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| St. Thomas Aquinas with Crucified Christ |
Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest
Homily on the
Feast of Corpus Christi
"O precious and wonderful banquet!
Since it was the will of God’s
only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature
in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated
the whole of its substance to our salvation.
He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a
sacrifice for our reconciliation. He
shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed
from our wretches state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memorial of so great a
gift would abide with us forever, he left his body as food and his blood as
drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine.
O precious and wonderful
banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic
value? Under the old law it was the
flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true
God, is set before us as our food. What
could be more wonderful than this? No
other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away,
virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every
spiritual gift. It is offered in the
Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the
salvation of all may be for the benefit of all.
Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this
sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in
which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed
in his passion.
It was to impress the vastness
of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord
instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper.
As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after
celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial
of his passion. It was the fulfillment
of ancient figures and the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who
were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique
and abiding consolation."
"Since it was the will of
God's only-begotten Son that men should share in His divinity. . . when He took
our flesh He dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered
His body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our
reconciliation He shed His blood for our ransom and purification, so that we
might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin.
But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us forever,
He left His body as food and His blood a drink for the faithful to consume in
the form of bread and wine. O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us
salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic
value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered,
but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as our food."
St. Thomas Aquinas, c. A.D. 1264
and
Roman Catholic Homilies http://romancatholichomilies.blogspot.ca/2011/01/st-thomas-aquinas-priest-and-doctor-of.html
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