Dissertation on the Most August Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood

and an incredible vehemence of love: it has been marveled at, that even in animals devoid of reason, such powerful feelings of mutual affection have been implanted—as we experience daily—whether in the feeding of their young or of their parents. The people of Cremona The author refers to a legendary or historical custom attributed to the citizens of Cremona to illustrate extreme human loyalty. were once praised, who, for the sake of testifying to their love, would offer blood drawn from a vein in the forehead with a small knife to their friends to be drunk. Even today, that Roman daughter’s piety This refers to the story of "Roman Charity" (Caritas Romana), where a woman named Pero secretly breastfed her father, Cimon, after he was incarcerated and sentenced to death by starvation. toward her parent is celebrated, who, within the bars of a dark prison, soothed the hunger of her starving father with the help of her own milk from her bared breast. But these and six hundred original: "sexcenta"; a Latin idiom for "countless" or "innumerable." other things commended by the ancients are but shadows of love—and indeed, only fading shadows—if they come into comparison with that which our Redeemer, Christ Jesus, exhibits to us in the most glorious Sacrament of the Eucharist, when he offers not just some small part of himself, but his whole self, true God and man, as spiritual nourishment; so that he might, as far as possible, convert us into other versions of himself by a clearly heavenly and wonderful metamorphosis. O unheard of miracle of stupendous love! O happy are all Christians, who by the benefit of the sacred communion original: "synaxeos," a Greek-derived term for the liturgical assembly or the act of gathering for the Eucharist. emerge as of one body and one blood with Christ the Lord! And, to use the words of Blessed Peter, we are made partakers of the divine nature! original: "divinae confortes naturae"; a direct quotation from the New Testament, 2 Peter 1:4. Even a single holy communion in a whole lifetime would be sufficient reason why the whole time of our life, with the highest zeal of perfection...