The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-06-10
DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED
SACRAMENT.


of June by our Holy Father, says the
Messenger. The purpose of the devo-
ton to the Sacred Heart is to make
PREPARATION to our Lords wounded
Heart, especially in the Sacrament of
His love. What more natural then
than that we should be asked to pray
for an increase of this devotion, which
is really the life of the Church and the
food of Catholic piety? So wonderful
indeed is this mystery of the Eucha
rist that it was foreshadowed in the
Old Dispensation, promised in the New
and accomplished on the eve of our
Lords death on Mount Calvary.
When Moses led the people of God
out from the slavery of Egypt and they
were wandering among the sandy
dunes of the desert they began to
feel the pangs of hunger, and star
walton stared them in the face. Their
thoughts went back to the fieshpots at
Egypt and to their days of labor along
the Nile where, though their toll was
hard and they were burnt and bis
sun, there was always food for them
to eat and nourishment to repair their
bodily strength. Out on the desert
sands, wandering hither and thither in
their long quest for, and their tire
some and dangerous journey towards
the land of Canaan, there was no food
to still the pangs of hunger and to re-
store their failing strength. In their
sufferings they cried out and muir
INJURED against their leader. They COM
planned that it would have been better
to have left them making bricks along
the Nile than to have led them into
the desert to die of starvation.
Moses Gained the growing anger of
the multitude, and bidding them go to
their tents promised that in the morn
ing they would see what the Lord
would do. Before day broke in the
cast at dawn they came out from their
tents after night of uneasy sleep and
saw the whole ground covered with a
substance which, taking up and tast-
ing they found contained the sweet
Mamma. From that day through all
their wanderings, whether to the north
or to the south, to the east or to the
west, whether they trudged along the
hardened seashore beaten by the
waves, whether they marched where
the hill country and the forests fringe
the desert, whether they were en-
camped at the foot of Mt Horeb or Mt
Sinai every morning at the dawn God
rained down the Mamma from heaven
and fed His people in the desert for
forty years. This feeding of the chos-
en- people in their wanderings towards
the Land of Promise was a type, a fig
ure, a symbol of that Food which in
the New Law was to sustain and
strengthen not the bodies, but the
souls of men, as they journey on to-
wards the land of Gods kingdom. 1t
was to give men strength not to
trudge through the sandy desert and
up the Jordan valley, over the river
and into the land flowing with milk and
honey, but it was to fortify them in
their progress amid the obstacles from
passion, from the world and from the
evil one, and enable them to reach in
safety and in spiritual health the land
of Gods kingdom.
Before our Lord gave us this great
gift of the Blessed Sacrament He had
not only typified it in the Old, but He
promised it in the New. One day in
Galilee, in the second year of His pub
lie life, after He had fed the multitude
on the lake shore and they wanted to
make Him king, having dismissed the
people, He betook himself to the top
of the mountain and spent the night
in prayer. At the dawn, after those
long hours passed in communion with
the Father, He came down and walk
cd out upon the storm-tossed waves to
His Apostles in the boat battling with
wind and weather. and entering in the
boat shot to the land. To the shore
below Capharnaum the people trooped
out again and gathered round about
Him. They came down from the hills
and out from the rayines, they came
along the curved shore of the lake, and
stood looking into His face and listen
ing to His voice, and that day He
promised them the great gift of His
Body and His Blood in the Sacrament
of His love. The Jews, who stood
round about Him said: Our fathers
did eat Mamma in the desert, as it is
written: He gave them bread from
Heaven to eat" Then Jesus said to
them: Amen, amen, | say to you;
Moses gave you not bread from Heav-
\ en-, but My Father giveth you the true
bread from Heaven. For the bread of
God is that which cometh down from
Heaven, and giveth life to the world. ("
They said therefore unto Him: Lord,
give us always this bread" And Jesus
said TO them: Il am the bread of life. :
The Jews therefore murmured at Him,
because He had said Il am the liv-
ing bread which came down from
Heaven" And our Blessed Saviour
stood there that day on the seashore
and repeated His assertion: Il am
the bread of life. Your fathers did eat
Mamma in the desert, and are dead
The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying: "How can this
man give us His Flesh to eat?" Then
Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, /
say unto you: Except you eat the
Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His
Blood, you shall not have life in you.
a.