Bishop Challoner's Meditations ~ 16th June

ON THE BLESSED EUCHARIST AS IT IS A SACRIFICE OF ADORATION AND PRAISE

Consider first, the indispensable obligation incumbent upon man, as a rational creature made by God and for God, to present his homage of adoration, praise, and glory to his Maker. For this reason the children of God from the beginning offered up sacrifices to the Deity; for this reason they instituted holocausts, or whole burnt-offerings, in which the whole victim was consumed by fire, evaporating on God's altar, in testimony of his being the sovereign Lord of all; for this reason the psalms were composed, by divine inspiration, and appointed to be sung together with musical instruments, to the praise and glory of God, and to accompany the sacrifices offered in the temple of God. Such was the zeal of these ancient servants of God, for paying him the best homage they were able of adoration and praise; and such ought to be, at all times, the sincere disposition of all that believe in God: as to be willing to adore and praise, worship and serve this their first beginning and last end, with all their power, and to consecrate their whole being to his glory. See, my soul, if this be thy disposition.

Consider 2ndly, how little is all that man can offer of his own fund, even though his whole being were to evaporate to the glory of God, when compared with the infinite majesty of God, and the homage and adoration which he deserves. If the whole creation could be made one holocaust or burnt-offering for the glory of God - alas! it would be all no more in the eyes of so great a king than as if a grain of chaff were to be burnt in honour of some earthly monarch. Because there is no proportion between that which is finite and that which is infinite; and therefore the whole creation compared to God is less than one grain of chaff compared with an earthly monarch, or even with the whole creation. How mean then is all that man can offer of his own, or of any other creature's; and how unworthy and how insufficient to be made a sacrifice of adoration and praise to the divine majesty? See then, my soul, how greatly we are obliged to the Son of God, who by the institution of the blessed Eucharist, has furnished us with a sacrifice of adoration, homage, praise, and glory worthy of God, as being of infinite value, by reason of the infinite dignity both of the priest and victim.

Consider 3rdly, how our Lord, expiring and dying upon the cross in obedience to his Father's will, offered himself in sacrifice in such a manner, that his death was not only in the nature of a sin-offering, or a sacrifice of propitiation for the sins of the world; but also in the nature of a burnt-offering, (in which the whole victim is given to God without reserve,) or a sacrifice of adoration, homage, praise, and glory. As then in the blessed Eucharist Christ himself in person celebrates his own death, and offers up the same sacrifice in substance with that which he offered expiring upon the cross; so we have here the same adoration, homage, praise, and glory offered by Christ, as God's high priest and our high priest, to his eternal Father; and this sacrifice of adoration, homage, praise, and glory he has made over to us; so that we are enabled, by joining with him in these sacred mysteries, to offer up daily to our God a homage and adoration of infinite value.

Conclude with admiration of the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of God, manifested to us in the institution of this divine sacrifice, by means of which a victim of infinite value is daily offered, and will be daily offered to the end of the world upon a million of altars, by a priest of infinite dignity, to give infinite honour and glory to his divine majesty, and to be at the same time an inexhaustible source of all good to us. O! let us daily and hourly join our adoration and praise with that which is in every place offered by our high priest in these divine mysteries, and it will not fail of being acceptable through him.