"The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it. Each name evokes certain aspects of it. It is called: Holy Communion, because by this sacrament we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us sharers in his Body and Blood to form a single body. We also call it: the [...]
"What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh 'given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit,' preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of [...]
"As Christ's Passion, in virtue whereof this sacrament is accomplished, is indeed the sufficient cause of glory, yet not so that we are thereby forthwith admitted to glory, but we must first 'suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified' afterwards 'with Him' (Rom. 8:17), so this sacrament does not at once [...]
"He who loves Jesus dwells with Jesus, and Jesus with him: 'If any one love Me... My Father will love him; and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him' (St. John xiv. 23). When St. Philip Neri received the Holy Communion as Viaticum, on seeing the Most Blessed Sacrament enter [...]
"The path itself is long and strewn with obstacles greater than our human resources alone can overcome, yet we have the Eucharist, and in its presence we can hear in the depths of our hearts, as if they were addressed to us, the same words heard by the Prophet Elijah: 'Arise and eat, else the [...]
"This sacrament has a threefold significance. One with regard to the past… it is commemorative of our Lord's Passion, which was a true sacrifice… and in this respect it is called a 'Sacrifice.' With regard to the present… that of Ecclesiastical unity, in which men are aggregated through this Sacrament; and in this respect it [...]