“HE [the Holy Ghost] is the Love who, with its divine weight and influence of love, sways the blessed Trinity to the external act of creation; infinite Being leans, as it were, towards the deep abyss of nothingness, and out of the abyss creates. The holy Spirit opened the divine council, and said, ‘Let us make man to Our image and likeness!’ then God created man to His own image; He created him to the image of God, taking his own Word as the model to which he worked; for that Word is the sovereign archetype, according to which is formed the more or less perfect essence of each created being. Like him, then, to whose image he was made, man was endowed with understanding and free-will. As such, he would govern the whole inferior creation, and make it serve the purpose of its Creator, that is, he would turn it into a homage of praise and glory to its God; and though that homage would be finite, yet would it be the best of which it was capable. This is what is called the natural order; it is an immense world of perfect harmonies; and, had it ever existed without any further perfection than its own natural one, it would have been a master-piece of God’s goodness; and yet, it would have been far from realizing the designs of the Spirit of Love.”
— Dom Prosper Guéranger, “The Feast of Corpus Christi,” The Liturgical Year
An Act of Spiritual Communion
— by St. Alphonsus de Liguori
My Jesus, I believe that thou art in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love thee above all things, and in my soul I desire thee. Since I cannot receive thee now sacramentally, come at least spiritually to my heart. I embrace thee as already there and unite myself wholly to thee; do not permit that I may ever be separated from thee. Jesus, all my good and all my love, Wound, inflame this heart of mine, that it may all and always burn for Thee.
