M. This is My Body which is given for you (St. Luke xxii.).

Given to you, and never to be taken away from you. Given to you to be for ever near you on the altar. Given to you to be your strength and consolation through life.

Given to you to be your Viaticum for the journey when death comes.

N. This is My Body.

My wounded Body: the remembrance of which shall scare away unholy images and chasten both soul and body. O. This is My Body. This is My Blood.

And day and night they say to us: See how He loved you!
P. This is My Body. This is My Blood.

This is the price paid for us by our God! It tells us what we are worth in His eyes. What exchange shall a man give to his God for his soul that cost so dear? Indeed, you are bought at a great price (1 Cor. vi.).

Q. This is My Body.

"My crucified Body. Is it a small evil to render void the bitter Passion which My Body and My Soul endured for you?"

R. This is My Body. This is My Blood.

My Body wounded for you! My Blood poured out for you! Oh, see and understand what sin deserves! what sin requires! For if in the green wood these things be done, what shall be done in the dry?"

S. This is My Body. This is My Blood.

"If I then have done and suffered so much for you, will you do nothing for Me? Nothing for yourself?"

Think diligently upon Him that endured such opposition from sinners against Himself, that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds. For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin (Hebrews xii.).

T. This is My Blood which shall be shed for you and for many. For many, that is, for all. For Christ died for all (2 Cor. v.).

Oh, let us never forget that all our neighbours are children of our Father as much as we are. For each one Christ Jesus gave His Body and His Blood.

Destroy not him for whom Christ died (Romans xiv.). Do not scandalise him for whom Christ died. Hate not him for whom Christ died. Do not judge him, do not condemn him, do not wrong him for whom Christ died. "And if thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, go first to be reconciled, and then come to the altar of My Body and My Blood."

U. This is My Body.

This is My Blood.

"My Body wounded; My Blood shed in presence of My Holy Mother, during our great struggle against Lucifer for your soul." For Lucifer had conquered our race; but by a man and a woman Lucifer our cruel enemy is conquered. Thanks be to God Who gave us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. xv.).

V. This is My Body. This is My Blood, the mystery of faith. We see not, but we believe. Blessed (thrice blessed) they who have not seen but have believed. Blessed be God Who has called us from darkness into His admirable light of faith (1 St. Peter ii.).

W. This is the chalice of My Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant.

In humble gratitude let us contrast this new covenant with the old one.

God said: Moses alone shall come up to the Lord, they (Aaron and the Ancients) shall not come nigh: neither shall the people come up with him. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. Then Moses took half of the blood and put it into bowls: and the rest he poured upon the altar. And taking the Book of the Covenant he read it in the hearing of the people. And they said: All things that the Lord hath spoken obedient.

we will do; we will be

And he took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people; and he said: This is the blood of the covenant which the

Lord hath made with you concerning all these words Lord (Exodus xxiv.).

In this Covenant, observe:

1. They shall not come nigh. They are kept at a distance. Yet their boast was: Neither is there any other nation that has Gods so nigh them as our God is present to all our petitions (Deut. iv.).

We are not kept at a distance.

Take and eat ye all of this. This is My Body.

Come to Me all you who labour and are burdened.

2. In the Old Covenant the compact between God and His people is hallowed and sanctioned and ratified in the blood of calves.

With us our Lord makes a new covenant of love, and has it hallowed and made sacred and inviolate in the Blood of His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. X. The New and Everlasting Covenant.

Whenever there is a covenant, there are two who bind themselves.

1. Our Blessed Lord binds Himself to be to us a Jesus -a Saviour; to atone for all our sins; to win every necessary grace for us; to forgive us not seven times, nor seventy times seven times, but as often as we repent; to be our companion through life, yoked with us, bearing with us the burden of the day and the heat; to be our food; to be our ransom; to be our eternal reward.

2. What do we covenant in return? To believe in Him; to hope in Him; to love Him; to be sorry for having sinned against Him; for His sake to love our brethren as ourselves.

Y. The faithful at times renew solemnly their baptismal Religious men and women renew at stated times the vows of their profession.

Vows.

When we approach the holy altar to receive the Sacred Body of the Lord, shall we not refresh our remembrance of the New and Everlasting Covenant of love that exists between our God and ourselves?

Z. This is My Body. This is My Blood.

Corpus Christi, salva me,
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.

STATION V.

HOLY COMMUNION.

A. From the sacred words of the Liturgy which we have been considering, it seems that between the Consecration and the Holy Communion there is no interval.

As soon as ever our Lord God is become by transubstantiation in a fit state to be the Food of man, He makes haste to give Himself to each of His little ones. He loses no time. For with desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you.

Se dat suis manibus.

B. "Attendite." We may reverently therefore stay looking with our eyes at the devout demeanour of the holy Apostles as they receive their first Communion. Perchance we see tears of most humble love trickling down the weather-beaten faces of the fishermen.

C. And then the first Communion of the Ever-Blessed among women, the Mother of God.

May we devoutly speculate and ask ourselves: Did her Divine Son with His own hands give Himself to her? Or did He wait a little while till He had completed the ordination of His first priests, and with the holy chrism consecrated three of them as Bishops, and then, in order to teach His little flock the dignity and majesty of His Christian priesthood, commission His future Vicar, or her future Apostle, John the Beloved, to feed her with His Body and His Blood? Domine, Tu nosti.

In one way or the other, we may contemplate her receiving her Divine Son in the Adorable Sacrament, and the blessed angels gathering round their Queen, and, through St. Gabriel as their spokesman, saying to her in the old words now made quite new, now an entirely new canticle: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Thy Son Jesus is with thee, as He was in thy virginal womb."

Full of grace! Yes, and immeasurably more full than then. Blessed among women! Yes, and more blessed now, and far more full of grace than in those days gone by, happy and holy as they were.

For every day she has grown in grace. The Blessed Fruit of her womb, Jesus, is with her, more united with her, better known to her, more loved by her immeasurably now than then.

D. We too may, despite our unworthiness, draw near and greet her in this hour of new joy and new wonders. We too may reverently say, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Blessed is thy Hidden God." She meanwhile in her secret soul is perchance saying, with new meaning and new transports, My soul doth magnify the Lord, my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Jesus.

SCENE VIII.

STATION I.

HOLY ORDERS.

Do this in remembrance of Me.

Here the question meets us, At what time during the offering of the clean oblation did our Lord raise His Apostles to a participation in His priesthood, and what holy rite did He use in conferring this great Sacrament of Holy Orders upon them?

As has already been said, the letter ascribed to the holy Pope and martyr, St. Fabian, but held to be of doubtful authenticity, makes mention of a primitive tradition that our Saviour, in consecrating His Apostles, made use of holy chrism, and taught them to use it in time to come. And though this seems but scanty information, and not entirely trustworthy, yet it is in accord with the statements of those holy contemplatives who tell us in their writings that when permitted in prayer to see something of what passed in the Cenacle, they noted in many details a striking resemblance to the sacred ritual which, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church, the Bride of Christ, makes use of in the Holy Sacrifice and the Sacraments.1

What prayers, therefore, and what holy ceremonies our Saviour employed in ordaining His priests we know not. But the ceremonies which His Church makes use of in the administration

1 See The Dolorous Passion, by Sister Emmerich; The Mystic City of God, by M. d'Agreda.