Eucharistic Reflection - We Too Are A Stiff Neck People

[Blessed soon to be Saint John Paul II had this to say about the Eucharist: “This Sacrament of Love shall be the center of the life of the people of God.”] 

 

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

“The Blessed Sacrament is Jesus living in our midst to fulfill a promise made long ago: ‘I Myself will pas­ture my sheep. I Myself will give them rest, says the Lord God. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal’ (Ezek 34:15-16).

If a list of priorities were drawn up for a given parish, or a given diocese, where would Eucharistic Adoration be on that list? How much time, energy, and concentration would be devoted in establishing perpetual adoration in each parish? In his first encyclical letter, Redemptor Hominis, Pope John Paul II exhorted that ‘every member of the Church, especially bishops and priests, must be vigilant in seeing that this Sacrament of love shall be at the center of the life of the people of God, so that through all the manifestations of wor­ship due to it, Christ shall be given back love for love; and truly become the life of our souls.'

He stated that ‘indeed, the Eucharist is the ineffable Sacrament! The essential commitment and, above all, the visible grace and source of supernatural strength for the Church as the people of God is to persevere and advance constantly in Eucharistic life and Eucharistic piety and to develop spiritually in the climate of the Eucharist. With all the greater reason, then, it is not permissible for us, in thought, life, or action, to take away from this truly most Holy Sacrament its full magnitude and its essential meaning. It is at one and the same time a Sacrifice- Sacrament, a Communion-Sacrament, and a Presence- Sacrament."

(From Come to Me in the Blessed Sacrament)

[Tragically, we failed to heed our deceased and beloved Holy Father's direction since the majority of our parishes and of those claiming to be Catholic in this country have not made the Eucharist the center of their lives.]