TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MONSEIGNEUR DE LA BOUILLERIE, Archbishop of Perga, Coadjutor of Bordeaux.
v.
O how I love to picture to myself the Christian soul escaping from this low world, and journeying with the Eucharist, which never ceases to say to it these words : " Fear not, it is I, and the soul confiding in its Divine Guide, following It towards the celestial regions.
There, it is true, the soul will be judged; but oh! what a sweet tribunal, where the Judge is again the God of the Eucharist! Faithful soul, if, while on earth, you had the happiness of communicating well and often, be not disquieted, the Judge will pass this sentence upon you:—" I was a stranger upon earth, and you received Me into yourself."
"Come ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
No doubt the judgment will be just, and the faults which we may have committed will deserve perhaps a passing expiation, but I can at least affirm that our devotion to the Eucharist will be the most powerful means of shortening for us the time of trial.
Need I remind you, 0 Christian soul, that, in fact, our communions, if well made, purify us from our venial faults, and thus diminish our debts to eternal justice.
In the second place, have you not remarked that the Church invariably attaches to the Holy Communion its most extensive indulgences, and especially its plenary indulgences ?
And, thirdly, you know that it is the Blood of the Divine Victim which, flowing upon our altars, becomes the expiation of our faults; and the more we have loved the Eucharist in this world, the more care shall we take that It may be offered after our death for the remission of our sins.
