A Meditation for the Nineteenth Sunday of the Year: the Flesh and Blood of God

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Categorised as Featured and published Friday, August 7th, 2009
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A Meditation for the Eighteenth Sunday of the Year: the New Creation
Cardinal George Pell’s Full Text: Newman, Conscience, and the primacy of the Truth Right Arrow

In this extract from a prayer of Cardinal Newman’s taken from his Meditations and Devotions, he speaks to Christ about the meaning of the gift of Holy Communion:

Thou didst know well that nothing else would support our immortal natures, our frail hearts, but Thyself; and so Thou didst take a human flesh and blood, that they, as being the flesh and blood of God, might be our life.

O what an awful thought! Thou dealest otherwise with others, but, as to me, the flesh and blood of God is my sole life. I shall perish without it; yet shall I not perish with it and by it? How can I raise myself to such an act as to feed upon God? O my God, I am in a strait—shall I go forward, or shall I go back? I will go forward: I will go to meet Thee. I will open my mouth, and receive Thy gift. I do so with great awe and fear, but what else can I do? to whom should I go but to Thee? Who can save me but Thou? Who can cleanse me but Thou? Who can make me overcome myself but Thou? Who can raise my body from the grave but Thou? Therefore I come to Thee in all these my necessities, in fear, but in faith.