O Precious and
Wonderful Banquet!
Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men
should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming
man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the
whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father
on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his
blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our
wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the
memory of so great a gift would abide with us for ever, he left his body as
food and his blood as drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread
and wine.
O
precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all
sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was
the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the
true God, is set before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this?
No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away,
virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every
spiritual gift. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so
that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of
all. Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament,
in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew
the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion.
It was to impress the
vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord
instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. As he was on the point of leaving
the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his
disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfillment
of ancient figures and the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who
were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique
and abiding consolation.
Source: The Liturgy of
the Hours – Office of Readings
By St. Thomas Aquinas
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
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