Friday, June 19 : Nicholas Cabasilas

The promise attached to the eucharistic table makes us live in Christ and Christ in us, for it is written: “He remains in me and I in him” (Jn 6,56). If Christ remains in us, of what else could we have need? What could we lack? If Christ remains in us what more can we want? He is both our host and our dwelling. How happy we are to be the place where he lives! What joy that we ourselves are the abode of such a host! What could lack those whom he thus treats? What do those who shine with such a light have in common with wickedness? What evil could stand up to such good? There is nothing else capable of remaining in us or coming against us when Christ unites himself to us in this way. He surrounds us and penetrates our deepest selves; he is our protection and refuge; he hems us in on every side. He is both our dwelling and the host who wholly fills his dwelling place. For we receive, not a part of himself but himself, not just one sunbeam but the sun…, until we become one single spirit with him (1Cor 6,17)… Our soul is united to his soul, our body to his body, our blood to his blood… As Saint Paul says: “What is mortal is swallowed up by life” (2Cor 5,4) and: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2,20).

maronite readings – rosary,team