“And whence will come this flesh; whence will come this blood? They will come from this bread and from this wine: an all-powerful word will be uttered, which will change this bread into the flesh of the Savior, and this wine into his blood. All of this will take place at the very moment that this word is uttered; it is the same word that created heaven and earth.” — Jacques Bénigne Bossuet
Scripture tells us that in the beginning God spoke, and there was light. God’s word brings forth creation from emptiness. He makes where there was only nothingness. God gives the abyss being, existence, form, and destiny. This surely is the cause of marvel and wonder: that there be something rather than nothing. So, too, with the Eucharist. As Saint Ambrose says, “If the word of the Lord Jesus is so powerful as to bring into existence things which were not, then a fortiori those things which already exist can be changed into something else.” The Eucharist is a mystery of change. The creator of all reconfigures that which he has made to bestow his extraordinary grace.
LET US PRAY
Lord Jesus, the Word through whom all things were made, you entered your creation by taking flesh. More wondrously still, you offer your flesh to us as true food. Give me awe as I meditate on the work of the Word. Amen.
PRAYER TO THE EUCHARIST
O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption. Who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
-Collect for the Feast of Corpus Christi, composed by St. Thomas Aquinas