O precious and wonderful banquet that brings us salvation and
contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more indispensable worth? 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 washed away, virtues increased and the soul enriched with an abundance
of every spiritual gift. It is offered in Church for the living and the dead,
so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of
all. Ultimately 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 incomparable love for us which Christ revealed in his
passion.
It was to impress the magnitude of this love more
firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament
at the Last Supper. As he was about to leave the world to go to the Father…he
left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfillment of
ancient symbols 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.
In the early morning darkness during Vigils, we
listened to these words of Saint Thomas Aquinas and pondered the inestimable beauty
of Jesus' gift to us in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Which of us is worthy of
such Holy Communion? It is only the gaze of Love that draw us into the reality of
our belovedness. And so wisely enough the Church has given us this
prayer to recite together before we receive Holy Communion: “O Lord, I am not worthy.” We are
not worthy; Love has made us worthy. Indeed, in his desire for us, in his dying
and rising for us, Jesus has loved us into worthiness. And the response of a grateful, awe-filled heart is always appropriately-
I am not worthy. It is never about worth, but always about love, and the condescension
of Christ’s tender mercy, the
tenderness we never really deserve.
Photograph by Brother Casimir. Lines from Saint Thomas Aquinas.