Bl. Marmion on the Eucharist

In continuing to read Bl. Columba Marmion for an Advent devotional, I came across these passages:

"If ordinary bread, which is without life, preserves the life of our bodies, with what a wonderful life shall we not live who eat a Living Bread, Life itself, at the table of the Living God?" (Christ, the Life of the Soul, conference viii, ch. i)

Furthermore, he explained this:

"This prayer of the Church leads us to understand that the Eucharistic action overflows from the soul upon the body itself. It is true that it is to the soul Christ immediately unites Himself; it is to the soul that He comes first of all, to assure and confirm its deification: Ut inter ejus membra numeremur cujus Corpori communicavimus et Sanguini. But the union of body and soul is so close that in increasing the life of the soul, in powerfully drawing it towards heavenly delights, the Eucharist tempers the heat of the passions, and brings peace to all our being." (Christ, the Life of the Soul, Conference viii, ch. iii)

This confirms what St. Teresa of Avila wrote: "Do you think, my daughters that this most holy nourishment does not also sustain the body, and is not a remedy for its ills. As for myself, I know it has this virtue." (The Way of Perfection, ch. xxxv)

More commentary on this will come soon.