and pray before the Blessed Sacrament. No sooner had they done so, than the bell was rung at the door, and the janitor, on open- ing the door, instead of seeing some person there, as he expected, found a large basket of white bread, which Je^us Christ had sent them, probably, by His angels. When the soldiers of the Emperor Frederic II. were in the act of scaling the walls of Assisium, in order to sack the city, St. Clare went before the Blessed Sacra- ment and prayed there in the following manner : " O Lord, shall, then. Thy servants be delivered up into IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 71 the hands of the infidels?" "No/^ said Jesas Christ to her, "I have always protected yoii and will continue to do so." At the same moment some of the soldiers took to flight, being struck with an inward terror; others fell down from the walls, while others became suddenly blind. Maximilian I., Emperor of Austria, having ascended the steep mountains in the neighborhood of Insbruck to so great a height that he could neither venture to descend again, nor could any one come to his aid, cried out to the people below to bring the Blessed Sacrament as near to him as possible, in order (as in his great peril he was unable to receive It) that he might at least honor It as well as he could by adoring It and recom- mending himself to Jesus Christ from the rock above. Accordingly, the Blessed Sacrament is carried thither ; the Emperor adores It with most profound respect and great devotion, and implores Jesus Christ to help him. What happens ? No sooner had *the Emperor com- menced to pray to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, than he saw a beautiful youth behind him, probably his guardian angel, who led him safely down among the most frightfully steep rocks, by a path hitherto un- perceived, and when the Emperor was about to reward him, he suddenly disappeared.^ Many similar facts occur in church history and in the lives of the Saints. Now, if Jesus Christ is so ready to help us in our temporal wants, how much more readily will He bestow spiritual graces and favor« * Dauroltius, c. 3, tit. 37. 72 ON VISITING JUS US CHRIST upon our souk. Whence did St. Thomas Aquinas draw all that knowledge which enabled him to Avrite so learn- edly on every subject of our holy religion? Was it not from the fervent prayers which he used to pour out in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament whenever he had a difficulty in understanding or explaining a point? Whence have so many pious souls obtained strength to resist every 'kind of temptation ? Was it not from the frequent visits which they paid to Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament? Father Thomas Sanchez, who was in the habit of visiting the church five times a day and eight times on Thursdays, used to exclaim whenever he was tempted : " Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, help me ; '' and no sooner had he pronounced these words than his temptation ceased. One day a young man said to a priest of our Congregation : " When the devil assails me with bad thoughts and impure representa- tions, and I command him in the Name of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sagrament to leave me, he instantly withdraws from me.'' And again, when God sent forth Missionaries to con- vert sinners, heretics, infidels, whither did they go to obtain their conversion? Certainly, to that place where He resides, Who can change all hearts, how hardened soever they may be. We read in the life of St. Francis de Sales, that nine hundred heretics presented them- selves to him to abjure their heresy after he had prayed with the faithful during the forty hours' devotion. A few days after, having prayed with the people most humbly and fervently for the same object, a great many rN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 73 bereli(3s of the suburbs of Focigni came to abjure theii heresy. Their example was followed by three hundred more of the parish of Belevaux, and three hundred of the parish of St. Sergues. Therefore, one of the best means to convert sinners, is to recommend them to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. . You have heard and read that there have been Saints who burned so ardently with the fire of divine love, that they often trembled in their whole body, and that the objects which they touched bore the impress of this fire of divine love. This we read in the lives of St. Philip Neri, St. Catherine, of Genoa, and St. Wences- laus, King of Bohemia. The latter loved Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with so much fervor, that with his own hands he gathered the wheat and the grapes and made the hosts and the wine which were to be used in the Mass. He often went at night, even in winter, to visit the church in which the Blessed Sacrament was kept. At such times the flames of divine love* were burning so ardently in his soul, that they communicated to his body a sensible warmth and melted the snow under his feet. He turned this gift on one occasion to a charitable account. His servant, who accompanied him by night, suffered much from the severity of the cold, whereupon the holy man ordered him to follow closely and tread in his footsteps. He did so, and no longer felt the coldness of the snow. Now, where did the Saints obtain this inestimable gift of the love of God ? Do you think, perhaps, in conversation with men? Oh no; it was from con- 7 74 ON VISITING JESUS CHRIST versing frequently with Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The oftener and the longer they con\ ersed with Him, the more they felt their hearts inflamed with divine love. How were so many souls enlightened to see and to know the vanity of this world ? How did they find strength and courage to leave all the comforts of their homes, and to lead a holy, mortified, poor and desj)ised life ? Whence this great grace ? It was de- rived from their frequent conversations with Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Listen to what St. Alphonsus, Bishop of St. Agatha in Italy, that great lover of the Blessed Sacrament, says about this : " ^No- where have holy souls made more admirable resolutions than here at the feet of their hidden God. Out of grat- itude to my Jesus, veiled in this great Sacrament, I must declare, that it w^as through this devotion, visit- ing Him in His tabernacles, that I withdrew from the worl(i, where, to my misfortune, I had lived to the age of twenty-six. Happy will you be, if you can separate yourself from it earlier than I did, and give yourself wholly to that Lord Who has given Himself wholly to you. I repeat it — you will be happy, not only in eternity, but even in this life. Believe me, all else is folly — banquets, plays, parties, amusements — these are enjoyments full of bitterness and remorse; trust one, who has tried them, and who weeps that he did so. I assure you that the soul, by remaining, with any degree of recollection, before the Blessed Sacrament, receives more comfort from Jesus than the world with all its pleasures and pastimes can ever afford. What delight IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 75 U' be before the altar with faith, and with even a little tender love, and to speak familiarly to Jesus, ^Vho is there to hear and grant the prayers of those who visit Him; to implore pardon for our sins; to lay our wants before Him, as one friend does before another whom he fully trusts; to beg for His grace, His love. His para- dise. Above all, what a heaven, to make acts of love to this Lord Who remains on the altar, praying to His Eternal Father for us, and burning with love towards us ! In a word, you will find that the time you spend devoutly before this divine Sacrament, will be the most useful of your life, and that which w^ill most console you in death, and for eternity. You will, perhaps, gain more in a quarter of an hour's prayer before the Blessed Sacrament than in all the other spiritual exercises of the day. God does, indeed, grant, in every place, the petitions of those who pray to Him ; He has promised to do so: ^Ask and it shall be given you.'^ But in the Most Holy Sacrament, Jesus dispenses favors more abundantly to those w^ho visit Him. But of w^hat use are mere words ? ^ Taste and see.' '' To this little exhortation I can add nothing more consoling, nothing more encouraging or more persua- sive. * I will but repeat once more His words : " Taste and see.'' Go often with devotion to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and after a while you will experi- ence the truth of what St. Alphonsus has said, nay, perhaps, it may even be given to you to feel transports of joy and gladness such as the Saints have experienced ' Matt. vii. 7. 76 VISITING CHRIST IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and to ex- claim, in the fulness of consolation, with the Blessed Gerard, (a lay-brother of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer) : " Lord, let me go, let me go '^ — or with St. Francis Xavier : " It is enough. Lord, it is enough'^ — or with St. Aloysius Gonzaga: "Withdraw from me, O Lord, withdraw from me." But, most assuredly, there is one hour when the re- membrance of the visits you have paid to the Blessed Sacrament will give you indescribable pleasure — the hour of your death. And if you never, at any other time, feel remorse for neglecting this great duty, cer- tainly you will feel it when your soul has left the body, and you know how near you have been to Jesus Christ on earth. O with what shame and confusion will you not be covered when Jesus will say to you : " I was a stranger and you received me not. I was so near to you and you visited Me not. You have treated Me as an outcast; you have not conversed with Me, nor asked graces of Me ; you have left Me alone ; you have thought of Me but seldom, or not at all." How confused, I say, w^ill you feel at such a well-deserved reproach ! Save yourself this shame and confusion ; resolve, from hence- forth, daily to spend some time, say a half-hour or a quarter of an hour at least, in church, in the presence of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament. And at the hour of death. He will say to you : " I was, indeed, a stranger to many lukewarm Christians, but not to you ; you came to visit Me ; you kept com- pany with Me on earth ; you shall, from henceforth, enjoy My Presence in heaven forever and ever." CHAPTER V. ON THE GREAT DESIRE OF JESUS CHRIST TO ENTER INTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION. ' N a preceding chapter I treated of the great love which Jesus Christ has shown us in the institution of the Holy Eucharist, and be- cause love demands love in return, I went on to prove how this condescension of His places us under the obligation of visiting Him frequently, and of pay- ing reverence to Him in this Sacrament of His love. Jesus Christ, however, is not satisfied with the visits and reverence which we pay to Him. He wishes espe- cially that we should receive Him in Holy Communion , this is indeed His chief object in remaining among us under the Sacramental species. Now, if you ask why it is that Jesus Christ wishes us to receive Him, I an- swer, it is because he so ardently desires to be united to us. Yes, strange as it may seem, our Lord's heart yearns to be united to ours. He burns with the desire of being loved by us. Holy Scripture represents Him as standing at the door of our hearts, knocking until we open to Him. This great desire of Jesus Christ to 7* 77 78 ON THE GliEAT DESIRE OF JESUS CHRIST TO enter into our hearts in Holy Communion, will be the subject of our present consideration ; but I must begin by acknowledging my entire inability to describe it as it really is. That, indeed, would simply be impossible. No tongue can express the longing of our Saviour to unite Himself to us. I will merely endeavor to point out some of the ways in which He manifests this desire, and I am sure that this effort of mine, as well as your devout attention, dear reader, will cause great joy to the loving heart of Jesus, Whose desire that we should know His love, is as great as His love itself. The first proof, then, of our Lord's great longing to enter into our hearts in Holy Communion is His own declaration. "When He was about to institute the Holy Eucharist, He said to His disciples : " With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you,'' thereby expressing, accord- ing to the commentary of St. Lawrence Justinian, His most ardent wish. His most earnest desire to unite Himself to us in Holy Communion. And what He expressed in so touching a manner at the Last Supper, He as often declared in other ways. One day, as St. Gertrude was meditating on the great- ness of the love which made the Lord and King of heaven find His delight in the society of the children of men, our Saviour illustrated w^hat seemed to her so incomprehensible by the following comparison : The son of a king is surely much higher and greater than the children who run about the streets ; he has in his father's palace everything that can delight and gratify him ; yet, if you give him the choice either to go out and ENTER INTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION 79 ;^lay with the children in the street, or to stay at home iinid the splendors of his father's court, he will cer- tainly prefer the former. ^^ Thus I too,'' said our Lord, -^ find my pleasure in being with you ; and having in- stituted the Blessed Sacrament for this end, any one who prevents a soul from receiving Me, deprives Me of a great pleasure." He also said to St. Mechtildis : "Look at the bees and see with what eagerness they seek the honey-flowers, yet know that my desire to come to vou in Holy Communion is far greater." Nay, He declared to St. Margaret of Cortona, that He would even reward her Confessor, and that richly too, for having advised her to receive Holy Communion frequently ; and Father Antonio Torres, as we read in his life, appeared, shortly after death, in great splendor, to a certain person, and revealed to him that God had increased his glory in heaven in a special manner for having allowed frequent Communion to his penitents„ Most remarkable is that promise of Jesus Christ by which he induced the Blessed Prudentiana Zagnoni (^a nun of the order of St. Clare) to receive the Blessed Sacrament frequently. " If thou wilt receive Me often in Holy Communion," said He, " I will forget all thy ingratitude towards Me." Words and promises of our Lord like these are in- deed powerful arguments to convince us of His exces- sive desire to enter our hearts in Holy Communion ; but the extraordinary miracles which He has per- formed, in order to enable His servants to receive Him frequently in Holy Communion, are still more power" 80 ON THE GREAT DESIRE OF JESUS CHRIST TO fill arguments. St. Theresa, at one period of her life, was afflicted with a severe sickness, attended with vomiting, w[iich occurred regularly every morning and evening. What most distressed her was, that this ill- ness prevented her from receiving Holy Communion. In this affliction she had recourse to our Lord, and He, Whose desire to come into her heart was far greater than hers to receive Him, was pleased to cure her. But, as if to show for what purpose the relief was granted. He only delivered her from the attack to which she was subject in the morning, leaving her sub- ject to that which usually came on in the evening. A similar difficulty prevented St. Juliana Falconieri from receivino; our Lord when her last hour had come. After having thought of every possible means of satisfying her desire for Communion, she at last entreated her Confessor to bring the sacred host near her that sliP might at least humbly kiss it. This being refused her, she begged that it might be laid upon her breast, in order that her heart might feel some refreshment from being near to Jesus, and when the priest, in compliance with her request, spread the corporal on her breast and laid our Lord upon it, she exclaimed with the greatest delight : " O my sweet Jesus ! " As she drew her last breath, the sacred host had disappeared, and as it was not to be found, the bv-standers were sure that our Saviour, in the Blessed Sacrament, had united Himself to her heart, to strengthen her in her passage and ac- company her to heaven. In the eighth chapter of .the life of St. Lawrence ENTER INTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION. 81 Justinian, it is related that there lived in Venice a nun who was prevented from receiving Jesus Christ on the feast of Corpus Christi. Being much grieved thereat, she besought St. Lawrence at least to remember her at Mass. Our Lord could not allow her piety to go un- rewarded. Accordingly, while the Holy Patriarch was saying Mass in the crowded church, the nun saw him enter her cell with the Blessed Sacrament to give her Holy Communion. At other times our Lord has made the miracle still more remarkable, by employing the ministry of an An- gel or a Saint, instead of a priest, or by dispensing alto- gether with a visible agent. The Blessed Gerard Ma- jella, lay-brother of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, when he was but nine years old, approached one day the communion-rail, w^hilst the priest was dis- tributing Holy Communion, impelled by a strong de- sire to receive his Saviour ; but the priest, seeing his youth, asked him whether he had made his first Com- munion, and finding that he had not, sent him away. But the good heart of Jesus could not suffer the child to hunger after Him in vain; that very night our Lord^s Body was brought to him by the Archangel St. Michael. In like manner St. Stanislaus Kostka was sick in the house of a Protestant relative, and debarred of every opportunity of receiving his beloved Lord ; he made his appeal to the Queen of heaven, and obtained, through her intercession, the grace to receive the Blessed Sacrament at the hands of St. Bar])ara. 82 ON THE GREAT DESIRE OF JESUS CHRIST TO One day whilst St. Bonaventure was assisting at Mass, he felt an ardent desire to receive Holy Com- munion, but abstained, through fear of not being suffi- ciently pre|)ared. Our Lord, however, could not re- frain from gratifying His own desire ; when the priest had broken the Host, the Saint perceived that a small particle of it had come and rested on his tongue. I might multiply instances of such miraculous Commun- ions, but those which I have adduced are sufficient to show how much our Lord has done in order to satisfy His wish to enter into our hearts in Holy Communion. I will, therefore, proceed to point out another way by which He has manifested this desire, namely, the threats and the promises He has made in order to induce us to receive the Blessed Sacrament. When a law-giver wishes to insure the observance of a law, he promises rewards to those who keep the law, and threatens with punishment those who violate it; and the greatness of these rewards and punishments is the measure of the importance which he attaches to the law. Now consider what our Lord has done to urge us to receive Him frequently in the Blessed Sacrament. Not content with giving us the bare precept, " Take and eat, for this is My Body,'' He has added thereto the strongest inducements. What more could He do to prevail upon us to receive Him, than to promise us heaven if we do so. "He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood," says He, " shall have life everlast- ing." On the other hand He threatens us with hell if iv^e refuse. " Amen, Amen, I say unto you, unless you ENTER INTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION. 83 eat the Flesli of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you." Moreover, as He threatens with eternal torments those who never receive Him, or who do not receive Him when the precept of Communion requires it, so He also punishes, though less severely, those who, from negligence and indifference, refuse to receive Holy Com- munion as often as their state of life demands. While St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi was praying one day before the Blessed Sacrament, she saw one of her deceased sisters in the choir, completely enveloped in a robe of fire and reverently adoring the Blessed Sacra- ment. By this the Saint was given to understand that the deceased nun was in purgatory, and that in pen- ance she was to wear that mantle of fire, and to adore *he Blessed Sacrament for one hour every day, because in her lifetime she had often, through negligence, omitted to receive Holy Communion. ]^ow what do all these invitations, these promises, these rewards and punishments prove ? What, but the unutterable desire of Jesus Christ to unite Himself to us in Holy Communion. He seems, in a manner, to force us to receive Him. He makes our temporal and eter- nal welfare depend on our receiving Him, and thus makes use of our natural desire for happiness to bring us to His Altar. He seems to say, " If you do not re- ceive Me, you shall have no health, no strength or vigor; no comfort, peace or rest; no courage, zeal or devotion ; you will be vehemently assailed by tempta- tions whi(ih you will not have strength to resist ; .you 84 ON THE GREAT DESIRE OF JESUS CHRIST TO will commit mortal sin, lose My grace and friendshij), andj becoming a slave of the devil, you will finally fall into hell and be unhappy forever." I do not know that I can add any proof of our Saviour's desire to enter our hearts in Holy Commun- ion more striking than those which I have already presented, but there yet remains one to be considered, which is certainly more affecting. I allude to the pa- tience with which He has borne the insults which, for eighteen hundred years, have been heaped upon Him in the Holy Eucharist. I will not offend you, dear reader, with the relation of the indignities which have been offered to our dear Lord in the Sacrament of His love ; it is too dark a page in the history of human depravity. Suffice it to say, that He has been loaded with almost every species of outrage which malice could suggest, or impiety perpetrate. Infidels, Jews, heretics, and some- times even nominal Catholics, have united together to insult Him. All the sorrows which our Lord had to endure during His life on earth are repeated again and again in this Holy Mystery. Now, why does Jesus Christ endure such affronts ? Surely none of us would be willing to remain w^ith those who continually maltreat and persecute us ; a life in the desert, in the midst of extreme poverty and des- olation, would be preferable to such a lot. Why, then, is our Saviour so patient amid so many outrages ? Is He not free to act as He pleases ? Is He constrained to remain with us in the Blessed Sacrament ? Yes, He is. He does, indeed, sometimes vindicate His honor. ENTER INTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION. 85 and visit irreverence with exemplary punishment ; but there is one point to which His anger never goes — He will never take back the gift of His love. Men may do what they will, but the desire of Jesus Christ to be united with us will always force Him to remain iu the Blessed Sacrament. This is the secret of our Lord's endurance. He endures all things for the sake of the elect. All the outrages which the wicked have heaped upon Him are compensated for by one devout Communion, and He is willing to remain in our churches, abandoned, alone for hours and hours, that He may be able to unite Himself with the first soul that comes hungering for the .Bread of Life. O, how true are the words which Jesus Christ spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper ! " With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you.'' God desires that we should receive Him. He commands us to re- ceive Him ; He threatens us with hell if we refuse ; He punishes us in purgatory if we are careless in receiving Him. He promises to forgive all our ingratitude, to remit the temporal punishment due to our sins, nay, to give us heaven itself, if we only receive Him. He promises a special reward to those of His priests who encourage other-, to receive Him ; and, as if all this were not enough, li c employs His Angels and Saints, yea, His own Omnipotence, to convey the Blessed Sacrament to those who are prevented from receiving Him. Shall we not respond to this desire of our Lord? Jesus, our King, the Creator of heaven and earth, longs after us, and shall not we, His creatures and subjects, long after 8 F 86 GX Till': (Hi EAT desire of JESUS CIIIllST TO Him? Jesus Clirist, ibc Good Sheplicrd, desires to feed His slicep, and shall not the sheep know His voice and follow Him? Ah, if we knew that some great and rich Prince had fH) set his heart on us as to find his happiness in dwell- ing with us, how impatiently Avould we expect his arrival, how eagerly would we count the days and hours until he had come ! JSTow, Jesus Christ is fai greater and richer than any earthly prince. Whal honor is so great as that of receiving our God and Saviour? And shall we say: Delay, O Lord; come not now ; Avait a little longer ! Alas ! that there should be any Christians who speak thus ! Can we conceive anything more extraordinary than that a man who be- lieves and knows that God desires to unite Himself to his soul, should yet remain indifferent to so great a favor ? Can anything shov/ more clearly how the world and sin have usurped the place of God in the human heart, and blinded it to its true happiness ? Let me warn you, at least, dear reader, against such folly and ingratitude. If your own desire does not impel you to receive Holy Communion, at least let the desire of Jesus Christ urge you. Do not stay away because your love is cold ; go, and your love will grow warm. Begin by going to please Him, and you will keep on to please yourself. This Sacrament is the great means of ad- vancing in Divine love. Those who taste a little honey desire to cat more ; but those who know not its sweetness do not desire it at all. In like manner, tins heavenly banquet continually satisfies and creates spir- itual huna;er. ENTER INTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION. 87 The Saints, by often receiving their Saviour, obtained such a longing desire to possess Plim, as even to cause them suffering until it was satisfied. St. Theresa's desire for Holy Communion was so great that she used to say, that neither fire nor sword could deter her from receiving her Divine Lord. St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi used to go to that part of the Communion-rail where the priest came first to distribute the Blessed Sacrament, in order to receive our Lord as quickly as possible. St. Philip JSTeri was often unable to sleep at night, on account of his great desire to receive Holy Communion. One night, as Father Antonio Gallonio w^as about to give him Holy Communion, he held the sacred host in his hand for some time; at last, St. Philip, unable to endure the delay any longer, cried out : "An- tonio, why do you hold my Lord in your hands so long? Why do you not give Him to me? Why? why ? Give Plim to me ; give Him to me ! '' It is also related that this saint, when taking the Precious Blood at Mass, used to press his lips to the chalice with such affection that it seemed as if he could not tear himself away from it. He thus gradually wore off the gilding on the rim of the chalice. But still more remarkable is that which is related of St. Alphonsus. Once, on Good Friday, being unable to receive Holy Commun- ion, his affliction was so great that a violent fever came on him ; his life was even in danger. The doc- tor came and bled him, but there was no improvement until the next day, when the saint learned that he could again receive his Saviour. On receiving these joyful 88 ON- THE GREAT DESfRE OF JESUS CHRIST TO tidings, the fever immediately left him. " Gustate ci videte quoniam suavis est Dominus — Come, then, and taste this heavenly food for yourself/^ Let neither the example of others, nor the pleasures of the world, nor the coldness of your own heart deprive you of so rich a consolation. How truly does the author of the Imi- tation of Christ remark : " If Jesus Christ were offered only in one city in the world, how cheerfully would men endure even hardships to go to that favored spot ! How would they long for the time when they could re- ceive their God. Many holy pilgrims have undertaken long and arduous journeys, and have encountered dread- ful perils by land and sea, only that they might be able to weep in the places in which our Saviour suffered, and to kiss the ground on which He trod. AYhat is there, then, that should prevent you from receiving your Saviour Himself? Should you not be willing to sacrifice everything — to sacrifice health and riches, and life itself, that you might be deemed worthy of so great a favor ? So, at least, thought the Christians of other days. I need not refer you to the examples of the early Christians — there are instances even in later times. In the time of the penal laws in England, under Queen Elizabeth, a Catholic nobleman was fined four hundred crowns for having received Holy Communion; but, regardless of the iniquitous law, he continued to com- municate, cheerfully paying the fine each time he was detected, although he was thereby obliged to sell two of his best estates. He declared that he never spent ENTER JNTO OUR HEARTS IN HOLY COMMUNION. 89 any money with greater joy than that which he was obliged to pay for the privilege of receiving his Lord.^ Still more affecting is the example which is related of a dying man, in the time of St. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan. A dreadful pes- tilence had broken out in the city, and a certain man in the hospital of St. Gregory having been attacked by it, was soon reduced to the last extremity. In this state he was carried, more dead than alive, to a place where the dead bodies were thrown before being buried. Life, however, was not yet quite extinct, and, after a night spent in this horrible situation, he heard, in ihe morning, the sound of the bell announcing the ap- proach of the Blessed Sacrament. Seized with an ardent desire of receiving his Saviour, he extricated himself wdth great difficulty from the dead bodies that were piled upon him, and crawling to the feet of the priest who carried the Holy Viaticum, he conjured him to give him Holy Communion. The priest, touched with compassion, immediately communicated him, but the efforts the poor man had made were too much for his feeble strength, and while his lips were yet moving in prayer, and his eyes looking up to heaven, he fell back cold and lifeless at the feet of the priest. You, dear reader, have no such efforts, no such Bacrifices to make, in order to receive your Lord ; you need not undertake long journeys nor cross 'stormy seas and high mountains ; Jesus Christ is at your door ; you have but to go to the church and you will find Him. ' Schmid's Histor. Catech. 8* 90 CHRIST DESIRES TO BE UNITED WITH US. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose in receiving a good Communion. Avail yourself, then, of so great a privilege. If you have communicated hitherto but seldom, communicate oftener for the future. Our Lord Himself solicits you ; He repeats the cry He uttered on the cross: "Sitio!'' "I thirst." And for "what does He thirst ? He thirsts for your heart ; He urges you as He did Zacheus : " Make haste, for to-day I must abide in thy house." How exceedingly great is the reward of those who obey this loving invitation ! Does not Jesus Christ declare that He will recompense those who receive Him and show mercy to Him in the person of the poor ? How much more will He reward those who receive Him and show mercy to Him in person. To such He will say : " I was naked " in the Blessed Sacrament, stripped of my glory, and your faith, reverence and devotion supplied what Y»^as want- ing to My Majesty ; I was " imprisoned '^ in the form of bread and wine, and " sick " ^Y\ih. love for you, and you did lovingly visit Me and refresh Me; I v>'as a " stranger," unknown to the greater part of mankind, and you gave Me your heart for My abode; I was " hungry " and " thirsty," consumed with the desire of possessing your affections entirely, and you satisfied My desire to the utmost. Come, then, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the vvorld. chapter vl Ojl^ preparation for communiok J^ order to receive the abundant fruits of the Holy Eucharist, a certain co-operation is required on the part of the receiver : not, indeed, that the efficacy of the Sacrament, considered in itself, depends at all on the recipient — this efficacy it has entirely from God — but because its salutary effects, in each particular case, depend upon the' disposition witli which it is received. Tlie co- operation which is required on our part consists, in general, in approaching it with a sincere desire to receive the graces which are imparted through it, and, afterward, in turning them carefully to account. In order to obtain this disposition, it is advisable to devote some time, before and after Communion, to preparation and thanksgiving. Of these, then, I w^ill proceed to speak. First, of the preparation before Communion. When speaking of preparation for Communion, the previous qualification of being in the state of grace is always presupposed. It is related of the Emperor Frederic, that, having on one occasion gone to visit a nobleman at his own castle, he was received into an 91 92 ON PRE PA RA TION a])artmeiit wh!cli was thickly hung with crove here, at great length, the propriety of ' Epist. 54. 94 ON PREPARATION making some actual preparation for Communion. Com- mon sense is enough to teach every man tliat it is not becoming to receive his God into his heart without pre- vious preparation. I suppose you have, at some time, witnessed the public reception of some great man, whom the people wish to honor — some distinguished warrior, or successful candidate, or great orator. What a crowd in the streets ! What anxiety to secure a place for see- ing ! What a cry and tumult on all sides ! And when the hero of the day arrives, what eagerness to get a sight of him ! How dense the crowd becomes behind him ! How happy they on whom he smiles, or to whom he speaks ! How greatly envied is the favored citizen with w^hom he will take up his abode ! Y/hat hurry, and bustle, and excitement in the house where he is to lodge ! Now, stop and ask yourself, for whom is all this ? For a man — a poor, weak, mortal man. And I, alas! with unconcern, receive Him Who is the ^^ Splen- dor of His Father's Glory and the Figure of His Sub- stance ! " When king David was asked why he had prepared so vast a quantity of gold, silver, and precious stones for the temple he was about to erect, he answered : " The work is great : for a house is not prepared for man, but for God.'' And yet, in that Temple the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant and the manna were but shadows. We have the true Holy of Holies, the Living Manna, the Life-giving Bread that came down from heave^-i ! Should we not, then, exert all our care in arranging a dwelling-place for this Divine FOR COMMUNIOl^. %h Guest ! " When thou slialt sit to eat vvith a prince/' says the wise king Solomon, " consider diligently what . is set before thy face/^ How much more diligently ought we to consider what we are about to do, when we appear at the table of the great King of heaven and earth, to feed on the Flesh of His beloved Son ! This reflection, so natural and obvious, is sufficient to show us the propriety of some actual preparation for Communion. To this I will add another reflection to ihow its great utility. It is in the highest degree advantageous to prepare ourselves for Holy Com- munion, because the fruit it produces depends on the disposition with which we receive it. Divines use the following figure in illustration : as wood, that is not seasoned, will not burn Avell, because the moisture that is in it resists the action of the fire, so the heart, vrliich is full of earthly affections, is not in a fit state to be enkindled with the living fire of Divine Love by mean? of this Holy Sacrament. Father Lallemant says, that many souls are almosi as little benefited by the Holy Eucharist as the walk of the church in which it is preserved, because they are as hard and as cold as the very walls themselves. And St. Bernard concisely expresses the same truth, by say- ing : " Sicut tu Deo aj^paruerisy ita tibi Deus apparebitJ^ *'God will exhibit Himself to you just as you show yourself disposed towards Him." When, therefore, people complain of receiving but little fruit from their Conammiions, they but betray their own negligence. As the light of the sun far exceeds the light of t\\Q 90 ON rUEVAHATION moon, so do the effects of the Holy Eucharist \u a loving heart greatly surpass those which it produces in a tepid, slothful soul. The well-known story of Widikend, Duke of Saxony, illustrates this. This prince, while yet a pagan, v»'as at war with Charle- magne ; having a great curiosity to see what took place among the Christians, he disguised himself as a pilgrim and stole into their camp. It happened to be the Paschal time, and the whole army were making their Easter Communion. The stranger watched tlie cere- monies of Mass with interest and admiration, but how much was he surprised, when the priest administered the Sacrament, to see in the host an infant of shining beauty ! He gazed at the sight with amazement ; but his astonishment became yet greater when he saw that this wonderful child entered the mouths of some of the communicants with joy, while only with great reluc- tance it allowed itself to be received by others. This vision was the means of the conversion of Widikend, and the submission of his subjects to the faith ; for, having sought instruction from the Christians, he un- derstood that our Lord meant to show him, not only the truth of the Real Presence, but that He oomes into our hearts with willingness or unwillingness, as we are well or ill prepared for receiving Him.^ Something similar is related in the life of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque. One day she saw our Lord in the host as the priest was giving Communion, and she noticed that when the priest came to some of th?? ' Timal. Arende I., 1 Collat. FOR COMMUNION. 97 communicants, our Lord stretclied out His arms, and seemed eager ^o unite Himself to them, while there were others toward whom He showed the greatest re- pugnance, and only suffered Himself to be dragged into their mouths by certain cords and bands with which He was bound. He explained to her afterwards, that the souls which He entered willingly were those who were careful to please Him, and those to whom He showed so much aversion were tepid Christians, who received Him into hearts full of hateful faults and imperfections. He told her, moreover, that He entered into such hearts merely on account of His promises, and the law which He had laid upon Himself in the institution of the Blessed Sacrament, and that this was the meaning of the bands and. cords which she had seen. "How then,^' you ask, "am I to prepare for Holy Communion ? '^ The Church sufficiently indicates the dispositions for Holy Communion in the following words : " Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tanium die verho, et sanahitur anima mea. Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." These words were spoken by the Centurion, who came to our Saviour asking Him to heal his ser- vant. Our Lord at once offered to go with him to his house to perform the cure, but the good Centurion replied ; "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed." This answer pleased our Lord so 9 G 98 ON PREPARATION inucli that He not only instantly healed the servant, but greatly commended the Centurion's faith. These words express a great esteem for Jesus Christ, a great sense of unworthiness on the part of the supplicant, and a great confidence that he would obtain what he asked. These are precisely the dispositions which the Church requires for the reception of Holy Communion. Hence she repeats the words of the Centurion in a loud voice, each time she distributes the Bread of Life, in order to remind the communicants of the duty of ap- proaching the sacred banquet with a deep sense of their own utter nothingness, and with a great desire of being united to their Divine Saviour. To excite these affections when about to communicate, you have but to ask yourself the following questions : Who is it that is coming? To whom does He come, and why is He coming ? Who is coming in this Holy Sacrament? It is my Creator, Who has given me everything I possess, in Whom I live, and move, and am. It is God all Powerful ! all Wise ! all Holy ! all Beautiful ! Jesus Christ is coming, the Eternal Son of the Father, Who, moved by love unspeakable, came down from heaven into the pure womb of the Virgin, was born into this world, and lived as man among sinners. The Good Shepherd is coming to seek His lost sheep ; My Re- deemer is coming, who died on the cross for sinners. To whom is He coming? To a miserable sinner who has not fulfilled the end of his cieation; to a FOR COMMUNION. 99 steward, who has wasted his master's goods ; to a ser- vant w]io has disobeyed his lord ; to a subject who has rebelled against his prince ; to a redeemed captive who has been unthankful to his deliverer ; to a soldier who has deserted his commander ; to a prodigal child who has turned his back upon his father; to a spouse who has been unfaithful to her bridegroom. Oh ! what a mingling of sentiments, exalting and depressing, must arise in the heart when about to approach Holy Com- munion ! How great the distance between Him Who is received and the sinner who receives ! Yf ho can think of this and not feel himself completely unworthy of such a grace ! Eusebius relates of St. Jerome, that when the Holy Viaticum was brought to him, at the hour of his death, he exclaimed : " Lord, why dost Thou lower Thyself so much as to come to a publican and a sinner, not only to eat with him, but even to be eaten by him ! '' And then, casting himself upon the earth, he received his Saviour with many tears. If a saint who had spent a long life in penitential works for the love of Christ, felt so penetrated with a sense of his unv/orthiness be- fore God, how much more should we humble ourselves when we draw nigh to Him ! Should we not, with a true sorrow for our past unfaithfulness, accuse ourselves before Him, and resolve, by the help of His grace, to amend all that is displeasing in His sight ? The Pub- lican, of w^hom we read in the Gospel, stood far back in the temple, and smote his breast, saying : " Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!'^ And should not we, when 1 00 Oy PR EPA RA TION going to the altar, hesitate and smite our hearts, saying, in the depths of our hearts : " I am not worthy ! I am not worthy ! ^^ But now the soul, having perceived the depth of her own unworthiness, must once more lift up her eyes to heaven and ask : " Why does this Holy God come to visit a sinner like me?'^ And here she finds immen- sity of goodness which fills her again with courage and joy. Why does He come? Surely not for Himself, for He has no need of us. We cannot make Him richer or happier ; we cannot give Him anything that He has not first given us. He sees in us nothing of our own but misery and sin. He is perfectly happy. The Angels serve Him day and night. There is not one of them that would not willingly be annihilated if He were to will it. What, then, is it that induces Him to come to us ? It is love, pure undeserved love. He comes to apply to our souls the fruits of His Redemp- tion w^hich He accomplished on Calvary ; for, in this Sacrament He becomes, to each one of us, a Saviour in a special sense. He comes to accomplish the work for which He created us, to prepare us for the place in Heaven which He has destined for us. It is He tha^. works in this Sacrament, not we. He created us ; He redeemed us ; now He comes to pour out upon us all the riches of His love ; He comes to give us light to know, and strength to do His w^ill; He comes to repair what is decayed, and to restore what is wasted ; to forgive re- bellion and unthankfulness ; in a word, to receive us as children ; to clothe us with the first robe ; to put a ring FOR COMMUNION. 101 on our hands, and shoes on our feet ; to eat and make merry with us. What, then, should be our sentiments, when we ap- proach our Lord in this mystery, but those of the re- turning prodigal : ^^ I will arise and will go to my Father?" And when, at this wonderful banquet, our good Father, Jesus Christ, falls upon our necks and gives us the kiss of peace ; when He feeds us, not with the fatted calf, but with His own most precious Flesh, what has the soul to do but yield to His loving em- brace, and to say, with humble gratitude : " O Lord, I am not worthy ! I am not worthy to be called Thy son !" Our mistake is this — we think we have much tc dO; and we have but little to do. I have already said that habitual fidelity, even in the smallest mattei-s, is a condition for our receiving special graces in this Sacrament ; but, at the moment of Com- munion, what is chiefly necessary, is a, great confidence arising from a deep conviction of our ov/n nothingness, and from a sense of God^s exceedingly great goodness. He comes to us with His hands full of graces; we should meet Him with an affectionate desire to be united to Him, and a hunger and thirst for His justice. But, perhaps, you will say : " I see the truth of what you have said ; I am sure that a great desire to receive Jesus Christ is the best disposition for approaching Him, but this is precisely my difficulty. I have not this desire ; I am cold and dry ; my heart is dull and sluggish. I go to Communion, not, indeed, without the wish to please our Lord, but with little fervor or aflec- 9* 102 ON PREPARATION tion for Him. Our Lord Himself has given the reply to this difficulty. He said one day to St. Mechtildis : " When thou art about to receive My Body and Blood, desire, for the greater glory of My name, to have all the ardor of love which the most fervent heart ever had for Me, and then thou mayst receive Me with con- fidence, for I will attribute to thee as if thou really hadst it, all that fervor that thou desirest to have." What can be more consoling than this ? You have no devotion, but you can wish to have it. You do not feel all the respect and confidence you would like to feel, but your wish to have more supplies what is want- ing ; you have no humility, but you can humble your- self for your pride; you have no love, but you can offer your desire to love. From the poor, small presents are accepted. Offer what you have, and if you have nothing, then do what the saints recommend — say, " Lord, if a great king were to lodge with a poor man, he would not expect the poor man to make a suitable preparation, but would send his own servants to make ready for him ; do Thou so, O Lord, now that Thou art coming to dwell in my poor heart ! " This alone will be an excellent disposition for receiving, and one very pleasing to Jesus Christ. One day, St. Gertrude went to receive Holy Com- munion without being sufficiently prepared. Being greatly afflicted at this, she begged the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all the Saints, to offer up to God, in her behalf, all their merits, that tliey might in some way supply her own deficiency, whereupon our Saviour ap- FOR COMMUNION. 10^1 ^jeared to hei' and said : ^^Now, before the Avhole heav- Rnlj court, thou appearest adorned for Communion as thou wouldest wish to be." Comply, then, O Christian, with that which Jesus Christ requires of you. Communicate, but communi- cate as He desires that you should. Do not be content with keeping yourself free from mortal sin ; make war against venial sin also, at least those which are fully deliberate; for though venial sins do not extinguish love, they greatly weaken its force and fervor. Strive also to wean your heart from creatures; endeavor to mortify your attachment to honors, riches, and pleas- ures ; spare no trouble for the sake of the kingdom of heaven ; practise little but frequent acts of self-denial ; keep yourself always in the fear of God, and strive to fidorn your soul with the virtues which Jesus Christ especially loves — humility, meekness, patience, prayer, charity, faith, peace, and recollection. On the eve of your Communion, renew your good resolutions ; spend some little time in prayer ; go to rest with the thought, ^^ to-morrow I shall receive my Saviour ; " and if you awake in the night, think of the great action you ai'e about to perform. In the morning make again acts of love, humility, contrition and confidence, and then go forward to the altar with a sincere desire to love and honor Jesus Christ more and more. Do what you can, and however imperfect that may be, it will be accept- able to Jesus Christ, provided He sees in you a true desire to do more. By such Communions you will gain the precious graces which are imparted by this Holy 104 ON PREPARATION FOR CO 31 MUNI ON. Sacrament, for they will not be merely Communions, but real unions of Jesus Christ with your soul. I will conclude this chapter with the following story: Father Hunolt, of the Society of Jesus, relates that two students were once discoursing together about the hour of their death. They agreed that, if God would allow it, he who should die first should appear to the other, to tell him how he fared in the other world. Shortlv afterwards one of them died, and appeared soon after his death to his fellow-student, all shining with heav' enly brightness and glory, and in answer to his inqui- ries told him that by the mercy of God he was saved, and was in possession of the bliss of heaven. The other congratulated him on his felicity, and asked him how he merited such unspeakable glory and bliss : ^' Chiefly,^' said the happy soul, " by the care with which J endeavored to receive Holy Communion with a pure heart.'^ At these words the spirit disappeared, leaving in his surviving friend feelings of great conso- lation, and an ardent zeal to imitate his devotion. " If you know these things, blessed shall you be if you do them.''^ * John xiii. 17. CHAPTER VII. ON THANKSCxIVING AFTER COMMUNION. F a good preparation before Communion is so important, a good thanksgiving after Com- munion is even of greater importance. St. John Chrysostom says, that when a person has eaten some delicious food at a banquet, he is care- ful not to take anything bitter in his mouth immedi- ately after, lest he should lose the sweet flavor of those delicate viands. In like manner, when we have re- ceived the precious Body of Jesus Christ, we should take care not to lose its heavenly flavor by turning too soon to the cares and business of the world. St. Francis de Sales expresses the same idea. "When the merchants of India,'^ he says, " have brought home their precious porcelain, they are very careful in con- veying it to their store-houses lest they should stumble and break their costly wares. In like manner should the Christian, when he carries the priceless treasure of our Lord's Body, walk with great care and circum- spection, in order not to lose the costly gift committed to his keeping. The meaning of both saints is, that after Communion we should spend soi?ie time in devout 105 106 ON TIIANKSGIVmO recollection and prayer. This is the general practice of good Catholics. And, indeed, reason itself tells us that a good thanksgiving after Communion is even of more importance than a good preparation before it. If we are required to pause and consider what we are about to do when we approach our Lord, v/hat should be our devotion when He is actually in our hearts? When the Blessed Virgin Mary visited St. Elizabeth, the aged saint was astonished at the conde- scension of the glorious Mother of God, and said : "Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my God- should come to me?" Now, in Holy Communion, it is the Lord Himself that comes to us; the Eternal " Wisdom which proceeded from the mouth of the Most High ; '^ the " Lord and Prince of the House of Israel, Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush ; " the " King of nations ; " " Emmanuel,'^ " our King and Lawgiver." To remain indifferent, after having re- ceived the Blessed Eucharist, is to evince either a total want of faith or a levity and stupidity unworthy of a reasonable being. What a spectacle for the Angels, to see a creature approach that sacred host before which they bow in lowliest adoration, and when he has had the unutterable happiness of receiving his Redeemer, leave the church with as much unconcern as if he had but partaken of ordinary bread ! If, indeed, this should be done by one who has had no opportunity for receiving instruction on this subject, no doubt the Angels will have compassion on his ignorance; but, should a well-instructed Catholic be guilty of such un- AFTER COMMUNION. 107 grttteful behavior towards Jesus Christ after Commun- ion, I think that nothing but the mercy of our Lord would prevent them from avenging the impiety. St. Alphonsus relates that a priest, seeing a man leave the church immediately after Commuaion, sent the servers of Mass, with lighted candles, to accompany him home. " What is the matter ? " asked the man ; " O," said the boys, ^^ we are come to accompany our Lord, Who is still present in your heart.^' If every one who follow/j the example of this indevout commu- nicant received the same reproof, the scandal of going directly from the altar to the w^orld would soon cease. Although the greatness of our Lord is a sufficient reason why we should not leave Him alone in our hearts after Communion, it is not the argument wh^ch He Himself employs. There is in this Sacrament nothing that breathes of majesty. Our Lord is silent, whether we leave the church immediately or kneel and reverently converse with Him. The stones do not cry out against our ingratitude, if, after eating the Bread of Angels, we do not give thanks to God. Jesus Christ might send twelve legions of angels to stand around us after we have left His Table, to remind us that He is present in our hearts ; but He does not do this. Now it is from this very fact of not surrounding Himself with anything calculated to inspire fear, that we ought to draw the most powerful incentive to gratitude. This Sacrament is a Sacrament of love. In it God is pleased to treat with His creatures in all familiarity. Jesus Christ, having accomplished the work of our 108 ON THANKSGIVma Redemption, draws- nigh to converse with us, as lie did to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus. He wislies to speak with us as one friend speaks to another. O, then, what an affront it is to leave Him the moment that He comes to us ! Scarcely to say one word to Him ! Would you not consider it great un- kindness, if a loving friend had travelled far to see you, and when he has but a little time to stay, to leave him as soon as he had entered your house, and go to attend to your business or to seek your pleasure? Would you not rather give him the best welcome you could, and prepare the best room in your house, and adorn it \vith your richest furniture; would you not sacrifice something of your time to keep him company, and ex- change some tokens of love before you allowed him to depart? Now, should you not do as much for Jesus Christ, AVho has come so far to visit you. Who has suffered so many sorrows for your sake. Who is think- ing of you always, and has given you so many tokens of His love ? It is by this argument that Jesus Christ Himself prefers to incite us to make a due thanksgiving after Communion, and it is one which must have irresistible weight with every faithful heart. I feel that this point needs no further proof — I will therefore pass on to consider the manner in which we ought to make our thanksgiving. What has been said in regard to preparation is, of course, equally true here, viz. : that each one is free to use such prayers as he shall find most suited to his devotion. My object is only to show in what a good thanksgiving essentially consists. AFTER COMMUNION. 109 Now, it consists first, iii completing the union with our Lord, which He has come to effect, by a sincere oLIation of ourselves to Him. The moment of Com- m anion is different from any other moment of our lives. Then we can truly exclaim, my God and my All! When we communicate, God Himself is present in our little hearts, as our Friend and Bridegroom. Nothino; can be more intimate than the union that then takes place between the Creator and His creatures. It is more like the Incarnation of the Eternal Son of God in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary than anything else. To her it was said, " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall over- shadow thee. And therefore also, the Holy One Avhich shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.'' And the same Son of God, the Holy One, that was born of the spotless Virgin, comes into our hearts in the Sacred Host. Think of all that is most beautiful and most precious in the world, of all the riches of the whole universe, of all the glory of heaven, and you have, as yet, but a faint idea of the wealth of a soul that has received Holy Communion ; such a soul pos- sesses not only earth and heaven, but- the Lord and Maker of heaven and earth. It is a mystery which almost baffles thought. Certainly God can never cease to be what He is ; He can never cease to be awful in His Greatness, and Infinite in His Wisdom; our Ruler, our King, and our Judge ; but in this Sacrament, as if He had nothing to think of but the soul which He eomcs to visit, He lavishes upon her all ihQ riches of 10 110 OA TnANKSGIVING His bounty, and reveals Himself to her in no other bm the most amiable and most humble manner. Perhaps it is for this reason that He has been pleased so often to manifest Himself as an Infant in the Sacred Host, in order to show us how small He has become for love of us, and to take away from us all fear. Of old it was said, Ifagnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis. ^' Great is the Lord and exceedingly to be praised;^' but now we may rather say : Parvus Dominus et amahilis nimis. ^^ Small is the Lord and exceedingly to be loved.'' Accordingly we find from the expressions of the saints, that the thought which possessed their souls after Com- munion, was admiration at the unutterable love of God. St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi once asked a pious person after Communion what she was thinking of; " of love,'' was her reply. " Yes," rejoined the Saint, " Avhen we think of the immense love of Jesus Christ for us, we cannot think of anything else." It is related of Artaxerxes, King of Persia, that when he saw Themistocles, his dearest friend, he exclaimed, in a transport of joy: "I have Themistocles, Themisto- cles I have !" With how much greater joy should not the soul exclaim after Communion : " I have my Jesus, my Jesus I have ! I have found Him Whom my soul loves ! I will keep Him, and not leave Him !" It is not, however, enough to wonder at our Saviour's love. Love must be mutual to produce union ; and we must return Him love for love. Now is the time to repay Him for the trials and tears, the shame and sorrow, the contradiction and reproach which He underwent for AFTER COMMUNION. Ill the ransom of our souls. They were already His by the title of creation, and now they belong to Him by the title of Redemption. We must make to Him a childlike, generous, sincere, and complete oblation. " But what,^^ you say, " have I to offer ? I am poor and indigent, I stand in need of everything, what can I give to the Lord, Who made heaven and earth V^ I will tell you. Imitate ^schines, a disciple of Socrates, of whom Seneca relates that, not being able, on account of his poverty, to make such rich presents to his master as his fellow-disciples did, he went out and said to him : ^^ Master, my extreme poverty leaves me nothing to give you as a token of my gratitude, I offer you, then, myself, to be yours forever.^' " Truly," said Socrates, " you have given me more than all the rest." Act thus with Jesus Christ. You have no treasure to offer Him ; you have no station to renounce for Him ; you have no occasion to die for Him ; you cannot do for Him what He has done for you, but you can give Him that which He values more than anything else — your heart. There is nothing that gives so much pleasure to Jesus Christ as a heart truly resolved to serve Him. Give Him, then, this pleasure ; offer yourself to Him, to be disposed of as He pleases ; to receive at His Hand bitter and sweet indifferently ; to serve Him with all the fervor that you can; to avoid sin and to lead a Christian life. Do this, and then your Communion will be really a Communion, that is to say, a union with God. To receive the Body of Christ is common to the 112 ox THAXKSaiVING good and the bad, but it is the good alone who are truly united to Him. Are you, perhaps, afraid to make such promises ? " It is easy/' I hear you say, "to make an offering of ourselves to Jesus Christ, but it is not so easy to carry it into effect/' Oh, Christian soul, thou dost not yet understand the generosity of love ! Did not our Lord ask St. James and St. John whether they were ready to drink of the chalice that Pie would drink of, before He actually gave them the grace of Martyrdom ? Did He not make us promise to renounce the devil and his works, and his pomps, and to live in obedience to the Christian law before He adopted us as His children in Baptism ? \Ye must first promise much, and then God will help us to do much. He cones into our hearts, not only to claim them as His ./wn, but to give us grace whereby w^e may truly make them His. After we have made an oblation of ourselves to Him, then we must immedi- ately proceed to beg of Him the grace to fulfil that which v/e have promised — and this is the second part of a good thanksgiving. There is no doubt that petitioning our Lord for special graces should be our principal occupation after Communion. " The time after Communion," says St. Theresa, " is the best time for negotiating with Jesus Christ, for then He is in the soul, seated, as it were, on a throne of grace, and saying, as He said to the blind man: "What wilt thou that I should do to thee?" And another great servant of God says that, in the be- ginning of his conversion, he was accustomed to employ AFTER COMMUNION. 113 the time after Communion, ciiiefly in making devout aspirations, but that afterwards he devoted almost the wJiole time to petition, which he found more profitable to his soul. When a prince goes to visit, for a short time, his subjects in a distant province, his whole time is taken up in hearing their complaints, in redressing their grievances, in consoling them in their miseries, and in relieving their wants. So, Jesus Christ, our Heavenlv Kins:, comes in this Sacrament on a short visit to inquire into our wants and to relieve them. I say, to inquire into our wants, not as if He needed to be informed of them, but because, as St. Alphonsus says, He wishes that w^e should lay them before Him. When the storm w^as raging on the sea of Tiberias, our Lord continued to sleep in the ship, although He knew well the danger of His disciples. Why did He do this ? It Vv'as because He wished that they should awake Him and implore His aid. Lay, then, before Him all your troubles, your w^eaknesses, your fears and your desires. Are you in temporal difficulties? Hear what He has said : " What man is there among you of whom, if his son ask bread, will he reach him a stone ? or if he ask a fish will he reach him a serpent? If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your chil- dren, how much more will your Father Who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him ? " ^ Do you wish to subdue your passions and disorderly affec- tions? Hear what He has said : "As the division of waters, so the heart of the king is in My hands." ^ If ' St. Matt. vii. 9- J. ^ Prov. xxi. 1. 10* H 114 ON TUANKSGIVING the hearts of kings are like wax in His hands, is He not able to change your heart also ? Is He not able to convert you as He converted the prophet David, St. Mary JNIagdalene, St. Paul, St. JMargaret of Cortona, and a host of others? Ask Him, then, to destroy in you what is bad, and to make you what you wish to be ; to change your wavering purposes into a firm reso- lution to follow His example ; your fear of self-disci- pline into an earnest desire to advance in virtue and holiness. Ask Him to change your dissipated heart into a recollected one ; your unmortified heart into a mortified one; your ambitious heart into an humble one ; your faint and timid heart into a brave and cour- ageous one ; your irritable and peevish heart into a mild and patient one; your sinful heart into a holy one. In the life of St. Catharine of Sienna, we read of a wonderful grace that she received from our Lord. He took out her heart and gave her His in its place. Each one of us has it in his power to receive a grace somewhat similar. Let us only ask of Jesus Christ, and He w^ill transform us, as it were, into Himself. Pray to Him for humility, for patience, for meekness, for contempt of the world, for a lively faith, a firm hope, ardent charity; for brotherly love, for love of your enemies, for the prosperity of the Church, for the conversion of sinners, heretics, and infidels ; for the souls in purgatory ; for devotion to His Passion, to the Blessed Sacrament, to His Immaculate Mother ; for the crovfning grace of perseverance; and He will give you all, for His arm is not shortened nor His Lovo dimin- AFTER COMMU^UON. 115 ished. The Sacrament of the Eucharist never grows old ; it is as efficient now as it was at the time of the Apostles. There is nothing necessary to your true sanctity that your Lord is unwilling to impart to you. If you are diligent in asking graces of Him after Com- munion ; if you persevere in asking, with a real desire to obtain, you will infallibly become a saint, yea, a great saint. There is another exercise of devotion which should form part of your thanksgiving after Communion. I mean Praise. It is good sometimes to rejoice; it en- larges the heart and gives it courage, "llejoice in the Lord always," says St. Paul, "and again I say — Re- joice ! " The life of men would be much happier than it is were they, with a lively faith, often to receive Holy Communion. How sorrowful soever you may be when about to receive, afterward you will not be without consolation. When our Divine Saviour en- tered the temple, the little children cried out : " Ho- sanna to the Son of David ! '^ and shall not you sing a song of praise when He comes into the temple of your heart ? O, how much should you rejoice ! How great a thing it is to be a Christian ! " Where is the nation that has its gods so nigh, as our God is with us? What king or emperor is so honored as the faithful Catholic? What Angel of heaven so favored as the good communicant ? " Do you not know," says St. Paul, " that you are temples of God ? " " Yes, indeed, each good Catholic is a true Christopher, that is to say, a carrier of Christ ! After Communion, he carries in his heart Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God. 116 ON THANKSGIVING "All things are yours/^ says St. Paul; "all are yours and you are Christ's/' " Exult ye who live in Sion ! " Why should you take life so hard, and com- plain of your crosses and trials, and be so impatient in every difficulty? Why should you envy the rich of this world, the great and the honored ? Why should you vex yourself at injuries and groan in adversity? Why should you faint at the thought of self-denial and conflict? Are you not a Catholic? Have you not the sweet services of the Church to soothe you and hef Sacraments to nourish you; her benedictions to strengthen you, and her absolution to cleanse you? Have you not Mary for your Mother, and the Angels and saints for your Patrons and Protectors ; and, above all, in the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus for your Father ? Oh ! my soul, rejoice and sing a song unto the Lord. Alleluia ! Praise the Lord, ye servants of God; praise ye the name of the Lord from henceforth, now and for- ever. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise. Who is as the Lord our God, Who dwelleth on high and looketh down on the low things in heaven and on earth ! Kaising up the needy from the earth, and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill, that He may place them with princes, with the princes of His 'peop. 3. Alleluia! Bless the Lord, my soul, and let all that is within me bless His holy name ! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never forget all Pie has done for thee; Who forgiveth all thy iniquities ; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crown eth thee AFTER COMMUNION. 117 wivvi mercy and compassion; Who satisfietli all thy desires with good things. He hath not dealt with thee according to thy sins, nor rewarded thee according to thy iniquities : for, according to the height of heaven above the earth, He has strengthened His mercy tovv^ards them that fear Him ; and as far as the West is from the East, so far hath He removed our iniquities from us. As a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord 'compassion on them that fear Him. Bless the Lord, all ye Angels ; you that are mighty in strength and execute His word, hearkening to the voice of His orders. O my soul, bless thou the Lord ! My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He that is mighty hath done great things to me : and Holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation to generation to them that fear Him. He hath shown might in His Arm ; He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their hearts ; He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath ex- alted the humble ; He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent away empty ; He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy. As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever. Having spoken of the necessity of making a thanks- giving after Communion, and shown the manner in which it may profitably be made, I must say a few words about the length of time which you should devote to it. Above all I must remark that I have no inten- tion of putting your conscience under any law ; in this 118 ON THANKSGIVING • point you are altogether free to consult the duties of your state of life, or even your inclinations. I know that the saints desired to spend their life-time in thanksgiving after Communion, and felt a kind of re- luctance to attend to temporal aifairs after having re- ceived the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Hence in the Imitation of Christ, the blessed Thomas 4 Kempis complains of the necessity of eating, drinking, sleeping and attending to temporal affairs, because they interrupted his converse with the Lord and Master of his heart. But at the same time, I know that the saints never allowed their prayers to interfere with the faithful performance of the duties of their state of life. It is very important to know that true devotion does not consist in sacrificing work to prayer ; but in making prayer a preparation for work, and work a continuation of prayer. Hence, then, your thanksgiving should not be longer than the duties of your state of life will permit. Father Avila used to spend two hours in thanksgiving after Mass, even when he was very busy. St. Alphonsus advises every one to devote at least half an hour to it, if it is at all possible. But whatever time you fix upon, do not imagine that your thanksgiving is at an end when you leave the church. The best thanksgiving is to cease from sin and to remain united with God; your half hour's prayer is only to help you to do this. You cannot remain always in the church, but you can go to your business with a recollected mind. You cannot always keep your prayer-book and beads in your hands, but AFTER COMMUNION. 119 you can make ejaculatoiy prayer to God, at every time and in every place. It is said of St. Aloysius of Gonzaga, that he used to receive Communion once a week, and that he was ac- customed to spend three days in preparation before it, and three days in thanksgiving after it. How did he manage to do this? Was he all the time prostrated before the Altar, or reading a spiritual book ? I^ot at all, he went wherever obedience called him, quietly performing his duties and keeping his heart lifted up to God. He offered up all his actions to Jesus Christ by way of thanksgiving ; and he made now and then some short acts of faith, hope, and charity ; some acts of self-oblation, or admiration, or supplication. By this means, the angelic youth was enabled to walk con- tinually with God ; one Communion was the prepara- tion for another, thus he constantly advanced in purity of heart and in love for Jesus Christ. Now, every one who has but little time at his disposal can make such a thanksgiving as this ; if not with all the perfection of St. Aloysius, at least with great fruit and consolation to his soul. Every one can offer to Jesus Christ the crosses he may meet with during the day, and bear them patiently for the sake of Him whom he wishes to thank. He can crush the movements of impatience, the thought of vanity, the immodest glance, the word of bitterness, the laugh of folly, the look of pride. He can, for the love of the good Jesus, be just and true, pure and obedient, pious and humble. This is the way to hpnor and please Jesus Christ. He did not ]20 ON TIIANKSGIVmO m institute tliis adorable Sacrament to give us a little excitement of devotion, but to make us holy. " I have, chosen you," said our Lord, "that you should bring forth fruits, and that your fruit should remain.'' " In this is My Father glorified that you bring forth very much fruit." Make then. Christian soul, a good use of the precious moments after Communion. You will never fully un- derstand how precious they are. Nothing will cause you more confusion after death than the little account you have made of the Blessed Sacrament. It is related in the Book of Esther, that one night when the King Assuerus could not sleep, he ordered the chronicles of his reign to be read to him. When the reader came to the place where it was related that Mordachai, the Jew, had once crushed a wicked plot against the King's life, Assuerus asked " what reward had Mordachai received for his fidelity." " IN^one at all," they answered him. Whereupon, in all haste, the King ordered the long delayed acknowledgment to be made to his deliverer ; that Mordachai should be carried in procession through the streets clothed in royal apparel and crowned with the King's crown, and seated upon the King's horse, and that it should be proclaimed before ail : " This is the honor he is worthv of, whom the King; hath a mind to honor." To you also, my dear reader, there will come a sleep- less night, when mortal sickness shall tell you that death is near, and then you will look back upon your life, and sec many benefits for which you have made no acknowl- AFTER COMMUNION. 121 edgment. When you think of your CommunioniS you will say, what acknowledgment have I made to my Deliverer Who has so often saved my life ? W^hen the two disciples at Emmaus understood that it was Jesus Who had been with them by the way, they remem- bered how their hearts had burned as He conversed with them ; so, at the hour of death, you will see how precious were the graces you received, when Jesus, in the Holy Sacrament, came into your heart. Your Communions will then seem to have been the greatest blessings of your life. The world will have disap- [)eared, friends will have deserted you, all your past life wi] I seem to have been a dream ; but the moments when you received your Saviour ^^111 appear to you in their true bearing in eternity. What regret Vvdll yoij not then feel for your unfaithfulness ! How earnestly will you desire to live yoar life over again to repair your indevout thanksgivings ! A holy nun, who had suffered very much in this life, appeared after her death to one of her sisters in religion. She told her that she would willing] V return to the world and undergo once more all the pains she had suffered here on earth, pro- vided she could say but Que Hail Mary, because by that one prayer her glory and joy would be increased by one degree for all eternity.^ If the blessed in heaven are willing to do so much for one Hail Mary, what would they not do for one Communion ? And yet they cannot have it. It is the privilege of mortals alone to feed on the Flesh of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucha- ' p. Michael a St. Catharina. Lib. III. Tract. 16. 11 1 22 ON THANKSGl VINQ list. I repeat, then, make great account of your Com- munions. Do now what you will wish to have done at the hour of death. Make the most of every moment of your thanksgiving. Pay to Jesus Christ all the honor that you possibly can. You cannot do as i^ssu- erus did. Jesus Christ is great, and you are poor and miserable; you cannot give Him royal honor — you can but give Him the tribute of an humble loving heart. But this He is pleased to accept. Offer it to Him, then, in all sincerity. Converse with Him reverently and familiarly whilst you have Him in your heart ; try to obtain some grace from Him which may remain after He has ceased to be sacramentally present with you, and which may enable you to make your next Com- munion better. Thus you will live always united with Jesus Christ, and by your example and conversation you will edify your neighbor. St. Veronica Juliana had, even at the age of three years, a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and it is related of her that, not being permitted to receive Communion, she used to come very close to her mother after she had communicated and cling to her dress. One day her mother noticed the child and asked hei why she thus hung around her, and she replied- " Mother, you taste of Jesus, and you smell of Jesus ! ^' If you, too, my reader, are careful to make a good thanksgiving, you will carry with you a sweet odor of sanctity, and angels and good Christians will love to keep you company. You will advance in virtue and happiness here, and what is more, hereafter. When AFTER COMMUNION. 123 the tepid and indifferent will be lamenting in a bitter Purgatory their negligent thanksgivings, or will be cursing them in Hell as the first steps to mortal sin, you will be blessing the retired and mortified life which left you time to love and honor your Saviour. Nay, even this is not all, for your most bountiful Saviour will reward the little honor you have paid Him by a great and royal recompense. He will do far more for you than Assuerus did for Mordechai. He will cause you t> be honored by all the angels and saints in heaveu; clothe you in royal attire and "confess your name before His Father,^^ as He promised when He Baidi ** Whosoever shall glorify Me, him will I glo- rify T^ ' 1 Kings ii. 30. CHAPTER VIII. ON THE EFFECTS OF HOLY COIilMUiVION. AM sure, dear reader, that if jou would once begin the practice of frequent Communion, in order to please our Lord, you would continue it in order to please yourself. I will now proceed to make good this assertion by showing the great and admirable effects which this Bread of the Strong produces in the soul. First, it confers an in- crease of sanctifying grace. The life of the soul con- sists in its being in a state of acceptance or friendship with God, and that which renders it acceptable to God is sanctifying grace. This grace, which was merited for us by our Lord Jesus Christ, is infused into the soul by the Holy Ghost through the Sacraments ; but each Sacrament does not confer it in the same manner. Bap- tism and Penance bestow it upon those who are entirel\ out of the grace of God, or in other words, are spirit ually dead ; Baptism being the means appointed for those who have never been in the grace of God, and Penance for those who have lost it. These Sacraments are, therefore, called Sacraments of the dead, as being instituted for the benefit of those Y»"ho are in mortal 124 ON THE EFFECTS OF UOLT COMMUNION. 125 /sin or dead to grace. When these Saerameuts are re- ceived with the right dispositions, they truly reconcile the sinner with God, so that, from being an enemy of God, He becomes His friend, and an object of His com- placency. But this acceptance, though true and real, is not in the highest degree ; it admits of an increase, as the Holy Scripture says : "Let him that is just be justified still ; and let him that is holy be sanctified still ; " and, therefore, God appointed the other Sacra- ments, the Sacraments of the living, not only to convey special graces peculiar to each, but to impart an increase of sanctifying grace to those who are already in His favor. A rich man, when he has taken possession of a field which he washes to convert into a garden, is not content with putting a wall around it, and clearing it of the most noxious weeds, and setting it in good order, but he continues to cultivate it assiduously ; to fill it with the most beautiful plants, and to embellish it with new and choice ornaments. Thus Almighty God, in His love and goodness, has multiplied means by which the soul may be enriched with the graces and merits of Jesus Christ, and become more and more agreeable and beautiful in His eyes. ]N^ow, among all these means, there is none greater nr more powerful than the Blessed Eucharist. Each time that we receive our Saviour in Holy Communion, we participate anew in all the merits of His Redemption, of His poverty. His hidden life. His scourging, and His crowning with thorns. The Holy Eucharist, then, flifi'ers from the other Sacraments in this, that while the *11 126 ON THE EFFECTS other Sacraments bestow upon us one or another of the fruits of Christ's merits, this gives us the gra/^ and merits of our Saviour in their source. The soul, there- fore, receives an immense increase of sanctifying grace at each Communion. Dear Christian, let us reflect upon this for a moment. It is no slight thing for a soul to be beautiful in the sight of God. That must needs be something great and precious which can render us, sinful creatures as we are, truly amiable before God. What must be the value of sanctifying grace which can work such a transforma- tion ? What is it ? and who can declare its price ? St. Thomas tells us, that the lowest degree of sanctifying grace is worth more than all the riches of the world. Think, then, of all the riches of this world ! The mines of gold, of precious stones, the forests of costly wood, and all the hidden stores of wealth, for the least of which treasures the children of this world are will- ing to toil, and struggle, and sin for a whole life-time- Again, consider that the lowest grace which an humble Catholic Christian receives at the rails of the sanctuary at dawn of day, before the great world is astir, out« weighs all those riches. But why do I draw my comparison from the things of this world ? St. Theresa, after her death, appeared to one of her sisters in religion, and told her that all the saints in heaven, without exception, would be will- ing to come back to this world and to remain here till the end of time, suffering ail the miseries to which our mortal state is subject, only to gain one more degree of OF HOLY COMh CfNION. 127 b«actif>;ng grace and the eternal glory corresponding to it. Nay, I even assert, that all the devils in hell would consider all the torments of their dark abode, endured for millions upon millions of ages, largely recompensed by the least degree of that grace which they have once rejected. These thoughts give us a grand and sublime idea of the value of grace ; but there is another con- sideration that o^ight to raise our estimate of it still higher, namely, that God Himself, the Eternal Son of the Father, came down upon earth, was made man, suf- fered and died the death of the cross in order to pur- chase it for us. His life is in some way the measure of its value. Now, this sapjtifying grace is poured upon us, in Holy Communion, in floods ! The King of heaven is then present m our souls, scattering profusely His benedictions, and making us taste of the powers of the world t'O como. O, if any one of us were to see his own soul immediately after Communion, how amazed and confounded would he not be at the sight of it. He would take it for an Angel. St. Catherine of Sienna, having been asked by her confessor to describe to him the beauty of a soul in a state of grace, as it had been revealed to her, replied : " The beauty and lustre of such a soul is so great, that if you "Were to behold it, you would be willing to endure all possible pains and sufferings for its sake.^' Need "^re wonder, then, that the Angels loved to keep com}iany with those saints on earth, who, every day, with great devotior?, received Holy Communion ; and 128 ON THE EFFECTS that even the faces of those who have been ardent lovers of the Blessed Sacrament have sometimes shone "svith the glory with which they were filled? Does not Christ say of such a soul : " How beautiful art thou, My beloved! how beautiful art thou?" What great value should we then not set on this Divine Sacra- ment ? At each Communion we gain more and more upon wdiat is bad in our hearts ; we bring God more and more into them, and we come nearer to that heav- enly state in which they shall be altogether ^^ without spot or wrinkle," holy and without blemish. Should we not, then, esteem this wonder-working Sacrament more than anything else in this world? Ought we not continually give thanks to God for so great a. blessing, and, above all, show our thankfulness by receiving it frequently and devoutly ? I leave it to you, O Chris- tian soul, to answer what I have said. I will not dwell longer on this point; reflect and act accordingly. I must pass on to explain some of the other wonderful effects of this precious Sacrament. The benefit to be derived from Holy Communion, which I will notice in the second place, consists in this, that we are thereby preserved from mortal sin. In like manner, as the body is continually in danger of death by reason of the law of decay which works un- ceasingly wdthin us, so, in like manner, the life of the soul is constantly in jeopardy from that fearful prone- ness to sin which belongs to our fallen nature. Accord- ingly, as Almighty God, in His Wisdom, has ordained natural food as the means of repairing the decay of the OF HOLY communion: 129 b«