Posted on June 3, 2023 View all news
This month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart. This is also the month in which we celebrate in a particular way the Holy Eucharist, especially on the Feast of Corpus Christi. So be sure to come out for our Eucharistic processions this month, and
also be sure to attend Mass at Sacred Heart on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, which is the church’s feast day! These are the last of the major mysteries that we celebrate, coming out of the Paschal season, before we move into the slower months of the summer and our focus and meditation become more the teachings of the Lord. Please find this meditation from St. Thomas Aquinas on the Holy Eucharist and what it is that we believe the bread and the wine become at Mass. Have a blessed month ahead!
“The immeasurable benefits, which the goodness of God hath bestowed on Christian people, have conferred on them also a dignity beyond all price. ‘For what nation is there so great, who hath gods so nigh unto them, as the Lord, our God, is unto us?’ (Deut. iv. 7). ‘The Only-begotten Son of God, being pleased to make us ‘partakers of the Divine nature,’ (2 Pet. i. 4), took our nature upon Him, being Himself made Man that He might make men gods. And all, as much of ours as He took, He applied to our salvation. On the Altar of the Cross He offered up His Body to God the Father as a sacrifice for our reconciliation He shed His Blood as the price whereby He redeemeth us from wretchedness and bondage, and the washing whereby He cleanseth us from all sin. And for a noble and abiding memorial of that so great work of His goodness, He hath left unto His faithful ones the Same His very Body for Meat, and the Same His very Blood for Drink, to be fed upon under the appearance of bread and wine.
How precious a thing then, how marvelous, how health-giving, how furnished with all dainties, is the Supper of the Lord! Than His Supper can anything be more precious? Therein there is put before us for meat, not, as of old time, the flesh of bulls and of goats, but Christ Himself, our very God… Therein it cometh to pass that bread and wine are bread and wine no more, but in the stead thereof there is the Body and there is the Blood of Christ; that is to say, Christ Himself, Perfect God and Perfect Man, Christ Himself is there, under the appearance of a little bread and wine… All that the senses can reach in this Sacrament, (look, taste, feel, smell, and the like, all these) abide of bread and wine, but the Thing is not bread and wine. And thus room is left for faith; Christ Who hath a Form That can be seen, is here taken and received not only unseen, but seeming to be bread and wine, and the senses, which judge by the wonted look, are warranted against error.” – St. Thomas Aquinas