Now, after the Paschal Supper was finished, Jesus took the unleavened bread, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to them, saying--"This is My body which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of Me. In like manner the chalice, saying, This is the chalice, the New Testament in My blood, which shall be shed for you." Here then, is a perfect fulfilment of the Old Testament. Here is the real Paschal Sacrifice of the New Testament. The supper-table becomes an altar; Jesus becomes, under the forms of unleavened bread and wine, the victim, and He is at the same time the priest. What He did Himself, he tells His disciples to do. "Do this for a commemoration of Me." Then and there He ordains and consecrates them to be priests, and gives them the awful power of sacrificing His body and blood under the forms of bread and wine. {94} From that supper-room they go forth to do His words, and to receive the fulfilment of His promise: "I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom: that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom: and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." [Footnote 23] [Footnote 23: St. Luke xxii. 29, 30.] What was all that for? Why this sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ? Why should this be repeated all over the world? Listen once more: "He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him." The reason was that his disciples and all others who should partake of that sacrifice might be united to Him in the closest manner possible--"should abide in Him, and He in them." We call that sacred act Communion--communion with Jesus. That is what it is, brethren. Our souls and bodies are united in a mysterious manner to the Divine Person of our dear Lord and Saviour, who became man and died on the cross for our salvation. He calls us to this communion, and gives Himself to us as the sweetest pledge of His Divine Love, as the most precious means of our sanctification, as a comforting food, as a holy offering by which we may praise and give thanks to God, as a feast of joy and the kiss of peace to the forgiven sinner. {95} If the Cross be, as it is, the measure of sin by which we offend Jesus, Communion is the measure of the love with which Jesus loves us. Love is measured by sacrifice. One loves another only a little if he is content to give up only a little in the other's favor. His love is perfect if he willingly gives up all. This is what our Lord does in Holy Communion. He sacrifices all for us, because He sacrifices Himself. What do I mean by this sacrifice?