Eucharistic Reflection - Come Close to the Disdained and Forgotten Prisoner of Love

Jesus: My friends, behold the Heart which has loved you beyond description, even far beyond the crucifixion of My body and soul on Calvary; see the Heart which has loved you to the complete giving of Itself, this Heart which will keep Me your prisoner forever, your captive in the Holy Tabernacle. Here in the divine Eucharist, I have exhausted My inexhaustible love. Sad to say, it is also here that man comes to exhaust his boundless ingratitude!

You parents, naturally so sensitive, whose hearts have suffered so much from cruel hurts inflicted by your own children whom you have often spoiled, add up, if you can, all your bitterness, add that to all the tears shed since the beginning of the world, in the garden of Paradise. All of that is but a drop of water compared to the fathomless, shoreless ocean of My anguish on the holy Altar.

Come close to Me, all of you who are bruised by deception and pierced to the heart by your own at home; come, you who are crushed by injustice, tortured by. Cruel separations by misfortunes and anguish often more sorrowful than death itself! You who are deprived of prosperity here below also come, all of you whose souls are torn in shreds! Finally, you who have tasted the chalice of all griefs, and have been touched by all the cruelties of life, come to Me, not only to be consoled, but that you may understand in the light of the Tabernacle as Christians, that the torrent of your misfortunes is only a drop of that flood that God the Father pours on His Son, your hidden God.

In this prison I expiate the ingratitude of men who forget their God and wound their Savior as the most ungrateful of sons overwhelm their parents with shame and anguish!

See Me disdained, put in the last place, forgotten even as the most ordinary of friends would not be forgotten; despised even as the worst scoundrel would not be despised. And yet, I am the King, the Savior of the world. I am Jesus, your God and your brother. My friends, have pity on My soul, sorrowful unto death!

I do not return forgetfulness for forgetfulness. My revenge is love! That is why from the depths of My prison, I tearfully follow the multitude of children who never receive Holy Communion, though they have been redeemed by My blood!

They live by My side; our houses are close together; I have given them a home, bread for their table, and comforts that should remind them of Me. But they have never come to My door, asking for Me, the Bread of eternal life. And these children will die of hunger just outside their Father's house!

My children, what shall I say now of the many who have experienced the love of My Heart in the Holy Eucharist a thousand and one times, and then have forgotten Me and left Me, never to return! I always wait for them, but in vain. Their ingratitude transpierces My soul and rends it bitterly.

Finally see the innumerable souls made giddy by the pleasures of the world, who more out of fear than love grudgingly devote to the God of the Tabernacle, an occasional few minutes snatched from their own concerns and from creatures. Moreover, they ae convinced, that in approaching Me they pay Me quite a gratuitous honor. Even if the little they do were well done. But they quickly go away; they are in such a hurry it would seem as if they had not a moment for Him who reserves and offers them an eternity.

(From Twenty Holy Hours by Rev. Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.)