The most divine Authors says,
«One reads in the Mosaic books how the hosts of the sacrifices and oblations should have been animals without blemishes or defects, and the offerings of superfine flour, oil, or fodder should have been seasoned with salt but lacking yeast or honey, and if the first fodder was still green, these were to be toasted and chopped before being offered and always sprinkled with oil and added to the frankincense.
One also reads that those who belonged to the lineage of Aaron, and therefore, to the priestly lineage, were excluded from the priesthood if they had some physical defect or incurable disease. A body of perfect build and health had to stay to officiate before the Creator of man, to the Most High who had placed perfection of the members, senses and sentiments in the Man, and for whom the seeing of deformities and diseases was the testimony of the rebellion of man and the contempt of Satan to the work dearest to God, thus once again, in contempt of God.
In Mosaic times, the sacrifices were of animals and fodder, material things. In Christian times, the sacrifices are of the spirit. David prophesied this time in which the sacrifices would have been not of animals, but the "sacrifice of an afflicted spirit, of a contrite and humbled heart".
It was the time of rigor. Man did not dare to think of being able to offer his heart in a sweet sacrifice. Upon that heart was the corrupting blemish. All impure, in that day, were the hearts of even the most just of men. Original Sin only, in the most holy ones, uglied the heart of man. And how then was it to be offered in the sacrifice of sweet odour to He who had prescribed that the animals and fodder offered to His altar were to be without defects, without even a skin blemish or of rust?
Is a calf or lamb perhaps guilty of being born speckled? Or a spike of wheat of being struck by mildew or rusts? They are not. But nevertheless, they were not to be placed upon the altar. Nor were they to be of a man in whom the inheritance testified to the sin with defects, frailty or diseases.
Disease, deformities, and death amongst men entered through the sin of Adam. Because evil, entering where first there was only the flame of pure charity, led men to perversions of the sense and sentiment, the origin of every disease or monstrosity that manifests itself in man. From corrupt roots come corrupt trees, fronds and fruits. And given that the initial corruption continually increased as a result of new perversions, the flesh of man atoned more and more, and atones, and will atone the most sorrowful consequence of the decadence of too many men from men to brutes.
In the times of Mercy, when Grace re-virginizes the spirits with its divine purities; in the times of the spirit in which human values are at the bottom, but at the top are superhuman values and these more than those are offered to God and are accepted as a gift by God; in the times in which the flesh is the garment to the queenly soul, a means to achieve victory, but it is the spirit who dominates, or should dominate; in the times in which "for the virtues of He who from the darkness calls you to the admirable light by making of Christians a holy nation, the new people of God acquired by God with the Blood of the Man-God, an elect lineage, a kingly priesthood" as Peter writes, the limitations of the Mosaic Law have lapsed, and every man who is marked with the sign of Christ, annointed His servant by the eternal Pontiff, holy, innocent and immaculate, can, must be a host and priest, material and minister of the spiritual sacrifice which is pleasing to God.
In the Pauline epistle (v. 13), a word is missing. The word "host". "Offer yourselves to God as living hosts after having died, offer Him your members as instruments of justice." Here is the kingly priesthood to which the Christian is called, the priesthood of every Christian in imitation of that of the "Priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech".
It is taken from the ancient Law, elevating it to a spiritual degree, the obligation of being without a mortal blemish, without deadly sins consented by reason and the spirit and committed with full warning, without the incitement of hate and concupiscence, without the allure of sensual looseness, without spiritual diseases that one does not seek to heal, without blindness towards the Light and not even albuginales, without scabies and herpes of a serpentine sympathy even for the smallest sins, without fractures or humps in the magnificent Christian formation.
Soldiers of the true God, athletes of the holy religion, priests and victims of the new time, you must season yourselves with the salt of the heroic will which burns and cauterizes, but fortifies the weak parts and makes them immune from gangrenes, you must toast yourselves and mince yourselves on the fire of charity and at the millstone of mortification in order to become flour for hosts, superfine flour. And then, sprinkled with the holy unction of virtues and odorous of incense - and may it be abundant - of adoration, offer and immolate yourselves by saying the perpetual word of Christ, "Here I am, oh Father, to do not my but your Will," ready to respond to whoever with blandishments or threats, with love or with hate, wants to draw you back from preaching with your life the Christ amongst the doctors of the world; "Do you not know that I must occupy myself with that which is the business of my Father?".
Everything of you is to be a holy host. Because upon everything is the sanctifying chrism of the Sacrifice of Christ. Even the most ignoble members are called to the service of God like the most noble parts of the body. Those not excluded from the service are those who the will of God has annointed with special chrism, those consecrated to sorrow: the sick, the infirm, the innocent unjustly condemned, the persecuted and those derided by the world. Grace judges and Grace elevates.
With His divine wisdom and munificence, Jesus says, "The last shall be the first." And also, before healing the blind man of Jerusalem so that he would have become His disciple and would evangelize Him, pushing His gaze into future epochs in which many of those whom the world despise would have become the "salvation" for the world, He said, "Neither he nor his parents have sinned, but it is so, so that there may manifest in him the works of God." In him and through him. How many, through generous obedience or for a heroic request are not "hosts", "redeemers", "followers and contemplators of the Passion of Christ"!
However, even without considering these special heroes of the greatest charity, all you Christians are "living hosts" and ought to "offer your members as an object of justice". Offering them cleanses them of sin, because at this point, you are not "under the law, but under grace". Freed as you are from the slavery of sin and sustained as you are by Grace, you should no longer experience death of the spirit and you would not know it, if voluntarily, you will not make yourselves into servants of sin.
Serve the Lord your God who has given the Law to man so that it can be a curb and bit against the evermore powerful turpitudes of the Earth, but that with the coming of his Christ and the restitution of Grace through the merits of Him, though leaving you the curb and bit of the Law in order to combat the seductions of Satan, the world, and the flesh, (He) has placed wings on your spirit, freeing it from the chains so that it can fly, well above the mud of concupiscences, towards He who appears from the side of the east, so that you would recognize and have ardour for Him, for as much as is granted to you as long as you are in exile. And so that you would follow Him along the ways of Life, leaving forever behind the paths of the Earth, and of Death, attracted by the odour of His perfumes, conquered by the sole supreme Beauty, by the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ your Lord, Redeemer and Master whose doctrine is sweet, whose yoke is light and strengthening against every langour. Death is His Flesh and Blood given for you and given to you upon the altar of Golgotha and upon the altars of the temples in the most Holy Communion with the Son of God, God like the Father.
That Holy Communion which is Life. Life in Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ. Life in the Father through Jesus Christ. Life in the Love who is the Author of Christ. Life in the Three because where One is, the Others are, so it is in Heaven as in the hearts of men.»