By Saint John Eudes

God with hidden majesty lies in presence here.
I with deep devotion my true God revere.
Whom this outward shape and form secretly contains
Christ in his divinity manhood still contains. (Saint Thomas Aquinas)

Bread alone: so, in physical appearance, does the Blessed Sacrament seem. But to the eyes of faith, in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “God with hidden majesty lies in presence here.” Taking its inspiration from the Adoro te devote, Henry C. Schuyler’s The Sacrament of Friendship meditates on this wonderful evidence of God’s love. “I have called you my friends,” says the Lord; in the Eucharist, that Friend makes Himself present and known. (“Always at hand, always available,” as Ronald Knox once wrote, “in the nearest Catholic church your Friend is always there, and day by day he is at home to you.”) Taking his themes from St. Thomas’s hymn, Fr. Schuyler offers instruction on the Real Presence, acts of adoration, the theological virtues, the memorial of Calvary, the power of the Precious Blood, and the ultimate goal of loving union with the Lord. 

Iron sharpens iron, says the wise man, and friend shapes friend. In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ shapes His friends after His own glorious likeness. The Sacrament of Friendship, first published in 1916, hands on the invitation “to come and adore God, truly present, and bow to Christ, the source of grace.”

Henry C. Schuyler (1876–1962) was an American Catholic priest and author. Pastor of Saint Agnes Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, for over three decades, he wrote numerous books of spirituality and devotion, including The Courage of Christ, The Obedience of Christ, and Mary, Mother Most Admirable.

Paperback: 150pp.

ISBN: 978-1685955052