Day 1 Admonition 1a

 

Of the Lord’s Body:   The Lord Jesus said to His disciples: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.   No man comes to the Father, but by Me. If you had known Me you would, without doubt, have known My Father also: and from now on you shall know Him, and you have seen Him.   Philip said to Him: Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him: Have I been so long a time with you and have you not known Me? Philip, they that see Me, see the Father also.   How can you say, Show us the Father?” The Father “lives in inaccessible light,” and “God is a spirit,” and “no human has seen God at any time.” Because God is a spirit, it is only by the spirit that He can be seen, for “it is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing.”

Returning again to the 1st of the month it is our pleasure to contemplate St Francis teachings to his brothers concerning the Eucharist.   When we receive the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ in the substance and form of bread and wine, we may not give a thought to what we are truly doing when we receive Jesus in our hands or on our tongue.   A most blessed thing that we do over and over again, such that there may always be someone in the Body somewhere in the world receiving Him who so loved us that he gave Himself for us.   St John the Evangelist teaches us that we cannot reach God unless we daily follow Jesus, reading his words keeping His commandments receiving him often in the Form of bread and wine.   When we receive the Eucharist we are present at the Altar of the Cross during that one and only sacrifice, we stand in the Spirit with the women at the foot of the cross, present with our Lord in the time of His death.   From where we receive Him unto eternal life. How grave a sin it is to deny anyone this opportunity.