February 1. Take heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God.  St. Ignatius of Antioch

 

February 2. When Jesus’ parents brought him to God’s Temple they encountered a very elderly man who had waited all his life for the coming of God’s Messiah. He took Jesus into his arms and blessed God from the depths of his heart. Daily we too are given the opportunity to do this—to contemplate Jesus’ life and passion and to eat his body and blood and hear his Gospel.  St. Aelred of Rievaulx

 

February 3.  The greatest mystery of love which is renewed every day at Holy Mass: through the ordained ministers, Christ gives his Body and his Blood for the life of humanity. And all those who partake of his Banquet with dignity become living instruments of his presence of love, mercy and peace.  Pope St. John Paul II

 

February 4. O God, my God, what can I render to you for all the good you have bestowed upon me?  I will take the chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the power of Christ’s blood. St. Maria De Mattias

 

February 5. The woman [Agatha] who invites us to this banquet is both a wife and virgin. To use the analogy of Paul, she is the bride who has been betrothed to one husband, Christ. A true virgin, she wore the glow of pure conscience and the crimson of the Lamb’s blood for her cosmetics. Again and again she meditated on the death of her eager lover. For her, Christ’s death was recent, his blood was still moist. Her robe is the mark of her faithful witness to Christ. It bears the indelible marks of his crimson blood and the shining threads of her eloquence. She offers to all who come after her these treasures of her eloquent confession. Methodius of Sicily

 

February 6. Christ’s blood flows on our altars in a mystical manner; and with his, ours as well, when we come to die in the ritual memorial of his death. Behind it all is the offering of the cross, behind it is the martyrium of all the members of Christ, whether those who are delivered to the bloodstained hands of false brethren, or waste themselves in sacrifice to God’s service, amidst the scorn of their enemies.  Sr. Aemiliana Lohr

 

February 7. The spiritual building up of the body of Christ is achieved through love….And there can be no more effective way to pray for this spiritual growth than for the Church, itself Christ’s body, to make the offering of his body and blood in the sacramental form of bread and wine.  Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe

 

February 8. "How can bread be Christ’s body? And the cup, or what the cup contains, how can it be his blood?”  The reason these things, brethren, are called Sacraments is that in them one thing is seen, another is to be understood. What can be seen has a bodily appearance, what is to be understood provides spiritual fruit.  St. Augustine of Hippo

 

February 9. Unless the bunch of grapes be first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been trampled upon and pressed, and had first drunk the cup of which He should also give believers to drink. St. Cyprian of Carthage

 

February 10. There is nothing feeble about the nourishment the Church our mother offers her children. It is the he­roic blood of her crucified Bridegroom, the conqueror of death and hell, which makes us invincible too, childlike and strong at one and the same time. It makes us strong, in fact, because it makes us childlike. That is the nourishment which produces children and conquerors, the food we must long for.  Sr. Aemiliana Lohr. 

 

February 11. The substantial conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood introduces within creation the principle of a radical change, a sort of “nuclear fission,” to use an image familiar to us today, which penetrates to the heart of all being, a change meant to set off a process which transforms reality, a process leading ultimately to the transfiguration of the entire world, to the point where God will be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28). Pope Benedict XVI

 

February 12. O Lord, how far has love brought You? It has  brought You even so far as giving Yourself to Your creature,  leaving Your Body and Blood for his Food and Drink.  And for how long? Oh! my God, You Yourself have said it: “ until the consummation of the world,” so that we can  possess You not only once, not once a year, once a month,  or once a week, but every day, every morning that we wish  we can receive You, we can have You within us and remain with You as much as we like. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi

 

February 13. If we wish to adore the Real Face of Jesus … we can find it in the divine Eucharist where, with the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the face of our Lord is hidden under the white veil of the Host. St. Gaetano Catanoso

 

February 14 (Ash Wednesday). Lord, Father all-powerful and ever-living God, I thank You, for even though I am a sinner, your unprofitable servant, not because of my worth but in the kindness of your mercy, You have fed me with the Precious Body and Blood of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  St. Thomas Aquinas

 

February 15. Just as Christ appeared before the holy Apostles in true flesh, so now He has us see Him in the Sacred Bread. Looking at Him with the eyes of their flesh, they saw only His Flesh, but regarding Him with the eyes of the spirit, they believed that He was God. In like manner, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, let us see and believe firmly that it is His Most Holy Body and Blood, True and Living.  St. Francis of Assisi

 

February 16. Eternal God, eternal Trinity, you have made the blood of Christ so precious through his sharing in your divine nature. You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.  St. Catherine of Siena

 

February 17. If into melted wax other wax is poured, it naturally follows that they will be completely mixed  with each other; similarly, he who receives the Lord’s Flesh  and Blood is so united with Him that Christ dwells in him  and he in Christ. St. Cyril of Jerusalem 

 

 

February 19. The Mass is Christ who evangelizes. The Mass is Christ who offers his body and blood for the life of the world. These two realities are the Mass.  St. Oscar Romero

 

February 20. Then, rising, the Angel took the chalice and the Host in his hands. He gave the Sacred Host to me, and shared the Blood from the chalice between Jacinta and Francisco, saying as he did so: “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men! Make reparation for their crimes and console your God!”  Sr. Lucia Dos Santos of Fatima

 

February 21. Do not cease from protecting yourself daily by receiving the Flesh and Blood of the Lord. Let your secret foe see your lips reddened with the Blood of Christ. St. Peter Damian

 

February 22.  Jesus not only gives his life for his sheep, but daily renews on the altar his sacrifice for them. He desires indeed that in order to perpetuate the memory of his death, the faithful shall also nourish their souls on his body and blood sacrificed and offered for them, that they may become one with him. Bl. Idelfonso Schuster

 

February 23.  Consider what it is to be partaker of the Body and Blood of Christ. We pray God, in our Church’s language, that “our sinful bodies may become clean through His body;” and we are promised in Scripture, that our bodies shall be temples of the Holy Ghost. How should we study, then, to cleanse them from all sin, that they may be true members of Christ!  St. John Henry Newman

 

February 24. In the cup is the same blood that flowed from Christ’s side, and it is that of which we partake.  Paul called it a cup of blessing because, when we hold it in our hands, we raise our hearts to God in wonder and amazement at his unspeakable gift. We praise him because Christ shed this very blood so that we might not remain in error; and not only did he shed his blood, but he gave all of us a share of it. St. John Chrysostom

 

February 25. Our Lord Jesus Christ willed us to find salvation in his body and blood. But how could he make his body and blood available to us? Through his humility; for if he had not been humble, he could not have been eaten and drunk. Contemplate his lofty Divinity: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God; he was God. That is eternal food, the angels eat it and in eating they are totally satisfied. What man could aspire to that food? Where could a human heart be found fit to eat food like that?  St. Augustine of Hippo

 

February 26. Man im­molates himself with Christ, bidding Him to take his body and his blood. Through this destruction of the ego, there is a void and an emptiness cre­ated, which makes it possible for the Divinity to fill up the vacuum and to make the offerer holy.  Ven. Fulton J. Sheen

 

February 27. Here is part of that awfulness of our holy faith, which makes us so thrill with love, that it is sometimes as  if we could not bear the fire which is burning in our hearts.  We actually worship it [the Precious Blood] every day in the chalice at Mass.  When the chalice is uplifted over the altar, the Blood of  Jesus is there, whole and entire, glorified and full of the  pulses of His true human life.  Fr. Frederick Faber

 

February 28. To show that the true Passover is something spiritual and not this material Passover, he himself says, Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. Are we then to eat his flesh and drink his blood in a physical manner? If these words are said spiritually, then the Passover is spiritual not physical.  Origen of Alexandria

 

February 29. Since we are talking about the Body,  know that we, as many of us as partake of the Body,  as many as partake of that Blood, we partake of something which is in no way different or separate from that which is enthroned on high,  which is adored by the angels,  which is next to Uncorrupt Power.  St. John Chrysostom