Page:Complete ascetical works of St Alphonsus v6.djvu/25

Rh to the order of Melchisedech. The priesthood of Jesus Christ will, therefore, be eternal, since, even after the end of the world, he will always continue to offer in heaven this same victim that he once offered on the Cross for the glory of God and for the salvation of mankind.

The third condition of the sacrifice—namely, the immolation of the victim—was evidently accomplished by the death of our Lord on the Cross.

There remains for us yet to verify, in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the two other conditions requisite to render a sacrifice perfect—that is, the consumption of the victim and the partaking of it.

It is then asked, What was this consumption of the victim in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ? for although his body was by death separated from his holy soul, yet it was not consumed, nor destroyed.

The anonymous author of whom I spoke in the beginning, says that this fourth condition was fulfilled by the resurrection of our Lord; for, then, his adorable body was divested of all that is terrestrial and mortal, and was clothed in divine glory. He adds that it is this glory that Jesus Christ asked of his Father before his death: And now glorify Thou me, O Father, with Thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with Thee. Our Lord did not ask this glory for his divinity, since he possessed it from all eternity as being the Word equal to the Father; but he asked it for his humanity, and he obtained it at his resurrection, by which he entered in a certain manner into his divine glory.

In speaking of the fifth condition, which is, the partaking of the victim, or Communion, the same author