Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/192

 the streets  during  the  night,  from  one  tribunal  to  another, by  the  lowest  rabble. Reflect what  indignities He must  have  suffered,  as  He  passed  along,  from  all kinds of  people;  even  from  those  who  had  received  benefits from  Him. What a  spectacle  was  presented  to heaven  when  the  Lord  of  angels  was  thus  outraged! Condole, admire,  give  thanks,  and  imitate.

"The Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  thou  shalt  be changed  into  another  man." (i Kings  x.  6.)

I. Christ  took  three  of  His  Apostles  to  a  high  mountain, "  and  was  transfigured  before  them." (Matt. xvii.  2.) The same  will  be  produced  in  due  proportion  in  your soul, by  your  reception  of  the  Eucharist,  if  you  oppose no impediment  to  His  holy  grace. The Eucharist,  as the  Angelical  Doctor  observes,  in  a  certain  manner makes us  the  same  with  Christ. And St.  Augustine introduces Christ  addressing  the  faithful  in  these  words: "I am  the  food  of  the  advanced;  grow,  and  you  shall feed  on  Me;  but  in  such  a  manner  that  you  shall  not change  Me  into  yourself,  but  you  shall  be  changed  into Me."

II. What an  inestimable  dignity  it  is,  and  what  a  superior benefit  for  man  to  be  transformed  into  God,  and  to be  "  made  conformable  to  the  image  of  His  Son"! (Rom. viii. 29.)  Satan  tempted  Eve  with  this  idea:  "  You  shall be  as  gods." (Gen. iii.  5.)  But  our  first  parents  were deluded. By the  Eucharist,  and  the  grace  attached  to  it, we become  united  to  God,  and  in  some  respect  partakers of the  divine  nature,  "and  even  incorporated  and  of  the same  blood  with  Christ,"  as  St.  Cyprian  energetically