HOW CHRIST IS GIVEN TO ALL MEN IN THE SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR THERE is a special benefit which Christ left in the Holy Church, to all good people, in this supper of the great Paschal feast, when He was about to pass from His sufferings to His Father after having eaten the Paschal lamb with His disciples, and when the ancient law was accomplished. At the end of the supper, He wished to give them a special meal, as He had long desired to do. And this is why He wished to finish the ancient law and to inaugurate the new law. He took bread in His sacred hands, and consecrated His holy body, and then His holy blood, and gave them to all His disciples, and left them to all the just, for their eternal good. This gift and this special food rejoice and adorn all the great festivals and all the banquets in heaven and on earth. In this gift Christ gives Himself to us in three manners; He gives us His flesh and blood and His bodily life, glorified and full of joys and griefs. And He gives us His spirit with its highest faculties, and full of glory, of gifts, of truths and justifications. And He gives us His personality with the divine light which lifts up His spirit and all enlightened spirits, even to the sublime and joyous unity. Now Christ wishes us to remember Him, whenever we consecrate, offer, and receive His body. Now observe how we should remember Him. We shall observe and consider how Christ bends towards us in loving affection, in great desire, in loving joy, and by flowing into our bodily nature. For He gives us that which He received from our humanity--that is to say, His flesh and blood and bodily nature. We shall contemplate this precious body pierced and wounded with love, by reason of His faithfulness to us. It is by it that we are adorned and nourished in the lower part of our human nature. He gives us also, in this sublime gift of the sacrament, His spirit full of glory, and the richest gifts of the virtues, and ineffable marvels of charity and nobleness.