9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
Prayer
We beseech Thee, O Lord, sanctify these our gifts of bread and wine, and through them cause
us also to become eternal and worthy victims to Thee. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Wednesday after Corpus Christi
“Do this in commemoration of Me.” At the Last Supper, Christ offered Himself to the Father
under the appearance of bread and wine. To the apostles He gave the command: “Do this in
commemoration of Me”; that is, He commanded them to do precisely as He had done. By this
command He appointed and ordained them to the priesthood, conferring on them the power
to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice. This they were to do, not for themselves alone, but with us
and for us in the name of the whole Christian community. We, too, are to offer and participate
in this sacrifice. For that purpose we were baptized. Participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice
is the most fundamental act of Christian life and Christian piety. “Do this in commemoration
of Me,” is a command given us by the Lord which applies to all Christians, although not in the
same measure and in the same sense.
“Glory to God in the highest” (Lk 2:14). Nothing in this world is more important than the
glorification of God. This was the primary purpose of the creation of the world, the redemption
of man, the Incarnation of the Son of God, and our eventual glorification in heaven. But
who can glorify God in a manner worthy of Him, and in the measure that is His due? No one
but the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. Although He was the Son of God, He humbled
Himself and became obedient unto death. Since His human nature is united to the divinity in
the unity of one person, Christ can offer homage to God that is authentically human. How can
other men fulfill the commandment laid upon them to glorify God? How can they ever hope
to glorify Him in a becoming manner? They can so glorify Him by offering to the Father, His
only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, together with His flesh and blood, His heart, His merits, His
adoration of the Father, His subjection to the will of the Father, His love of the Father. We can
glorify God by offering Him ourselves in union with Christ, our head, with complete subjection
to Him and with unselfish dedication to Him. Our glorification of the Father is essentially
a priestly act, an uninterrupted will to offer, a continuous act of sacrifice. The sacrifice that is
offered is not merely that of Christ Himself, but is the offering of the whole Christ, the head
and the members. In baptism the “holy priesthood” was conferred upon us that we might offer
“spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pt 2:5). We become a living Gloria
Patri sung to the honor of God, a living hymn of praise that is worthy of the Father. To make that
possible the Son of God became man, making us part of Himself. He gave Himself to us that
we might give Him back to His Father with a childlike love as our gift to God, thus supplying
for our own nothingness, our abject poverty, our complete unworthiness. He made it possible
for us to hallow eternally the name of God.
“Do this in commemoration of Me.” We fulfill our priestly function of honoring the name of
God most perfectly when we offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There, through the consecration
performed by the priest, Christ becomes the victim of our sacrifice. He is given to us that we
may consecrate Him to the Father. “Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to Thee, God
the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory, for ever and ever.” “Do
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