St. Francis de Sales wrote abundantly on the Holy Eucharist. Here is a sample of his thoughts in preparation for the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ.
“The Holy Eucharist is the perfect Communion of Saints, for it is the food common to angels, and sainted souls in Paradise, and ourselves; it is the true bread of which all Christians participate. The forgiveness of sins, the author of forgiveness being there, is confirmed; the seed of our resurrection sown, life everlasting bestowed. … This very belief in the most holy Sacrament, which in truth, reality, and substance, contains the true and natural body of Our Lord, is actually the abridgment of our faith, according to that of the Psalmist “He had made a memory of his wonderful works.” O holy and perfect memorial of the Gospel! O admirable summing up of our faith! He who believes, O Lord, in your presence in this most holy sacrament, as your holy Church proposes it, has gathered and sucked the sweet honey of all the flowers of your holy religions: hardly can he ever fail in faith (Catholic Controversies, 324).
The holy love of the Savior presses us, said St. Paul. O God, what an example of surpassing union is this! God was united to our human nature by grace, like a vine to an elm, to enable it in some way to participate in his fruit. But when he saw this union undone by Adam’s sin, he made a closer and more pressing union in the Incarnation and by human nature remains forever joined in personal unity with the divinity. To the end that not only human nature but all men might be intimately united with his goodness, God instituted the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist. Everyone may participate in it so as to unite his Savior with himself in reality and in the way of food. This sacramental union calls us and assists us towards that spiritual union of which we speak (Treatise on the Love of God 2, 7:2, 20-21).
Our Savior has instituted the most August sacrament of the Eucharist, which contains His Flesh and His Blood in their reality, to the end that he who eats of it shall live forever. Whoever, therefore, frequently eats with devotion this food, so effectually confirms the health of their soul that it is almost impossible that they should be poisoned by any kind of evil affection.
We cannot be nourished with this flesh of life and at the same time live with the affections of death. Thus, as humans dwelling in the earthly paradise might have avoided corporal death by power of that living fruit which God had planted therein, so they may also avoid spiritual death by virtue of this sacrament of life” (Introduction to the Devout Life 2:20).
by Sister Susan Marie, VHM
Brooklyn Visitation Monastery Superior and
VHM Second Federation President
DeSales Weekly: https://oblates.squarespace.com/desales-weekly
DeSales Weekly Editor: Fr. Bill McCandless, OSFS
