CORPUS CHRISTI: Sermon of St. Peter Damian: The Body which was born of the Virgin is the instrument of our salvation

CORPUS CHRISTI: Sermon of St. Peter Damian: The Body which was born of the Virgin is the instrument of our salvation

The body of Christ, which we receive from the holy altar, is the same that the blessed Virgin brought into the world, fondled on her lap, bound up in swaddling clothes and dutifully fed, as mothers do. Not a doubt of it: it is the selfsame body; that and no other, And the blood which we likewise drink to accomplish the mystery of our redemption is blood from that body. So, do we believe as Catholics and such, in consequence, is the Church's teaching.

It follows that no human language will be found adequate to praise her from whom, as we know, the Mediator between God and men took flesh. No praise that human lips can frame is enough for her, who from her spotless body drew the Food of our souls—him who said of himself: I myself am the living bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. It was through eating that we lost the joys of paradise and it is through eating that we recovered them. Eve ate the apple and imposed on us all an eternal fast, a perpetual hunger; Mary produced a Food, and now the door is open to heaven's banqueting-hall.

At this point I would beg of you, dear brethren, to consider carefully God's plan for our redemption. Listen to what your hearts tell you, and you will realize with what yearning his mercy went out to us. The Devil tempted man, man sinned, and the whole human stock was poisoned at the root. But God, in his fatherly affection and his mercy, would not allow his creature to be destroyed entirely, for he had made him in his own image and likeness.  A priest would have to be found—one who could remove the stains of sin from others and know that there was nothing in his own person that needed washing away. He would have to be free from the signs of leprosy himself if he was to cleanse the wounds of other people's guilt. As none such could be found among men, men's own Creator took flesh of the blessed Virgin, determined as he was that men should not perish. The sinless God became man; he was conceived sinless in the Virgin's womb and sinless he lived in the world. There then, brethren, was the priest we needed. He had no sins of his own, and therefore he was fit and able to offer sacrifice and cleanse other people from theirs.

Yet it was impossible that the flesh of brute beasts should sanctify the souls of men; an animal devoid of reason was not the proper victim to efface the sins of reasoning creatures. That was why the psalmist made the Son say to the Father: No sacrifice, no offering was thy demand. Thou hast not found any pleasure in burnt-sacrifices, in sacrifices for sin. See then, I said, I am coming. The victim would have to be endowed with reason if it was to atone for the sins of rational beings. But a sinful man is just as unfit to be a sacrifice as he is to offer one. So, what was our Priest to do? As nothing could be found to buy us with, our Redeemer himself became our purchase-price and offered himself to the Father for us, a sacrifice breathing out fragrance.

Thus, he became both Priest and Offering, both Purchaser and Price. Well might Paul be inspired to say: Such was the high-priest that suited our need, holy and guiltless and undefiled, not reckoned among us sinners, lifted high above all the heavens; one who has no need to do as other priests did, offering a twofold sacrifice, first for his own sins, then for the people. What he has done he has done once and for all; and the offering was himself.