The Blessed Sacrament

HOLY CROSS TRACTS

The Blessed Sacrament


By Frank L. Vernon


WHAT does the word "blessed" mean? It means "filled with bliss." What does "bliss" mean? Bliss means "happiness." That which is filled with happiness gives out happiness, just as the sun gives light. A Blessed Thing gives a blessing.

What is a Sacrament? A Sacrament is "an out­ward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." What is grace? Grace is a gift from God to make us good. The outward and visible sign of the Blessed Sacrament is Bread and Wine. The inward thing is the Body and Blood of Christ. What does the Body and Blood of Christ do for us when we receive It? It strengthens and refreshes our souls.

How does the Body and Blood of Christ strengthen and refresh our souls? The Body and Blood of Christ fills us with grace to make us good; fills us with heavenly benediction or bless­ing or bliss or happiness; and makes us one body with our Lord, that He may dwell in us and we in Him.
The Body and Blood of Christ makes us one in our Lord with all who love Him, and makes us able to love them wherever we are and wherever they are, so that we are never separated from them, whether we or they are in this world or the next.


The Body and Blood of Christ raises us to a state of Communion. Communion means one-with.
The Body and Blood of Christ makes us one with God and one with our friends in God. Now all this is so very wonderful that only God could do it. Ordinary bread and wine could not do it. Only the Body and Blood of our Lord can do it. Only the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord can make us good and happy. To be good and happy is to be blessed. So the Sacra­ment of the Body and Blood of our Lord is called the Blessed Sacrament.

The next question is how do we use the Blessed Sacrament? We use It in three ways:

1. We use the Blessed Sacrament to make us good. We must think of being good first, because if we are good we shall make God happy, and we shall make the people who love us happy. The very first step in being good is to think about the happiness of others before and more than our own happiness. So we must find out if we are doing anything or failing to do anything which spoils the happiness of God and the happiness of the people whom we have no right to make unhappy. Whatever we find out about ourselves which is making God unhappy, or people unhappy, is sin. Sin spoils happiness. It spoils God's happiness, it spoils other peoples' happiness, and it spoils our own happiness. But we do not matter so much—we come last. Our business in life is to make God happy and to make other people happy first. If we do this we shall be happy ourselves. So the first thing we do when we find out what is wrong in us is to confess it to God and firmly mean and faithfully try to do better. Then we are able to be forgiven. Then we are ready to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord. When we re­ceive the Body and Blood of our Lord, He gives us grace to make us good, and He fills us with Benediction, which is the power to give happiness to God and to our friends.

2. The Blessed Sacrament is so perfectly Blessed and so perfectly wonderful that It is perfectly worshipful. So we worship the Blessed Sacrament. And so we ought, because the Blessed Sacrament is our Lord. We have the opportunity to do this when the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the Tabernacle on the Altar. When the Blessed Sacrament is re­served in the Tabernacle, there is a white light kept burning before It. If you kneel before the Tabernacle and speak to our Lord, and then keep very quiet and wait, our Lord will speak to you. But you must keep quiet and wait. What you say to Him will be your own private secret. What our Lord will say to you will be His private secret. You will not hear His voice with your bodily ears, but your soul will hear. Whenever you feel troubled and do not know what to do, make a visit to our Lord in the Taber­nacle and talk it all over with Him. Then keep very quiet and wait for a little while. Then go away. If yet you do not know, come back, and keep coming until you do know.

3. When you have learned to know the Blessed­ness of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Lord by receiving His grace and heavenly benediction in Holy Communion, and when you have grown into the habit of going to our Lord in the Tabernacle to talk to Him and to ask Him for His benediction, then you will find a third great happiness in coming to the Church at the times when the Blessed Sacrament is taken out of the Tabernacle and put on the Altar so that you can see It.


Then you will look at the Blessed Sacrament and you will know that It is our Lord. You will remember all that He has done for you in Holy Communion. You will remember the happy visits that you have made to Him in the Tabernacle. You will worship Him. You will love Him. You will thank Him. Then He will give you His heav­enly benediction. There is no benediction like that.
You have heard a clergyman pronounce a bene­diction at the close of a service. But no clergyman's benediction could be as wonderful as our Lord's own special benediction in the Blessed Sacrament. Because this benediction comes straight from our Lord's own Real Presence. It is His very own. This is why the best benediction you could possibly have is the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.