And even if there should come a time, as many think, when "the daily sacrifice shall be taken away," when it shall be death to say Mass or to hear it, and the Church has to "fly into the wilderness"—if the final persecution thus exceed even those of the Cæsars, yet Mass will be said and Communion will be given; and still, at the words of the priest, "even as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth unto the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" to His altar; and still, "wheresoever the Body shall be, there will the eagles be gathered together." [Footnote 68]
[Footnote 68: St. Matt. xxiv. 27, 28.]
In conclusion, my dear brethren, let me remind you how apt we are—we who are so favored with the faith—to neglect the Blessed Sacrament, to be irreverent in its presence, to show it ingratitude by receiving it too seldom, and to betray our forgetfulness of its presence by never coming to visit it. I would dwell a little on this last point. When we meet with misfortune or trouble of any kind, we often brood over it at home, and get impatient and fretful, and make mischief in consequence to others as well as to ourselves, instead of coming to tell the Sacred Heart all about it, and draw on an ever-ready help. So, again, we are constantly complaining how cold the world is, what a want there is of sympathy, how selfish and thankless people are. And what are we but cold and unsympathizing, selfish and thankless, toward our best Friend? He is here "love's prisoner"—our prisoner; and how few of us take any notice of Him as such! Were an earthly dear one in prison for our sake, we should move heaven and earth to get to him. But here is the Lover of all lovers, the infinite beauty, accessible all day long, and how many come to visit Him of those who are not reasonably prevented? I wonder that more of us are not haunted by those words, "I was in prison, and ye visited Me not." [Footnote 69]
[Footnote 69: St. Matt. xxv. 43.]
Let us endeavor, then, my brethren, to realize more the treasure we possess in our Emmanuel, our Gesù Sacramentato (Sacramented Jesus), our Dios Sagramentado (Sacramented God), as the happy Italian and Spanish languages can word it. If we could only accustom ourselves to think a little more of the Blessed Sacrament, it would soon have a perceptible influence on our lives, on our domestic relations, on our intercourse with society, on our dealings with the world of business. And this influence would be anything but oppressive, as some of you may think. It would exercise a wholesome restraint, indeed, for which we should often be deeply thankful afterwards, but would give us a true cheerfulness and an abiding sense of calm. Oh! that all our words and actions might harmonize in one ceaseless chorus of praise—
"Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and most divine Sacrament!"