Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/29

Rh Next, there is the relation of a true, substantial, and living contact in the Holy Mass as real as when S. John lay on His bosom at supper, or as when He washed S. Peter's feet. When we hold the Blessed Sacrament in our hands we are in contact with God, with God Incarnate, with the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. More real than the earth under our feet, which will pass away, is the presence of the Incarnate Word, which will never pass away. We are in contact with His substance. "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." But we are also united to the substance of His Body; and we are members of it by a real and substantial participation. S. Paul says that we are "members of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bone," and he bids us to "bear God in our body." This contact and union is eternal life. If, as we hold the Blessed Sacrament in our hands, our eyes were opened like the eyes of Cleophas at Emmaus, we should know that beyond this sacramental and substantial contact there is nothing more intimate, except union with Him in the light of glory.

Such, then, are the reasons which have illuminated the teachers of the Church to know that there can be conceived no office higher, and no power