Panem Angelorum manducavit homo, Man has eaten of the Bread of Angels, Alleluia.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,
Truly today’s feast is a magnificent feast, because we honor, not only a Sacrament of the Church, but the Blessed Sacrament itself, containing something even more considerable than the grace of God—which is quite extraordinary already—,God Himself, that is to say the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man. It is no wonder this most Holy Host is likened to the Bread of Angels and reminds us of the Manna that God rained down on the People of God, during their forty years of wanderings in the desert under the direction of Moses.
Why is it, though, that we partake so often of this Bread of Angels and yet remain in our human weakness? How can it be that some who have received this Most Blessed Sacrament have gone off and committed serious sins? What does this mean?
Well, for one thing, partaking of Holy Communion does transform a human life infallibly for the better: the man or woman, boy or girl who receives this Sacrament while going to Confession regularly, will be made a little more like the Angels every time. It is only by rejecting, despising this gift of God that a person could go on to commit sins or a crime after receiving Holy Communion. It is precisely because a man rejects God Himself in his Sacrament that his life becomes something like Hell already on earth and that he can do such terrible misdeeds. Also, the sanctity that emanates from this Sacrament is a hidden reality that does not usually appear on the surface. The progress toward sanctity often remains the secret of the soul until the day comes for God to reveal it.
Eucharistic sanctity is like the Body of Christ itself, which is “veiled” so to speak by the Eucharist species of bread and wine. Even though the silent, secret process of our becoming something like the Communion we receive goes unnoticed by others, it must be ever at work in transforming our lives until we are all saints. There is nothing the world needs more at present than an army of Eucharistic saints, whose boldness will win back the earth for God. May the Bread of Angels give us wings of charity, that is to say ardent love for God and for our neighbor. As the Holy Curé of Ars, Saint John Vianney, once said:
Ah! if we had the eyes of the angels with which to see Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is here present on this altar, and who is looking at us, how we should love Him! We should never more wish to part from Him. We should wish to remain always at His feet; it would be a foretaste of Heaven…(The Little Catechism of the Cure of Ars, [Rockford: Tan Books, 1987], chap. 11, p. 41)
Amen. Alleluia.
