In Chapter 12 of The Catholic Mass, Bishop Athanasius Schneider offers a long quote from St. Peter Julian Eymard, Apostle of the Eucharist. One could meditate on this passage every Sunday before Mass without exhausting its richness.The Eucharist, according to the Council of Trent, is a divine antidote that delivers us from common faults and preserves us from mortal sin....Jesus comes to us to destroy the vestiges of our sins, to counteract our evil tendencies, and to prevent the Devil from re-establishing his power over us.
Of course, we have an obligation to approach the table of the Lord with a proper disposition, ensuring to the degree possible that we are in the state of grace so as not to commit a sacrilege by inviting the immaculate Lord into a literal cesspool. But when we are properly disposed, the Eucharist diminishes all the temptations that plague us and helps us overcome those venial sins that often become habitual and hard to root out.
