Will They Hear?

Sometimes, one priest must have the courage to challenge some of his brother priests by writing frankly and truthfully. This is the time. Thank you Father Mark for doing so.

You Pass Me By

Nothing so grieves my Heart
as the coldness and indifference of priests and of consecrated souls
to my living presence among them.
Had they not the privilege
of my abiding sacramental presence close at hand,
they might be excused for the hardness of their hearts,
but those who have me near,
those who dwell close to my tabernacles
have no excuse for the estrangement of their souls
from the Sacrament of my Love.
On the Day of Judgment I will hold them accountable
for the neglect and indifference
by which they alienated themselves from me,
while I, the living God,
the God who is love,
the God who is all mercy
and who sought their friendship and their company
waited for them,
and waited in vain.

Even you, O my priests,
my adorers, my chosen friends, consolers of my Heart,
disappoint me when,
although I wait for you
and although it is within your power to approach me,
to adore me even for a moment,
and to console me,
you pass me by
and live as though I were not here waiting for you,
yearning for your companionship,
ready to embrace you.

Come to me, then,
come to me as often as you can.
Come, even if only for a moment
to allow me to refresh you,
to inflame you with my love,
to illuminate your mind,
and to pacify your soul.
Come to me and, for a moment,
remain with me
for the sake of those who walk away from me.
Come to me
for the sake of those who pass me by.
Come to me for the sake of those
whose hearts are cold
and who seek their happiness in passing things.

Come to me, and I will welcome you.
Come to me, and I will bless you.
Come to me, and I will press you against my open Heart.
Come to me, and I will show you the beauty of my Eucharistic Face.
Come to me, and your soul shall live.
Come to me, and yours shall be the joy that the world cannot give.
Come to me, and I will place you next to myself.
Come to me, and know that I come to those who come to me,
together with my Father and the Holy Spirit.
Come to me, for I wait for you.

(From In Sinu Iesu, the Journal of a Priest)

Love, Mercy and Forgiveness!

O Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!

(Source unknown)

When You Next Come Into His Presence...

What is your response when you first come into the Presence of Your Lord?

Do you adore Him by genuflecting before the tabernacle where He has been eagerly awaiting your arrival? When you get to the pew do you kneel down and talk to Him or do you spend the time before Mass catching up with your neighbors?

What should your response be?

There are valuable lessons to learn from Elizabeth's reaction (and that of the child in her womb) to Mary's visitation.

 "Who am I," the pregnant octogenarian asked as John the Baptist leaped for joy, "that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Mary was the first tabernacle. Clearly, Elizabeth and her son recognized in whose Presence they were.

When was the last time you leaped for joy (spiritually or physically) as you approached the tabernacle, or gazed upon Our Lord exposed in a Monstrance or when He was placed on your tongue?

When you approach the sanctuary to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of your Lord and Savior does He see an appreciative and joyful face or a distracted and joyless one? If it is the latter, ask Him for a new heart so overflowing with love for Him that such love will be reflected on your face.

Has God ever heard you ask Him in the stillness of your soul and the quiet of your heart right before you receive Him: "Who am I that my Lord should come to me?" If not, return to your pew and quietly ponder that question and the miracle you experience every time you receive Communion at Mass.

How will you respond the next time you're in His Presence?

When You Get the Life Issue Right....

Respect for human life, from the moment of natural conception until the moment of natural death, is the only foundation for a just and moral society. These words are easy to say, but hard to live. Those who try to do so are often criticized and persecuted. Pray for him.

Thanks to LifeNews. com for passing this on. Might you do the same?

It's Been A While!

Just checking in.

Appreciate your visits. Come back again real soon!

I Would Be Impeding the Work of the Holy Spirit If I Did Not Pass This On!

The "Yes" of Even One Soul

Another Treasure by  Father Mark

No soul need ever be afraid of meeting my gaze,
for in my eyes there is naught but mercy and love.
Those who turn away from my gaze,
those who fear the encounter with me face-to-face,
are those who fall away from my love.

I call you to a life of adoration
so that you might contemplate my Face
and read thereon all the love of my Sacred Heart for poor sinners,
and especially for my priests.

Whenever a soul seeks my gaze,
my Heart is moved to show that soul an immense pity,
to lift her out of the sin into which she has fallen,
to bind up her wounds,
and restore her to the joys of friendship with my Heart.

When a priest begins to avoid looking at my Face,
he has begun to alienate himself from the merciful love of my Heart.
This will he begin, little by little,
to lose confidence in my mercy,
to consent to sin,
and to descend into the darkness of a life
from which I have been exiled.

Look upon me for those who turn away from me.
Seek my Face for those who avoid my Divine gaze.
Accept my friendship for those who refuse it.
Remain with me for those who flee from my presence.

This is the reparation I ask of you.
Offer yourself to me as did the little Thérèse;
thus will you allow me to love you freely,
and through you, my merciful love will triumph
even in the souls of hardened sinners.

The "Yes" of even one soul to my Merciful Love
is of immense benefit to a multitude of souls
who fear to say it,
or who are hardened in the refusal of my love.

From In Sinu Iesu, the Journal of a Priest

Eucharistic Reflection

If the great event of the Second Vatican Council was a breath of the Spirit that was blown into the world through the windows of the Church, then we need to recognize that a lot of worldliness has also blown in with the Spirit, creating a current and blowing the leaves all over. We’ve seen everything and yet nothing has been lost, but order must be patiently restored.

Order is restored above all by strongly affirming the primacy of the Risen Christ, present in the Eucharist. There is a great peaceful battle to be waged which is that of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, so that the entire world can become part of a network of prayer, united to the Holy Rosary, in which we reflect on the salvific mysteries of Christ with Mary. This will generate and develop a movement of reparation and penetration.

 (Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza)

Thanks to Michael Voris for pointing out these recent observations of the good Cardinal.

Why Should I Participate In, What Should I Do At, And What Are The Benefits of, Eucharistic Adoration?

Some of you are hesitant to participate in Eucharistic Adoration because you are either not sure why you should or what to do while you are there. May you find this, this, and this helpful.

Others are wondering what the specific benefits of Eucharistic Adoration are? The good folks at St. Mark's Church in Huntersville, NC have more than 100 benefits to share with you.

O, Come let us Adore Him!

Our Lord Deserves It!

Adoration is not for a handful or a selected few. It is for everyone. It is what our loving Lord asks for, and more importantly, what He deserves.

Blessed John Paul II went so far as to urge EVERY parish in the world to have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.

Let me put one hour of Adoration each week into proper perspective for you by borrowing and adapting a few interesting statistics offered by Father Oscar Lukefahr, CM.[1][1] If you live to be eighty, you would have spent about three years reading, five years talking, six years riding in a car, seven years eating, eleven years in recreational activities and twenty-seven years sleeping.  If you offered an hour of Adoration each week, you would have given our Lord less than six months of your time. Add attendance at Sunday Mass for an hour every week and praying for five minutes every day to your weekly  hour of Adoration, we are still talking of offering Him less than one year of your life. “How can we refuse so little to a loving God,” asks Father Lukefahr, “who has given us so much?" May I ask the same question?

Sadly, there are some Catholics, not few in number, who have neither seen a monstrance nor attended Benediction and Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. How can that be? 

According to Father Martin Lucia, more Catholics would likely come to adore the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, if they knew that: every moment they spend in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament would deepen their union with Christ; transform them into the very image and likeness of God Himself; make up for those who do not know Him or who do not love Him; and bring about the radical transformation of the whole world. If Catholics also knew that when they go before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament they stand in the place of the one person in the world who does not know God or who is the furthest away from God, or the most in need of His mercy, that they bring upon that soul – they win for that soul – the grace of salvation to turn back to God, to go to heaven instead of hell, and that they gain for that person the grace of salvation – our Lord would never be left alone.

Belief in the Real Presence is an act of faith and a gift from our Lord. That being said, if a pastor does all that he can to teach the truths set forth above, to restore and maintain a sense of the sacred within the confines of his Church building, if he properly and regularly catechizes his flock, if his every action evidences his deep seeded belief, sense of awe, amazement in and dependence on the Blessed Sacrament, and if he participates in, promotes and treasures Adoration himself, his parishioners will come to do likewise.

“If you build it, they will come” was a punch line in a movie a few years back.

Jesus invites his imperfect creatures to come into His Presence so He can make them more like Himself. Most able bodied persons can find one hour each week to be with their Lord and Savior (even if it is in 10 or 15 minute segments). Many simply choose not to do so. Others find only locked Churches.

So I ask any of our treasured shepherds who remain reluctant to promote Perpetual Adoration or even weekly Adoration in their parishes to step out in faith and let our Eucharistic Lord transform them, their parishes and their parishioners.

---

[1] “We Worship – A Guide to the Catholic Mass” page 17)

Eucharistic Reflection

From Father Mark. Go to his blog and be blessed!

Christ Waits for His Priests

I wait for my priests.
I long to see them enter my sanctuary
and approach the tabernacle of my abiding presence.

I wait for them
in the Sacrament that I left for their sakes
as the expression of my Divine Friendship for my priests,
as their consolation in loneliness,
their strength in weakness,
their sweetness in life's bitterness.

When my priests seek my company
I am moved to show them the compassionate love of my Heart.
When they draw near to me
it is because I have already drawn near to them,
set my gaze upon them,
given them my Heart's love of predilection,
and claimed them for myself
and for my Bride, the Church.

If they come in search of my Eucharistic Face,
it is because the light of my Face
has already illumined their darkness.
Some see the light of my Face
and walk in its radiance.

Others see it and turn away,
choosing darkness over my light.
Even among my priests
there are those who forsake the light of my Face
for the demon-infested darkness
that will lead to their destruction.

How I grieve over those of my priests who turn from me.
How I grieve over those of my priests
who pretend not to have seen my light
nor to have recognized my Face.
These, like Peter in his weakness,
deny having known me.

Still, I wait for them to turn to me.
My Face is, at every moment, turned towards them.
I will give them light to return to me.
I wait for them in the Sacrament of my Love.

From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of A Priest

Double Your Blessings!

There are two devotions close to my heart and vital for the future of our Church and for the salvation of our souls - The Eucharist and the Rosary. May we rediscover each day a deeper and more abiding reverence and love for the Blessed Sacrament. May we also use this month - one which the Church dedicates each year to the Most Holy Rosary - to experience and/or re-experience the power and efficacy of this most beautiful prayer, for as Blessed John Paul II taught us: "To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ."

One would be hard pressed to find a better example of the life-changing power of these two devotions than through the following story of one man's love for both.

From the inception of the Adoration Chapel in our parish and without interruption for nearly five years until a few days before his death, this gentleman came every Saturday morning.  Initially, he came for two hours each week – from 3 A.M. to 5 A.M.  Eventually, another person lent a helping hand by coming in a half-hour early each Saturday morning.  That hour and a half was not enough for him – he added another hour each week when he joined his wife in the Chapel each Monday evening.  He learned to pray the Rosary there.  Oh, how he enjoyed praying the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament! 

Nothing kept him away – not snow, not ice, not radiation treatment, not chemotherapy, not even a terminal illness.  Just weeks before his death, he came in at 3 AM in obvious discomfort.  He was coughing and had some difficulty breathing.  But how devoutly he tried to genuflect and bow his head before his beloved Lord.  After awhile, he settled in his chair, pulled out his favorite little meditation booklet and began to pray the Rosary. 

He knew that others were willing to cover his hour and half for him.  But he did not want to “inconvenience anyone”.  Despite the cancer that was raging through his weakened body, “there was no reason for him to give up his hour yet,” he said, “except that he was getting a little lazy”.  His fellow Adorers reminded him of all the prayers being offered for him during this difficult time and of their desire to be helpful to him and to his family.  He appreciated everyone’s prayers and concerns and simply told us that he did not want to get angry with God.  He never did. 

“It was okay for you to leave,” he said to me. He did not want me to stay.  He was at peace – one with his heavenly Father and Mother. I should have thanked him then for teaching me how to live and how to die – with absolute trust and faith in a God Who always knew what was best for him.

He spent his last hour before the Blessed Sacrament with his wife five days before he passed away.  He died at home surrounded by his loving family and on the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary.  How great is our God!  This simple and humble man would have been the first one to admit that there was nothing of any value that he ever did on his own.  Anything of value that he did (and he did much of eternal value) was only by and through the grace of God.  How abundantly willing He is to provide that grace to those who love Him.

God does not promise those who love him a life here free of trials and tribulations.  Time before Him in the Blessed Sacrament or praying the Rosary do not guaranty a struggle free life. But He does promise sufficient graces to carry our daily crosses and eternity with Him for those who love Him.

Visits before the Blessed Sacrament and frequent contemplative recitation of the Rosary are joyful preludes to our face to face encounter with Our Lord and His Blessed Mother in heaven.  They are vehicles through which we make reparation to Him, His Sacred Heart, His Mother and her Immaculate Heart, for all those who have rejected Him, do not love Him and who have mocked His most beloved Mother. Through these devotions, He will transform us and use us to transform others.  

Through Adoration we will gain a greater appreciation and love for the Mass, for the reception of His Body and His Blood, and a clearer recognition of our need for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Through the daily recitation of the mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary and the assistance of our heavenly Mother, we will draw closer to her Son.

May I ask you the same question Father Francis Hudson, S.C.J. once posed to his parishioners in a one sentence homily he gave:  “What if God loved you only as much as you loved Him?”  Or maybe we should reflect on a challenge issued by Leon Bloy, a French novelist, essayist and poet:  “If you will look into your own heart in utter honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not, even now, as saintly as the primitive Christians: you do not wholly want to be.”

We are each called to be saints. Only saints get into heaven. Don’t panic! God will mold us into saints if we desire it.  All things are possible for Him. Start or restart the journey. Use and love the tools He has given us – the Eucharist and the Rosary.

(Adapted from an article entitled "Come Let Us Adore Him - Everyday Not Just On Christmas" that originally appeared on April 22, 2010 on the Integrated Life channel of Catholic Exchange)