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Second Reading, Office of Readings, Wednesday Wk 4 of
Easter

From the treatise on the Trinity by Saint Hilary of Poitiers

The unity of the faithful in God through the incarnation of
the Word and the sacrament of the Eucharist

If the Word has truly been made flesh and we in very truth
receive the Word made flesh as food from the Lord, are we not

bound to believe that he abides in us naturally? Born as a man,
he assumed the nature of our flesh so that now it is inseparable
from himself, and conjoined the nature of his own flesh to the
nature of the eternal Godhead in the sacrament by which his

flesh is communicated to us. Accordingly we are all one,
because the Father is in Christ and Christ in us. He himself is in
us through the flesh and we in him, and because we are united

with him, our own being is in God.
He himself testifies that we are in him through the sacrament of

the flesh and blood bestowed upon us: In a short time the world
will no longer see me; but you will see me, because I live and
you will live. On that day you will understand that I am in my

Father and you in me and I in you. If he wanted to indicate a
mere unity of will, why did he set forth a kind of gradation
and sequence in the completion of that unity? It can only be
that, since he was in the Father through the nature of Deity,

and we on the contrary in him through his birth in the body, he
wishes us to believe that he is in us through the mystery of the
sacraments. From this we can learn the perfect unity through a

Mediator; for we abide in him and he abides in the Father, and
while abiding in the Father he abides in us as well – so that we
attain unity with the Father. For while Christ is in the Father

naturally according to his birth, we too are in Christ
naturally, since he abides in us naturally.

He himself has told us how natural this unity is: He who eats
my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. No-
one can be in Christ unless Christ is in him, because the only

flesh which he has taken to himself is the flesh of those who
have taken his.

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