Fontgombault Sermon for Corpus Christi: "Communion after communion, our hearts resemble more and more Christ’s Heart."

Corpus Christi

Homily of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Father Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, May 30, 2024

Fac cor nostrum secundum Cor tuum.
Make our hearts like Thine.
(Verse from the Litanies of the Sacred Heart)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which we celebrated last Sunday, rounded off the liturgical cycle dedicated to the Christian mysteries. Two feasts, however, come and complete this cycle: Corpus Christi, and the feast of the Sacred Heart. The former dates back to the 13th century. The latter is in line with the development of the devotion to the Heart of Jesus during the Middle Ages, and in the wake of the apparitions of Paray-le-Monial between 1673 and 1675. The feast of the Sacred Heart was extended to the universal Church by Pius IX in 1856.

Fontgombault Sermon for Corpus Christi 2021: "God’s table is plentiful. God gives Himself as a food. God lives in us, and we live in God. "

CORPUS CHRISTI

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, June 3, 2021

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

On Maundy Thursday evening, the Church commemorated the institution of the Eucharist, within the broader framework of the Paschal triduum events: institution, death and resurrection of the Lord.

Today, in the wake of the particular revelations made to St. Juliana, an Augustine sister of the convent and leper house of Mont-Cornillon, during the 13th century, the Church invites us more specially to consider this mystery as the place of communion with the Lord and adoration of Him. When she was an adolescent, Juliana used to be strongly drawn by the Eucharistic devotion. She was frequently favored with mystical visions. For instance, she saw the moon blazing with light, but incomplete, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe separating it into two equal parts. 

Benedict XVI commented, during the general audience of November 17th, 2010:

The Lord made her understand the meaning of what had appeared to her. The moon symbolized the life of the Church on earth, the opaque line, on the other hand, represented the absence of a liturgical feast for whose institution Juliana was asked to plead effectively: namely, a feast in which believers would be able to adore the Eucharist so as to increase in faith,  to advance in the practice of the virtues, and to make reparation for offenses to the Most Holy Sacrament.

Juliana accepted this mission, and was helped by Blessed Eva of Liege, a recluse.

FONTGOMBAULT - Sermon for Corpus Christi: "The mystery of the Eucharist is a mystery of life. It is the life of God wanting to become the life of man."

CORPUS CHRISTI

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, June 11, 2020

Hic est panis, qui de cælo descendit.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

(Jn 6:58)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

What a contrast! At dawn of mankind, an apple in the hands of man became the cause of his sentence. When the times had reached their fulfillment, a little portion of bread and wine in the hands of God became, and still remain, instruments of salvation. Such is the great mystery of this Bread, a living and lifegiving Bread, that the Church invites us to meditate, so as better to adore.

As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever. (Jn 6:57-58)

The mystery of the Eucharist is a mystery of life. It is the life of God wanting to become the life of man. The same holds for all sacraments, which are the admirable means used by God to touch the heart of man, the precious manifestations of an unfathomable and boundless love for our poor humanity. In the case of the Eucharist, it is God Himself, the Author of every gift, Who is present and makes Himself a gift.

A Special Article for the Feast of Corpus Christi: - THE HOLY EUCHARIST ACCORDING TO CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

by Father Konrad zu Loewenstein

[A booklet with the basic doctrine on the Blessed Sacrament - reposted.]

Adoro Te devote, latens Deitas,

Quae sub his figuris vere latitas:

Tibi se cor meum totum subicit,

Quia, Te contemplans, totum deficit...

Devoutly I adore Thee, O Hidden Deity,

Who beneath these figures truly liest hidden:

My heart subjects itself entirely to Thee,

because in contemplating Thee it fails entirely...

St. Thomas Aquinas

***

PREFACE

We have considered it important to re-state clearly and concisely the sublime doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church in regard to the Holy Eucharist, in an age when notable sectors of the Catholic laity, clergy, and even of the hierarchy, trapped in a bland and merely human way of thinking, and\or seduced by a resurgence of Protestant Eucharistic heresies, manifest the most lamentable ignorance or heterodoxy in its regard, together with a conduct entirely unbecoming to such solemn realities.  

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the diocesan

authorities for having verified the conformity of this text with

Catholic Doctrine, and to the translator of the original into English

  

INTRODUCTION

The Holy Eucharist is one of the seven Sacraments of the Church. The term ‘Holy Eucharist’has two senses: The Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and the Holy Mass. In the first sense the Holy Eucharist is considered in Itself, in the second sense It is considered in so far as It is offered.

  

I

THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR

     As a Sacrament, the Most Blessed Sacrament:

    

     1) is a sign of Grace;

     2) confers Grace on us;

     3) was instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ.

     In particular:

Fontgombault Sermon for Corpus Christi 2019: "The Eucharist is a folly that sprung out of the blazing love of God’s heart!"

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, June 20, 2019

Cibavit eos ex adipe frumenti.

He fed them with the finest of wheat.

Ps 80:17

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

It may not come amiss to begin the homily of this day, consecrated to the adoration of God present in the sacrament of the Eucharist, by recalling the wonderful text “to the glory of God most holy and of our Lord Jesus Christ”, commonly called the Credo of Paul VI, and solemnly pronounced on June 30th, 1968.

We shall limit ourselves to the passage concerning today’s feast (the emphasis is ours):

We believe that the Mass, celebrated by the priest representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received through the Sacrament of Orders, and offered by him in the name of Christ and the members of His Mystical Body, is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His body and His blood which were to be offered for us on the cross, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the body and blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real, and substantial presence. […] Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable body and blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine, as the Lord willed it, in order to give Himself to us as food and to associate us with the unity of His Mystical Body. The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches. And it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore in the blessed Host which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word Whom they cannot see, and Who, without leaving heaven, is made present before us.

The words used by that Pope are fraught with sense: a true, real, and substantial presence of Christ in His glory, so as to give Himself to us as a food, and associate us to the unity of His mystical Body; a presence which it is our very sweet duty to honor and adore. Yet, can God give Himself as a food? Can He debase Himself by giving Himself as a food to human beings?

You Report: For the first time in decades, Corpus Christi procession in Warrington, England

The following report was sent to us by the local priest, the indefatigable Rev. Fr. Armand de Malleray, of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter:

For the first time in decades last Sunday, the Eucharistic Lord “walked” the streets of Warrington in Cheshire, England.

Fontgombault Sermon for Corpus Christi: "Let us answer the Master Who rent the veil of the Temple"

CORPUS CHRISTI

1981 recording

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

(Fontgombault, May 26, 2016)

For My flesh is meat indeed: and My blood is drink indeed.

(Jn 6:56)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

It is a great mystery that the Church offers today to our adoration and thanksgivings. The Blessed Eucharist is the gift of the God Who wishes to abide in our midst. It appears as a continuation of the mystery of Incarnation. After He came not for those who are healthy, but for those who are ill and sinners, after He encountered in His humanity the entreaty of the widow, but also the joy and thanksgivings of the man who was curved under the burden of sin and then became free, Jesus offers us today to encounter Him in His Eucharistic presence.