He loved them unto the end." Love, even such as His, can go no further. It is because it has gone so far that men refuse to believe.
The first Mass had been said; the first Consecration wrought; the first Communicants fed in the greatest of the Sacraments with the true Bread from Heaven; the first priests ordained. For Christ, as David had foretold, was to be a Priest, not once only, on Calvary, but "for ever," a Priest like Melchisedech, whose offering was bread and wine. The New Sacrifice was to be the Sacrifice of the Gentiles, as the prophet Malachy had foretold, offered in every land, at every hour, from the rising to the setting of the sun, not lessening but magnifying the first and bloody Sacrifice from which its virtue flows. Where but in the Sacrifice of the Mass shall we find these prophecies fulfilled? To carry on His office when He was gone, the great High-Priest had to ordain other priests, and this He did in these words: "Do this in commemoration of Me."
With bowed heads the first Communicants made their thanksgiving. When they looked again into their Master's face, the glow of exultation with which He had made us the greatest of His gifts had passed away, and once more there had settled on His brow the anguish of a friend betrayed. Peter could bear the dreadful suspense no longer. Being directly opposite to John, he beckoned to him and said:
"Who is it of whom He speaketh?"
John, leaning back on his couch, was resting his head on his Master's breast. He looked up into His face and said:
"Lord, who is it?"
Jesus answered: "He it is to whom I shall reach bread dipped."
