Page:Complete ascetical works of St Alphonsus v6.djvu/16

 the two preceding volumes we have been considering that the Son of God, not content with becoming man and immolating himself for our salvation, in order to satisfy the love that he bore us, also wished to create for himself an entirely new life of love by instituting the Holy Eucharist expressly for the purpose of giving himself to us in three different ways; namely, as a victim of of an infinite price in the Holy Sacrifice; as the food of our souls in Holy Communion; and, in the holy tabernacle, as a perpetual companion of our exile here upon earth.

After having paid our homage to our Saviour in his sacrament of love, we honor with a special worship his divine heart, which is regarded as the seat of his immense love for us.

Now, as God loves only in order to be loved, we are led by the foregoing considerations to the practice of the love of Jesus Christ.

We conclude by speaking of the devotion that is due to the Holy Spirit, who is the love that is consubstantial with the Father and the Son, through whom God loves us, and through whom we love God.

Such are the contents of this volume, which is Volume VI. of the ascetical works.

We place at the beginning of this volume a short treatise entitled "The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ," because the Sacrifice of the Altar is intimately connected with the Sacrifice of the Cross, the latter being the subject considered in the last volume, and because the Sacrifice of the Altar completes the Sacrifice of the Cross by Holy Communion.

St. Alphonsus wrote this little work in his retreat in the year 1776, when he was eighty years of age, and published it with his work called the Victories of the Martyrs.