He Abideth With Us

Fourteenth Conference on the Most Sacred Heart

 by

 Fr. Henry Brinkmeyer

In the consecrated Host, Jesus is really present under the species of bread. His divinity and His humanity, His body and His soul, His flesh and His blood: all are there as really, as truly, as substantially, as they are this moment in heaven. Within the little circle of that white Host is the human intellect, the human will, the human memory of Jesus. That old love with all its human and impassioned tenderness, which made Him weep over the children of Jerusalem because they spurned the gift of salvation He came to offer them, that old love is still there in the Eucharist throbbing and trembling in the same kind human Heart. The body which Mary cradled on her bosom that far-off Christmas night, the lips which breathed to the Magdalen, "Go in peace and sin no more," the eyes which rested lovingly upon the rich young man who turned from his high vocation, the hand which blessed little children and traced the mystic writing on the sand, the brow which bled beneath the crown of thorns, the members which yielded to the piercing nails, the gaping wound which told of a heart broken for the sins of men; all are there in the Host which abides ever in its tabernacle home.

When we kneel before the altar, the meek eyes of Jesus are fixed upon us as once they were upon Simon Peter. He reads our poor hearts and He knows if we love Him. With His human ears, He heard the cry of the penitent thief, "Lord, remember me, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." With these same human ears, he hears every prayer that falters on our lips. "I will not leave you orphans," our Lord said to his apostles. He has kept His word. He has not left us, He is with us forever, to welcome our coming, to listen to our pleadings, to breathe sweet comfort to our weary souls.

There is never a moment that we may not speak to Him, heart to heart. "Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." We may take to Him the burden of our sorrows, we may confide to Him the secret of our cares. We may choose our own time, and we may linger in His Presence as our love inclines. If our hearts are cold and dry, and we know not what to say, He will take delight even in our silence. He loves us, therefore our mere companionship is a comfort and a joy to this Lover of human souls.

He is our chief Priest: we can confess to Him our sins, our shameful falls, our manifold transgressions, our humiliating weaknesses, our cowardly shrinkings from the claims of duty. 

He is our Judge: before Him, we can examine, unblinded by self-love, our daily lives with all their hidden tendencies to the base things of earth.

He is our Father: trustful as little children, we can reveal to Him our most cherished hopes, our loftiest aspirations.

He is our Counselor: we can ask Him for light to guide us in the perplexing questions that demand from us prudence and decision.

He is our Good Shepherd: when we have strayed away from His loving care and have fed our hungry souls on husks of sin, we can return to Him in sorrow, assured of receiving from His blessed lips the kiss of pardon and peace.

He is our Spouse: He belongs to us, and we belong to Him. Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi! "Neither is there any other nation so great that hath its gods so nigh unto them, as our God is present to us!"

He is our God: how completely, then, we can annihilate ourselves before Him, worshipping His infinite Perfections, acknowledging Him to be the Master, the Creator, the Lord of life and death - in a word, giving to Him the homage of our soul's profoundest adoration.

How can all this be explained, save by love? There are no obstacles that love cannot surmount, no chains that it cannot sever, no sacrifices that it cannot embrace, in truth, nothing is impossible to love. It requires a miracle for Jesus to be present in all the consecrated Hosts, and in every part of each Host: love works that miracle. It requires a miracle for a body to be without weight, color and extension: love works that miracle. It requires a miracle for flesh and blood to nourish a soul: love works that miracle. It requires a miracle to have the outward appearances of bread without the substance of bread, to have the species of wine without the substance of wine: love works that miracle. It requires a miracle for a human body to be placed at once in different positions, to be borne to the right and to the left, to be laid in linen folds and to be held up before the gaze of the worshippers, to remain in the chalice and to enter the breast of the communicant, but love works that miracle as well.

"Love is stronger than death," and the wounded Heart of Jesus is a victim of love. No wonder that He says by the mouth of His prophet: Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum. "My delight is to be with the sons of men." And even though they abandon and despise Him, wandering far into paths of sin, yet does He remain ever in the tabernacle watching for the return of His prodigal sons. This is the reason of the Real Presence in our midst.

The saints understood this. All, without exception, had an intense attraction for the Blessed Sacrament, finding their delight to be in Its presence. Saint Liguori recounts many touching instances of devotion to the Holy Eucharist. At one time for some reason, Saint Aloysius was forbidden to remain long in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. But whenever he passed before It, he felt himself so drawn by the sweet attractions of our Lord, that only with the greatest efforts could he tear himself away; and when constrained to de part he would cry: "O Lord! Let me go. O Lord! Let me go!"

There it was also that Saint Francis Xavier found refreshment in the midst of his arduous labors in India. During the day, he was engaged in traveling, preaching, instructing, visiting the sick and administering the sacraments. At times, indeed, he was so exhausted that it was necessary to support his weary arm while he baptized the Indian neophyte. Yet, at night, he was wont to pass hour after hour before the Blessed Sacrament.

Saint Francis Regis had the same tender love for Jesus on the altar. Ofttimes on finding the church closed, he remained at the door on his knees, exposed to the elements, and there he worshipped our God hidden in the Host.

How tender, above all, was the devotion of Saint Wenceslaus to the Blessed Sacrament! It was his custom to gather the wheat and the grapes to make, with his own hands, the wafers and wine to be used in the Holy Sacrifice. Even on winter nights he frequently sought a church to visit the divine Guest of the tabernacle. These visits, says Saint Liguori, enkindled in his fervent soul such flames of holy love, that this ardor imparted itself to his very body, taking from the snow upon which he walked, its wonted cold; for it is related that the servant who accompanied him on those nightly excursions suffered much from the rigors of the season. On one occasion the holy king, perceiving this, was so moved to compassion, that he ordered the attendant to follow in the foot steps; the servant obeyed and marvelous was the result, for at once a genial warmth was diffused through all his frame.

Oh, how dear every chapel should be to the Christian heart. It is our Lord's dwelling-place; there He remains day after day, to console, enlighten, protect and defend us, to nourish and strengthen our famished souls. Each sacramental shrine is the home and the heaven of myriads of angels who ever surround, like a faithful guard, our patient Eucharistic King. Why may not the children of men find likewise there a paradise of pure delights? Si scires donum Dei. "If thou didst know the gift of God."

O Faith! O Love! I draw near, and weep with angels in the shadow of Christ's altar throne. "Could you not watch one hour with Me?" That voice, trembling down the ages, gives its echo to the silence which lingers around the sanctuary. The generations of earth pass heedlessly by, unconscious of the Prisoner waiting there, bound by chains of love divine. Illumined by His grace, we have seen behind the veil which shrouds Him from the worldling's gaze. We have heard the pleadings of His Sacred Heart. We know His longings to repair the glory of His Father, we know His yearnings to reclaim the souls that stray in paths of sin. 

"Behold this Heart which hath so loved men, that It has exhausted and consumed Itself to testify to them Its love." With these words sounding in our hearts, let us offer ourselves to our injured God as victims of reparation and of love. With generosity of spirit let us promise Him to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor with the holy joy of knowing that we do His ever blessed will, and that one day He will be our exceeding great reward.

In Festo Sacratissimi Cordis Jesu

Deus, qui nobis, in Corde Filii tui, nostris vulnerato peccatis, infinitos dilectionis thesauros misericorditer largiri dignaris; concede, quaesumus, ut illi devotum pietatis nostrae praestantes obsequium, dignae quoque satisfactionis exhibeamus officium.

O God, Who mercifully deigns to bestow upon us in the Heart of Thy Son, which was wounded for our sins, the infinite treasures of love, grant, we beseech Thee, that we who pay Him the devout homage of our affection may likewise exhibit a worthy reparation for our sins.

St. Paul in Europe

Reading N°19 in the History of the Catholic Church

 by

 Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

St. Paul dreams of the Macedonian

About the year 51, while St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, was hesitating at Troas as to what direction he should take, in a dream he saw a Macedonian standing near him and saying to him: "Pass over into Macedonia and help us." The Apostle understood that God was commanding him to turn toward Europe. He decided to cross the sea, accompanied by one who appears for the first time in the narrative and who becomes the annalist of the new Apostolic campaign. It is Luke, a Gentile, a native of Antioch, a physician, a man of intellectual culture, as his writing shows. "With the advent of Luke, something of the Grecian genius found its way into Paul's mind and works. It had gifts to offer him which were unknown in the East, though they were to be found in abundance along these lovely coasts whither the Apostles were steering their course - gifts of harmony, the beauty of sweetness and light."^[1]

The Apostolic group landed successively at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth. In all these cities, proud of their great historic memories, but inhabited by people thirsting for religious truth, the missioners' words were listened to eagerly. Wonderful conversions took place in all classes. At Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Corinth, Christian communities were organized. Supernatural gifts - prophecy and the gift of tongues - were manifested in extraordinary abundance. The "Lord's Supper", or the Eucharist, as at Jerusalem and Antioch, there became the central act of worship. In the evening, after sunset, by the light of many lamps,^[2] the Christians met together in a room which usually occupied the uppermost floor of the house. As in the Jewish environment, the liturgy began with a supper which was called the "meal of charity", or agape.

St. Paul's Second Journey

The Greeks, especially the Corinthians, unfortunately introduced a practice of Greek societies that each member should eat at the society's meal what he himself had brought. Hence there arose regrettable abuses against which St. Paul had to protest forcefully.^[3] These abuses hastened the separation of the Eucharist from the agape, which then gradually disappeared from Christian public worship. At the close of the fraternal supper, those who had partaken of it greeted one another with a holy kiss of peace and charity.^[4] The meeting place was no longer, as it had been before, the synagogue, but the home of one of the brethren. "Here they found the true Ark of God, with the indwelling Eucharistic presence; here, too, there was a High Tribunal where every difference was speedily adjusted;^[5] in fine, God's house was a center of social life so beneficent and delightful that to be excommunicated from its pale seemed the most dreadful of all punishments."^[6] Words of thanksgiving were on the lips of all. There was a charm of virtue, a serenity of unexcelled joy. Such brotherhood merited the praise of the pagans, who exclaimed: "See how they love one another."^[7]

Athens alone almost completely resisted the Apostle's preaching and the grace of God. After it had lost its independence, and Greece, which became a Roman province in 146 under the name of Achaia, had Corinth for its capital, Athens was nothing more than a city of schools, as Cambridge and Oxford are today. The only people to be seen there were professors, philosophers, and orators, who spent their time instructing youth.

As in Demosthenes' time, the most frequented place in the city was the Agora. The two philosophies then most in vogue were Epicureanism and Stoicism; their spokesmen were accustomed to meet in the Agora for the discussion of moral questions. Paul makes his appearance there and, from the first words of his address, raises his hearers' thoughts to the idea of the Divinity and His greatness, of the worship that man owes to Him. The serious, touching, confident words of this stranger aroused curiosity, but stirred diverse impressions in his hearers' minds. The followers of Epicurus, observing that the speech was about religious questions, murmured: "What is it that this word sower would say?" The disciples of the Porch, less contemptuous, thought that a new god was being set forth. Finally, curiosity got the better of scoffing skepticism.

Paul Preaching to the Athenians on the Areopagus
Leonard Porter

That the stranger's doctrine might be heard the better, he was invited to go up to the Areopagus, far from the noise of the Agora. There, in the presence of Hellenism's greatest art and her finest memories of the past, Paul delivered that justly admired address which is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles:

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For, passing by and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: "To the unknown God." What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you: God, who made the world and all things therein; He being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He served with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing it is He who giveth to all life and breath and all things; and hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times and the limits of their habitation. That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after Him or find Him, although He be not far from everyone of us; for in Him we live and move and are; as some also of your own poets said: "for we are also his offspring." Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold or silver or stone, the graving of art and device of man. And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declaring unto men that all should everywhere do penance. Because He hath appointed a day wherein He will judge the world in equity, by the Man whom He hath appointed; giving faith to all, by raising Him up from the dead.^[8]

This mention of Christ's Resurrection, of a miracle so foreign to Greek minds, put an end to the interest and surprise with which at first they listened to the Apostle's words. He was unceremoniously interrupted. The Epicureans and Stoics returned to their speculations about pure morality. Yet a few hearers were moved; such was Dionysius, a member of the celebrated Areopagus - the Church of Paris honors him as its founder - and also a lady of rank, named Damaris.

Nevertheless a step had been taken in the Greek world. The great Apostle, who could be a Jew with the Jews, now makes himself more and more a Greek with the Greeks, to win all to Christ.^[9] This "Hebrew of the Hebrews [...] a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees,"^[10] readily takes his comparisons from the military and civil life of the citizens of the Empire,^[11] adorns his preaching with verses of Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides, and declares his sincere admiration for the Roman peace and the imperial order. Not that he now put his ideal in a new setting. His thought, passing beyond the confines of the Empire, as beyond those of the Jewish world, was limited only by the bounds of that humanity for which his Master had died on the cross. And as he said, in words that seem to have burst forth in flames from his glowing soul, his heart opened to "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame."^[12]

Footnotes

[1] Fouard, St. Paul and his Missions, p. 106.

[2] Acts 20:8.

[3] Cf. 1 Cor. 11:17 f.

[4] Cf. 1 Cor. 16:20; 1 Pet. 5:14.

[5] Cf. 1 Cor. 6:1-7.

[6] Fouard, op. cit., p. 210; cf. 1 Thess. 5:12-21.

[7] Tertullian, Apologeticus, XXXIX.

[8] Acts 17:22-31.

[9] Cf. 1 Cor. 9:21.

[10] Phil. 3:5; Acts 23:6.

[11] Prat, La Théologie de saint Paul, I, 20.

[12] Phil. 4:8.

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Sloth

Fifteenth in a Series on Catholic Morality

 by

 Fr. John H. Stapleton

Accidia (Sloth)
Hieronymus Bosch

Not the least, if the last, of capital sins is sloth, and it is very properly placed; for who ever saw the sluggard or victim of this passion anywhere but after all others: last!

Sloth, of course, is a horror of difficulty, an aversion for labor, pain and effort, which must be traced to a great love of one's comfort and ease. Either the lazy fellow does nothing at all - and this is sloth; or he abstains from doing what he should do while otherwise busily occupied - and this too, is sloth; or he does it poorly, negligently, half-heartedly - and this again is sloth. Nature imposes upon us the law of labor. He who shirks in whole or in part is slothful.

Here, in the moral realm, we refer properly to the difficulty we find in the service of God, in fulfilling our obligations as Christians and Catholics, in avoiding evil and doing good; in a word, to the discharge of our spiritual duties. But then all human obligations have a spiritual side, by the fact of their being obligations. Thus, labor is not, like attendance at mass, a spiritual necessity; but to provide for those who are dependent upon us is a moral obligation and to shirk it would be a sin of sloth.

Not that it is necessary, if we would avoid sin, to hate repose naturally and experience no difficulty or repugnance in working out our soul's salvation. Sloth is inbred in our nature. There is no one but would rather avoid than meet difficulties. The service of God is laborious and painful. The kingdom of God suffers violence. It has always been true since the time of our ancestor Adam, that vice is easy, and virtue difficult; that the flesh is weak, and repugnance to effort, natural because of the burden of the flesh. So that, in this general case, sloth is an obstacle to overcome rather than a fault of the will. We may abhor exertion, feel the laziest of mortals; if we effect our purpose in spite of all that, we can do no sin.

Sometimes sloth takes on an acute form known as aridity or barrenness in all things that pertain to God. The most virtuous souls are not always exempt from this. It is a dislike, a distaste that amounts almost to a disgust for prayer especially, a repugnance that threatens to overwhelm the soul. That is simply an absence of sensible fervor, a state of affliction and probation that is as pleasing to God as it is painful to us. After all where would the merit be in the service of God if there were no difficulty?

The type of the spiritually indolent is that fixture known as the half-baked Catholic - some people call him "a poor stick" - who is too lazy to meet his obligations with his Maker. He says no prayers, because he can't; he lies abed Sunday mornings and lets the others go to Mass - he is too tired and needs rest; the effort necessary to prepare for and to go to confession is quite beyond him. In fine, religion is altogether too exacting, requires too much of a man.

And, as if to remove all doubt as to the purely spiritual character of this inactivity, our friend can be seen, without a complaint, struggling every day to earn the dollar. He will not grumble about rising at five to go fishing or cycling. He will, after his hard day's work, sit till twelve at the theatre or dance till two in the morning. He will spend his energy in any direction save in that which leads to God.

Others expect virtue to be as easy as it is beautiful. Religion should conduce to one's comfort. They like incense, but not the smell of brimstone. They would remain forever content on Tabor, but the dark frown of Calvary is insupportable. Beautiful churches, artistic music, eloquent preaching on interesting topics, that is their idea of religion; that is what they intend religion - their religion - shall be, and they proceed to cut out whatever jars their finer feelings. This is fashionable, but it is not Christian: to do anything for God - if it is easy; and if it is hard - well, God does not expect so much of us.

You will see at a glance that this sort of a thing is fatal to the sense of God in the soul; it has for its first, direct and immediate effect to weaken little by little the faith until it finally kills it altogether. Sloth is a microbe. It creeps into the soul, sucks in its substance and causes a spiritual consumption. This is neither an acute nor a violent malady, but it consumes the patient, dries him up, wears him out, till life goes out like a lamp without oil.

The Sacrifice

Thirteenth Conference on the Most Sacred Heart

 by
 Fr. Henry Brinkmeyer

The Blessed Eucharist is not only a Memorial and a Sacrament, it is also a Sacrifice, and in instituting it as such, our Lord gave another proof of His love for man. What is a sacrifice? Instead of offering you the definition commonly given by theologians, let me rather describe it.

Man must acknowledge that God has absolute dominion over all things, that He can give and take life as He in His adorable wisdom sees fit. Moreover, as a sinner, man must acknowledge his iniquities and show himself willing to submit to any punishment the divine justice may inflict. How do we make this solemn, public recognition of our dependence and sinfulness? By means of sacrifice.

We commonly take things which are adapted to represent or sustain the life of man, and offer them in a public manner to our Maker with a real or equivalent destruction. The things which are offered and destroyed are generally precious, and bear some relation to the life of man, for we wish thereby to express our willingness to consecrate our lives to the service of our Maker, nay, surrender them as an atonement for our guilt. Thus, in the Old Law, living creatures such as kine, lambs and birds were offered, or inanimate objects such as wine, wheat and barley, and, in general, the first fruits of the earth. For instance, they slew a lamb, sprinkled its blood over the altar and the people, and burned its flesh.

Among all nations of antiquity, owing to some vestiges of primitive traditions, there were similar oblations, even among idolatrous people, where virgins and babes were sacrificed. At all times the object offered was destroyed, or at least changed, to show that God is Master of life and death, and to acknowledge that He is the Supreme Sovereign of all things, and that we are absolutely dependent upon Him; in other words, to confess and profess that, as He made all creatures out of nothing, so He has power and right to destroy them, and that we ought to be ready at all times to be treated by Him in whatsoever manner He pleases. Every sacrifice is, therefore, a public recognition of God's dominion over us, and of our total dependence upon Him.

Whenever a sensible object is thus offered and destroyed by a priest in his own name and in the name of his people, it is as much as to acknowledge before the whole world that God is our Master, that He can do with us as He wills, that we are in His hands, as clay in the hands of the potter. And this is the very essence of religion, for all religion, true and false, public and private, interior and exterior, has for object the giving to God the honor due Him the recognition of His absolute sovereignty and dominion. A religion which has no Sacrifice as its chief and central act falls short of a perfect religion and cannot be a divine religion, for it would have in it no act which is distinctively divine; its worship could not strictly be called divine worship. Prayer, thanksgiving, praise, homage, all enter into the object of religion, but these can be offered to a creature. A divine religion ought to embrace an act which can be offered to God alone. Such an act is Sacrifice. Therefore Sacrifice belongs necessarily and essentially to every true religion; there can be no divine public worship without it.

We have, then, need of a Sacrifice. Our divine Lord knew this. For, though His bloody Sacrifice on Mount Calvary was all-sufficient to wash away the sins of the world, and was a full and ample satisfaction for every injury done to God, yet we are bound to pray and deny ourselves, we are bound to receive the sacraments, in order that the merits of our Saviour's death may be applied to our souls and that the graces which He acquired may be bestowed according to our wants and dispositions. Though Jesus suffered and died for us, we cannot be saved unless, by good works, prayers and the sacraments, we apply the fruits of His sufferings and death to our souls.

In like manner, though the Sacrifice of the Cross is the source and the only source of all grace, yet a continual Sacrifice is necessary that the merits of the first Sacrifice may be applied to our souls, and that, to the end of time, we may have a means of approaching God, and of publicly offering Him our supreme homage and adoration. Our Lord, with infinite goodness, made provision for our needs: He instituted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Now, let us consider how the Mass is a real Sacrifice; by so doing we shall realize more and more the ineffable love of the Sacred Heart for man, and we shall find that words have no power to express our wonder at the goodness and mercy of that ever adorable Heart.

According to the sacred traditions of every country and every race, a sacrifice was considered the more perfect the more fully it embraced the following conditions:

1. if the victim was real and external;
2. if the victim was innocent and mild;
3. if the victim was destroyed or changed;
4. if the victim was offered by a properly appointed priest;
5. if some shared in the oblation by partaking of what was sacrificed.

Our Lord, in instituting a Sacrifice, would certainly institute a perfect Sacrifice. The Sacrifice of the Mass can be shown to embrace all these five conditions.

First, is the Victim in the Mass something real and external? Yes, it is our Lord Himself, not only as God, but as man. He is there as truly, as really, as substantially as He was on Mount Calvary. Beneath the thin appearances of bread is the body that hung on the cross, beneath the ruddy flash of seeming wine is the blood that trickled from His wounded side. Many saints have beheld Him in the Host as a smiling babe. Though we have not the privilege of seeing Him thus with our eyes of flesh, we do behold Him with the eyes of Faith: we know He is there.

Secondly, is the Victim of our altar innocent? Oh! He is innocence itself. He never knew sin: He is holy, spotless, undefiled. He is the Son in whom the Father is well pleased. Mary was innocent, but innocent by redemption. Jesus alone is innocent by nature: and He is our sin-offering, He is the Victim of sin. "He was wounded for our iniquities," says Isaias, "He was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." And is the Victim of our altar mild? He is mildness and sweetness itself. "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart." He is the Lamb of God! The priest takes Him in his hand and lays Him on the right, and He remains there. He lays Him on the left and He remains there. He places Him on the tongue of the saint or of the sacrilegious communicant, and like a lamb led to slaughter the Victim opens not His mouth. Behold the Lamb of God!

Thirdly, is the Victim destroyed or changed in the Mass? Yes. He is mystically destroyed by the separate consecration of bread and wine: for the form of bread represents the body, the form of wine represents the blood, and the bread and the wine, being separately consecrated and lying separately on the altar, represent the real separation of Christ's blood from His body: the consecration is, therefore, a mystical destruction of the Victim. The Victim is also really changed, because His body and blood are changed into food, not merely into ordinary food, but changed still more, i.e., from a material food into a spiritual food for the soul. This sacramental state of existence borders on annihilation. In the Incarnation, He clothed Himself with the garment of man's mortal flesh. In His sacrifice on the cross, that garment of His flesh was rent from head to foot. In His sacrifice on the altar, that Body is wrapped in the swaddling clothes of the sacred species; it lies helpless and speechless like a child, nay more, it is as if dead, and the species are, as it were, its shroud; still further, it exists and lives, and yet appears to have not even a corporal existence. What an emptying! What an annihilation of self!

Fourthly, who is the priest in the sacrifice of the Mass? On Calvary, Christ was the priest and the victim. In the Mass also, Christ is the priest and the victim. He is the priest, for it is in His name, and by His power, and because of His institution, that the ministers of the Catholic Church can change bread and wine into His adorable flesh and blood. The priest at the altar does not say, 'This is the body of Christ, This is the blood of Christ,' but: "This is My body," and "This is My blood." Christ is the priest forever.

Fifthly, that which is offered and sacrificed should be participated in and partly, at least, consumed by the priest or the people. In the Old Law, even when the victim, called the holocaust, was completely burned, a cake was offered with the holocaust, in order that man might eat and thus communicate in the sacrifice. You know there is such a participation and communion in every Mass. If the people do not communicate, at least the priest does. He always consumes the flesh and the blood of the adorable Victim before him.

Is not all this wonderful? Is not every one of these five conditions an inexplicable mystery of love? Is it surprising that, through the prophet in the Old Law, God glories in this new, clean oblation? How little we reflect upon this sublime truth! With what awe and love and gratitude should we assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass! A certain writer says beautifully, and with his words I shall conclude:

The angels were present at Calvary. Angels also are present at the Mass. If we cannot assist with the seraphic love and rapt attention of the angelic spirits, let us worship at least with the simple devotion of the shepherds of Bethlehem, and the unswerving faith of the Magi.

Let us offer to our God the gift of a heart full of love for Him, full of sorrow for our sins, and full of the incense of adoration, praise and thanksgiving for mercies flowing from that Heart Divine, which having loved its own, loved them unto the end.

Festum Sanctissimi Corporis Christi

Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili Passionis tuae memoriam reliquisti: tribue, quaesumus, ita nos Corporis et Sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuae fructum in nobis iugiter sentiamus.

O God, who under a wonderful Sacrament hast left us a memorial of Thy Passion: grant us, we beseech Thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of Thy Body and Blood, that we may ever feel within ourselves the fruit of Thy Redemption.

Building Your Domestic Church: The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the Home

I was recently asked to write an article on a topic which has become central to my own understanding and practice of the Catholic Faith: a family devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus known as the Enthronement. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity, as I believe the family consecration to the Sacred Heart to be not only a profound expression of the Catholic Faith, but also an indispensable component of winning the war presently being waged against the Catholic family. Bold claim? Not really. It was instituted by Our Lord Himself, and explicitly recommended by at least four Popes of felicitous memory, including Pope St. Pius X, who sent forth Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey, the original promoter of the Enthronement, with the following words:

I not only allow, I positively command you to dedicate your life to this undertaking. It is a wonderful work.

Please give it a read and let me know what you think.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus!
Extend over all hearts the empire of Thy sweet love!