9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
He “receiveth sinners and eateth with them.” Now, at the Sacrifice of the Mass, He offers
Himself to the Father in order that we may receive the remission of our sins and obtain the
grace to overcome temptations. In Holy Communion He prepares a banquet for us, for His
love for sinners is inexhaustible.
“So I say to you, there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance”
(Gospel). Let us examine ourselves earnestly to see whether or not we possess that Pharisaical
spirit, which believes that it needs no penance, which passes judgment on others, which criticizes
with a bitter zeal the faults of others, and looks down with disdain on “sinners.” Piety can
so easily become pride or self-complacency and can lead us to disparage others. It sometimes
believes that it has no need of penance, and thus departs from the true way of self-abnegation
and mortification.
Prayer
O God, the protector of all who hope in Thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is
holy; multiply Thy mercies upon us, that having Thee for our ruler and Thee for our guide,
we may so make use of temporal goods that we lose not those which are everlasting. Through
Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tuesday
“O holy banquet in which Christ is received!” At the moment of Holy Communion we receive
the incarnate Son of God with all that He has and all that He is. “In all things you are made rich
in Him” (1 Cor 1:5).
We possess Christ in His human nature. Holy Communion diffuses in our soul the blessed and
heavenly life of His most sacred humanity. We receive His divine and human heart and glorified
soul. Once Blessed Angela of Foligno saw in a vision the splendor of the glorified humanity of
Christ. There remained with her throughout her lifetime, as a result of this experience, a sublime
light, an unspeakable delight, and a boundless joy more beatific than all the other delights
which can please the heart of man. This sacred humanity of Jesus, this most precious body, this
heart, which contains an abundance of grace, wisdom, and love, we actually receive at Holy
Communion. This beautiful, holy soul bathed in a dazzling light, this source of all peace and
joy, this foretaste of sanctity and of the paradise of God, we receive at the Eucharistic banquet.
We possess Christ in His divinity. “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved
them unto the end” ( Jn 13:1); that is, He loved them until He had exhausted all the possibilities
of love. Jesus comes to us in Holy Communion as God, as the Son of the eternal Father, that we
might share and live with Him that divine life. “He that eateth Me, the same also shall live by
Me” ( Jn 6:58). We will live with Christ the life which He possesses from His Father. From all
eternity the Father gives life to the Son, entire, undiminished, in such perfection and with such
an outpouring of love that the Father and Son are one God with the same life and the same
fullness of love, joy, peace, and blessedness. This same life which overflows from the Father to
the Son, and which is communicated by the Son to His assumed humanity, permeates our souls
also when we receive Holy Communion. We shall never be able to appreciate fully what Christ
has given to us in the Holy Eucharist.
437