May 1. One who seeks to ascend to God s forthwith gathered up to God in love through the Holy Spirit and receives God coming to him and making his abode with him, not spiritually only but corporally too, in the mystery of the holy and life-giving body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  William of Saint-Thierry

 

May 2. We feed as on the food of life, we constantly refresh our souls with his precious blood, as from a fountain. Yet we are always thirsting, burning to be satisfied. But he himself is present for those who thirst and in his goodness invites them to the feast day. Our Savior repeats his words: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” He quenched the thirst not only of those who came to him then. Whenever anyone seeks him he is freely admitted to the presence of the savior. The grace of the feast is not restricted to one occasion. Its rays of glory never set. It is always at hand to enlighten the mind of those who desire it.  Saint Athanasius the Great

 

May 3. To those who drink of it on earth, the Cup of Christ allows us to partake of Christ’s Kingdom of grace; it prepares thrones of everlasting glory in heaven for them. We stand in silence before the Cup of Christ, nor can any complain about it or reject it; for He Who commanded us to taste of it first drank of it Himself.  St. Ignatius Brianchaninov of the Caucasus

 

May 4. The great mystery of the Eucharist is that God’s love is offered to us not in the abstract, but in a very concrete way; not as a theory, but as food for our daily life. The Eucharist opens the way for us to make God’s love our own... Whenever you receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, his love is given to you, the same love that he showed on the cross. Fr. Henri Nouwen

 

May 5. Love is that liquor sweet and most divine Which my God feels as blood, but I as wine. Love is that liquor sweet and most divine Which my God feels as blood, but I as wine. George Herbert

 

May 6. At the Eucharist we hear the words: “This is my Body”. The power of that utterance extends to each of us. Christ enters into us and awakens and celebrates his great sacrifice, saying to each of us: “You are my body. You are my blood.” It is a question of our cooperating in these words coming true, more and more, day by day. Do we want Christ to enter into us? Do we want whatever that will mean—for us and for the entire human world?  Fr. Thomas Keating

 

May 7. Christ nourishes us with his blood, like milk. He was wounded on mount Calvary for us, in (or under) his breast, so that he might give us his blood to drink as a mother gives milk to her child. And in his arms, stretched out on the Cross, he carried us. St. Anthony of Padua

 

May 8. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. A premier sign of Jesus’ love is the gift of his flesh to eat and his blood to drink but this language disturbed those to whom Jesus spoke during his life on earth. Yet the property of true love is always giving

and receiving…. When we receive Christ with full self-giving devotion his blood flows into our veins and a fire is enkindled in our depths.  St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

 

May 9 (Ascension). The Blood in the chalice is the Blood  of the living Jesus in heaven. It is the Blood shed in the  Passion, reassumed at the Resurrection, borne up to heaven in the Ascension, placed at the Right Hand of the Father there in its consummate glory and beautified immortality.  Thus it is the very Blood of God.  Fr. Frederick Faber 

 

May 10. When the Son of God ascended into heaven he left us his very body and blood. He ascended with it but also left it to us. There are to be as many Christs as there are believers in Christ and partakers in his Mysteries. So why are we ever downcast and why do we weep and lament or feel fear when difficulties come to us? What will God refuse to do to bring us to salvation when the Only Begotten Son didn’t refuse to give his body and blood?  St. John Chrysostom

 

May 11. I have shed my blood on the cross to redeem people who contemplate me by faith. As I gave it on the cross for the deliverance of the human race, so I give it on the altar. I give it to cleanse those who faithfully receive it. I free them from fear of suffering and even death so that they too may give themselves wholly to our God.  St. Hildegard of Bingen

 

May 12.  This is what our mother the church is like—the calm haven of peace, the good cheer redolent of the blossoming of the vine, which bears the “cluster of blessing” for us and daily grants us the drink that soothes all anguish, the blood of Christ, unmixed, true. St. Epiphanius  of Salamis

 

May 13. As soon as we arrived [at the grotto], there, we knelt down, with our foreheads touching the ground, and began to repeat the prayer of the Angel: “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love You…” I don’t know how many times we had repeated this prayer, when an extraordinary light shone upon us. We sprang up to see what was happening, and beheld the Angel. He was holding a chalice in his left hand, with the Host suspended above it, from which some drops of blood fell into the chalice. Leaving the chalice suspended in the air, the Angel knelt down beside us and made us repeat three times: “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly, and I offer You the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He Himself is offended. And, through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You the conversion of poor sinners.”   Sr. Lucia Dos Santos of Fatima

 

May 14. The food of mercy that is Christ Jesus’ dearworthy blood and precious water is plenteous to make us fair and clean; the blessed wounds of our Saviour be open and enjoy to heal us; the sweet, gracious hands of our Mother be ready and diligently about us. For He in all this working useth the office of a kind nurse that hath nought else to do but to give heed about the salvation of her child.  Julian of Norwich

 

May 15. It is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. His body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and his blood is given to us under the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and one blood with him. Having his body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as Saint Peter says, in the divine nature.  St. Cyril of Jerusalem

 

May 16. A table from heaven is laid before our eyes, an intoxicating drink set out for us, which is of great value.  These are the riches of simplicity which are made open to us by Christ’s poverty. God, who has all things, has given up everything, even life, to be able to say to us, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives continually in me, and I in him.” Sr. Aemiliana Lohr

 

May 17. When the moment had come to leave the disciples, Jesus was overwhelmed by the depth of his affection for them and unable to disguise his overflowing tenderness. Hence the Evangelist’s words: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He laid bare the strength of his love for his friends before pouring himself out like water for them and also gave to them the sacrament of his Body and Blood.  Bl. Guerric of Igny

 

May 18. You have tasted how sweet, humble, meek, merciful, gentle and caring the Lord is. And you have tasted this at the table of his Body and Blood. He willed that the cross should always be before our eyes, and that it should not only be our ransom but our food.  St. Aelred of Rievaulx

 

May 19 (Pentecost).  It is the community of Pentecost that is able to break the Bread in the certain knowledge that the Lord is alive, risen from the dead, present with his word, with his gestures, with the offering of His Body and His Blood. From that moment on the celebration became the privileged place — though not the only one — of an encounter with Him. We know that only thanks to the grace of this encounter does a human being become fully human. Only the Church of Pentecost can conceive of the human being as a person, open to a full relationship with God, with creation, and with one’s brothers and sisters.  Pope Francis

 

May 20.  As Virgin, Mother, and Bride of Christ, Mary becomes Mother of the Church from the seed of spiritual fruitfulness which the immaculate Bride received from her crucified Son: his Body given and His Blood poured out. As Virgin, Bride, and Mother, she gives birth to the Church again and again throughout the ages.  Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar

 

May 21. A living bread has come down from heaven to us. As we eat it he makes us able to draw from it the richest of benefits. Jesus Christ has promised that whoever eats this bread and drinks this blood will live for ever. God grant that we may open ourselves to this life by the Heavenly Father’s mercy. Then we will be able to wash one another’s feet just as Jesus has washed ours and give heavenly nourishment to others from that which has been given to us.  St. Alonso de Orozco

 

May 22. “This is my body,” “this is my blood”; under no circumstance may the “is” in these holiest of sentences be interpreted as “means” or “is a symbol of” my body and blood. If ever the Lord’s admonition, «Let your speech be, ‘Yes, yes’; ‘No, no’; and whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one» was deeply urgent, it is here. It is not only wrong but sacrilegious to tamper with these words. What they express is simplest truth, and what takes place pure reality.  Fr. Romano Guardini

 

May 23.  The eternal high priest is always going in before the Father and working our salvation; he is always passing to us the chalice of his blood which has become a chalice of eternal life. As the Church accepts this chalice from the hand of the eternal high-priest in the sacrificial meal today, she stands full of wonder, attentive to the miracle of reconciliation which continues through all ages in this flowing blood. Sr. Aemiliana Lohr

 

May 24. I believe in my heart and openly profess that the bread and wine which are placed upon the altar are, by the mystery of the sacred prayer and the words of the Redeemer, substantially changed into the true and life-giving flesh and blood of Jesus Christ Our Lord, and that after the Consecration, there is present the true Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and, offered up for the salvation of the world, hung on the Cross and now sits at the right hand of the Father, and that there is present the true Blood of Christ which flowed from His side. They are present not only by means of a sign and of the efficacy of the Sacrament, but also in the very reality and truth of their nature and substance.  Pope St. Gregory VII

 

May 25. Receiving the Holy Sacraments which draw strength from your Blood and from your Passion, and of the Blood that was shed therein. We savour this most fully when we receive the holy Sacrament of your Body and Blood, for there more than anywhere else this sweetness and grace are found hidden, when the Sacrament is really received with purity and honesty. Let whoever wishes to taste of your gentleness and sweetness approach this Blood and there he will find all rest and consolation. The soul will be washed with this Blood, cleansed in this Blood, nourished by this Blood.  St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi

 

May 26. (Trinity Sunday) O most worthy and most sweet Sacrament, in which, under the species of bread and wine, we receive the whole Christ, namely, the Body, the Blood, the Soul and the Godhead of Christ; we receive the whole Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. For the three Persons of one Godhead and essence cannot be separated from one another. The whole Trinity, therefore, dwells in the Body of Christ, because the whole Godhead is in It. The fruits, therefore, of the most Blessed Sacrament are many and precious.  Blosius

 

May 27. Our Lord knew well that we were too weak to walk courageously along the road of life that is often very difficult. So His prophet who saw from afar all the treasures hidden in the Church of Jesus Christ said: "Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me." The food of this table is Jesus Christ Himself; His Divine Flesh, His Precious Blood. It is He who prepares the feast and invites us to it.  St. Madeline Sophie Barat

 

May 28. Christ died on the cross, and gave his body to those called into glory; they take him up and consume him daily at his own table. It is from his pierced side that blood flows for us to drink, and to make us forgetful of the many vain things we pursue.  Jacob of Serug

 

May 29. Communion is the call of love that is extended to all people to form one single family, the family of God that is nourished by the body of the blood of the heavenly Lamb, the bread that came down to earth. St. Oscar Romero

 

May 30. Christians must love their bodies as living images of the incarnate savior, as though they had been raised with Jesus from the same stock and belonging to him by blood as well as free choice. Above all, this holds if we have renewed our alliance with Him by the real reception of the divine body of our Redeemer in the sacrament of the Eucharist.  St. Francis de Sales

 

May 31.  In a spiritual way the entirety of the Christian People was given birth from the womb of the Glorious Virgin. She represents the Church. While Adam slept God formed Eve from his side and while Christ slept on the Cross God formed the Church from the blood and water that flowed from his side—i.e., by the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.  St. Bonaventure