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From a work
by Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest
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.
From the Office of Readings For Corpus Christi
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