Category: 16.iv.23 Low Sunday

“It was Thy wish, in short,” says St. Laurence Justinian, ” 0 God, enamoured of our souls, to make by means of this Sacrament, Thine own Heart, by an inseparable union, one and the same heart with ours!” St. Bernardine of Sienna adds that” the gift of Jesus Christ to us as our food was the last step of His love, since He gives Himself to us in order to unite Himself wholly with us, in the same way as food becomes united with him who partakes of it.”

The second occasion on which Mary became our spiritual Mother, and brought us forth to the life of grace, was when she offered to the “Eternal Father the life of her beloved Son on Mount Calvary, with so hitter sorrow and suffering. So that St. Augustine declares that “as she then co-operated by her love in the birth of the faithful to the life of grace, she became the spiritual Mother of all who are members of the one Head, Christ Jesus.”

Any who love Me love what I love, said Jesus to St. Catharine of Genoa. Now, as there never was and never will be anyone who loved God as much as Mary loved Him, so there never was and never will be anyone who loved her neighbour as much as she did. Great was the mercy of Mary towards the wretched when she was an exile here on earth, but far greater is it now that she reigns in Heaven.

In order to excite us to receive Him in the Holy Communion, Jesus not only exhorts us to do so by many invitations-Come, eat my bread; and drink the wine which I have mingled for you-(Prov. ix. 5); Eat, O friends, and drink-(Cant. v. I)-speaking of this Heavenly Bread and Wine-but He even gives us a formal precept: Take ye, and eat; this is my body. And more than this; that we may go and receive Him, He entices us with the promise of Paradise.