Beautiful reflections from the Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori:
And when did Jesus Christ institute this sacrament? He instituted it, as the Apostle has remarked “on the night before his passion." The Lord Jesus, the same night on which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke and said : " Take ye and eat : this is my body." (1 Cor. xi. 23, 24.) Thus, at the very time that men were preparing to put him to death, our loving Redeemer resolved to bestow upon us this gift. Jesus Christ, then, was not content with giving his life for us on a cross : he wished also, before his death, to pour out, as the Council of Trent says, all the riches of his love, by leaving himself for our food in the holy communion. "He, as it were, poured out the riches of his love towards man." (Sess. 13, cap. ii.) If faith had not taught it, who could ever imagine that a God would become man, and afterwards become the food of his own creatures? When Jesus Christ revealed to his followers this sacrament which he intended to leave us, St. John says, that they could not bring themselves to believe it, and departed from him saying: " How can this man give us his flesh to eat?...This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” (St. John vi. 53, 61.) But what men could not imagine, the real love of Jesus Christ has invented and effected. "Take ye and eat: this is my body." These words he addressed to his apostles on the night before he suffered, and he now, after his death, addresses them to us.
Oh! how ardently does Jesus Christ desire to come to our souls in the holy communion! This vehement desire he expressed at the time of the institution of this sacrament, when he said to the apostles:" With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you." (Luke xxii. 15.)
And why does Jesus Christ so vehemently desire that we receive him in the holy communion? It is because he takes delight in being united with each of us. By the communion, Jesus is really united to our soul and to our body, and we are united to Jesus. "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him." (John vi. 57.) Thus, after communion, we are, says St. Chrysostom, one body and one flesh with Jesus Christ. "Huic nos unimur, et facti summus unum corpus ut una caro." (Hom. Ixviii. ad Pop. Ant.)
