Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/540



534 THE MOST HOLY EUCHARIST.

not only signify our gratitude, but actually make an adequate return.

Moreover there is another twofold fruit which we may and must derive from this great sacrifice. The heart is saddened when it consider what a flood of wickedness, the result â€” as We have said â€” of forgetfulness and con- tempt of the divine Majesty, has inundated the world. It is not too much to say that a great part of the human race seems to be calling down upon itself the anger of heaven; though indeed the crop of evils which has grown up here on earth is already ripening to a just judgment. Here then is a motive whereby the faithful may be stirred to a devout and earnest endeavor to appease God the avenger of sin, and to win from Him the help which is so needful in these calamitous times. And they should see that such blessings are to be sought principally by means of this Sacrifice. For it is only in virtue of the death which Christ suffered that man can satisfy, and that most abundantly, the demands of God's justice, and can obtain the plenteous gifts of His clemency. And Christ has willed that the whole virtue of His death, alike for expiation and impetration, should abide in the Eucharist, which is no mere empty commemoration thereof, but a true and wonderful, though bloodless and mystical, renewal of it.

To conclude, We gladly acknowledge that it has been a cause of no small joy to Us that during these last years a renewal of love and devotion towards the Sacrament of the Eucharist has, as it seems, begun to show itself in the hearts of the faithful ; a fact which encourages Us to hope for better times and a more favorable state of affairs. Many and varied, as We said at the commencement, are the expedients which an inventive piety has devised; and worthy of special mention are the Confraternities instituted either with the object of carrying out the Eu- charistic ritual with greater splendor, or for the perpetual adoration of the venerable Sacrament by day and night,