April 1  The Messianic kingdom of the Saviour was formally inaugurated on the day of his resurrection, and it is because of this that we drink with him of the chalice of salvation, seeing that this redemption through the blood shed upon the cross is not merely prefigured by the chalice of the precious Blood consecrated at the Last Supper, but has become an historical fact, a real and true sacrament celebrated on the altar.  Bl. Ildefonso Schuster

 

April 2. In the most holy sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, not only will we venerate the most holy Trinity, source of all good things, and Christ, who is hidden there as mediator of all graces, but we will also embrace the same Lord who makes us partake there of his own proper life. Jean Jacques Olier

 

April 3. Once we have truly met the Risen One by partaking of his body and blood, we cannot keep to ourselves the joy we have experienced. The encounter with Christ constantly intensified and deepened in the Eucharist, issues in the Church and in every Christian an urgent summons to testimony and evangelization.  Pope St. John Paul II

 

April 4. Christ, in surrendering his sacrificed flesh and shed blood for his disciples, was

communicating, not merely the material side of his bodily substance, but the saving events wrought by it. . . . The fundamental presupposition is that the person of Jesus is really present; but along with the person comes his entire temporal history and, in particular, its climax in cross and Resurrection. Hans Urs von Balthasar

April 5. The Eucharist makes the Risen Christ constantly present, Christ Who continues to give himself to us, calling us to participate in the banquet of his Body and his Blood. From this full communion with him comes every other element of the life of the Church, in the first place the communion among the faithful, the commitment to proclaim and give witness to the Gospel, the ardor of charity towards all, especially towards the poor and the smallest.  Pope Benedict XVI

 

April 6. As Jesus on the night of the Last Supper assumed the character of a victim, and by means of the Eucharist anticipated in a mystical manner by eighteen hours the bloody sacrifice of Calvary, so now that he is risen and is glorious in heaven he continues the immolation of himself in the divine Sacrament, prolonging throughout the ages that sacrifice which was already begun in the Supper-room two days before Easter.  Bl. Idelfonso Schuster

 

April 7. From Sunday to Sunday communion in the Body and Blood of Christ wants to make also of our lives a sacrifice pleasing to the Father, in the fraternal communion of sharing, of hospitality, of service. From Sunday to Sunday the energy of the Bread broken sustains us in announcing the Gospel in which the authenticity of our celebration shows itself.  Pope Francis

 

April 8 (Annunciation).  In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God's Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood.  Pope St. John Paul II 

 

April 9. In this Sacrament, O Christ, I find both Your humanity and Your divinity; from Your humanity I rise to Your divinity, and from it I go back to Your humanity. I see Your ineffable divinity which contains all the treasures of wisdom, of knowledge, of incorruptible riches. See the inexhaustible fountain of delights which alone can satisfy our intelligence. I see Your most precious soul, O Jesus, with all the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit, a holy and unspotted oblation; I see Your sacred Body, the price of our redemption; I see Your Blood, which purifies and vivifies us; in brief, I find treasures which are so precious and so great that I cannot comprehend them. St. Angela of Foligno

 

April 10. The Son God has made a new thing in the world, which no one – except for him had ever done! He has set at the wedding feast His body and blood before the reclining ones, that they may eat of Him and live with Him without end. Our Lord is in His banquet food and drink. Blessed be the One who gave us His body and blood that we may take delight in Him. Jacob of Serug

 

April 11. There is a school in Heaven, and there one has only to learn how to love. The school is in the Cenacle; the Teacher is Jesus; the matter taught is His Flesh and His Blood.  St. Gemma Galgani

 

April 12. Wine possesses a sparkle, a perfume, a vigor, that expands and clears the imagination. Under the form of wine Christ gives us his divine blood. It is no plain and sober draught.  Romano Guardini

 

April 13. Through communion, in fulfillment of his promise, Christ dwells in us and we in him. He lives in me, he said, and I in him. When Christ lives in us, what can we lack? When we live in Christ, what more can we desire? We at once become spiritual in body and soul and in all our faculties because our soul is united to his soul, our body to his body, our blood to his blood.  Nicholas Cabasilas

 

April 14. Now I shall joyfully go to God’s Table, And I shall receive the same bloody Lamb, That willed to be on the cross, Bloody, with his holy five wounds untended.  Fortunate for us that this ever happened.  St. Mechtild of Magdeburg 

 

April 15. The bread and wine are not a figure of the body and blood of Christ – God forbid! – But the actual deified body of the Lord, because the Lord himself said: This is my body; not ‘a figure of my body’ but my body, and not ‘a figure of my blood’ but my blood. Even before this he had said to the Jews: except you eat of the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. For my flesh is food indeed; and my blood is drink indeed. And again: He that eats me, shall live.  St. John Damascene

 

April 16. Assuredly the tree of life in the earthly paradise could promote only an unfailing bodily life. But the tree of life of the faithful paradise, that is Jesus Christ, promises His own eternal life to those who  eat His flesh and drink His blood.  Hugh of St. Victor

 

April 17. Thou knowest, O my God, who madest us, that nothing can satisfy us but Thyself, and therefore Thou hast caused Thy own self to be meat and drink to us. O most adorable mystery! O most stupendous of mercies! Thou most Glorious, and Beautiful, and Strong, and Sweet, Thou didst know well that nothing else would support our immortal natures, our frail hearts, but Thyself; and so Thou didst take a human flesh and blood, that they, as being the flesh and blood of God, might be our life.  St. John Henry Newman

 

April 18. Christ lives immortally and incorruptibly in Himself,—is immolated for us again in this mystery of the sacred oblation. For His body is eaten there, His flesh is distributed among the people unto salvation, His blood is poured out, no longer in the hands of the faithless but in the mouth of the faithful. Let us take thought, therefore, of what this sacrifice means for us, which is in constant representation of the suffering of the Only-begotten Son, for the sake of our forgiveness.  Pope St. Gregory the Great

 

April 19. Let us be inebriated by Christ with the wine of sobriety for the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but justice and joy and peace in the Holy Spirit; For Moses did not give us true bread but the Lord Jesus, Himself both table companion and banquet, who eats with us and is eaten by us. We drink of his blood, and without him we cannot drink, and every day in His sacrifice, we tread the blood-red grapes from the fruit of the true vine, and from them we drink the new wine of the kingdom of the Father.  St. Hilary of Poitiers

 

April 20.  Seek mercy, seek forgiveness, seek remission of past sins and deliverance from future sins, so that you may approach the Mysteries worthily, so that you may partake of the Body and Blood with a pure conscience, and so that it may be for you unto purification and not unto condemnation. St. Anastasius of Sinai

 

April 21. Behold, O Christian soul, this is the power of thy salvation, this the cause of thy liberty, this the price of thy redemption. Thou wast a captive and in this wise wast thou redeemed. Thou wast a slave, and thus wast thou made free; an exile and thus brought home; lost and thus found; dead and thus raised up. Upon this, O man, let thy heart feed, this let it inwardly digest, sucking out the sweetness and relishing the goodness thereof, at such times as thy mouth receiveth the flesh and blood of Him, thy Redeemer.  St. Anselm of Canterbury

 

April 22. Our Lord says : "My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed," and He adds: “The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood, abides in Me and I in him." Behold our Lord’s fathomless humility, in that He is silent about His infinite greatness, and speaks only of the least of His attributes. His greatness is His adorable Godhead, and yet he speaks only of His flesh and His blood. Yet in the Holy Communion His blessed soul and His divine nature are also

present.  Johannes Tauler

 

April 23. The more I eat, the more hungry I become, and the more I drink, the more thirsty I become, for I cannot take you fully into myself and consume you. But I ask you, Lord, of  your great nobility, that you take me fully into yourself and consume me, so that I might become one life with you and in you.  Bl. Jan Ruusbroec

 

April 24. God formed the human body with his own sacred hands, treating it as his very own work, and breathed into it a soul in the likeness of his own life….the body eats and drinks the body and blood of Christ so that the soul may feed itself on God.  St. Gregory of Elvira

 

April 25. Our hearts, no matter how frail and weak, are preserved from the corruption of sin when sweetened by the incorruptible flesh and blood of the Son of God. St. Francis de Sales

 

April 26.  Of the sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, every one of the faithful should be knowledgeable and aware of what in it pertains to faith and what to knowledge, because faith in the mystery is not rightly defended without knowledge, nor is knowledge nurtured without faith.  St. Paschasius Radbertus

 

April 27. In the Blessed Sacrament

God loves us so tenderly,

He empties Himself completely.

O, who could believe it?

Withholding nothing, He gives his all.

He gives his flesh for us to eat

He gives his blood for us to drink.

He gives his soul, his infinite being

To transform us into Himself.

Praised be the Blessed Sacrament!”  St. Louis de Montfort

 

April 28.  O how manifold and ineffable this communion! Christ became our brother, partaking of the same flesh and blood with us, and through them became like us. Through this blood he has redeemed us for himself as true servants. He has made us his friends by bestowing upon us the revelation of these mysteries. Through the partaking of this blood he has bound and betrothed us to himself as a bridegroom his bride, and become one flesh with us.  St. Gregory Palamas

 

April 29.  Oh, holy Blood, who shall receive you amiss? The lovers of themselves, because they do not perceive your fragrance.  St. Catherine of Siena

 

April 30. Surely it is fitting that Christ should be a shepherd, for just as a flock is guided and fed by a shepherd so the faithful are fed by Christ with spiritual food and with his own body and blood.  St. Thomas Aquinas