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Vigils Reading
June 4
THE GREATEST OF ALL HIS MIRACLES
By St Thomas Aquinas3
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Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that we should share in
his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might
make us divine. 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 forever, 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 of benefit to 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.
3 Opusculujm 57 – Feast of Corpus Christi. A Word in Season – vol. III – Exordium Books –
Riverdale, MD – pg 2287