But, secondly, it is a feast of peculiar consolation. It is this which most endears the Blessed Sacrament to us. For as long as we are in exile from our true fatherland--the "patria" of the __O Salutaris__--we shall always be wanting consolation, and prize it as a foretaste of our rest. This consolation, then, this foretaste, is abundantly vouchsafed to us in the Blessed Sacrament. And, first, as regards our Lord Himself. It is impossible to love Him without sorrowing for all He once suffered; without grieving at the thought of the world's sins, and our own share of them, which drenched His soul with anguish, and steeped His heart in woe. And what pains us most is the melancholy fact that His love was thrown away on the majority of mankind, and is so at this hour. It is, therefore, indeed a consolation that now He dwells on earth without the condition of suffering--impassible for evermore; that, at last, He "comes unto His own, and His own __do__ receive Him"; that He is enthroned King of His elect in the kingdom He so dearly purchased; that He can now take unmixed "delight" in "being with the children of men"; that if His Sacramental Presence is still to the heretic "a stumbling-block," and to the sceptic "foolishness," yet to millions upon millions, who believe and love, it is "the power of God and the wisdom of God"; and, further, that whatever degeneracy may come upon Christ's kingdom, however widely the "love of many may wax cold," yet, even in the worst times, "those whom the Father hath given Him" will unfailingly confess Him their "Emmanuel." {164} Again, the Blessed Sacrament is full of consolation as regards ourselves. In the first place, because it is our Emmanuel--God tabernacled with men; and because the veiled Presence here is an earnest of the unveiled hereafter. Also, because it is an abiding "propitiation for our sins," and the perpetual oblation of infinite merit to obtain us all good things. Again, it is the food in the strength of which we travel, like Elias, through the wilderness of this world "unto the mount of God": [Footnote 65] the medicine of our spiritual diseases, the balm of our sorrows, and, sweetest thought of all, perhaps, our viaticum in death. [Footnote 65: 3 Kings xix. 8.] [USCCB: 1 Kings xix. 8.] {165} If God could thus address His people of old, how much more meaning have His words for __us__: "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name: thou art mine. When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee; ... for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." [Footnote 66] [Footnote 66: Is. xliii. 1-3] But especially ought we to take comfort in the Blessed Sacrament in times of trial for the Church, such as that which is on us now. You remember how the ship of Peter was tossed one day on the lake of Galilee, and the disciples got terrified and awoke their Master, who was asleep on a pillow. [Footnote 67]