The Eucharist

Is there anything He can refuse us in the future, if already in the present He gives Himself to us as our food? The Eucharist is our one happiness on earth.

BLESSED JOSEPH CASSANT, OCSO

Speaking to Jesus

If you are happy, look upon your risen Lord. If you are suffering trials, or are sad, look upon Him on His way to the Garden. Love to speak to Him, not using forms of prayer, but words issuing from the compassion of your heart.

ST. TERESA OF JESUS Way of Perfection

The Weakness of Jesus

There is no heavier cross here below than that state of exhaustion and lassitude produced by the climate and by the life you have to lead. But, believe me, there is nothing that brings about the true divine life within us like union with the weakness of Jesus.

In espousing our nature in the Incarnation, He took upon Himself all our weaknesses, all our powerlessness, all our suffering; He made them His own: "Surely He has borne our iniquities and carried our sorrows.” At the time of the Incarnation the Word did not assume a glorious body, like that of Thabor, not an impassible body like that of the resurrection, but a body made in the likeness of sinful flesh, like to ours in all things, save personal sin. In taking our sins, He uplifted and rendered our weaknesses divine, and thenceforth they cry out in us to the Father, like those of Jesus Christ Himself.

It is by pure faith, by love without any feeling that this is brought about and, in place of our weaknesses we receive the strength of Christ in an immense degree.

BLESSED COLUMBA MARMION

Progress in Freedom

In order to experience our humanity in the full sense, it may be necessary to undergo the temptation of believing that we are sufficient unto ourselves. Once we have undergone this temptation, we will better understand that cleaving closely and inseparably to God represents progress in freedom.

YVES DE MONTCHEUIL

Reading the Scriptures

Read often and learn as much as possible. Let sleep creep upon you as you hold a book, and let the Scriptures catch your head as you nod.

SAINT JEROME

The Deformity of Christ

The deformity of Christ forms you. For, if he had not wished to be deformed, you would not have received back the form that you lost. Therefore he hung deformed upon the cross, but his deformity was our beauty. So let us in this life hold onto the deformed Christ. What is this deformed Christ? “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” [Galatians 6:14]. This is the deformity of Christ.

SAINT AUGUSTINE Sermons 27.6.6

Conformity to Christ Through the Eucharist

Indeed, this participation in the body and blood of the Lord, when we eat the bread and drink the cup, teaches us that we should die to the world and have our life hidden with Christ in God [see Colossians 3:3], that we should crucify our flesh with its vices and wicked desires [see Galatians 5:24]. Thus it happens that all the faithful, who love God and their neighbor, drink of the cup of the Lord's love even if they do not drink the cup of his bodily suffering. And when they have become inebriated with it they have put to death their members that are upon the earth [see Colossians 3:5] and, having clothed themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ [see Galatians 3:27], they pay no heed to the desires of the flesh [see Galatians 5:16]. The gift of love confers this upon us—that we should in fact be what we celebrate mystically in the sacrifice.

FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE Against Fabian 28.18-19