The Eucharist: A Shield from the Wrath of God

Sixth in a Series on the Reasons of the Eucharist

by

Fr. Albert Tesnière, S.S.S.

Dominus Est!

THESIS

The Eucharist is the Security of Humanity in the Presence of the Justice of God and the Shield of the World against His Anger

ADORATION

Prostrate yourself, with a lively faith and a reverence mingled with holy fear, before the altar on which Our Lord Jesus Christ, in person and without interruption, accomplishes His sublime and merciful ministry of priest and victim in favor of a guilty world.

Behold Him raised between heaven and earth, as upon the cross, and interposing between the powerless, rebellious creature and the irritated Creator. Saint John says that even in heaven there will be an altar on which Jesus Christ will remain under the form of an immolated Lamb, recalling ceaselessly to the Divine Majesty, by means of His state of victim, the infinite satisfactions which He offered to Him by dying to restore His glory and to obtain the salvation of all men, which He merited by offering His death for them.

If the spectacle of the sacrifice of the divine Lamb is continued even in that heaven where there is neither sin against God nor the fear of losing His friendship and incurring His anger, it is the earth which above all demands it, which has need of it, which could not do without it. My God, when Thy Name is blasphemed with perfect freedom, in public and in private, when all Thy rights are disowned by society, when evil in all its forms is favored, and is able without any hindrance, but on the contrary with the approval of the public powers, to spread and to invade souls, what would become of the world if Thou didst not find therein the compensation, the reparation, the sacrifice, the holiness, and the prayer of Thy own Son, immolating Himself ceaselessly to Thy glory, and offering His blood for the guilty?

Adore, contemplate Jesus Christ behind the veils of the Sacrament as in the most august of sanctuaries, accomplishing the function of His reparative priesthood. He has all the qualities required in a priest: purity, holiness, contempt of created things, hatred of sin, love for sinners, a heavenly life; all these qualities He possesses in supreme perfection, in infinite perfection, because He is the Son of God, infinitely perfect. He has a perfect victim also, which is no other than Himself; and it is His soul, His body, His blood, His life, His liberty, His power, His repose, which He takes and immolates to God in the Eucharistic debasement, in which disappears the whole of His liberty and the whole of his life!

Adore Him! Adore Him in this sublime state, in this incomparable action of His Eucharistic priesthood, with humble fear, tempered by love and illuminated by admiration.

THANKSGIVING

Continue the contemplation of the sacrifice accomplished in the Sacrament by Our Lord by considering that you may make thanksgiving from your heart, the part which the love of our God assumes therein, the marvellous inventions by which it is there manifested.

It is freely, and by the pure inclination of His merciful heart, that He willed to add to His sacrifice on Calvary, and to the humiliations of His human life, the sacrifice of the altar and the abasements of His Eucharistic life; it is a fresh gift, which at each instant of its duration is renewed with a love equal to that which made it the very first time flow forth from His heart.

Moreover, this sacrifice is a compensation which surpasses in the glory rendered to God, in the satisfaction offered to His justice, and in gratitude for His benefits, all that the revolts, the ingratitude, and the stains of our sins attempt to take away from Him.

This intervention of Christ between heaven and earth has for its object to maintain between God and man reconciliation and peace, the communication of life and of grace, to assure to every one coming into the world the application of the salvation acquired upon the cross; to the just succor to prevent them from falling, to the sinner strength to rise again, to the dying means for dying in peace with God, to the whole world divine benevolence.

It is as perpetual as the needs of the creature and as the unreasonableness of sin. It is as universal as the world, that it may pursue sin everywhere and apply its reparatory action wherever sin has left its destructive principles.

Oh sweet and merciful, oh powerful and indefatigable mediation of the Eucharistic Christ! Oh too precious ransom! Oh vigilant protection! Oh, Sacrament of the priesthood and of the sacrifice of Jesus, throne of perpetual mediation, altar of peace, be Thou blessed, praised, loved forever!

REPARATION

Understand how serious a thing sin is in the world, since it continues to be committed so frequently in presence of the altar, whereon the divine Victim immolates Himself for the very purpose of diminishing its ravages, and yet in spite of its marvels of love, its innumerable sacrifices, its astounding abasements, all is useless!

There is no doubt but that sin is rendered more serious, more worthy of the hatred of God and of His chastisements, by the fact of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ being despised, repelled, soiled, by erring man carried away by fury against the love of His God. The presence of the Eucharist everywhere makes of the whole world, as it were, a sanctuary. It is this sanctuary which the sinner so ceaselessly profanes. What will not be his punishment if he perseveres in offending God, notwithstanding the protestations, the advances, the sacrifices, the reparations perpetuated and multiplied by the Eucharist to preserve him from or to make him cease from sinning?

Examine yourself, and recalling to memory the most serious sins of your past life, weigh them, measure them by the weight of all the love contained in the nineteen centuries of the Eucharistic existence of Jesus; detest them as He does, on account of Him. Offer Him that love for yourself, you can still do so; it is the crown of His mercy; make use of it, for if henceforth you despise it, your judgment will be terrible.

PRAYER

Pray always by the Eucharist, that is to say, by Jesus the priest, the mediator, the victim, the ransom and security of the world in the Sacrament. Remember that He is always there in the act of His sacrifice, which He renews night and day, at every moment and everywhere. Delight to place the mediator of peace between God and your miseries, your infidelities and your sins. Shelter, beneath the sacrifice, the prayers, and the protection of the Sacrament all those who are attached to you by the ties of blood, of duty, and of affection. The brood is not afraid of the vulture when it is under the extended wings of its mother; and in the same way, beneath the protection and under the shelter of the Sacrament we shall be safe from the murderous arrows of the enemy, and from the divine anger which revenges on us the victories which we easily allow Satan to win over us.

PRACTICE

Confidently invoke the Blessed Sacrament in temptation, danger, and trouble.