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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, so be it. But now, dear brothers, today we celebrate the great feast of the Body of Christ, the Feast of God, which we have already celebrated on Holy Thursday. But on Holy Thursday, we were preoccupied with meditating on the Passion, and we were unable to give the Holy Eucharist as much attention as we would have liked. That is what we are doing today, and that is why the Church has asked us to celebrate the Holy Eucharist today. What is the Holy Eucharist? It is the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ renewed on our altars. This is the teaching of the Council of Trent, and it is unequivocal. At Mass, as on the cross, it is the same victim, the same priest—Jesus Christ—the same offering, for the same purpose, to bear the same fruits—essentially for the forgiveness of our sins. And we come to consecrate ourselves to our Lord, and through Him, to the entire Holy Trinity. God wants to consecrate us. 

What does it mean to consecrate? It means to make sacred something that was previously profane. Adam and Eve were consecrated to God in the Garden of Eden, but they desecrated that consecration. And God came to take them out of that profane world to consecrate them anew to God, and through Jesus Christ, this consecration reaches its fullness. There are two images, two comparisons, to help us understand this consecration. On the one hand, we are the temples of the Holy Trinity—that is, God lives within us—and on the other hand, we are the members of his body, of which he is the head. What we are celebrating today is the nourishment that God—that is, Jesus Christ—provides for his body. And what is absolutely wonderful is that this food is Himself. He proclaims it openly in the Gospel: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” This is how we are consecrated. Our Lord offers His sacrifice on the cross to God the Father. And through this, He gains the power to consecrate the entire world—that is, all people, along with their activities, their families, and their countries—to consecrate everything to God the Father. He gains this power. Yet this must still be brought to fruition—or, to put it another way, it must be put into practice. Take the example of a country facing famine. We saw this with Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph stored enough grain in the granaries to last throughout the entire period of famine. 


But those who are in need must still come and seek out the grain. Well, our Lord, through the sacrifice of the cross, has stored up in the divine granaries enough to save the entire world. Yet each of us must receive this salvation—that is, this salvation must be applied to us personally. This salvation is applied to us through our participation in the Holy Eucharist, that is, through our participation in the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. This participation is, of course, essentially spiritual, but God had instituted sacrifices in the Old Testament in which the sacrificial offering was actually eaten, which brought one into that spirit of sacrifice. The victim was consecrated to God, and then the faithful would eat it themselves in a spirit of consecration and sacrifice. In the New Testament, God did not wish to abandon this practice—He did not wish to abandon it entirely—because it helps us greatly. But to prevent us from having only a carnal, material view of this sacrifice, the victim, our Lord Jesus Christ, is present under the appearances of bread and wine. And so, we retain the act of eating the victim, but at the same time, this practice compels us to adopt a deeply spiritual approach. It is evident that when we participate in the sacrifice of the Mass through Holy Communion, we are naturally invited to adopt a spiritual approach; otherwise, receiving the Holy Host would make no sense. 

We must emphasize this spiritual participation; there is no true communion without it—and indeed, much more than that. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that anyone who receives Communion sacramentally—that is, the Body of Jesus Christ in the Holy Host—without receiving it spiritually—that is, by neglecting the spiritual dimension—would be committing sacrilege. Moreover, our Lord says this very clearly in the Gospel according to Saint John, chapter 6: “It is the Spirit who gives life—that is, who gives life. The flesh is of no avail. But the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” 

” And the Church offers us a commentary by Saint Augustine during these days of the Feast of Corpus Christi—a commentary that applies directly to our topic of the Holy Eucharist, that is, Communion. These words are spirit and life. What does this mean? It means they must be understood in a spiritual sense. If you have heard them spiritually, they are spirit and life. If you have understood them in a carnal way, they are still spirit and life, but they are not so for you. It is therefore very important, my dear brothers, that the words of our Lord—as well as Communion with His most precious Body—be spirit and life for us. How will they be so? Through a great desire to consecrate ourselves to Him. Look at the children of Fatima. They had not yet received their First Communion, and so God sent an angel who took the most precious Body of our Lord—the Holy Host—from a clod of earth, and this angel gave Communion to the three children of Fatima. And from that moment on, these children would become more and more consecrated to God—that is, more and more intent on being consecrated to God, on living with Him, and on living for Him. And the Blessed Virgin will help them discover what this consecration consists of. It consists essentially in continuing the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross for the salvation of sinners. This is the great truth. Whoever is united to God does the works of God. Whoever is united to Christ does the works of Christ. Whoever is united to the cross does the works of the cross. Hence this constant concern among the children of Fatima—a concern taught to them by the Most Holy Virgin—to save sinners. As a result, they save themselves, of course. There is a sacrament that clarifies and gives concrete form to this process. It is the sacrament of marriage. Saint Paul’s teaching is very clear on this subject. Marriage is the continuation of the sacrifice of the cross. And it is, of course, for the salvation of children. The purpose of marriage is to save children—that is, to draw them out of their worldly habits and their worldly lives, and to consecrate them to God. This is why it is very important not to let children, even very young ones, give in to their whims. Because a child’s whim seems small to us only because the child is small. In reality, these are threads through which Satan tries to hold the child back to prevent him from consecrating himself to God. Imagine a bird held back by a few threads as thin as sewing thread. You might say to yourself, 


“Oh, those threads aren’t much—they’re easy to break.” Yes, but when they’re tied to a bird’s leg, they’re enough to keep it from flying. And they’re enough for a cat to pounce on it and devour the bird. Let us not overlook the tiny threads with which Satan ties the children’s legs, so that later he may pounce on them and devour them. And the only way to rescue them from this profane world is to dedicate them to God. And therefore, my dear brothers, you who are parents—fathers and mothers—your first task in the early education of your children, that is, when they are still only a few years away from the age of reason, is to prepare for this consecration, which will take place at their First Communion. And for that, it is very important that you sever those ties and instill in them a sense of sacrifice by showing them Jesus on the cross and the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the cross whenever you need to ask them to do something for Jesus—especially when it is something difficult. And my dear brothers, you might say—and those of us who are single, or rather, those who are single will say this—that we do not have the equivalent of the sacrament of marriage, but yes, of course, we do, you do, have the sacrament of Baptism, of course, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. And you will say to me that married couples have those as well. Yes, but married couples have a special sacrament because of their mission toward children. But those who are single do not have a mission toward children, and consequently, the sacrament of the Eucharist, for themselves personally, is fully sufficient for them. With everything I have just explained to you, my dear brothers, it is easy to understand that sacramental communion—that is, when you actually receive the Holy Host—is an aid to spiritual communion, a support for spiritual communion. And the good Lord, in His great goodness—because He knows that we tend to limit ourselves to external things and, alas, to neglect internal things—the good Lord, in His great goodness, has chosen to limit the number of our sacramental Communions. Religious and priests, who live constantly in union with Jesus Christ and with Jesus Crucified, receive Communion only once a day.

 Priests celebrate Mass only once a day. Most of the faithful receive Communion only once a week. The sick receive Communion only once a month or once a quarter. The elderly, who are confined to their homes by illness or old age, also receive Communion very rarely. Why is this? Because God wishes to purify their intentions, to purify their spiritual attachment to our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what Saint Augustine, whom I have quoted to you, understood well. If you hear Christ’s words spiritually, they are spirit and life. If you hear them carnally, they are still spirit and life, but they are not so for you. Now, in the current state of the world, there is a carnal gluttony, a sensual gluttony that has invaded everything. That is why, my dearest brothers, we must distance ourselves from screens as much as possible, because they make everything spiritual within us carnal and visual—but visual is carnal, and sensory is carnal. And because bad Christians have become increasingly numerous and abuse the sacrament of the Eucharist—receiving Communion carelessly, and even, alas, all too often, receiving it without respect and while in a state of sin, thereby committing sacrileges—therefore, the good Lord, to remedy this state of affairs in the Church, allows good Christians to be deprived of sacramental Communion so that they may better discover spiritual Communion. 


And it is our duty, as priests, to help you understand that when God takes away, it is so that He may give more abundantly. And it is our duty, as priests, to explain to you how to unite yourselves more fully to the Eucharistic sacrifice spiritually, so as to live up to God’s expectations for you. I would like this message to be heard by all those who are confined to their homes, by all those who can no longer attend Mass, because Mass is no longer celebrated in every village in France, much less in every village around the world, and because the very small number of priests means that many Christians can no longer travel to the major centers where Mass is celebrated. Anyone who were to bring them the teaching on spiritual communion would do them a great service. And to you, my dearest brothers, who have understood that it is harmful and, alas, sometimes sacrilegious to participate in Mass with vulgar rites, this vulgar rite of the New Mass—it is up to you, my dearest brothers, to understand that, in this case, it is better to participate spiritually alone than, under the pretext of receiving our Lord Jesus Christ bodily, to participate in Mass in a vulgar, even sacrilegious manner. Have I given you more hope? I hope so. But it is not I who speak; it is Saint Augustine—Saint Augustine faithful to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ—and it is the Most Holy Virgin at Fatima. And so I invite you, after this vow, to make a spiritual Communion in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; so be it.