Vigils Reading

THE SACRAMENT OF LOVE

From the spiritual writings of St Alphonsus de Liguori6

People on their death-bed often make a last bequest of an article of clothing or a ring to their friends as a token of their affection. But you, Jesus, as you were on the point of leaving this world, what was the token of love that you left us? It was not an article of clothing or a ring, but your body and your blood, your soul and divinity, your whole self. As St. John Chrysostom expresses it: “He gave you everything, he left himself nothing.”…According to St. Bernardino of Siena, he was not simply ready to die for us, but before dying was constrained by the excess of his love to give us his own body as food.

This sacrament was rightly called by St. Thomas Aquinas “the sacrament and the pledge of love.”… St. Philip Neri could call Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by no other name than love. When viaticum was brought to him, he was heard to exclaim, “Here is my love, give me my love.”

…When Jesus revealed to his disciples his intention of leaving us this sacrament, they were unable to believe it and abandoned him, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” and “This saying is hard. Who can accept it?”. The great love of Jesus Christ has conceived and brought about what human beings could not imagine or even believe. What is the food, Savior of the world, which you desired to give us before you died? “This is my body”: This is no earthly food, it is I giving myself to you.

…He encourages us by promising us paradise: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”; “Whoever eats this bread will live forever”. He goes as far as threatening us with exclusion from paradise should we refuse: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you”. All of these invitations, promises, and threats are born of his great desire to come to us in this sacrament.

Here is the reason why Jesus desires so much to come in Holy Communion. According to St. Denis, love always aspires and tends toward union, or as St. Thomas puts it, “Lovers desire that the two become one.” He means that people who are truly in love want to be as close to one another as though they were a single person. God’s great love has so arranged things that he gives himself to us not just in the eternal kingdom, but even here below he allows us to possess him in the greatest intimacy possible, by giving himself to us under the appearance of bread in this sacrament. He is like the lover in the Canticle: “Here he stands behind our wall, / gazing through the windows, / peering through the lattices”. Even though we cannot see him in the Eucharist, he sees us and is really present there. He is present so that we can possess him, but hidden in order that we might desire him.

Until such time as we come to our homeland, Jesus wishes to give himself completely to us and to remain completely united with us. That is why St. Francis de Sales said: “Here the Savior is seen at his most tender and loving. Here, he seems to annihilate himself, and to reduce himself to food in order to enter into our souls, and be united with the hearts of his faithful.” St. John Chrysostom says that it was out of his great love for us that Jesus Christ wished to unite himself to us so much in order that we might become the same thing as he is