Eucharistic Reflection - Visits to the Divine Solitary

(Tabernacle-St. Agatha's Canastota, NY)

“In our visits to the Divine Solitary, we can with intense de­votion prepare ourselves to receive Him sacramentally. Poor, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked, we cannot alone make ourselves fit for the reception of our God. He must clothe our souls with the wedding garment of divine grace, and adorn them with virtue.

As we kneel before the Eucharistic Savior, the Eternal Fa­ther will draw us closer to His Divine Son. Christ will so influ­ence us as to bring out the best that is in us. The Holy Spirit will calm us with the peace of God, and thus remove the ob­stacles to our loving advance in intimate conversation with the sacramental King. Our very nearness to Christ will dispel our diffidence at the thought of too hasty an approach to the God who has found sin among the angels. Breathing the spiri­tual air of the tabernacle, illumining our souls with the light reflected from His earthly dwelling, strengthening our wills for conflict with temptation, deepening our faith in His al­mighty power, and purifying our desire to love Him more un­selfishly - how can we better prepare ourselves to receive our God with a fervor that will ever inflame us with eager enthusi­asm in His service?

The peace of soul that is ours in our moments of adoration is a blissful exaltation above the turmoil of time, an anticipa­tion of the eternal peace of Heaven. Our union with the Eucharistic worshipers, the myriad hosts of angels that sur­round the tabernacle, adoring in Heaven as they gaze forever on His soul-stirring divinity, humbly prostrate before Him in His sacramental lowliness as He hides the beauty that would overwhelm us - what is this but paradise on earth?

Thus raised above the visible, we can forego its claims and honor Christ for His own dear sake. We can compensate for the irreverences of those who believe, but do not realize, the mystery of His Real Presence, and for the profanations of those who absolutely deny it. If we love Christ, we will gladly spend ourselves trying to repair the dishonor which He so pa­tiently endures in the sacrament of His love. The conscious recognition of what He suffers will help us to increase our love of Him.

Our reparation does not remove the injuries, nor do we absolve the offenders by offering our love as compensation for their want of love. But heart speaking to heart in understanding sympathy gives to the heart’s desires an additional value…”

(From Transforming Your Life through the Eucharist by Father John A. Kane)