Sermon 228B

Sermon 228/B

ON THE SACRAMENTS ON EASTER DAY

The sacrifice of our time, how great and noble.

The obligation of giving a sermon and the care with which we have labored over you, so that Christ may be formed in you, compels us to admonish your infancy, who, now reborn from water and the Spirit, behold this food and drink on this Lord's table with new light, and receive it with newfound piety. What does such a great and divine sacrament mean, such a clear and noble remedy, such a pure and easy sacrifice, which is now offered not in one earthly city of Jerusalem, nor in that tabernacle made by Moses, nor in that temple built by Solomon, which were shadows of things to come, but from the rising of the sun to its setting, as foretold by the Prophets, it is immolated, and according to the grace of the New Testament is offered to God as a victim of praise. No longer is a bloody sacrifice sought from the flocks of animals, neither is a sheep or goat brought to the divine altars, but the sacrifice of our time is the body and blood of the priest himself. For of him it was foretold long before in the Psalms: You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. And what Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, brought forth bread and wine, when he blessed our father Abraham, we read and hold in the book of Genesis.

In the bread, the body of Christ must be recognized; in the cup, the blood.

Therefore Christ our Lord, who by suffering for us offered that which he received from us by being born, made the prince of priests forever, gave the order of sacrifice which you see, without a doubt of his body and blood. For his body, struck by a spear, emitted water and blood, by which he dismissed our sins. Mindful of this grace, working out your own salvation, since it is God who works in you, approach with fear and trembling to the participation of this altar. Recognize in the bread, what hung on the cross; in the chalice, what flowed from his side. For even those old sacrifices of the people of God prefigured this one to come by varied diversity. For Christ himself is both the lamb for the innocence of his simple mind, and the goat for the likeness of sinful flesh. And whatever else was foreshadowed in many and diverse ways in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one thing revealed in the New Testament.

Through the Eucharist we are converted into the body of Christ.

Therefore, take and eat the body of Christ, you who have already been made members of Christ in the body of Christ; take and drink the blood of Christ. Do not be dissolved, eat your bond; do not consider yourselves vile, drink your price. As this is converted into you when you eat and drink it, so also you are converted into the body of Christ when you live obediently and piously. For He Himself, with His passion already approaching, while making Passover with His disciples, took the bread, blessed it, and said: This is my body, which will be given up for you. Similarly, He gave the blessed cup saying: This is my blood of the New Testament, which will be shed for many for the remission of sins. This you either read or heard in the Gospel, but you did not know that this Eucharist is the Son: now, however, having been sprinkled in heart with a pure conscience, and having washed the body with clean water, approach Him, and be enlightened, and your faces will not be ashamed. For if you receive this worthily, which pertains to the New Testament, through which you hope for eternal inheritance, holding the new commandment that you love one another, you have life in you. For you receive that flesh, of which life itself says: The bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world; and: Unless one eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he will not have life in himself.

The Eucharist is a sign of unity in one body.

Therefore, having life in Him, you will be in one flesh with Him. For this sacrament does not commend the body of Christ so as to separate you from it. For the Apostle recalls that this was foretold in Holy Scripture: "The two will become one flesh." This sacrament, he said, is great; but I speak in Christ and in the Church. And in another place, about the same Eucharist, he says: "We, being many, are one bread, one body." Therefore, you begin to receive what you have also started to be, if you do not receive it unworthily, so that you do not eat and drink judgment upon yourselves. For thus it says: "Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup; for he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself."

He receives worthily who maintains the unity of faith and charity

"But you will worthily receive it if you beware of the leaven of false doctrine, that you may be unleavened in sincerity and truth; or if you hold onto that leaven of charity, which a woman hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. For this woman is the Wisdom of God, made through the Virgin in mortal flesh, who spreads her Gospel throughout the whole world, which was restored after the flood by the three sons of Noah, as in three measures, until the whole is leavened. This is the whole, which in Greek is called olon, where you will be keeping the bond of peace according to the whole, which is called catholon, and from which the term 'Catholic' is derived."