Treatise IV: On the Most Holy Eucharist

1508. "Of all the sacred mysteries which our Lord and Savior commended to us as most certain instruments of grace, there is none which can be compared with the most holy Sacrament of the EUCHARIST,"¹⁵ in which He "as it were poured out the riches of His divine love toward men, making a memorial of His wonders."¹⁶

But why this most august Sacrament was instituted, the Roman Catechism brings forward two chief causes, saying: "The one is that it should be the heavenly FOOD of our soul, by which we might be able to guard and preserve spiritual life; the other, that the Church might have a PERPETUAL SACRIFICE, by which our sins would be expiated, and the heavenly Father, often gravely offended by our crimes, would be brought from wrath to mercy, from the severity of just punishment to clemency."¹⁷

From this it is clear that this treatise is aptly divided into two dissertations: the former of which will treat of the Eucharist insofar as it is a Sacrament, the latter insofar as it is a Sacrifice.