"--Luke xxiii., 27, 28.
The passion of Jesus Christ, however sorrowful and ignominious it may
appear to us, must nevertheless have been to Jesus Christ Himself an
object of delight, since this God-man, by a wonderful secret of His
wisdom and love, has willed that the mystery of it shall be continued
and solemnly renewed in His Church until the final consummation of the
world. For what is the Eucharist but a perpetual repetition of the
Savior's passion, and what has the Savior supposed in instituting
it, but that whatever passed at Calvary is not only represented but
consummated on our altars? That is to say, that He is still performing
the functions of the victim anew, and is every moment virtually
sacrificed, as tho it were not sufficient that He should have suffered
once; at least that His love, as powerful as it is free, has given to
His adorable sufferings that character of perpetuity which they have
in the Sacrament, and which renders them so salutary to us. Behold,
Christians, what the love of God has devised; but behold, also, what
has happened through the malice of men! At the same time that Jesus
Christ, in the sacrament of His body, repeats His holy passion in a
manner altogether mysterious, men, the false imitators, or rather base
corrupters of the works of God, have found means to renew this same
passion, not only in a profane, but in a criminal, sacrilegious, and
horrible manner!
Do not imagine that I speak figuratively.
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